Chapter 2 #4
Wren winced. The Thanksgiving football match was the one town event untouched by Luna’s hand.
Hayes’s phone vibrated, and he pulled the battered device from the back of his jeans.
He scowled at the screen. “Shit, I have to go, someone is coming to see me about restoring a 1930s Indian Scout.” He kissed Wren’s cheek.
“Good to see you, kiddo. Come for dinner, Hadley would love to see you.” He nodded at Dane.
“Nice to meet you, swing by when you have a chance.”
He jogged over to his truck, sipping his coffee as he did so. A minute later, he pulled away. Wren looked at Dane and tipped her head to the side. Don’t do it, Wren… Just get in your car and take your butt over to Luna’s.
“Do you want to walk with me for a while?” she asked.
She wasn’t hitting on him; she was just a hometown girl showing a part-time resident the ropes. She was going to have a guy-free—ergo, a drama-free summer—and this meant nothing.
He smiled, and a hint of a dimple flickered under the stubble on his cheek.
God, he was … luscious. Biteable. So freaking hot.
She looked at the lake and imagined jumping into its still cool waters.
It did nothing to cool her overheated core.
A half hour ago, she’d been incapable of attraction, convinced that even if Jung Kook started flirting with her, she would’ve smiled and waved him away. Clearly, she was wrong.
Deeply, inconveniently, massively wrong.
“Sure,” Dane said. He gestured to the park, where the trees provided some shade from the already hot sun. “Shall we walk down to the lake?”
Wren nodded and followed him across the street, waving to Laura Higgins, Luna’s friend, sitting in her car at the traffic lights. She knew the news that she was walking with a man would hit Luna in … oh, ten minutes? Five if it was a slow-gossip day.
“Tell me more about Earl and Marigold, and how they represent the town,” Dane said, drinking the last of his cold coffee. The ice cubes rattled as he tossed his cup into a trash bin.
“Mmm, it’s fair to say that Luna is obsessed with Halloween—but not in a ‘throw up some cobwebs and call it a day’ way.
Her events transformed the town, pulled in tourists, and gave the local economy a much-needed jolt.
But it also split the residents down the middle: half swear the ghosts and paranormal are real, the other half are simply happy to cash in on the spookiness and mystery. ”
“Marigold being one, Earl the other.” A small frown pulled his sandy eyebrows together.
“To be fair, the town has always had its paranormal believers, those who claim that ghosts haunt the town and buildings. It’s not a new thing.
But it has attracted new, hardcore believers to the area.
But some of us, me included, think it’s unhinged bullshit.
” She looked at him, her eyebrow cocked. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
He looked down at her, and she waited for his denial.
It didn’t come. He shrugged. “Do I believe that Effie is switching on the coffee machine at three thirty-three every afternoon? No. Do I think there is more out there than we know? Yeah. Too many weird things have happened in the field and on the operating table for me to think otherwise.”
Could this hot, hard, surgeon be ghost-curious? Really? And why wasn’t that a turn off? “Like?”
He sent her an enigmatic smile, and she caught the minuscule shake of his head. “Your godmother sounds like a character,” he stated, changing the subject.
Fair enough. She’d only met him a short while ago. But she couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. “She is,” Wren stated, then sighed. “I suspect she’s determined to put me to work this summer when all I want to do is breathe.”
“What does she want you to do?” he asked, shortening his steps to let her keep pace with him.
Thank God, because she was feeling a little breathless.
Or that could be because she was walking with and talking to the most masculine man she’d encountered in years, possibly ever.
And she’d met Simu Liu and Hugh Jackman.
“Hayes said I was a dancer, but I’m actually a choreographer. And when I told Luna I was coming back for the summer, she mentioned me holding dance classes for teens, and choreographing a routine for them to perform during the Summerween Festival concert.”
“And you don’t want to do it?” he asked. He didn’t bother asking what the Summerween Festival was. Summer plus ween, it was self-explanatory.
“I don’t want to do it,” she agreed. They stopped to look out at the lake, endlessly blue, fringed by thick green woods.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Be careful. If Luna hears that you aren’t doing anything constructive and that you have time on your hands, she’ll rope you into doing something or helping somewhere. ”
Dane looked at her and she caught the determination in his eyes. “I’d like to see her try,” he said, tempering his words with a smile. “I’m not someone who can be herded.”
Oh God, that was fighting talk. Wren looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “You haven’t met Luna,” she muttered. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
He held her eyes. “So am I.”
Right. Well… Wren resisted the urge to fan her face. Whoo. Boy. Such confidence was sexy. Hugely misplaced—they were talking about Luna, after all!—but sexy.
“So, are you going to teach kids to dance?” Dane asked, folding his big arms against his Canada-wide chest.
“No. Maybe…” She sighed. “Probably.” She caught his amusement and threw up her hands. “You don’t understand… Nobody says no to Luna!”
“Because she’s a part-time white witch?” he asked, a low chuckle rumbling over her skin.
He was a good listener, she’d give him points for that.
“Because she’s the human equivalent of a steamroller!
” Wren retorted. Then she squared her shoulders, pushed out her chest—Dane’s eyes flickered down and up again, a barely there glance that set every nerve ending alight—and pushed steel into her spine.
“I’m going to tell her that I came to H-Town for a break, that I need some distance from dancing to refill my creative well. ”
His lips twitched. “Will that work?” he asked. The guy thought she was a pushover, but he didn’t know Luna. Everyone underestimated her until she got you in her sights. Then, no matter how big, tall, and wide you were, you got mowed down.
“Probably not,” she admitted. She pushed her hands into her hair and sighed. “Shit. I’m toast.”
Dane’s laughter was the sexiest sound she’d ever heard.