Read Online The Things She Says by Kat Cantrell - Free Book Online Page B

you think we’ll reach Dallas by dinnertime?”
    “Why? You got a hot date?”
    She meticulously inspected the rocky terrain out the passenger window. “You asking?”
    “No,” he said in a rush. He cleared his throat. “Maybe we’ll grab dinner.”
    The truth was he liked her company. He liked the spike through the gut when her sizzling gaze caught him just right. She saw things, stuff no one else saw. Dangerous, all the way around, and he liked that, too.
    It was a miracle he’d kept his hands off her this long, but he had to. And they still had a long, long way to go.
    “Drive slower and we’ll be having dinner together by default,” she suggested, then threw in, “Maybe breakfast, too.” Since his blood pressure hadn’t climbed high enough already.
    Visions of a cozy, roadside motel spun through his head, where a convenient convention had booked all the rooms but one and they had no choice but to take the room with the solitary bed. Then... He groaned. Well, he’d been accused of a lot of things, but lack of imagination wasn’t one of them. Lack of interest, yeah. Lack of attachment, definitely. Lack of emotion, without fail.
    Before registering the impulse to do so, he’d backed off the accelerator. “I’m not in that big of a hurry.”
    “At that rate, you’ll be driving backward before too long. I have a better idea. Take the next exit.” She nodded at the green sign for a town called Lively.
    Curious now, he gunned the Ferrari down the ramp and followed her directions to the center of town. Such as it was. The rustic buildings, peeling paint and layer of dust were markedly similar to the rut in the desert VJ called home.
    At the end of Main Street, she pointed left and he turned into the middle of a traveling carnival set up in the parking lot of the local grocery store. Flashing lights on the large Ferris wheel winked in the midmorning sun and music piped from hidden speakers. Cheerfully painted booths promising big prizes lined the parking lot.
    A carnival. Really.
    “It’ll be fun, I promise.” VJ grinned mischievously. “And, it’s the ideal place for you to learn about stage three.”
    “Romance instruction at a carnival?” He slid out of the car and went around.
    He’d been praying romance instruction had been forgotten because he had a sneaking suspicion about the direction it was headed, and stomping caution flat seemed like the opposite of a good idea.
    “Yes, definitely,” she said as he took her hand to help her out of the car.
    He followed her to the nearest blood-red ticket booth and fished out his wallet to hand over enough cash to last for hours. Or at least long enough to find out what stage three was. Whichever came first.
    Kris ushered VJ into the den of iniquity she’d chosen as the means to educate him on the fine points of romance. Or was it love? With VJ, it seemed they were one and the same.
    “We’ve beaten the crowd,” Kris commented as they strolled the deserted midway. VJ’s gaze flitted everywhere at once and he smiled, oddly charmed. The awe on her face was worth the price of admission. “Are you in the mood for rides or games?”
    “The Scrambler.”
    This obviously wasn’t her first carnival. “Which one is that?”
    She pointed. At the other end of the midway, the ride spun drunkenly, a smudge of red, green and yellow against the backdrop of mountains and sky. Wonderful. One of those toss-your-cookies-at-the-end rides. She sauntered off and he hurried to catch up.
    She was being unusually closemouthed. His curiosity was killing him. What was stage three?
    In anticipation of her explanation, his senses honed in on the smallest detail. The swish of her jeans as she walked, thigh against thigh. The precise point at which the T-shirt dipped against the creamy hollow of her throat. He was getting a headache from sidelong glances at the riot of colors corkscrewing through her curls from crown to tip. Some auburn, thin blond streaks and that warm