“Chance?”
“I met someone,” I said quietly.
Alice eyed me for a minute before saying, “So? You meet people everywhere.”
I shook my head. “Not people, Alice. I mean, yeah, sure, I met people, but there was this one woman.” I hesitated. “Ashlyn Carter.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “In two days? You picked someone up in two days? In a town the size of a football field?”
I chuckled at the look on her face. “Actually, she kind of picked me up,” I said. “She delivers flowers to the motel I was staying at. Beautiful as hell, funny, smart, ambitious.”
“Oh my God,” Alice smiled.
“What?”
“You fell for her.”
“I don’t fall for anyone,” I sighed.
“You son of a bitch, you do have feelings,” Alice chuckled, sitting back in her chair.
“Stop that,” I warned, pointing a finger at her.
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “Whatever you say, Casanova,” she smiled. “Did you sleep with her?”
“Alice!”
“Well, did you?”
I looked at her for a beat before nodding. She clapped her hands together and laughed. “You don’t waste time, do you?”
“It’s not like that,” I said, getting up and stretching, acting like I was looking out my office window, when I just didn’t want her to read into any expressions she might see on my face.
“Then please explain it to me,” Alice said. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like some small-town girl was able to catch and tame the wild Chance Ridder.”
“You’re over-exaggerating it,” I said.
“Would that be so bad?”
I turned to her, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Alice got up and crossed the room, leaning against the window and folding her arms across her chest. “Why are you fighting it?”
“I’m not fighting anything,” I said.
“Sure you are,” she argued. “There’s no way Chance Ridder would actually fall in love. No, Chance Ridder’s too good for love. Chance Ridder doesn’t need love in his life. He has everything else anyway.”
“Okay, I get your point.”
“Do you? Because I have a feeling you’re playing this down as much as possible, as if it didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I confirmed. “Not anymore.”
“Not anymore?”
I sighed, hesitated, then finally said, “I asked her to come to Austin.”
“You did what?” Alice almost screamed, her smile reaching from one ear to the other, her eyes wide. “No way. So, I was right! You did fall for a girl!”