Free Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel by Lori Wilde Page B

buddy.” She struck a pugilist stance, fear deepening in her eyes, and held up a clenched fist.
    He stopped, confused. Talk about mixed messages. This woman was full of them. “Isn’t that why you came up here wearing cheetah print?”
    She gasped, looked horrified. “No!”
    “The scarf isn’t an invitation to—”
    “Absolutely not!”
    Canting his head, he scratched his temple. “Okay. Then why did you come here?”
    “To apply for the job as your ghostwriter.”
    That was the last thing he’d expected her to say. She looked as if she was barely out of high school. “Really?”
    “In hindsight this was a terrible idea. Forget you ever saw me.”
    That would mean forgetting he kissed her, and there was no way he was going to forget that. “No, let’s go ahead with an interview.”
    “I changed my mind.” She backpedaled toward the door. “I don’t want the job. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”
    “Wait.” He sprang to grab for her shoulder, feeling crazy desperate to detain her and properly apologize for the gaffe of assuming she’d come here for a hookup. But she was moving so fast that he caught hold of the cheetah scarf fluttering over her shoulder instead.
    The scarf was the softest damn material he’d ever touched in his life.
    She spun back toward him, panic flaring her green eyes. “Let go!”
    But he’d already raised his palms, and stepped off. “It’s okay. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
    She pitched him a look that said, You dumbass. “I didn’t think you were going to harm me.”
    “What is it then?”
    She glanced down, and they both stared at a fat chocolate stain on her blouse right between her breasts. “I didn’t want you to see what a big klutz I am.”
    “What happened?” He softened his voice, making sure she understood he was not a threat.
    She sighed, gazed mournfully at the ceiling. “Dairy Queen dipped cone.”
    “Hey.” He snapped his fingers. “I love those things.”
    “Really?” A timid smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “Me too. Aren’t they the best?”
    They grinned at each other, and then she glanced away, crossing her arms over her chest, and shifting from foot to foot.
    He searched for something to say to take the awkwardness out of the room. “What’s that scarf made out of, by the way?”
    She eyed him as if he was a stranger who’d come knocking on her front door at three in the morning with a flat tire and a dead cell battery story, asking to use her phone. “Does it feel soft to you?”
    “It doesn’t feel soft to you?”
    “Yes, it feels soft to me, but everyone else says it’s rough and scratchy.”
    “It’s the softest material I’ve ever touched,” he said.
    “I know, right?” But her skin took on a greenish hue as if she might throw up, and she whispered something strange. “One soft touch identifies the other.”
    “What?”
    The greenish hue paled into sickly yellow. “Nothing.”
    “Are you all right?”
    Her lips barely parted, and she blew out a thin, reedy breath as the color slowly returned to her face. “I . . . I just can’t believe you feel it too, and no one else does.”
    “In sync.” He winked, trying to make her feel more at ease. “Obviously, we’re much more kinesthetic than most people.”
    “No.” Rapidly, she batted her head back and forth.
    For some bizarro reason her shake of denial sent a knot of dread bouncing around his insides like a pinball careening off frantic flippers before the feeling finally landed, and lodged, behind his kneecaps. “You make it sound like you’d rather poke your eye out with a bamboo skewer than have something in common with me.”
    “It’s not that—”
    “What is it?”
    “Something ridiculous.” She let her head fall back, rolled it from side to side as if to ease knotted neck muscles. “Forget I said anything.”
    “C’mon.” He wanted to lean in closer, but something told him that