“Liar, liar,” Darcy said. “You have twenty-twenty vision and eyes in the back of your head. Also,” she went on, lifting a finger like she was cross-examining Zoe on the stand, “he touched you. And when he did, you”—she poked that finger in Zoe’s direction now, like there was any doubt who she was talking about—“smiled a dreamy smile.”
Zoe choked on a laugh. “Please. I do not have a dreamy smile.”
“You so have a dreamy smile. And that smile was saying to Parker, ‘Oh yes, take me right now.’”
“You’ve hit your head again, right?” Zoe asked, reaching out to touch her sister’s forehead as if checking for a fever.
Darcy grinned and smacked her hand away. “Fine, if you’re going to be in denial, then you should know, Kel asked me to get you to go out with him.”
Zoe blinked. “When did you have occasion to see the sheriff?”
“Worried?”
“Should I be?” Zoe countered, but hell yes she was worried. It hadn’t been all that long ago when Darcy had been trouble-seeking, and she’d often found it. Kel was a patient man, and a very good man, and also extremely good looking, but—“Wait. Kel asked you to ask me out?”
“Took you long enough,” Darcy said. “Ran into him at physical therapy, where he was sparring with AJ. And let me just say watching two really sexy, really hot guys go at it in the ring in the name of sport . . . Pretty damn sexy even if I think boxing is crazy.”
“Focus, Darcy.”
“Right,” Darcy said, giving herself a visible shake. “Well, he heard that you were seeking blind dates, so—”
“Oh my God,” Zoe said, and closed her eyes. “This is so embarrassing.”
“And he wanted to know, if I set you up with him if it’d qualify for a blind date since you two know each other and all,” Darcy went on. “And I said yep.”
“You did not,” Zoe said.
“I did. And he said Monday was his next free night, so . . .”
Zoe stared at Darcy. “I’m not going out with Kel.”
“What’s tripping you up, the fact that he’s really good looking, or that he’s also a great guy?” Darcy asked. “Or maybe it’s that you do have a thing for Parker, after all.”
Zoe took the fifth and held her silence. This didn’t fool her sister.
“Aw,” Darcy said. “It’s door number two. You like him, you really like him.” She said this in an annoying singsong voice. “You want to kiss him. You—” Suddenly she broke off and her mouth fell open. “Wait. Holy cow. You already kissed him?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“It’s true, you totally already kissed him,” Darcy said in an accusatory voice. “You kissed him and didn’t tell me?”
Zoe yanked down the sun visor and stared at herself in the small mirror there. “You can absolutely not tell that by just looking at me.”
“Was it good?” Darcy dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“No!” But she wanted to be . . . Oh God, how she wanted those knowing hands on her. “Now you’ve gotta go away. I’m not making my snooping, meddling, eavesdropping sister any food right now.” But then, because she loved Darcy every bit as much as she was driven to madness by her, Zoe softened. “But I’ll make you breakfast this weekend. Bring AJ.”
AJ was the man who’d helped bring Darcy back from the brink, and at just the mention of his name Darcy got a dreamy look on her face.
It made Zoe still for a beat and then yank down the mirror again. God. It was true! She had the same dopey expression on her face that her sister did. She immediately swiped it off, because she wasn’t falling for Parker in the same way Darcy had fallen for AJ.
She absolutely refused to fall at all. “I mean it,” she said. “Get out of my car. I’m going to be late for a lesson.” She gave Darcy the shoo hands.
Darcy just looked at her, no longer being silly or pesty. “Just promise me one thing.”
“At this point I’d promise you all the food in my fridge to stop talking and get out of my car.”
“Promise me that if he’s a good fit you won’t chase him away or dump him because he was breathing wrong or wanted to take a pole-dancing class,” Darcy said.
This was a not-so-subtle reference to the time last year when Zoe had gone on a two-guy dating spree. The first one, Evan, had wanted her to take pole-dancing classes. Not with him but for him.
She’d declined.
The second guy, Mike, she’d seen a few times before calling things off. “He was a mouth breather, and a very loud one.”
“You got scared,” Darcy said.
No. Well, maybe. But while Mike had been nice and kind and even gainfully employed as a ranch manager, he hadn’t been the right one for her—with or without the loud breathing.
“Zoe,” Darcy said. “I’m not leaving this car until you promise.”
Zoe crossed her fingers. “I promise.”
“Good. Now uncross your fingers and say it again.”
Dammit. Zoe uncrossed her fingers. “I won’t chase Parker away or dump him because he’s breathing wrong.” Nope, in her heart she knew it wouldn’t come to that. Because he’d be walking out the door far before she was ready for him to do so.
Twelve
After Zoe had left for work, Parker got into the shower to wash off his run and several hours of slinging horse shit.
Oreo trotted into the bathroom behind him. The big dog liked to stick his head into the shower and slurp at the water. At first this had been disconcerting to say the least, but Oreo had turned out to be good company.
Still, Parker’s thoughts didn’t drift far from Zoe.
She wasn’t a woman to trust easily, if at all. And up until today he’d have said no way did she trust him, not even a little.
But something had changed between them now that they’d shared. And then there was the way she looked at him, like maybe she was torn between wanting to run and wanting to kiss him again.
He could admit to being torn between the same two things.
There was chemistry, more than he’d expected. More than he’d felt in a very long time. But his leave was by no means a vacation, and now that Sharon had made him, his ass was on the line.
His job had been hard on more than one relationship, including the tenuous one with his family. His parents had never approved of his career, pretty much leaving him out of the loop of their world. He had Amory and that was about it. He didn’t think about it much, but when he did, he consoled himself with the knowledge that he didn’t have room for more, anyway. He was gone for long stretches at a time, sometimes without much warning, and he couldn’t always tell people where he was.
What woman would deal with that in a man?
No woman he’d ever met. No one wanted to be in a relationship where she had to give such blind trust.
Especially not Zoe.
He knew that much all too well now that she’d told him about Kyle the Asshole. He dunked his head under the hot water, letting it beat down on his sore muscles. When the water turned cold, he got out, dressed, and went to the kitchen table with his laptop. There he studied the images he’d taken with his camera from twelve thousand feet.