Free Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) by Tracey Alvarez Page B

fun.”
    “Oh, I know how to have fun.” He closed the gap b etween them and braced a palm against the door jamb.
    She sniffed and arched a brow. “I mean fun that doesn’t involve the kinds of things men like you think is fun.”
    “Beer, sports, and sex?”
    “Precisely.” She placed one small palm on his chest and shoved him out of her doorway. “Now stop flirting, and go swim with the sharks.”
    She shut the door in his face.
    The brief warmth of her hand against his tee shirt sizzled through his skin and he grinned at the closed door. “Yes, Mistress Murphy.”
     
    ***
     
    Easter Monday, a “corker” of an autumn day accor ding to the locals, drew big crowds to the sports ground where the gala was held. Bunting strung overhead between staked poles flapped in the breeze, the bouncy castle’s eye-hemorrhaging yellow walls vibrated as kids leaped about like tiny lunatics, and someone had wrapped silver tinsel on the rugby goal posts. Ben squinted behind his wrap-around shades. Sparkles on a rugby field? Sacrilege.
    Thirty minutes later, he’d forked out twenty bucks on cotton candy, a hot dog, and for the kid to hurl a wet sponge at Ford’s grinning head—which she missed, b ecause Jade threw like a girl. Plus, he’d bought her an over-priced Angry Bird helium balloon that wouldn’t last the day.
    But even after all that, Jade still wasn’t smiling. Or having fun.
    Dammit.
    Muscles twitched across his shoulder blades, tigh tening to hard knots. The plan involved Kezia seeing Jade have a good time with him. To prove he was fun—prove he was loose .
    Ben raised a hand at West, who served home-brewed ginger beer and charmed Oban’s geriatrics with his barman banter. Closer to the goal posts, Shaye dabbed the last touches of paint to a boy’s red and black Sp iderman face. Zoe waved at them from in front of the face-paint booth. Shoving her balloon string into his palm, Jade took off.
    A quick-fire raffle wheel rattled like a machine gun as he followed her zigzagging path past giggling tee nagers, and Betsy Taylor’s disciples arguing the merits of her Oban-famous banana cake. The crowd thinned, people swerving off for a cellophane bag of Russian fudge, or to barter for some useless junk at the White Elephant booth.
    He glanced to his left and tensed. Kezia. Mouth dry, he stared. She wore a pretty yellow dress with a matc hing ribbon taming her curls.
    Tension of a different kind wired through his body. For a moment, he stood anchored to the mown grass beneath his feet. People brushed past, laughter and whoops and chaos swirled around him. Kezia tilted her head at something Jade said and laughed. Even among all the other voices, her smoky laugh electrified him. A shaft of midmorning sunshine fell on her, making her glow…making her look like a beautiful sunbeam.
    Holy shit. Comparing a woman to sunbeams? He may as well turn in his man-card. Pronto.
    He shook off the weird sensation and strode across the grass.
    “Nice balloon,” she said when he reached her. “It suits you.”
    He blinked at the red face of Jade’s Angry Bird ba lloon trailing behind him. Ah. He’d probably scowled at her the whole way over. He hadn’t meant to—but his default expression leaned to the morose rather than the moronically cheerful.
    “Red’s more your color, Kez.”
    She smiled at him, dark eyes creasing to long-lashed slits as the sun blinded her. Ben pulled off his sunglas ses and slipped them onto her face.
    “Thanks,” she said. “I forgot mine.”
    “Now you can look mysterious, rather than cute-as-a-button.”
    “A look all women aspire to.” Her lips curved, e xposing her straight, white teeth. “Having a good time?”
    Ben caught Jade’s eye and forced his mouth into a smile. “Having a great time, aren’t we?”
    Jade stood with one hip cocked and her arm linked with Zoe’s. “I guess.”
    “Mamma, can Jade and I have a pony ride?” Zoe bounced on her toes.
    “Of course.” Kezia glanced