Jaime’s lips parted in astonishment.
Fontana jumped to her feet, paced to the kitchen and back, then stopped short when a bout of dizziness forced her to halt in front of Jaime. “He lifted his hand to touch me, brush my hair aside. Something completely romantic, like you see in a movie. And I flinched. Big time. Uncalled-for reaction. Maybe I had a frightened expression on my face. I don’t know! Whatever I did, it was enough. He asked if I thought he was going to hit me.Can you imagine?”
Jaime blinked, his mouth opening, then shutting again, for once, at a loss.
She popped up on her toes, the familiar pinch in her ankle sending a rush of memory flooding back—a moment she’d never fully shared with anyone. “Of course, I said no.How foolish of you, Atlanta. How absurd.”
Dropping his head to his hands, Jaime moaned, “Oh, dear me, dear me.”
She kicked a maroon throw pillow—one she’d snagged at a garage sale for fifty cents—into his side and searched for another. “Is that all you can say? After I made a complete fool of myself, thanks, in part, to you?”
Before Jaime could answer, a forceful knock on the door froze them in place like deer caught in the direct path of afloodlight. Startled, their gazes collided. Fontana’s pulse stuttered, then flared to life, beating eagerly beneath her skin.
Another knock. Then a deep voice calling her name.
Oh my God…it was a voice she recognized.
“Heavens,” Jaime wheezed, patting his chest, “I feel faint. Far, far more excitement than I’m used to. I may expire in this rather disorderly but charming spot.”
“You’ve got to get out of here!”
“What? And miss the show?”
Yanking him up by his elbow, she steered him toward the kitchen. “Out!”
“Quit pinching, quit pinching. I get the message, MissI-Couldn’t-Care-Less. A façade, your disinterest.”
“This is what you meant by taking pleasure in life, isn’t it?” she whispered. “And I never said I was uninterested. Although, I’m not sure welikeeach other.”
Kicking the screen door open, she noted a fine layer of mist hovering above the border of delphinium she’d transplanted last week, raindrops plinking on the blades of St. Augustine grass she was testing in a shady spot near the porch.
Light, hardly a downpour.
She shoved Jaime outside. “Rain’s nearly stopped. You’ll be fine.”
“My jacket’s inside, and I need a ride home.” He mimed two hands on the wheel. “My car’s at the detailer.”
“Walk over to John Nelson’s. I was going to borrow his car anyway. Tell him I fell asleep, you didn’t want to wake me. A bracing walk will do wonders.” She slammed the door in his face and slumped against it, pressing a hand to her chest. Her heart was a hammer, wild and insistent, possibly trying to beat some sense into her.
“You didn’t even let him take his shoes?”
Heart sinking to her knees, she cracked an eye open to see Campbell’s long body filling the kitchen archway, Jaime’s shoes dangling from his fingers, drops of rain dusting his face and neck.
He looked hungry. Impatient. Like an impelling force had sent him racing to her. Dark eyes glowing, chest rising and falling a little too fast—like he hadn’t just walked there, butrun.
Was she desirable enough to be an impelling force for a man like him?
Her body went up in flames at the notion...and she found she couldn’t look away. It was, Fontana knew, the first time she had faced someone she wasn’t sure she could handle.
And that terrified her as much as it thrilled her.
As if he’d read her thoughts, his lids lowered, a muscle in his jaw ticking out a furious beat.
Without a word, Campbell strode past her and yanked the door open.
She peeked around him to see Jaime rolling up his trouser legs, dancing from one foot to the other to keep dry. A fissure of guilt unfurled in her belly, but the fever sweeping through her outweighed it.
Okay, so she wasthatgirl—tossing friends aside the minute a man stepped into the picture.
