Free Dirty Sexy Knitting by Christie Ridgway Page A

by a selection of scarves and belts. “We meet again.”
    He dropped the gossamer-weight chiffon he was fingering to pull the battered business card from his front pocket. “You didn’t tell me the other day that you worked at Ms. M.”
    “I own Ms. M.”
    “You didn’t tell me the other day that you own the shop that the card I carry advertises.”
    She kept her smile in place. “An oversight.”
    “Or an underestimation. You must underestimate me . Didn’t you figure I would venture into Santa Monica?” He wiggled the little piece of cardboard in front of her face. “The address is right here.”
    “I . . . I guess I didn’t think about it.” More like, she’d been praying he wouldn’t.
    He slid the card back into his pocket and crossed his arms over his chest. It was a wide chest, and she could see the outline of his pectoral muscles under the cotton knit of his shirt. She remembered sitting on his lap. She remembered leaning her head against that strong shoulder.
    She remembered how he’d made her weak and womanly, both things she couldn’t afford to feel.
    Given that she had those man issues. Especially those man-leaving issues.
    “You didn’t think I’d be curious as to why I’d be carrying this business card around Afghanistan?”
    “I don’t like to think about you in Afghanistan,” she confessed. Giving herself a mental jab, she hurried to the nearby counter to put a barrier between herself and the man who followed, his expression giving nothing away.
    “I’m trying to reconstruct the missing pieces of my life,” he said.
    She wouldn’t let him. At least not the pieces that involved her.
    “Marlys—”
    “You know my name.” Her head jerked up. “I didn’t introduce myself the other day.”
    His brows rose. “It’s right there.” His finger pointed to one of the two sets of business cards sitting on the counter. One small stack was the generic advertisement for the business—like the card in Dean’s pocket. The other was new. Last month she’d had different cards printed that included her name, which was convenient for handing out to vendors and special customers.
    “Oh. Yeah.” She blew out a breath between her lips. For a moment there, she’d thought his memory might have returned. Having Dean recall what she’d done was too damn close to reliving the event. She rubbed her upper arms with her palms as if she could wipe away the memory.
    “Cold?” His fingers reached toward her face.
    Marlys scuttled back. No way could she let him touch her again. Her elbow still remembered the grip of his hand from two days ago. Though it was months past, her mouth remembered every searing kiss they’d ever shared.
    Dean stared at her face. “There was something between us before,” he said, his voice certain.
    She made a face at him. “Why would you think that?”
    “Marlys . . .”
    The fact was, Marlys Weston was pretty. Maybe even beautiful. She knew that. And she was also short, which meant that she’d had more than her fair share of attention. Once she’d wandered through a Tall Singles Club barbecue at a nearby park and been accosted by an Amazon who demanded she stick with the height-challenged. But she couldn’t control who hit on her, and at twenty-five, she’d been hit on by dozens of men—the five-foot-one guys, the seven-foot-two types, the geeks, the gods, and every kind in between. She had the freeze down pat and she turned it on now, icing her gaze and her words and her attitude.
    “If there was something between us before,” Marlys stated, “ I certainly don’t recall it.”
    His eyes narrowed. “You—”
    “I love them,” interrupted the customer as she hurried from the dressing room to the cash register. “They fit just right.”
    Marlys took the jeans to ring up the sale, smiling because she saw that Dean was backing away. “I’m sure they’re fine.”
    She was, too—fine, and safe, now that the man was in retreat.
    Her customer took a glance