Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

And oddly, his lips were twitching like he thought something was amusing.

Kevin then looked to me. “Every viewpoint is unique. Rix could go, and he’d get one thing, but if you went with him, you might get another. I don’t think it’s an if, I think it’s a when we go out, we should do it in teams, so the team can bring back some kind of unified input that amalgamates as many viewpoints as we can get.”

Although this made sense, I opened my mouth to refute it.

But said nothing because Judge asked Rix, “When’s Frank say it’s good for you two to go out there?”

Oh no!

“He’s ready when we are, just wants a couple of days heads up so…” Rix turned to me. “You free Tuesday through Friday of next week? I think that’ll give us enough time to get what we need.”

Tuesday through…

Friday?

Four days on the road with Rix?

Before I could answer, Judge muttered, “Dad says he’s down to help wherever he can, I’ll see if his plane is free.”

Okay.

Wait.

Me and Rix alone on a private plane?

Alone together?

Then working together for four days straight?

Catastrophe!

“I don’t mean to put a wrench in the works.” I so did. “But it’s not environmentally conscious to use private planes, Judge.”

“You’re absolutely right, and we have a lot of money, though much of it we’ll be investing to endow programs, so no matter it seems like crazy money, we still need to take care of it and be frugal with its use. It’s weighing pros and cons, Alex, and for a single trip to Cali, where last minute flights will probably cost a whack, if Dad’s plane is available, I’m seeing the pros outweigh the cons.”

I wholeheartedly did not agree.

I didn’t agree with both of us having to go either.

I just couldn’t figure out how to communicate that since they were all very clever and therefore making their usual sense.

So I communicated something else to buy time.

“We may be able to give the director a heads up, but to make the most of our time out there, we have other interviews to set up too,” I pointed out. “I’m not sure we can have it all pulled together by Tuesday.”

“As invested as I am in setting up a coffeemaker in our temporary break area, I could hit Target and knock that out in less than an hour. The rest of the time between now and Tuesday, we could be working with Frank to sort our visit,” Rix replied.

We could be working with Frank to sort our visit.

We.

Our.

Someone tell me this wasn’t happening.

“Right, that’s a thing,” Judge decreed.

Oh my God.

It was happening.

“I’ll send my draft questionnaire to you all,” Judge went on. “Since Krista doesn’t start until the Monday after next, you’ve got until Thursday to get your input to me, so she can hit the ground running with that when she’s here. That gives you time to plan your schedule in California as well as feed back to me.” He grinned. “I’ll go out and get the coffeemaker.”

I stared at Judge, feeling horror, but hoping I was hiding it.

I then looked to Kevin, who seemed strangely very intent on studying the top of the folding table.

Finally, I forced my eyes to Rix.

He did a little upward jerk of his chin to me, which was ridiculously masculine and equally ridiculously attractive.

Okay, it was safe to say I wasn’t simply failing miserably at being collegial and chill around Rix.

I was in straight up panic mode because I was facing a lot of time having to be that with Rix (and undoubtedly failing).

With zero buffer.

In other words, I was screwed.

Chapter 4

The Plotting

Judge

Entering his house from the garage, Judge was not greeted at the door to his mudroom by his and Chloe’s two dogs.

This meant his woman was either cooking (something the dogs never missed), or out on the deck (something else the dogs never missed).

He didn’t smell anything, and since Chloe didn’t mess around when she cooked, so the house always smelled like a dream, he knew it was deck.

He headed there, walking up the steps then to the French doors off the living room.

He saw her outside. She was wearing a gray and white striped sundress, her long dark hair down in loose curls, white-framed sunglasses on her nose, a light, white wrap around her shoulders to hold back the early fall chill, and her long legs were stretched out with her bare feet perched high on the deck railing.

Her toenails were painted blood red.

Last, her elegant hand was swung out and rosé in a stylish wineglass was sparkling in the still bright sun.

Her fingernails were blood red as well.

She looked like she was chilling after traveling forward in time from a quick trip back to the fifties in order to bitch slap Ava Gardner.

She turned her head to look at him through the doors after the dogs went nuts when they clocked him, and he saw her lips curve up.