Curiosity sparkled in those crystal blue eyes. I could have written an entire novel dedicated to them. In a way, I guess I already was, given that she and Scarlett had the same ones.
“Never blown a New Year’s resolution?”
I grinned. “I never make them,” I admitted like it was a dirty little secret.
She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.
Shit. I wanted to suck it free. The bottle crinkled in my hand.
“Never stood a woman up for a date?”
“I always say that I’ll do my best to make it, and I do. I never promise a woman I’ll meet her unless I’m already there.” Anyone who went out with me knew that if I was sucked into a story, chances were, they were getting a cancellation text. Granted, I’d send it hours in advance, but the story came first. Always. “I’m not exactly the guy you depend on during a deadline. Unless you’re my publisher.”
“So you’re more about the semantics,” she argued, sipping her tea.
I barely managed to keep from sputtering. “No, I’m more about defining expectations and either meeting or exceeding them.” We locked eyes, and that tangible hit of electricity struck me again.
“Uh-huh.” She clicked her tongue. “Do you still have dinner with your mother?”
“Once a week. Unless I’m on book tour, a research trip, vacation, that kind of thing.” I gave it some thought. “Sometimes she makes me cut it to every other week.” My lips tugged at the corners.
“She makes you cut it?”
“She does.” I nodded. “She would prefer I spend less time at her house and more time finding a wife.”
Georgia startled, nearly spit out her tea. “A wife.” She set the mug on the counter. “And how is that going?”
“I’ll let you know,” I managed with a straight face.
“Please do. I’d hate not to be in the know when it comes to your love life.”
I laughed and shook my head again. She was something else.
“Gran would have liked you,” she mused quietly. “She wasn’t a fan of your books, that’s true. But you, she would have liked. You have just the right mix of arrogance and talent that she would have appreciated. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that you’re pretty. She liked pretty men.” Georgia rubbed at the back of her neck. It was long and graceful, just like the rest of her.
“You think I’m pretty.” I grinned, raising my eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes. “Out of all that, you dwell on pretty.”
“Well, if you’d said sexy, handsome, well-endowed, or body-like-a-god, I would have dwelled on those, but you didn’t, so I’m just making do with what content I have.” I tossed my water bottle in the recycling bin at the end of the island.
Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink.
Mission accomplished. She’d been so pale there for a while that I was starting to wonder if I’d get to see that fire again.
“I can hardly testify to those last two.” She took her mug to the dishwasher.
“Guess your friend didn’t show you every article,” I teased. I liked that she was neat. Not that I had any business liking anything about her, to include the way her shorts clung to her very nice ass, but there I was, doing it anyway. How had that ass escaped my attention last time I was here? Or those mile-long legs? You had other, more important things on your mind. “So the first two are in?” My eyes trailed down the nape of her neck as she returned to her seat.
“Depends on how much you’re pissing me off at the moment.” She lifted a shoulder.
“And right now?”
Her gaze swept over me from head to toe and back up again, taking in my cargo shorts and NYU shirt. I would have worn the Armani had I known there’d be a test.
“I’d say you’re a solid seven.” Again, she pulled it off straight-faced.
Nice. I lifted a single brow. “And when I’m pissing you off?”
“You slide right off the scale into the negatives.”
I laughed. Damn, how long had it been since a woman had made me laugh so many times in just a few minutes?
She folded her hands on the island, and her energy shifted. “Tell me why you’re really here, Noah.”
“I promised—”
“So, what? You’re just going to stand in my kitchen and make me tea?” Her chin lifted. “I know you’re here about the book.”
I studied her carefully, taking in the rise of color in her cheeks and the spark in her eyes. She was mostly back to what I’d consider normal, but in all honesty, I didn’t have a baseline when it came to Georgia Stanton. I was flying blind.
“You want to get out of here?” I asked.
“What do you have in mind?” She looked more than skeptical.
“How’s your life insurance?”
…
“No,” she said a half hour later as she stared up at the rock face that stretched a hundred feet above us.
“It’s fun,” I argued, gesturing to a couple of guys who were all grins as they packed up their equipment. “See, they think it’s fun.”
“You have lost your mind if you think I’m climbing that.” She lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head so I could see just how serious she was.
“I didn’t say you had to climb the whole thing,” I argued. “There’s a less challenging path right over there.” That one was only thirty-or-so feet, and my niece could easily do it, not that I was about to say that to Georgia.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she whispered as the other climbers walked past on the trail.
“We have equipment.” I gave the shoulder strap of my backpack a pat. “I brought an extra harness.” I eyed her footwear. “Your shoes aren’t exactly what I’d recommend, but they’ll do until we can get you some good ones.”
Her eyes narrowed. “When you said, throw on some active wear and let’s go for a hike, I assumed, shockingly, that we were hiking.” She gestured to her Lululemon-covered body.
“We did hike,” I argued. “It was half a mile to get up here from the trailhead.”
“Semantics, again!” she snapped, putting her hands on her very nice hips.
Stop looking at her fucking hips.
“What are you afraid of?” I turned my Mets cap backward and shoved my glasses to the top of my head.
“Falling off the mountain!” She pointed to the rock face. “It’s a pretty realistic fear when you think about climbing it.”