“How’s that?” Eric asked as he casually took her jacket from her hands. Colleen turned without thinking, letting him slip it on her. Only when she felt his knuckles graze her shoulder did her breath hitch in her lungs. She went completely still, her eyes widening, when she felt his hand slide beneath the trapped hair at her nape. He carefully withdrew the strands. His fingers furrowed through the tresses before he smoothed it next to her jacket.
r /> Shivers ran down her spine.
He did not just do that, she told herself, her heart starting to hammer in her ears.
She had to put a stop to it or this thing with Eric was going to go from mutual dislike to sparking flirtation to epic catastrophe in record time.
She turned to face him, giving him an angelic smile.
“We are not similar at all. And I don’t particularly like you.”
She gave him a significant look and started to turn away, prepared to leave him standing in her proverbial dust. It’d serve him right for getting her all annoyed and agitated. He placed a hand on her shoulder, halting her. She glanced back. He leaned down until their faces were hardly six inches apart. This close, she caught his scent. The heady smell of subtle, spicy aftershave, clean skin and an elusive fragrance she could only identify as man filled her nose.
“That’s where you make your mistake, Colleen,” he said so quietly she was sure no one in the bustling restaurant could have heard him but her.
“What?” Colleen mumbled, set off balance by his sudden nearness.
“You do like me. You’re just too stubborn to admit it,” he said, his eyes glinting with humor, that infuriating smirk in place. He took her hand and started to lead her out of the restaurant. Colleen tugged, but he held fast. “Now, let’s go pick out our invitations,” he said, loud enough that Mrs. Pickens from the library and Pete Margaritte, who worked at the sawmill, both regarded them with avid interest as they passed. Colleen had no choice but to hurry after him, blushing profusely the whole time.
She’d agreed to be partners with him in this crime, after all. More fool her. She should have known from the beginning Eric Reyes would be way more than she’d bargained for.
“If you can just bring your invitation list for the engagement party to Brendan’s room later today, I’ll drop our combined list by Scrivener’s this evening,” Colleen told Eric twenty minutes later as they approached the hospital. Eric had led her to a back entrance in the administrative wing.
“We never got to discuss who we were going to invite in regard to our plan,” Eric said as he held open the door for her.
“Plan?”
“Yeah, what we talked about yesterday,” he said as they progressed down the silent corridor. “Operation Postpone Wedding, remember?”
“I knew what you meant. I was just hoping you’d reconsidered and given up on that idea.”
His long-legged stride slowed in the empty hallway. “You don’t think we should do it? You’ve decided Liam and Natalie aren’t being impulsive?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I think they should have a longer engagement. It’s just…” She glanced over at him furtively. There was no way she could tell Eric that it had begun to annoy her that he was so utterly confident Liam and Natalie were behaving foolishly just because they were head over heels in love. Why should it matter to her that he was a romance cynic? She was usually so easygoing when it came to other people. Why did she have this overwhelming need to contradict everything Eric said?
“Never mind,” Colleen said with a sigh, pausing in the empty hallway and facing him. “What were you planning?”
“Nothing major.” He glanced to his right when a gray-haired man wearing a lab coat stepped out of one of the rooms. Eric and the other doctor greeted each other, and Eric turned to a door and opened it. Colleen realized belatedly they were in his office hallway.
“Come inside for a second, and I’ll explain what I had in mind,” he said, beckoning her into his office. He said it so casually, she was sure her sudden hesitance was pure paranoia. His manner had been nothing but agreeable and platonic ever since he’d pulled her out of Sultan’s. He hadn’t released her hand until they reached the street, and Colleen swore she could still feel the imprint of his fingers on her skin nearly half an hour later.
He removed his jacket and hung it on a coat tree near the door, the muscles beneath his shirt flexing in a distracting manner. Colleen blinked and trained her gaze on his profile.
“Well?” she prodded.
He took a step toward her, and Colleen resisted an urge to back away. Surely they weren’t as close as it seemed. Eric just seemed to take up a lot of space in a room…or in her awareness, one of the two, she thought irritably.
“I was just going to put a few people on my list that might…highlight the relevant issue at the engagement party, that’s all. And I thought you could put the other member of the unhappy couple on your list and—”
“Great. Our engagement party will look like an episode of the Jerry Springer Show.”
He laughed, the sound striking her as deep, rich and unrestrained. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, instinctively defending herself. There was at least one woman in Harbor Town who wasn’t going to turn to goo in the face of Eric’s dark good looks and potent charm.
“It won’t be that bad. I promise,” he said, still grinning, his teeth appearing extra white next to his skin.
“Who did you have in mind to invite?” she asked curiously.
He mentioned two divorced couples they both knew. Her eyebrows arched in grudging respect at his choices.