Chapter 6 #2
“That’s worse. Relax.”
He started swiveling his hips like a terrible Elvis Presley impersonator. “Like this?”
“Oh my goodness, please tell me Oliver is down on one knee and my sister is jumping up and down, saying yes.”
Nate peered past her shoulder. “Everyone is still on their feet. And hate to say it, but all those feet are walking our way.”
“They see us?” Crazy Pants whimpered.
“Well, not to bring up the whole height issue again, but between that and the explosive amount of red curls on your head, you’re kind of hard to miss. Plus I’m pretty sure you left your camera and Windex spray on the bench.”
She whimpered again. “My sister can’t know Oliver was planning to propose to her. This still needs to be a surprise. There’s got to be a way we can salvage this. Think, think, think.”
“You want to bump lips again, don’t you,” Nate said, obviously joking and obviously not thinking. Because her eyes locked on his. Her brows rose in question. She didn’t really want to kiss him, did she? And he didn’t really want to let her, did he?
His head dipped a small nod in answer to the question in her eyes. Apparently, he did. Maybe because he couldn’t even remember the last time a beautiful woman had wanted to kiss him. “Fine,” he whispered, half expecting her to chicken out.
She did not chicken out.
Her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed him.
Kissed him kissed him.
No accidental lip bump about it. His hat fell off her head as their noses, lips, chests, everything, were pressed flush together. And her hands . . . how many hands did she have? They were everywhere.
Wow. When this woman committed to a project, whether it was cleaning bird poop off a bench or kissing a stranger, she certainly gave it her all.
But this was the sort of game Nate had never been good at. He was done pretending.
Gripping her by the wrists, he gently unwrapped her arms from his neck and pushed her a few inches back. “You are without a doubt the most chaotic woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered.
Also the most breathtaking, something he didn’t care to admit. Not when he had a whole life waiting for him back in New York after some time with his mom in Tennessee. Breathtaking, chaotic ladies from Nebraska did not fit into his summer plans. At all.
“I’m not usually like this,” she whispered, her cheeks blazing. “I swear I’ve never kissed a stranger like that before. I’ve never kissed a stranger at all before. Did it at least work?”
Considering the moose and chipmunk stood directly behind her at the bottom of the bridge, Nate was going to wager it didn’t. Especially when the chipmunk said, “McKenna?”
McKenna—at least Nate could say he knew her name now—slowly unclutched her hands from where she was squeezing the life out of his shirt and turned. “Bobbi? Oh, hey,” she said, her voice squeaking so much that maybe she should be nicknamed the chipmunk. “What are you doing here?”
Bobbi’s gaze bounced from McKenna to Nate then back to McKenna. “Oliver brought me here on a date. What are you doing here?” she said, her voice containing a mixture of suspicion and hope.
“Oh . . . you know. I’m . . . I’m . . .” If McKenna was waiting for Nate to finish that sentence for her, she had a lot more I’ms to go.
Thankfully Moose Man finally put her out of her misery. “Per-perhaps on a date as well? Perhaps?” He blinked and stuttered his way through a few more perhaps-es while Bobbi’s eyes lost all trace of suspicion and filled with one-hundred-percent undeniable hope.
“Really? You’re on a date? With him?”
“Him? No,” McKenna said, quickly followed by, “Duh. No duh, heck yeah, I’m on a date with him. I mean, why else would I be here?” McKenna’s laugh sounded forced. At least Nate hoped that wasn’t her real laugh.
She punched Nate in the shoulder as if they were old buddies. “Him and me. First date. Blind date. Probably won’t work out. We were just leaving. Come on . . . baby.”
“Nate,” he supplied.
“Nate. Right. His name is Nate, but sometimes I like to call him baby. Not, like, in a sexy way. Just like . . . Come on, you big baby. That kind of way. Anyway . . . like I said, we were just getting ready to leave.” McKenna grabbed him by the sleeve—she was really doing a number on his shirt—and tried dragging him down the bridge, but Oliver and Bobbi had blocked all chances for a quick exit by already meeting them near the top.
“He’s tall,” Nate heard Bobbi whisper to McKenna in a tone that suggested his height was a very good thing.
“Hadn’t really noticed,” he heard McKenna murmur back.
“She refuses to date any guy that’s shorter than her,” Bobbi said, giving up all pretenses of whispering. “Good thing I found my Ollie-bear first, huh?”
Oliver and McKenna both chuckled in what sounded like a competition for world’s fakest chuckle.
“Yep. Good thing. Well,” McKenna said, once again trying to grab Nate and drag him past Oliver and Bobbi, who had unfortunately turned into an impenetrable, unscalable moose-chipmunk wall. “Nate and I were just—”
“How tall are you, exactly?” Bobbi asked, peering up at Nate.
“Six two,” McKenna and Nate said at the same time.
Bobbi’s eyes lit up in approval. “McKenna’s six one.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” McKenna said.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” said Bobbi with a smirk. “She’s five twelve and a half.”
“Clearly not an issue for you,” Nate murmured.
“Never give it a thought,” McKenna murmured back.
“Is this really only your first date?” Bobbi asked, obviously having seen their earlier kiss and now interpreting all their murmurings as sweet nothings.
“Oh.” McKenna honked another laugh that Nate could only pray was fake. “No. That was a joke. We-uh-we-we-we-uh . . . we’ve actually known each other for . . . oh boy.” She puffed her cheeks and blew out a breath. “Couldn’t even tell you how long exactly. Feels like a long time though.”
“An absolute eternity,” Nate said.
“Which is why we should probably call it a night,” McKenna said.
“We should definitely call it something,” Nate said.
“I’m Bobbi.” Bobbi reached out her hand, but may as well have yelled, “You shall not pass!” in her best Gandalf the wizard impersonation for the way she and Oliver continued blocking their path off the bridge.
Nate shook Bobbi’s hand as McKenna flapped her hand between everyone.
“Right. Manners. Sorry. Should have introduced you. Bobbi, Nate. Nate, Bobbi. This is Oliver, our adorable British moose who I must say looks especially dapper this evening. Didn’t he clean up nice, Bobbi?
I think he looks great. As do you. You two are so cute together.
You really are. Which is why Nate and I need to get out of here so you two can enjoy your evening.
And oh, what a lovely evening it is, too.
Have you noticed how lovely it is? It’s perfect. Such a lovely, beautiful, perfect—”
McKenna’s words snapped off the same time a crack sounded and a chunk of side rail fell into the river. The chunk of side rail Oliver had unfortunately leaned against in his efforts to step aside for them. Which meant the moose was making a big splash next.
Wow. Had this day turned into a circus or what?
“Oliver,” Bobbi yelled.
“Stay calm,” McKenna yelled.
“Oliver,” Bobbi yelled again, sounding even less calm. Which, Nate figured, must be why she decided to jump in the river too?
“Why did she do that?” Nate asked.
“He can’t swim,” McKenna yelled.
“So the chipmunk thinks she’s going to save the moose?” Nate shook his head. The chipmunk wasn’t even headed toward the moose. The current was carrying her puny little five-foot-nothing body toward the opposite riverbank while the moose continued sputtering and flailing, fighting to swim upstream.
Meanwhile McKenna kept rambling something about mole removals and sutures and favorite dresses that flatter and how somebody needed to “Do something! Do something! Do something!”
Why did he get the feeling that somebody was him?
With a sigh, Nate handed McKenna his messenger bag, then shrugged out of his shirt. “For the record,” he said, looking at McKenna. “You guys are all nuts.”
Then he jumped into the river.