Page 6 of Small Town Secrets
“Fancy seeing you here.” Alongside his baritone voice, his eyes glittered like newly polished onyx.
“It’s a small town. I’d say you had a better than fair chance of seeing me.” While she clamped her teeth together to keep from saying more, heat rose in her cheeks, that heat making her suddenly aware of how close they stood and that Aggie’s never-miss-anything stare clung to them both. “You’ll find living in a small town is like that.”
Laila shrugged in a “duh” kind of way and she focused on staring into the crowd, making a point of not asking how he’d been, while hoping he and Aggie would maybe get to talking and she could slink away.
“Oh, you’ve met.” Aggie’s pitchy delight had Laila squeezing her eyes shut in a doom-filled grimace, but the woman waited until Laila’s attention returned, before she spoke again. “Funny things, weddings, dontcha know? What with so much love in the air, some people here are bound to follow the same path as Emilia and Blaine.”
She winked at Laila and patted Adrian on his thick bicep, then sauntered away.
While Laila’s jaw hung loose, Ramos released a hearty chuckle, which she countered with yet another exasperated groan. So much for her carefree day.
She leveled her stare to him, though the corners of her lips trembled with amusement. “Congratulations. You just got the full Aggie McKey experience. She’s about as subtle as a fuchsia ball gown at a funeral.”
“Does that bother you?” His smirk grew as though he already knew that Aggie’s suggestions did bother Laila, but he gave a small shrug and carried on. “Maybe she’s got a point.”
She scoffed at the way his gaze continued to inspect her, his unwavering focus offering “suggestions” of his own. She shook her head in another denial, her heartbeat thundering, as she pulled her champagne flute higher for another sip. “And maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right.” Again, his eyes glittered, suggesting her rebuffs did nothing to dissuade him, which only made her want to not rebuff him at all. Still, he gestured to the wedding party around them. “I’d ask you to dinner to find out for myself, but it seems Emilia and Blaine saved me the trouble.”
“You’re assuming I’d say yes.” She tilted her head and forced her stare to stay on his face, trying hard not to let her gaze drop to the contours of his body, even though she’d already noticed enough detail there during his walk over. “A little cheap, too.” She shrugged, pretending not to care about being rude. “Yah know, since you’re technically skimping out on paying for our dinner and letting Emilia and Blaine foot the bill.”
He cut loose with another chuckle and pressed a knuckle to his lips, like she truly did break him with her dry and offensive humor. He stepped closer to her—his reaction the exact opposite of what she’d hoped to achieve—while heat emanated from him and transported his dark scent of black pepper mixed with fresh licorice root.”So, you want a man who splashes cash?”
She bit her lower lip and tried to breathe through the perplexing flutter of her diaphragm, with breathing in itself near impossible. “I’m not looking for any man, but if I were, lack of financial stability would be a deal-breaker.”
She shrugged, unapologetic with her hope that this particular man would find her too standoffish and demanding, mostly because she couldn’t trust what might happen if he didn’t. The man lived directly next door to her, and him not being put off would only place more pressure on her to keep a safe distance.
He squinted at her, signaling an awareness of her mind game, before he sucked in a sharp breath and broke his gaze to the people around him. “Financial stability. Got it. Well, I’m thirty-two and have been gainfully employed for about a decade and a half now. I have an exemplary record from my seven-year stint in the US forces, with consistent freelance work in security and investigations ever since.” He turned back to her, his flat expression overly bored. “My contracting work has me doing better than all right, and you can chat to Dean, Sarah, or the sheriff if you need references.”
His lips pinched upward in a look of smug pride, seeming mostly directed at his ability to call her bluff than any arrogance over his list of achievements or his “references.” Meanwhile a searing shiver of unwanted admiration shot up her spine. He was right. On eligibility alone, she had no reason to turn him down.
Shit. I’m never walking outside my front door again.
The shiver turned from hot to cold, as she recalled this man’s freedom to move through the world as he wished, while she could do anything but. Certainly not to help any friends, much less dive head-first into the fray of trying to stop a crime syndicate.
No, all her responsibilities and burdens meant she pretty much never had time or money just to take a day off and explore even the next town. So, for all her nit-picking when it came to this man, perhaps she was the one most at risk of letting anyone down.
“That’s great.” She glanced away and cleared her throat. “Go, you.”
Those last words regretfully fell on a choked tone. He must have sensed her despondency because he let the silence hang and didn’t press for more conversation.
Well, not until he finally did speak up once more. “So, would you like to go out with me sometime?”
Her focus snapped back to him and a half-hearted laugh shuddered past her lips, but only so long as it took for a distinct lump to swell in her throat. She was essentially trapped and could never say yes, and the tight sensation that embraced her ribcage only seemed to support that fact.
She stiffened her expression and gave a resolute head shake, just seconds away from saying that what he wanted and what she could agree to were two absolute polar opposite things.
“Mommy!” Right on cue, Whitney’s little voice cut through Laila’s stare-off with Ramos, jolting her with a cold shock of reality.
Within seconds, Whit had her arms wrapped around Laila’s leg, her wide and excited gaze pinned up high to her mother, her huge grin bringing focus to the light spray of freckles over the crinkled bridge of her nose. She was, of course, gorgeous and completely oblivious to how her sudden presence changed this moment.
Unlike everyone else here, this poor man doesn’t know I have a child.
Wanting to delay the inevitable disappointment she would see on Adrian’s face; she was slow to lift her attention to his. But even as her gaze did meet his, it seemed she’d still caught his reaction too early for disappointment, his focus darting between Laila and her child. More a look of open surprise.
Bracing for his inevitable cringe of dread, followed by a hurried and mumbled excuse to leave, her heart dropped at what Whitney might see. Her mother being rejected because of her. Though to be fair, she sometimes used Whit’s existence to repel unwanted attention from men. Just never, ever, in her daughter’s presence.
And maybe because Adrian’s attention wasn’t outright unwanted, his speechlessness now hurt in ways she didn’t wish to explore. So, she unpacked reactions she’d performed many other times. Indifferent. Unfazed. She stiffened her spine, looked him dead in the eyes, and refused to flinch no matter what happened next.
