LITMIR.BIZ

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blurt it out that way but now that she was here, now that she was suddenly aware of him as an entity other than the proverbial Thorne-in-her-side, she wanted to get this over with and get away from him as quickly as possible. And away from this unbelievable resurgence of attraction that not only blindsided her but also shook her composure. The sooner they cut this deal, the sooner she could go on about her business.

      When she was met with nothing but silence, she drew a bracing breath and turned toward him.

      He was frowning. Not a gloating or even an angry frown, but more as though he was in deep thought or contemplating something heavy.

      “I said I’d go to the ball with you,” she repeated, and he finally rocked forward in his chair and came to attention behind his desk.

      “So you did.”

      And still he scowled.

      Perplexed, she eyed him with wary suspicion. “Wasn’t that the condition?”

      “Of me turning over the box?”

      Her exasperation at the way he was drawing this out came in the form of an impatient breath. “I believe it was.”

      “Ah. Well, you just said the magic word. Was. That was my condition. Two days ago. But now, we’re dealing with today.”

      She narrowed her eyes. “There was a time limit?”

      “It seems so, yeah.”

      Sure. Now he was smiling.

      Because this was still a joke to him. He had never intended for her to go to the dance with him. Just as she’d thought. He’d merely been playing with her, and when she’d called him on it, he’d figured a way to weasel out of the invitation. It shouldn’t have hurt so much.

      “Why is this stuff so important to you anyway?” he asked, standing. He walked around the desk and settled a hip on its corner.

      “Historic value,” she said truthfully.

      He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Musty saddlebags? Old guns? A lady’s purse? What else? Oh, yeah. A faded map.”

      Her heart jumped over itself. “You looked?”

      “You may have heard. It’s my box. I’m pretty sure that means I’m entitled to look.”

      This was going nowhere. And she’d had enough of his fun and games. She’d figure out another way to get the box of Jess Golden’s things to the Historical Society. Maybe she could get some of the city matriarch types to put a little heat on him or something.

      “Sorry to have taken your time,” she said and headed for the door.

      “Wait. Wait. You haven’t heard the new condition.”

      She stopped, her hand on the door handle, and let out a deep breath. Knowing she was going to regret this, she turned and met his smug smile. “New condition?”

      He pushed off the desk. “Tell you what. Let’s talk about it over lunch.”

      “Lunch?”

      He reached around her to open the door. “You know. The light meal between breakfast and dinner?”

      “But—”

       “I’ll be back in an hour or so, Janice,” he said, herding Christine out of his office and into the reception area with a hand at the small of her back. “Anybody calls, tell ’em I’ll get back to them—unless it’s Ray. If Ray calls, tell him to phone my cell.”

      Christine was far too aware of his hand touching her there, ever so lightly at the small of her back. “I’m not going to lunch with you.”

      “Oh, lighten up, Chrissie, would you? It’s noon. I’m hungry. I figure you’re hungry, too. It’s that simple. It’s not like it’s a date or anything.”

      She told herself his last statement didn’t sting. And it wouldn’t have—at least not so badly—if Janice, stylish and chic in her tailored white blouse and short red skirt, hadn’t glanced up and cast Christine a sympathetic look when they passed the desk.

      He’d just made it clear to anyone within earshot that Jacob Thorne didn’t consider Christine Travers datable.

      Which was perfectly fine. She lifted her chin. She didn’t want to date him anyway. And she didn’t want to go to lunch with him. What she wanted was to get as far away from the reproachable evil twin as she could, considering they lived in the same city.

      And that was the truth.

       Chapter Three

      Okay. Jake had surprised himself again. He simply had been going to give Chrissie the box. End of story. So what had happened to the plan?

      Why was he sitting across from her in a booth at the Royal Diner happy as a damn clam because little Chrissie looked all pouty and put out?

      As usual the diner was packed. It never seemed to matter that the greasy spoon, with its smoke-stained walls, cracked bar stools and chipped countertops, had seen better days. The place stayed popular with the locals for two basic reasons: nobody knew their way around a grill like Manny Hernandez and nobody gave lip like the mainstay waitress, Sheila Foster. A lot of guys came in just to let Sheila rag on them. Himself included.

      Montgomery and Gentry belted out a song from the beat-up jukebox as Jake watched Chrissie pick at one of Manny’s burger baskets with all the enthusiasm of a Fear Factor competitor contemplating eating a box of scorpions.

      “You don’t like the burger?”

      “Do you know how much fat is in one of these things?” she grumbled.

      “So why did you order it?”

      “I didn’t. You did. I wanted a salad and you said I was too thin and why didn’t I eat something with some substance. So I said fine, I’ll have what you’re having.”

      “Oh, yeah.” He grinned. “I forgot.”

      Actually he hadn’t forgotten anything. He’d wanted to see her eat something that he figured she would consider sinful. And then he wanted to watch the lady enjoy sinning. Wait until she saw the pecan pie with ice cream that followed his standing lunch order.

      He didn’t know why but he was suddenly determined to loosen her up and make her enjoy herself in spite of her determination not to. Not, he told himself, because he particularly cared, but because sometime during the course of this day—okay, if he were being honest, it was long before today—she had started to become a personal challenge to him.

      People liked him. Pretty much without exception. Chrissie Travers was the major dissenter. For whatever reason, he wanted to change that.

      As a rule, folks liked his teasing. They liked his sense of humor. They liked that he thought life should be lived to the fullest whenever possible because so much in these times was tough to deal with. And they liked that he knew about tough from the trenches. Just as he knew what it was like to face down death and come out on top.

      A near-death experience like he’d had five years ago had a tendency to change a man’s outlook on life—it had sure as the world prompted him to want to live the rest of it on terms of his own making. Terms that included squeezing out as much pleasure as possible. Unlike the super-duper-serious Christine Travers, who was his polar opposite when it came to pursuing fun.

      So he’d pulled a squeeze play on Chrissie, who really wasn’t too thin or all that difficult to squeeze. He’d said she was thin to get her riled again and see the color rise in her cheeks because she looked so pretty in pink. In fact, despite her spinster-slash-warden suits, which ranged in color from navy blue to black to—God save her—dirt brown, she looked kinda cute just the way she was. Well, cute except for the sourpuss attitude that was going to give her wrinkles before she turned thirty.

      The woman was

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