Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

When she did, he saw that she was still wearing her mirrored aviators, because, standing in a line inside a coffeehouse, why would she take them off when she killed it by wearing them?

That was, she killed it until she took them off, something she did when she caught sight of him.

Slowly, she lifted one of those amazing hands and removed them from her face only to shove them in her gleaming mound of hair.

Christ, he was jealous of a pair of shades.

Her made-up eyes—including false eyelashes, in the middle of the day, at a coffeehouse in Prescott, Arizona—traveled the length of him, and he was pretty sure when she started, she was going for disdain.

If that was what she was going for, she failed spectacularly.

Because every inch of him her eyes moved along, which was all of him, felt like it was getting a physical touch.

Or a taste.

One she savored.

Judge savored it too.

Big time.

She seemed to jolt herself out of it, and when she began to turn as if to dismiss him, Judge had to intervene.

Obviously.

“Yo,” he called.

She stopped turning and glared at his face.

“How’s it going, babe?” he asked like they were friends. “Today a better day for you?”

Her mouth, which was artfully coated with a slick raspberry color, dropped open.

“You get those boots you needed?” he pressed.

“You’re a jackass,” she returned.

The two people between them looked at her, at him, and then their bodies shifted a little out of the way.

Though it was Wild Iris. They didn’t shift so much that it would shift them out of the line.

He smiled at her.

Her eyes narrowed on his smile.

“And yes,” she stated haughtily, that cute nose of hers lifting a hint further up in the air. “I got exactly what I needed for myself and my mother. So that associate you were so worried about my overworking made his commission. Splendidly.”

Splendidly.

Did any warm-blooded American girl under the age of eighty say the word “splendidly?”

He didn’t ask after that.

“Staff don’t get paid commissions,” he shared. “They’re paid a living wage. Commissions breed competition and pushy salesmanship, which makes customers uncomfortable.”

He knew she wanted to, but she didn’t hide the fact she was interested in that tidbit.

“Though, thanks. Any little bit helps,” he went on.

As he knew it would, this comment completely offended her.

“I bought two pairs of Frye riding boots. It was hardly ‘any little bit,’” she huffed.

“You wanna go back there and, like…talk to him?” the woman behind her suggested, and it made Judge chuckle, because she didn’t offer for Judge to come forward and be in line with the brunette.

No one wanted to wait longer for their coffee, not ever, but especially not at Wild Iris.

And he kept chuckling when this suggestion put the brunette on the spot because it was rude to talk through people. However, it would also appear rude to turn her back on Judge in the middle of a conversation.

She struggled with this a beat, shuffling forward in line while she did. They all followed. Then she inclined her head to the patron and moved to Judge.

Judge was not unaware that this decision made him really fucking happy.

Too happy for his peace of mind.

Yeah, he had that conflicting thought.

Because the happiness involved her.

She stopped at his side.

Same perfume.

Awesome graphic tee that had lines on the material that made up the back of a seated tiger.

A tee he’d seen somewhere before.

His eyes moved from her shirt to her face.

“You into wildlife conservation?” he murmured.

“No, I’m into very long fur coats, preferably made of baby seals, and bunnies used for cosmetic testing.”

She was totally lying, and not only because Judge knew you got that tee for a donation to the WWF.

So either she was into doing something, or someone she knew was, and she got the spoils.

It might be door number two.

But he hoped it wasn’t.

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed.

The line moved again, she turned to face forward, and they shuffled with it.

“What’s your name?” he asked something at that point he pretty much needed to know.

She looked up at him. “Judy Jetson.”

Of course he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

Christ, this woman was the shit.

He chuckled again. “That’s not it.”

“Pebbles Flintstone?” she asked, like he could confirm.

He shook his head.

She kept at it. “Ginger Grant.”

“I think we’re getting closer.”

She rolled her eyes and again faced forward.

“What’s your name, doll?” he pushed.

She tilted just her eyes up to him.

Mm-hmm.

He was getting the middle-of-the-afternoon fake eyelashes.

They absolutely worked.

“Chloe,” she told him.

Chloe.

Perfect.

She was totally a Chloe.

“Chloe?” he said. “That’s all I get?”

“We’re not doing this, you know,” she declared.

“Doing what?” he asked.

She waved a hand between them. “This. You’re going to work for Duncan and I’m going to be Duncan’s friend and never the twain shall meet.”

“I didn’t ask you to marry me,” he pointed out.

The mess of hair on top of her head swayed with her reaction to his words and she suddenly became very focused on the line in front of them.