“I was hoping for the swoony reaction you had the other night when your friends got engaged.”
She winced. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I really do love the flowers. They’re all my favorites.”
“I’m only teasing.” His expression turned serious. “Actually, I’m not teasing. One day I hope to earn that dreamy-eyed reaction, because it was really something. So, tell me, my sweet romantic at heart, what’s your excuse tonight? Book club again?”
“Yes, but for real this time.” She waved in the direction of the boxes. “I have to package three hundred books so I can mail them tomorrow. They really are for the online book club I’m a member of. I give discounts to other members, and every month I get between three and four hundred orders.”
“And you don’t have staff that can do this for you?”
“I have a few part-timers, but I like doing it. I write notes to the members and send them bookmarks or other swag.”
“A personal touch. Now, that’s something I can get behind.”
The heat in his eyes had her picturing all sorts of personal touches.
“I’ll help you. Let’s see what we’re packaging.” He grabbed a book from the box, sat his big body down on the couch, and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. Reno’s head popped up as Dash opened the book and his eyes moved down the page. “Oh, baby. I see why you like to read these.” His voice turned seductive. “‘He guided her down to her knees…’”
His every word made her heart pound harder, her body burn hotter.
“’…holding her there with a smoldering gaze as she wrapped her fingers around his raging—’”
“Stop!” She snagged the book from his hands. “We’re not reading! We’re packing.”
“I’m just checking out the merchandise. That’s my copy, by the way.” He pushed to his feet and whipped out his wallet, dropping a twenty on the coffee table. “Hand it over, secret sexy reader.”
She tried to glower at him, but she couldn’t stop grinning. Secret sexy reader? As embarrassing as it was, that sounded cute. She kind of liked it.
“I can see why you like reading that stuff. That was pretty hot. Not nearly as hot as you deserve, but it’s not bad.” He took the book and set it on an end table.
“Oh, please.” She put her hand on her hip. “You know you’re not going to read it.”
He stepped closer, so close she had to look up to see his face. His square chin was peppered with scruff, dark eyes drilling into hers. If she went up on her toes, she could press her lips to his as she’d done in her dreams. That single kiss had led to all of the other delicious things they’d done. Her loneliest parts clenched in anticipation.
As if Dash could feel the heat sizzling inside her, the edges of his lips quirked up. “I’ll give you my rewrites when I’m done, and you can tell me who wrote it better.”
Her mind sped through dirty scenes she’d read, instantly replacing the hero with him, causing her cheeks to burn.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said huskily, jarring her brain into gear.
She forced herself to step back, putting space between them. “Packing books. We’re packing books.”
He motioned toward the card she’d forgotten she was holding. “Is that card for me?”
“What? No. Sorry. It’s for one of my customers, Hellie Camden. Her husband died a long time ago, and her wedding anniversary is next week. I send a card every year to brighten her day.”
“Right, she spends the evening at the gazebo in Hemlock Park, where he proposed to her when she was twenty.”
“How do you know that?” As soon as she said it, she remembered what Lindsay had texted about his morning fan club.
“I had breakfast with Hellie, Nana, and the rest of the dirty grandmas this morning.”
“You had breakfast with them?” Was the whole town fawning all over him?
“I was running by the café when they invited me to join them. They’re clever. They reel you in like they’re offering you milk and cookies and a friendly chat, and then you find out they’re plying you with whiskey and rum cake, and before you know it, you’ve told them your whole life story.”
“That’s them. I guess your fan club is bigger than I thought.” She opened a box and put a stack of books on the table.
“My fan club?” He opened another box and began taking out books.
“I heard about the ladies who walked with you this morning, but you probably have gaggles of women chasing after you in every town you visit, and it’s none of my business anyway.” She pulled the supply cart over, and her eyes caught on the vase the flowers he’d brought her were in. It was full of acorns. Her heart skipped, and “Acorns,” slipped out.
“I know it’s probably not what you’re used to. But my grandmother fills all of her vases with them. She says they’re nature’s magic because those tiny nuts transform into mighty oaks. Everything she says comes back to some sort of acorn metaphor.”
Amber must have looked as dumbfounded as she felt, because he said, “It’s silly, I know. But at least they’re pretty.”
“No, it’s not silly. Did my mom tell you I have a thing for acorns?”
“No. She doesn’t even know I collected them after our walk this morning.”
Her throat thickened. “You collected them?”
“Yeah. In the woods by the creek. Why? A grown man can’t gather acorns?” He shook his head. “Damn. I was aiming for romance, and you just shot me down.”
“I’m not shooting you down. It is romantic. I’m just a little blown away. When we were young, some of my sisters—Brindle and Morgyn, mostly, and whoever they could swindle into going with them—would sneak out to watch Trixie’s brothers break horses or have rodeos at crazy hours, like midnight or four in the morning. I never liked going, and my dad would come get me after they snuck out, and we’d go on walks, just the two of us in the moonlight. If I was sad, he’d say, ‘Let’s talk it out and set those bad thoughts free.’ It always helped. In the fall, we collected acorns. If you look through the window to my office, you’ll see a jar of them on the shelf behind my desk.”
She pointed to the window, and he looked over, a smile curving his lips.
“I would write down snippets of wisdom he’d share, fold them up and put them in the jars with the acorns. He never called them nature’s magic, but he’d say that life was like an acorn, and we needed to look deeper to find the seeds of wonderful things yet to come. I’ve never heard anyone else talk about acorns like that. That’s why I thought my mom had said something.”
“She had a lot to say, as did Nana and her tribe, but nobody gave away your secrets. And trust me, I tried like mad to get them.”
She laughed softly and lowered her eyes. He was so forward and sure of himself, and she liked it. But why was he interested in her of all people? If Morgyn were there, her most ethereal and creative sister, who believed everything was guided by the universe and made a career out of repurposing and breathing life into inanimate objects, she’d say fate was dangling Mr. Delicious in front of Amber. But Amber knew better than to get tangled up with a guy who would be marching out of town before too long, probably with a trail of women following him like the Pied Piper.