Free Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) by Christi Barth

And hoped it’d be enough for Zane to take the hint and pull a U-ey right back down the path.
    “What’s wrong with you?”
    “Nothing,” Ward snapped back, but with less heat. He didn’t have to turn his head to know that Zane’s gaze was boring a hole in him. And that his uber-curious friend wouldn’t let up until he wormed out at least
an
answer. Zane’s addiction to knowing things, to knowing everything possible, really bordered on a disease.
    Zane stretched out his legs in grey sweats with
Hobart
in its signature bright orange down the side. “Did your plan to get Piper to date you backfire?”
    Giving in to the inevitable, Ward sighed. “Worse.”
    “What could be worse?”
    “She agreed to it.” Rubbing a hand across the scruff on his jaw, he amended the statement. “Sort of. She’s thinking it over for two days, but if Piper doesn’t say no right off the bat, then it’s a done deal.”
    The hoot of Zane’s laughter echoed loudly off the still dark water. “And that’s a bad thing? That’s what’s got you biting my head off like it was a jelly donut?”
    “Yeah.” What was that old saying? Be careful what you wish for, in case you get it? Ward had never wished so hard for anything in his life as the miracle of another shot at Piper. And getting it? Brought its own horrible set of problems. “‘Cause now I have to actually date her. Now I have the second chance I always wanted.”
    Zane cocked his head to the side, considering. Then he gave a dismissive shake. “Still not hearing the downside.”
    How could a guy with more degrees than Ward had pairs of jeans be so oblivious? Fine. He’d spell it out for the professor. “I don’t have a
plan
for how to do it. My whole plan, the whole damn thing, was getting her to agree to go out with me again. That’s it. I took the long shot, and now I don’t have any idea what to do next.”
    Twisting sideways, Zane put his elbow on his thigh and propped his head on his palm. “I’m not going to laugh at you now, because I can tell you’re in a bad mood. So I’m going to talk you through it. But just know that by the time I get to breakfast, I’m going to be laughing my ass off over this.”
    Fair enough. He’d probably do the same. Eventually. If it worked. “Got it.”
    “Can I ask you something?”
    For the love of—”Can I get you to leave me in peace to wallow any other way?”
    “Nope.”
    “Then go ahead.” Ward liked Zane, who didn’t deserve the craptastic attitude he’d fired at the professor. More important, Ward was just desperate enough to grab with both hands at any opportunity to delay trying to think up something better to write in the journal. “Shoot.”
    “I’ve got an impressive dating record. I’ve dated women in something like—” Zane paused to stare up at the canopy of trees and count on his fingers “—oh, maybe fourteen different countries.”
    Totally cheating. Zane’s work as a cult expert took him all over the world. If Ward had ever been to fourteen countries—or even four—he’d be able to make the same claim. Probably double whatever the professor notched off on his belt too. “Did you date them or just talk them into bed?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Definitely.” Ward flashed back to their kiss in Piper’s office.
Flash
was right. They’d gone from zero to flashpoint in a single breath. Their chemistry wasn’t just still there. It had jacked up about a thousand percent. Getting her into bed would be easy, if that was his only goal. But short-term sex wasn’t what he wanted. Wasn’t
all
he wanted, anyway. “I don’t want advice on how to get her to hook up. I need to date her. Continuously. Make her fall for me all over again.”
    “You need to woo the fair lady. Court her.”
    It was Ward’s turn to bark out a laugh. “There’s got to be a word for it that doesn’t sound like I’ll have to sit on a horse wielding a sword. But, yeah.”
    Zane bowed from the waist and did some