Page 9 of All's Fair in Love and Blackmail
Her expression has morphed into something more nervous now. She clears her throat and tucks a few strands of loose hair behind her ear. “You’re kind of freaking me out,” she says.
“No,” I say quickly. “Sorry. It’s nothing weird.”
“Okay,” she says, letting out a relieved breath, and some of the tension leaks out of her shoulders. “Good. Fine. Just say it, then. Don’t be weird about it. I promise to hear you out or think about it or whatever.”
“Good.” I take a deep breath and then dive in. “So I used to work in Idaho, right? For a paper there. And we did a spotlight series calledIdaho is for Lovers,highlighting a bunch of the romantic spots around the state.”
“Okay,” she says slowly.
I nod and go on. “So now I work for the Four-Leaf Gazette, and in our?—”
“Wait,” she cuts me off. “You’re working at the Gazette?” Her eyes have widened slightly, big and brown and full of an expression I can’t place.
“Yes,” I say, blinking at her. “Since last month. Why?”
The look in her eyes disappears as she clears her throat. “Nothing,” she says, shaking her head. “Never mind. Okay, so you’re working at the Gazette. Go on.”
I shrug. “Yeah. So at our meeting two days ago I pitched a similar idea for Lucky, because it’s so beautiful here, right? ALucky is for Loversarticle. The editor really liked it, but he wantsmeto write it. Only I haven’t lived in Lucky very long, and I don’t know the popular local spots, and I just—” I break off, my breath gusting out of me. “I’d love some help. From a woman, preferably, because I’d like a female perspective on these places too.”
“Oh,” India says, blinking at me, and that little frown is back. “That’s it?”
“Pretty much,” I say with a shrug.
“Okay. But why me?” Her nose wrinkles. “You and I don’t talk. You don’t even have my number.”
“Which might be good,” I admit. I pause as a car drives past, music blaring from the open windows, and then I sigh. “Are yousureI can’t come in? Or is there a patio around back or something?”
She sighs, too. “Fine,” she says. “Yes.” But instead of opening the door wider, she steps outside onto the porch. “Go around the back. There are some chairs.”
She moves past me and begins trekking around the little house; I follow, watching the sun play with her hair, pulling all sorts of gold and brown and blonde into the deep red. I feel an odd pang of disappointment when we reach the shade of the back yard and all those colors disappear.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I like looking at pretty things.
“There,” she says, gesturing carelessly to a cluster of chairs on the patio. They’re clearly well used, with no dust or dirt or leaves despite the trees overhead—a little clump of aspen, rarer in town because our altitude isn’t high enough, but always beautiful when they appear.
I pick a chair and sit down, my eyes still on the trees that blow in the breeze like waving friends, and India more or less flops into the one next to me.
“So why me?” she asks again when we’re both seated.
“Because the whole concept of this piece is that Lucky is a perfect place for lovers and romance and whatnot. So I think it would be best to test it with a woman who has no interest in me and vice versa.” I rub the back of my neck uncomfortably. “I don’t?—”
She raises one brow at me when I break off, and I sigh.
“All right. It sounds bad,” I say, and I already know how much I’m going to get laughed at. “But I don’t want to risk working with anyone who mightactuallyfall in love with me,” I admit. “That…happens sometimes.”
And, as I predicted, India holds in her burst of laughter for all of two seconds before it breaks free. A few wisps of red escape her ponytail as she throws her head back and laughs.
And laughs…and laughs…and laughs. The crisp Colorado breeze is going to carry that sound to the entire town—lighthearted, carefree, and entirely too amused.
I roll my eyes. “So hilarious. Really.”
“I’m sorry,” she gasps as she wipes tears of mirth from her eyes. “But you’re worried that some poor woman might fall for you because you’re justtoo irresistible.How is that not hilarious?”
I don’t find it particularly hilarious.
“I’m just saying,” I begin, “that historically—in the past—I’ve had a problem with women falling for me. That’s all—it isn’t funny!”
“It is,” she says, the words faint as she tries to catch her breath. “It so is.” After inhaling deeply and exhaling several more times, she finally speaks again, humor still sparkling in her eyes. “So, what, you don’t want to fall in love?”
