“Really?” Nick stopped in the middle of the path and looked at her as if she was the one asking inane questions. “What if there’s a dance emergency that can only be fixed by an earl dancing?”
That was Shaun of the Dead–level ridiculous—and just as funny. She didn’t bother to try to stop the laughter from bubbling out. “That’s highly improbable.”
“But not impossible.” He grinned at her. “Come on, loosen up a little and show me your moves.”
She looked around. The only living creature within sight was a trio of sheep. Her gaze landed back on Nick. Her heart fluttered. This was bad. This was unsettling. This was enough to make a tingling buzz vibrate through her. Oh, she was in so much trouble.
Nick stood there with his arms out in classic dance position, giving her an expectant look. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.”
There was no way she could ever say yes. “Fine.”
Before she could take it back, he was holding her in his arms. His hand was on the small of her back, gently leading her as they swayed and twirled to the sound of absolutely nothing—not that she would have heard music anyway, considering how loud her pulse was thundering in her ears. And yet even with that, she couldn’t help but take in everything about him at that moment. The way her head fit tucked under his chin. The feel of his cotton T-shirt against her cheek. The way every nerve ending in her body seemed to stretch toward him. It was nearly overwhelming. Then she opened her eyes and looked up to find him staring down at her. Her breath caught. His gaze went to her mouth. The urge to raise herself up on her tiptoes and kiss him ran through her like a runaway train. It was bone-deep and so very needy. And that’s what jerked her back to reality.
He was the earl’s heir. She was the earl’s secretary. This couldn’t be. Ever.
Nerves jangly, she stepped back, breaking the connection and feeling as if she’d just gotten done running a marathon without ever doing more than dancing without music. Hands tingly, she smoothed her palms down her sensible skirt and dug deep for her usual icy restraint.
She cleared her throat and looked at a spot a few centimeters to the left of Nick’s face. “I do believe Bowhaven will be safe if there is a dance emergency.”
“That’s almost a compliment,” he said, his own voice a little rougher than normal.
Good Lord. Someone had to keep their head straight here and it looked to be her. “I like to keep you on your toes.” There, that sounded almost normal.
“That you do.” He fell into step beside her as they continued on the path toward Bowhaven. “So tell me again about this pigeon race you want to have here.”
“It would bring in tourism dollars to Bowhaven and the surrounding area—at least for a few days as a temporary economic boost.”
“And no one is going for it?”
She let out a sigh as they turned the corner around the old stone church. “It’s a case of being too pushy—the same reason why Brian Kemp wants me to be a member of the flower committee not the village council.” Well, one of them.
“The flower committee?” Nick asked, picking a yellow wildflower from among those dotting the side of the path and handing it to her.
Their fingers brushed as she accepted it, setting off her pulse again. At this rate, she was starting to get all her cardio just by being near him. Ridiculous. “The flower committee puts up the baskets of flowers on the lampposts on the high street, when what I want is to be on the village council.”
Too bad she could never really shake the stink of scandal in the small village. Everyone in Bowhaven may have closed ranks when the reporters had shown up, but no one had forgotten. That it wasn’t her fault didn’t matter. She was tainted and pushy and that meant she wasn’t the right kind of person for the council. Her shoulders sank with the reminder that unless she could prove herself with something big, she’d never win them over.
Nick stopped, reaching out and tugging her to a halt beside him. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so they were face-to-face. “They’re fools.”
The fierceness with which he said those two words was enough to put the steel back in her spine. “You think so, do you?”
“As would anyone with half a brain.” He squeezed her shoulders, intensity burning in his eyes. “If you got me to fly across the ocean, I believe you can do just about anything you set your mind to.”
He wasn’t wrong. She had done that. Maybe Bowhaven just hadn’t been ready for her pigeon racing idea. Maybe she needed to find a new idea, something they wouldn’t be able to miss out on. Pint-half-full optimism returned to normal, she smiled up at Nick. It was a weird feeling, this sense that she wasn’t the only one who had out-of-the-box ideas that seemed a little bit odd at first but would eventually work out. They definitely had that in common, if nothing other than an attraction that buzzed in the background of every conversation and encounter. There it was right now, an almost tactile vibration in the air that danced between them.
Oh, that was not going to do. Pull it together, Brooke.
Jittery all of the sudden, she pulled away from his touch and started at a fast clip back on the path that was now in the old church’s shadow. “So this church has been here longer than Dallinger Park and some say longer than Bowhaven itself, but that’s in dispute.”
Thanks to those muscular legs of his, Nick didn’t have any trouble catching up with her. “Are you changing the subject on me?”
“Absolutely.” She nodded, keeping her attention focused on the gray stone church—at least as much as that was possible with him beside her. “And it’s not polite to remark upon it.”
“You’re determined to turn me into an earl, aren’t you?”
“Without a doubt.”
It was the best thing for Bowhaven, even if that meant these little jaunts would come to an end sooner rather than later—something she hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d miss.