Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

She did an eye roll and grumbled, “I suppose that’s fine.”

“I will point out, we got zero work done on Duncan and Tom’s promo.”

She became interested in looking anywhere but his face.

She’d been there, but he still ran it down.

“There was the ‘quick trip’ to Nordstrom shoe department that you and Tiffany had to make that lasted an hour.”

“Tiffany has an upcoming event.”

“Tiffany didn’t try on a single shoe. She only ordered the guy to get you fifteen pairs and you bought three of them.”

She emitted an irritated grunt which was also affirmation because that happened.

“Then we had to stop for coffee at that scary coffee place.”

“Cartel isn’t scary.”

“We walked in, and it was so silent, just us opening the door, I feared for my life the two dudes closest to it were going to beat us with their laptops.”

“You get your coffee there if you’re in Old Town,” she informed him haughtily. “And only there.”

He made no comment to that.

Instead, he noted, “Then we had to go by Sprouts.”

“I have to do my grocery shopping on the weekend. If I don’t, it won’t get done, and I won’t have fresh fruit or my weekly meat won’t get salted.”

“Which brings us to you ripping open all the meat when we got home and salting it.”

“You clearly don’t know how to cook,” she sniffed.

“Not as good as you, but even if you’re great at it, after the salting meat thing, you made me take you to The Gladly for one of their chopped salads.”

“I had a craving.”

“Which meant we had precious little time left and I made the executive decision to use it to make out.”

“You surely did not miss that I concurred with this decision.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I didn’t miss that. But I’m gonna go to the office tomorrow, and Duncan’s gonna ask where we’re at, and it’s really none of his business that you’re really sensitive behind your ears and when you don’t want to lose my mouth, you grab my lip with your teeth, and that’s as far as we got.”

“Please, don’t share that with Duncan,” she drawled.

Christ, she was something.

“Bottom line, are you coming up or am I coming back? And when that happens, what day is it gonna happen? And do not mention Saturday. That’s our official First Date Night. And you’re coming up to Prescott for that.”

“I can’t come up during the week, Judge, and I work the store on Saturdays.”

“Since you do, do you have a day off during the week?”

She shook her head against her toss pillow. “Not really. We do good turnover in sales at the store. But the shop is young. We’re still establishing clientele. I don’t have the resources to invest in a ton of associates. I need to fill in.”

“Right, then I’ll load up my dog, take some time out of my workday since it’s work we’re doing, and come up. Wednesday?”

Her eyes lit with excitement.

But her mouth uttered a chill, “Sure.”

“Are you more excited about me, or meeting my dog?”

“You, of course,” she said, making it sound like a lie, when with the way she kissed, and held on when she did, he knew it was not.

“And that’s a no on Saturday?” he went on.

“Can you come down?”

“I can’t get you drunk at the Meadery if you don’t come up.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Mead?”

“Trust me.”

“Is this casual?”

Obviously, she was an adventure girl too.

“Are you catatonic when you visit Prescott?”

She narrowed her eyes.

Then she said, “If it’s casual, I’ll be able to refresh my outfit easily. I can head up around four. Will that do?”

“Absolutely.”

He was smiling again when he bent to touch his lips to hers.

He had to be quick about it when he lifted his head because she followed.

“And no distractions on Wednesday,” he warned. “Work. Find a couple angles. Some messages. A hook. Something to present to them so we can start storyboarding and scripting.”

Her hand was making its way from his shoulder blade to his ass as she murmured, “Yes, we can do that.”

“Fuck it, I’ll just come down and we’ll make out all night,” he muttered, and bent his head to take her mouth again.

It got heated, his dick was stirring, so he ended it.

Chloe made a displeased noise.

Then her pretty eyes moved all over his face before looking into his.

“I need to stop it and take care of Dad.”

She probably did.

And a few days ago?

He thought it was incredibly sweet, her looking out for her father’s peace of mind.

But after their convo in the car, he was wondering why the fuck Duncan and Tom made this deal, and then Imogen and Duncan roped Chloe in.

Yes, Tom Pierce championing the program would raise the roof on awareness, likely get a ton more kids enrolled, and that always went hand in hand with donations. He was a huge score for the program.