And with that, he disappears out the door.CHAPTER 7WyldeI pull up in front of Clarke’s small house in the Coronado neighborhood of Phoenix. I consider it a victory I got the address from her, and she allowed me to pick her up for Dax and Regan’s wedding.
It took substantial effort on my part. Four straight days of visits to her bookstore, conversations about the books I’d read, and one afternoon where I’d helped her stock books that had been delivered via UPS on the shelves.
But over the course of this week, there was a definite, incremental, warming up on her part. It’s not like I put on an act while in her store. It was no hardship to browse through books for an interesting read, then immerse myself in it.
Granted… I wasn’t pretending to be something I wasn’t. I shamelessly flirted while getting to know her, taking the time in between her waiting on customers to talk about what I’d read the prior night or fish for information about her.
In return, she wasn’t playing hard to get, but she still tried to maintain her distance. I figured out soon enough that something happened to her in the past that made her genuinely mistrustful of men. Still, she was like a flower blossoming under my continual attention, opening up petal by petal.
I was able to learn some things about her.
Like she’s super smart… double major in English and Communications.
Her favorite classic book is To Kill A Mockingbird.
She’s originally from San Diego, but her parents moved to Phoenix when she was three. They still live in the area, and she’s close to them.
Her best friend is a divorcee who apparently did so well in her divorce settlement she’ll never have to work another day in her life. Ironically, she really wants to work, but she can’t figure out where her passion lies. I met her one day when she breezed in, wearing couture workout clothes that showed off every curve, with expertly applied makeup and looking like a million bucks.
Still, I preferred Clarke’s natural beauty any day of the week.
Best of all, while she was mildly skittish and held herself in reserve at times, Clarke actually gave me the benefit of the doubt in incremental doses as each day wore on, and this was evidenced by her trusting me enough to give me her address so I could pick her up.
Clarke lives in the historic neighborhood of Coronado in a small brick bungalow off 8th Street. I pull to the front of the curb and shut my truck off, enjoying the last moment of air conditioning before I step out in the dry summer heat that usually takes my breath away each time it slaps me in the face.
I exit my truck, round the front, and barely step onto the sidewalk when I see Clarke coming out her front door. She pulls it closed behind her, then locks it.
Waiting at the end of the pathway, I take a moment to check her out. It’s another summer wedding so she’s in pastel colors. This time, she’s in a white dress with large yellow and pink flowers that swishes around mid-calf. She has on a pair of gold sandals with a spiky heel that are actually really sexy.
But true to Clarke’s nature to sort of hide herself, she’s wearing little makeup, has her hair pulled up on top of her head, and has her glasses lodged on her nose like battle armor. When she turns to face me, she actually pushes them up with her index finger. I want to memorialize that moment forever because it’s when I realize Clarke will never be able to hide how gorgeous and sexy she is no matter how hard she tries.
I can’t help but tease her as she starts down the porch steps. “Not going to invite me in?”
My request startles her, and she stumbles a bit on the last step. I’m too far away to make a grab to steady her, but, luckily, she rights herself, once again pushing her glasses up her nose in a move I think is more from habit than anything else.
“What for?” she asks suspiciously.
“Um… because that’s sort of polite manners,” I say with a laugh. “At the very least, most women wait inside for their date to come up and escort them out.”
“I’m not most women,” she replies tartly.
“No, ma’am, you are not,” I agree wholeheartedly as she reaches me. I take her hand, tuck it into the crook of my elbow, and lead her back to my truck. “May I say you look incredibly lovely this fine evening?”
The sun hangs low in the sky, casting a warm glow all around us and making the bare skin on Clarke’s arms shimmer. I feel like instead of a wedding, we should be having a moonlit picnic by a lily-strewn pond while crickets chirp in the background.