by Hailey North
The Corgi barked.
Of course.
“That dog always make that much racket?” Flynn asked, thinking the drive to Nashville was going to be painstakingly long.
“She’ll settle down,” Sami said. “It may be her first long car ride. The others are used to it. They’ve been with me the last several years. So, what do you call your parents?”
He had to admit she’d thrown him off by tossing in the question. “Mom,” he said.
She nodded.
He guessed she remembered what he’d said about his sperm donor of a father.
“That’s nice,” she said, and raced around an eighteen-wheeler. “Sorry we didn’t have breakfast. Or coffee. We can stop in Slidell.”
“Whatever you say,” Flynn said. He realized he wasn’t clutching the seat or the arm rest on this ride. Not yet, anyway. “So, what will you do this summer in Nashville?”
“I’ll be teaching a summer Introduction to Philosophy class and I’ve brought notes for an article I’m planning. Plus I need to work on an outline for a new course proposal.”
“All work?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll see all my good friends.” Her voice rose and she sounded happy. “I have several girlfriends. They’re all married now, with kids, and of course their careers, so we work around their schedules. But that’s part of the reason I enjoy spending the summer housesitting for Emile and Nathalie. On the weekends my friends come over, we have a pool party, relax. You know, all the fun things.”
Flynn nodded, but he was thinking it sounded pretty dull. “You don’t go out? Nashville’s got some pretty hot clubs.”
Sami shrugged. “We did all that in college. It’s for the younger crowd.”
Flynn figured he had a good five or six years on Sami. “Or the young at heart?”
“Or the perpetually adolescent?”
“Ouch,” he said. “You know how to hurt a guy.”
She smiled, overly sweetly. “I’m going easy on you, given your concussion. Speaking of which, maybe you should lie back and close your eyes. Sleep is a critically important component to recovery.” As she finished her sentence, she smothered a yawn with one hand.
At least she kept one hand on the wheel as she pulled into the fast lane just in time to miss a slow-moving U-Haul. “Maybe I should pray,” Flynn said.
“As you wish,” she said. “Do you identify with a particular religious tradition?”
“Who? Me?” Flynn shook his head.
“I’m not addressing the canines,” she said, reaching one hand to the top button of her gauzy light blue shirt. “Gosh, it’s hot this morning,” she said, slipping not just the top button but the next one free.
The blouse gapped wide. Flynn couldn’t help but look his fill. She couldn’t be wearing a bra, or if she was, it had to be the merest scrap of fabric. He licked his lips. Tried to pull his gaze away. Didn’t succeed.
Sami fanned her face with one hand, and then shifted into sixth gear. Forcing down the grin threatening to break wide, she moved slightly, offering Flynn even more of a teasing view. She knew she was an idiot to play this stupid game, but once she embarked on a project, she always finished it. No wonder the lack of success with her Dating Analysis Questionnaire was so frustrating.
“Do you think you could put the air conditioner on high?” Flynn’s voice sounded slightly strained.
“Oh, are you hot?” She smiled at him. Tossed in a flutter of eyelashes.
“You are not playing fair,” Flynn said, leaning forward and shoving the AC to full force. “Please tell me you’re wearing a bra.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Argh,” he said, or at least made a noise that sounded something like a man strangling, possibly on his own saliva.
“I’m wearing a bikini top,” she said, following her penchant for accuracy. A sea of red brake lights caught her attention and she hurriedly downshifted. “Oh, great, traffic delays already.” She caught another yawn. Waking up to check on Flynn had definitely lowered the quality of her sleep.
“I’m sorry I kept you awake last night,” Flynn said.
“You observed my yawns and concluded they were due to checking on your health?”
He nodded.
“Mmm,” she said. When he didn’t try to act like such a ladies’ man, he was a pretty nice guy. Thoughtful. And he’d been good with Cameron and Jonni’s kids. “It was my responsibility,” she said, sounded perhaps more prim and proper than she intended.
“I can think of a lot better ways to keep you awake at night,” he said as he stretched out his left arm and cupped his hand gently against the back of her neck.
“You’re not ready to surrender the seven-day challenge, are you?” The traffic log jam was clearing and Sami accelerated rapidly. His arm did not budge. “On Day One?”
“Oh, that,” he said, circling his fingers on the back of her neck.
“I never quit a project,” Sami said. “So if you can’t go seven days without seducing a woman, you lose and I win.”
He lowered his hand to his lap. Stared out the window.
“Maybe you should take a nap,” Sami said, relieved and frustrated with the loss of contact. She enjoyed the sensation, the feeling of tenderness communicated by his touch. And then she reminded herself sharply that it meant nothing, nothing at all, to Flynn Lawrence. “I’ll wake you up in Slidell.”
He grunted and kept his gaze fixed on the lanes of traffic to the right of the car.
Sami focused on staying alert, on keeping her attention on the road. But then Flynn shifted his body, stretching his legs out, obviously attempting to get more comfortable. Good. It would be best for both of them if he fell asleep and didn’t awaken until they reached Davidson County, Tennessee.
He sighed softly. His eyelids drifted shut.
A pickup with a bad muffler pulled alongside. Two hunting dogs were in the bed of the truck. At least they were fastened with safety leads. Sami frowned upon anyone who forced dogs to travel in unsafe conditions.
Whether it was the muffler or the sight of the dogs, Ruby started barking. Sharply. Loudly.
Flynn jerked to attention. “Damn, dog,” he said. “You are not restful.”
Sami recognized the truth in that statement. She slowed the car, letting the truck gain distance on them. They were just heading onto the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.
“Is that the Gulf of Mexico?” Flynn asked.
“This body of water is Lake Pontchartrain.”
“This doesn’t look like the Causeway.”
“There’s more than one bridge over the lake,” Sami said. “As a matter of fact, there are three methods of crossing.”
Flynn leaned over and tapped a finger against her lips. “I like you much better when you’re not in lecture mode,” he said, a lazy smile on his face.
“You asked a question. I was providing information in response.”
“Stimulus. Response?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe I’d better close my eyes again before that sexy neckline of yours provides way too much stimulus.”
Sami shook her head. “You really do have a one-track mind. Tell me, Mr. Lawrence, when do you find time to run your business?”
“Flynn,” he said. “No mister.”
“Flynn,” she said, liking the way his name felt on her lips. “What does a personal manager do?”
He reached into his pants pocket and tugged out his phone. “Oversees media. Brand management. Endorsement deals. Commercials. Discovers new talent. I live by this puppy.” He glanced at the screen. “Still early in L.A. but that’s just one of my time zones.”
“And you’re going to Nashville to work on a deal for Cameron Scott?”
He nodded.
“I imagine your charm and take-charge personality are valuable traits in your business. As well as your refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
He sketched a salute. “You nailed th
at description. What about you? What makes you good at what you do? And don’t tell me you’re not good, because I know you’d never accept less than perfect.”
“Did I tell you that?” Sami glanced over at Flynn. “Or did you figure that out on your own?”
Flynn tapped his temple. “Got my thinking box turned on,” he said. His voice sounded thoughtful but then he finished with a wink.
“Yes, well, we’re discussing you, not me.” Sami nudged the gas pedal. She checked the dogs in her rearview mirror. The beagle and the Lab had fallen asleep. The Corgi sat at attention, her head darting left to right, right to left.
Flynn could tell he’d hit one of her touchy buttons. But seriously, how could she not know her need to be perfect screamed its existence? Anyone who boned up on quantum theory before a second date with Sean was either nuts or perfection-obsessed. Sean hadn’t fallen for Mai because she understood his work. Other than their passion for skiing, they’d had almost nothing in common. Their instant courtship had been crazy. Nuts. Sean had told him so when they’d gotten engaged only a month after they met on the slopes at Breckinridge. Flynn could still see the expression on his brother’s face when he’d said softly, “Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s the right kind of crazy.”
“Are you carsick?” Sami’s voice filtered through his thoughts.
“No,” he said, hearing the snap in his tone. “I never get carsick.”
“It must be the concussion,” she said, signaling for a lane change and giving a brief glance over her shoulder. “I’d best pull over as soon as we’re across the bridge.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Your face is pale. You have dots of perspiration on your brow. You look, frankly, as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Flynn stared at Sami. “I was thinking about… about… Sean,” he said, picking over his words, almost afraid to say his brother’s name.
She nodded. For once, she didn’t say a word.
Flynn touched the back of his hand to his forehead. Damn if she wasn’t right about the sweat. Observant, he had to give her that. He glanced at her. She actually had both hands on the wheel. She hadn’t fastened a single button of that flimsy top but for once, the swell of her breasts was not the first thought in his mind. Her lips puckered slightly. She looked toward him for a moment, her expression watchful. And sympathetic.
He could do without the sympathy part. He slapped his hands together. “So, when’s breakfast?”
Sami smiled at him, the expression one a teacher would give a student who turned in an A paper when she’d expected a D. “You were there. For just a few minutes, you were allowing yourself to be, to feel, to grieve.”
He stretched his arms over his head. “Yeah, well, the moment’s passed. I could eat a horse.”
She nodded. “It’s a process,” she said. “McDonald’s is at the next exit.”
He made a face. “There’s a billboard for Waffle House.”
“McDonald’s.”
“Waffle House.”
“Can’t,” Sami said, edging between two cars and taking the exit ramp at a fairly sedate speed.
“Eggs over easy. Hash browns. Extra catsup. Couple of pancakes.” Flynn patted his flat belly. “What’s not to like?”
Sami jerked her thumb toward the backseat. “It’s not fair to Shelby, Rusty and Ruby. We go in and get waited on and they’re stuck in the car. Nope. It’s the drive-through for us.”
“All the way to Nashville?”
She nodded and headed into the McDonald’s drive-through lane.
He had to ask. He couldn’t help himself. “So how do you take care of your business?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you were driving by yourself without anyone to stay with your pooches, how would you go to the restroom?”
“That is a rather personal question.”
He gave her one of his slow grins. “Well, I am a personal manager.”
She tugged off her sunglasses and lowered her window. “And I’m hungry. Time to order.”
“What are you having?”
“Egg McMuffin. Black coffee. The dogs get a sausage biscuit.” The dogs started stirring and the Corgi barked. And barked. Sami turned toward the window and gave her order over the canine chorus. She glanced at Flynn.
“I’ll have what you’re having,” he said. “With cream and sugar for the coffee.”
She finished the order and rolled to the next window. Flynn tugged his wallet from his slacks and handed her a credit card.
Sami wrinkled her nose. “Your money’s not good here,” she said. “But thank you anyway.”
“What’s wrong with my money?”
“I am used to doing everything myself,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how many times you say that?”
Sami shrugged, opened her purse and thrust some bills at the employee working at the window. She turned around and somehow convinced the Corgi to cease barking.
“Thank you,” Flynn said. “That dog is hard on the ears.”
“It’s her nature to be in charge,” Sami said. “But she’ll settle down once she learns from the other two.”
“So, let me see,” Flynn said. “By extrapolation, does that mean by the time we cross the Tennessee border my money will be good?”
She halted the car at the pick-up window. “Hmm,” she said. “I gather by your reasoning process you are suggesting that it’s my nature to be in charge but once I’ve acclimated to your presence I will concede that you and I have some equal role in the human-canine pack traveling in this vehicle?”
Flynn couldn’t help himself. He started laughing and found it difficult to stop. “Sorry,” he finally managed. “It’s just that nobody really talks that way.”
“Well, I do,” she said, turning away from him and reaching for the order being handed to her. She thrust two bags at him. “And I do not like to be laughed at.” She handed him a cup of coffee and settled the second one in the cup holder. “No one does.” She sounded more sad than upset.
Flynn lowered the bags to the floor and balanced the coffee cup on his knee. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said. “I apologize.”
Sami nodded, planted her sunglasses over those gorgeous green eyes, and peeled out of the drive-through onto the four-lane in front of a giant delivery truck. Flynn closed his eyes as the inevitable honking and Corgi barking set in. In a few minutes they were back on the interstate, traveling at only a few miles above the posted limit.
“Apology accepted?” he finally asked.
She nodded. “It does occur to me that you have never known the effects of social ostracism, so naturally you would not understand that my feelings could lie so closely under the surface of my rather thin skin.”
“Right,” Flynn said, “I think.”
“Were you made to feel inferior as a child due to your household being led by a single parent female?”
“If you mean did other kids make fun of me, the answer is no. Hell, we weren’t the exception.”
Sami nodded. “So your missing father has not played a significant role in your adult behavior choices?”
Flynn thrust his jaw. Back. Forth. Why did she have to ask that question? He shrugged.
“I see,” Sami said. “The lack of a response is noted and filed away for further review.”
“Would you like your breakfast?” Flynn reached for the bags at his feet.
“Anything to get me to hush?”
Flynn tried for a grin. “It’s either that or I’ll have to kiss you again.”
She held out her right hand, palm up. “Egg McMuffin, please.”
His grin sprang to life. “Now I know where I rank.”
She smiled, which pleased him. When she relaxed and quit speaking in sentences long enough to trip a guy, she wasn’t bad company. She rolled her shoulders and the filmy shirt slipped open a bit more. Flynn opened her breakfast sandwich, wrapped it in a napkin and gazed his fill at the sw
ell of her breasts. Not bad at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sami nibbled at her sandwich, taking small bites to make it last longer, and to avoid restarting conversation with Flynn. He’d eaten his breakfast in about three swallows and was sipping his coffee and gazing out the window. He cradled the cup in both hands, so he must have decided he had no need to hang on for dear life. She smiled slightly, thinking that for such a macho guy, he had a hard time coping with a fast-driving female.
He did have nice hands. Well-kept nails. No gnarly knuckles. Strong yet gentle. Sami tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She needed to focus on the road, not on Playboy Flynn’s tender touch.
“Penny,” Flynn said, reaching out for the trash in her hand.
“For?” She wasn’t sure what he meant.
He tapped the side of his head. “Penny for your thoughts.”
Sami crumpled her wrapper and napkin. He leaned over and took it from her, adding it to the trash in his bag.
“Thank you,” she said, appreciative of the gesture. She tugged her coffee from the holder and took a sip, keeping her gaze on the road. She wasn’t about to confess to what had been running through her mind. “I did not respond in a very gracious manner to your apology earlier.”
He shrugged.
“Perhaps I am a bit too sensitive,” Sami said.
He smiled at her. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I like sensitive,” he said.
“Yes, well, I was using it to mean taking matters too personally due to issues regarding old wounds.”
“And how do you think I was using the word?” He sounded curious.
She blushed. “In relation to sensuality.”
He nodded and grinned. “Score goes to you this round, Sweet Stuff.”
She barely managed to finish the sip of coffee she’d taken. “That is not my name.”
“Nickname.” He flicked one of the fingers she’d been admiring against the side of her cheek. “Suits you.”
“No one has ever called me sweet,” Sami said, hovering her cup over the holder.
Before she could lower it, Flynn had taken it from her and settled it into the space.
