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“I figured if you had any questions, this would make it easy. Don’t let me disturb you.”
Pulling out my phone, I opened my own email as I ate. Natalie didn’t say anything more, but she did go back to work, ignoring me.
At least, pretending to ignore me.
Peeking up from time to time, I could tell she wanted to ask something. So I made it easy on her. “Send it.”
Frowning, she sighed heavily. I tried like hell not to smile.
“You’re planning to turn it into a bed and breakfast?”
“No,” I corrected. “I’m planning to sell it to a man who will build a bed and breakfast.”
“Same thing.”
“Not really.”
“Jaxon—”
“Jax.”
“I refuse to call you that. We are not friends.”
“We could be. What if we really started from scratch, like you pretended to do at my house?”
“Pretended?” Her mock indignation was cute.
“Yes, Natalie, pretended.”
She sat back, momentarily abandoning her laptop. Coffee in hand, she watched as a couple, tourists no doubt, walked into Devine.
“How could you tell?”
“Training,” I said, leaving it at that. Staring at her lips.
“Can you be more specific?”
Normally I wasn’t a fan of talking about my time in the military, but for Natalie, I’d make an exception. “Body language, facial expressions, changes in behavior, active listening. Every eye movement or posture reveals a person’s emotional state and level of confidence. Not to mention any potential threat they might be.”
She took a sip of coffee. I’d never wanted to be a lid on a coffee cup until that very moment.
“And did you assess me as a threat?”
Laughing, I answered immediately and honestly. “Hell, yeah.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
As people came and went around us, I noticed, unable to turn off years of training even if Main Street in Kitchi Falls was an unlikely place for trouble.
“Because of the land?”
Time for some truth.
“No, not because of the land. Because I had no plans when I came here to get tangled up with a beautiful woman who also happens to work for the very trust I’m purchasing the land from. But here we are.”
She blinked. Too rapidly. I’d made her nervous.
