Drop Dead Gorgeous

“Paperwork?” Holly interjects. “Interesting.”

I pause, realizing this is going to go over like a fart in church when I explain. “I got in a tiny little fender bender, but I’m fine. More importantly, the other guy is fine too.”

I tilt my head toward Blake, inviting him to disagree. Sure, I downplayed the accident, but Blake seems ready to let it slide.

I also look for wood to touch again but still find none. I cross my fingers once more because though Blake Hale had looked good—too good, in fact—after the small accident, he looks even better now.

He’s wearing a button-up shirt, rolled up to show his forearms, and a silver watch and flat-front khakis with a dark brown belt, which could come off as bland business casual. But the fire in his eyes has me feeling warm and tingly in this icebox of a room.

I’m honestly glad he seems so vibrantly alive because I had a nightmare that he dropped dead of an aneurysm after leaving the accident scene. It’d bothered me so much that I actually searched the database to be sure that hadn’t happened.

But with the scowl he’s throwing my way, perhaps my relief was premature because I can see the way his heart is racing by the pulse in his neck beneath that jaw muscle that’s still working double-time.

It’d probably serve me right to have him die right here in front of me in my morgue. God, that story would make the rounds in an instant.

Despite whatever stare down moment Blake and I are having, Holly is having none of it. She not only stops spinning in my chair but leaps from it to come to my side and smack my ass.

“What the ever-loving actual fuck, Zoey? An accident? That is the sort of thing that requires an immediate phone call. Friend Code 101. Are you okay? Really okay?” She scans me from head to toe, looking for anything amiss as she lifts my left arm and then right, scalpel and all.

“I’m fine,” I say reassuringly as I shrug her off. Believing me, she whirls on Blake. “You’re that guy . . . ‘Call me, Blake Hale, today at (555) 917-LIFE.’ Aren’t you?”

“How do you know his number?” The words pop off my tongue before I even realize I’ve thought them.

Holly’s answering smile is pure evil, decadently reveling in whatever plot she’s cooking up. “His commercials, of course. Mr. Hale here is a life insurance guy, and you’re a death dealer.” She holds a hand up to stop the argument she knows is coming. I hate when she calls me that even if I’m the one who said it first during a drunken, tearful breakdown shortly after Grandpa died.

“You two are a match made in heaven if there ever were one. Especially considering the wreck didn’t kill him,” she adds sassily, knowing how touchy I am about my history from that same drunken conversation. Flipping back around as though she’s a tennis ref, she gives me her back and focuses on Blake once again. “I’m Holly, the bestest of the besties. So start talking, what paperwork?”

Blake has the good sense to look confused as hell by whatever he’s walked into. I’m not surprised. Holly has that effect on people. I do too. But the reminder about whatever brought him here draws his focus back to me. “You haven’t done the paperwork on the accident, so the county office is giving me the runaround about the claim. I need it done . . . now.”

I bristle at his bossy tone. “Kinda busy at the moment.” I wave my gloved hands around, gesturing to Chad.

Sorry, man. It’s not usually this crazy here.

All good, this is more interesting than what I’ve got going on now, anyway. If I could, I’d be munching on popcorn right now.

My brow quirks at Chad’s insolence.

Blake still isn’t put off, though. He crosses his arms over his chest, his feet stepped out wide. It’s almost a bar bouncer pose, meant to intimidate, except no one in the history of ever has been intimidating in khaki pants. I don’t think it’s humanly possible. Especially when you’re as attractive as Blake Hale is.

“I’ll wait until you’re done. Then you can do the paperwork.”

I can tell he thinks that’s a negotiation. Now versus when I’m done. “I have plans tonight. I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

A twitch breaks out over his right brow, and I have to fight pulling out a victory dance and singing off-key . . . get to it when I get to it, and newsflash, that’ll be never.

Fine, I will do it. If I don’t, the county motor pool manager is going to be on my ass. But I refuse to do it when Blake’s being all Bossy McBosserson, telling me what to do and when to do it. No, thank you. I’ve had plenty of guys—deputies, usually—try to tell me how to do my job as if they have a damn clue.