“I just wanted to bring you something,” I say with a shrug as I slide the gift bag across the table. She squints at me and reaches inside, pulling out the phone in its shiny new box.
And then she frowns, putting it back inside, and pushing the bag back to me.
“I can’t take this.” Alex stands and starts collecting her notes and recipe books, refusing to meet my eye.
“Why not? I broke your last phone. This is kind of the least I could do.”
“No, the least you could do was nothing. This is more than nothing and it’s unnecessary. I can replace my own phone.” She shuffles the papers together in a messy pile, trying to tap them on the table.
“I know that—”
“I’m not some helpless little princess who needs you to take care of her.”
“I never said you were—”
“And if you think I’m going to fall into bed with you just because you look like…” She gestures up and down my body, “likethat, or buy me an expensive gift, you are sorely mistaken.”
“What? That is not at all what I—just—just take the phone.”
Her blue eyes flash with challenge, one eyebrow arched as she purses her lips at me. She leans forward, planting both hands on the table, and says the two words guaranteed to make me harder than a slab of granite.
“Make me.” She turns and storms back into the kitchen, that gorgeous ass teasing me. I glance around, only to realize that half the town saw that blow up in my face. The sheriff is smirking behind his coffee cup and the bingo club ladies are openly staring. I’d like to get out of here, but after thatstirringinteraction, I’m going to have to sit here for a couple of minutes or else I’m going to give the Bingo Biddies something else to speculate on.
3
Alex
Islam my recipes down in the office, making Willow jump in her seat. “Sorry. Bad morning.”
“I can see that,” she frowns. “What happened?”
“You’ve met the town doctor, right?”
Willow smirks. “Oh, yeah. Don’t bring him up in front of Connor. He gets jealous. Branson gave me a rabies vaccine when that bat scratched me. I think Connor is just grouchy Branson… poked me. In any sense of the word.” Her grin widens, and she winks at me.
“Well, is he always such a condescending douchebag?”
“Branson or Connor?” Willow laughs.
“The doctor. The man is a pain in my ass.” I rub my hand over my bruised tailbone and grimace.
“Literally, from the looks of it. Must have been some first date.”
I scowl at her. “You know, I think I liked you better when you were still all sweet and innocent.”
“No, you didn’t. Did he at least buy you a drink first?”
“No, but he just showed up in the dining room with a gift-wrapped phone.”
“The nerve,” she gasps in exaggerated horror.
“Can it, you. How fucking presumptuous do you have to be to assume a woman can’t buy her own phone?”
“What was wrong with your old phone?”
“We crashed into each other while I was talking on it. It smashed on the sidewalk. The only upside is that he got me out of talking to my mother.”
Willow purses her lips and holds up a finger as she tries not to laugh. “Hang on. I need to repeat this back to you, and I want you to really listen. You had a total Hallmark moment with the smoking hot town doctor, who later shows up with a replacement for the phone he broke… And for some reason, this constitutes a bad morning? Yeah, the universe is truly against you today.”