“Is it?”
“It has to be, Trent.” She flipped open her laptop again and rested her hands on the keyboard. “Let’s just finish the book.”
She wanted to change the conversation, to move it out of thorny, muddy territory and into something easier. Just as she hadn’t let him slack in school, he wasn’t going to let this go that easily.
Trent flicked on the directional and merged toward the exit for Seattle. Their road trip was almost at an end, which would mean they’d go their separate ways again. Trent wasn’t quite ready for the moment to end. “I took me a while to really buckle down, but once I did, I noticed my grades went up, and I became more engaged in school. I even read more books.”
She typed a sentence or two. “Authors love people who read books.”
He knew she’d said the words as a joke, but hearing “love” from Kate’s lips stirred something inside Trent. Something he chose to ignore for now. “I think that work ethic you sort of kicked into place for me is part of what made me so successful with GOA. Ever since college, I’ve been more focused on learning and reading, and being the best I can be at my job.”
“That’s awesome,” she said. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. “That’s such a great quote for the book.”
He put a hand over hers, and she stopped typing. “I was saying it to thank you, Kate, not to fill a chapter or create some blurb in the book.”
“Oh. Well, I…” That blush appeared again in her cheeks. “You’re welcome, Trent. It was really no big deal.”
“Maybe to you. But it made a big difference for me.” He pulled his hand back and focused again on the road. Every other minute, it seemed he was wrapping himself up with Kate again.
So many parts of his life, though, were interwoven with her, or memories of her. She’d taught him to appreciate books, to dig deeper into the text and unearth the lesson the author had scattered among the words. She’d been the one person who had believed in him without doubt or reservation, a cheerleader at a time when he’d really needed one.
But none of that would be in the book, at Kate’s insistence. It seemed wrong, somehow, to erase the lines that underscored so much of his life.
“Oh, look, we’re at my house already.” Kate closed the lid of the laptop and tucked it in her bag. “I should get inside and get to work. I have so much to write and not much time to do it.”
“Let me help you. Not write, but, like, get you all the takeout from Chick and Cheese you can eat.” He flashed a smile at her. “You concentrate on the book, and I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Don’t you have a business that needs you?”
He did, but right now, nothing else seemed as important as her and extending this warm feeling from the two days they’d spent together. This was all good for the book, he told himself, as if that was the real reason he wanted to linger in her presence. “Like you said, there’s nothing at GOA that can’t exist without me for a few more hours. Or days.”
“You’d really do that for me?”
He nodded. “It’s the least I can do, considering you’re doing the hard part.”
Her gaze narrowed, but amusement lit her face. “This wouldn’t be your way of sucking up to me just to make sure I make you look like a superhero in the book?”
“Well, if that happens…” He flexed his biceps and shot her a crooked smile. “Seriously, I want to help, Kate.”
“All the takeout I can eat? Hmm…that’s a really good offer.” She tapped her lip, as if she was giving it serious consideration, then her green eyes met his. “How do you feel about cats?”
Charlie, the traitor, took to Trent from the second he walked inside the apartment. Trent bent down, rubbed behind Charlie’s ears, and the cat immediately fell in love, twining himself in and out of Trent’s legs with a loving purr. “I think I’ve made a friend.”
“Charlie hates everyone other than me. Did you slip him some chicken or something?”
Trent laughed. “No. I had some kittens around my house for a little while when I was a kid. I forgot all about that story until now.”
“So maybe I’m not the only one who loves animals?” She flipped open her laptop, pressed the power button and poised her fingers over the keyboard. “Tell me all about the kittens.”
“It was no big deal, really. I think I was maybe six or seven. I’m not sure because it was a long time ago. We had a stray cat living under the house, in the crawlspace under the porch. My dad tried everything to get her out, and she wouldn’t leave. Turned out she had a bunch of kittens with her. I used to climb under there and feed her until she trusted me enough to get her and the kittens out from under there and into homes. I would have kept one, but my mom is really allergic to cats and dogs, hence no pets for me as a kid.”
“That’s so sweet of you to do for the kittens.” She typed quickly. “That is totally going in the book.”
He groaned. “You’re going to make me sound like a softie.”
“Anyone who crawls under a porch to take care of some kittens is a softie. The best kind of softie.” Her voice had gotten all sweet and tender and was betraying her as badly as the cat. Geez. Could she get any more obvious about how she felt? This entire day had been one softie moment after another, from the way she’d seen him help his father, to the security of his hand helping her up an embankment. And then, that almost kiss…
Kate shook her head and refocused on the book. Priorities, Kate, priorities. He was a client, and she had a job to do. Maybe after that was completed…
Maybe. To be honest, she was afraid of having her heart broken a second time. Once was enough.
“I’m going to shut up now,” Trent said, “and go get some coffee or something, before you turn my hard-earned reputation as a hard-edged cliff climber into a marshmallow.” He thumbed toward the kitchen. “Do you want me to brew some for you? Or go out and get it?”
“Coffee sounds amazing. If I have enough, I’ll stay up all night and finish your book.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Trent called over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. There were a few muttered curses and the sound of cabinets being opened and closed, but within a few minutes, she heard the sound of the percolator and caught the promising scent of rich, dark caffeine.
After the couple of days with his parents, the words poured out of Kate, on the long car ride back and now in her apartment. Stories his mother and sister had shared as they’d done the dishes, observations she’d made while she’d watched Trent working the sale at the nursery, and a sense of the setting of the town where he’d grown up and its impact on him. She moved on to the growth of GOA, likening it to climbing a mountain and including several stories about Trent’s adventures in the outdoors.