Taking the Heat (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 3)

She swept another nervous look over the room. “I don’t think we could. I’m wearing flip-flops.”

“I think that still counts. To make it official, we could go do something highbrow afterward. There’s a historical talk at the museum tonight. We might have missed it, though. Still, I bet some of the art galleries are open. We could go nod and murmur at the art.”

She watched him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed with thought. She cocked her head a little. Gabe tried to look sincere and patient, even though he felt like squirming. “Or we could get ice cream,” she finally said.

Hiking, enchiladas, ice cream. Maybe she was the perfect girl. Maybe he was in big trouble.

CHAPTER SEVEN

VERONICA WONDERED IF she could die from blushing. She hadn’t been lying when she’d called him beautiful. Or gorgeous. Or sweet. Gabe MacKenzie was a fucking dreamboat and she was on a date with him. An embarrassingly honest date.

They strolled down the boardwalk with their ice-cream cones and every time her shoulder brushed his arm, she blushed. It was dark now, at least. And probably too cold for ice cream, but she didn’t think that was why her nipples were hard.

God.

Maybe he’d been joking about the camping, but the idea intrigued her. What would that be like? To go camping with a hot guy? To be totally secluded in the pitch-black night, surrounded by wolves and bears and all sorts of terrifying things? Separate tents or not, surely she’d end up in his sleeping bag. She shivered at the idea of him touching her. She hardly knew him, but she liked the thought. It was strange, this awareness. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt like this before.

“I’ve been to sleepaway camp,” she blurted out. “I don’t want you to think I don’t have any experience.”

His cone drifted slowly down from his mouth. “I see. At sex?”

“No! What? I meant camping. Experience at camping!”

“Oh. Because sleepaway camp... I thought... I don’t know.” He grimaced and shook his head.

She thought she would blush again. Or die of embarrassment. But instead she laughed. Hard. “Wow. You’re a pervert.”

“I’m not! I was just thinking of...something else. And you were thinking about camping. And I assumed we were on the same topic. That’s all.”

Did he mean he’d been thinking about having sex with her? That was only fair, really. She’d been thinking about sex with him. After last night, it was the standard she’d set. The giant flashing sign she’d put down between them.

“Fine,” she finally said. “Thinking about sex doesn’t make you a pervert, but you also ordered butter-pecan ice cream. Clearly there’s something wrong with you.”

His face relaxed into a relieved smile. “There’s nothing wrong with butter pecan. Even so, that was only the first scoop. The second is chocolate. Surely that redeems me.”

“Maybe.” She finished her ice-cream cone and crossed her arms against the chill.

“So how did you end up back in Jackson?” he asked.

Veronica thought of all the reasons she’d given other people. That New York was too expensive. That she’d been offered a great opportunity as Dear Veronica. That she’d missed her dad. She sneaked a look at Gabe. He was frowning a little, waiting for her answer. He looked...sincere. And he didn’t love the city, either.

The dark gray mass of the truth was pushing at her chest, squeezing the life out of her. It felt as though she were there again, in the city, in her tiny room in her crappy apartment in her intimidating neighborhood.

“I hated New York,” she said, and it felt good to finally say it out loud.

“Oh,” he said, the word a little dark with shock. “Really? Why? Didn’t you say you’d wanted to live there for your whole life?”

“I did, but that was the New York from movies. The New York my mom and I used to talk about visiting. It was Breakfast at Tiffany’s and You’ve Got Mail and later Sex and the City. That’s not a real place.”

“Sure it is,” he said.

“I thought you weren’t a city boy,” she said, suddenly suspicious.

“I’m not!”

“Well, maybe you don’t remember what it’s like to live there. It felt like...a battle.”

He nodded. “I know it can be a rough place.”