Footloose

“You were the other night when I was—”

“Smashed,” he finished for her. “One-time thing. Everyone lives by their own set of rules. One of mine is to maximize whatever gets thrown at you. I’m a bastard.”

Amelia digested that. He was an odd mix. He seemed laid-back. And not. She couldn’t tell if he was a con man or a mooch. “Does that mean I shouldn’t count on you if I drink too many hurricanes again?”

“I would get you home, but we might take a side-trip first,” he said in a breezy voice with just a hint of sexy undertone.

Her stomach tightened at the warning. She looked at his large hands, one on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift. The wind ruffled his dark hair and whipped at his shirt. His shoulders were broad and his pecs and biceps bulged from some kind of exercise. His abdomen was flat, his legs long. His thighs looked strong. Her gaze strayed higher and she looked away, embarrassed at the direction of her thoughts.

He was a hottie, so why had he approached her? She couldn’t squelch her curiosity.

“There were at least a half-dozen females at that tiki bar who looked available and very attractive,” she said. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t approach them.” She paused. “Or maybe you did, and I just didn’t notice.”

He laughed. “No. I told you before that I approached you because you were the most interesting looking woman in the room.”

Interesting looking. She narrowed her eyes. That could be a compliment. Or not. “Is that like ‘quite a woman’?”

“No. You didn’t look like the rest of the women there.”

“They were tanned, beautiful and very thin,” she said stiffly.

“You looked real and pretty. And I wondered what you were writing on that napkin.”

“Well, now you know. The list,” she said.

He nodded. “Have you added to it?”

“No,” she said, feeling guilty and wimpy.

“Maybe you need a jump-start.”

Amelia adjusted her sunglasses and felt another little leap of nerves in her belly. She suspected Jack wasn’t the kind of man to provide just a little jump-start. He seemed more like a walking detonator. “Maybe,” she said tentatively.

“I could make a lot of suggestions,” he said in a wry, sexy tone. “But this is more about what you want. So, what do you want, Magnolia?”

Magnolia? She paused for a long moment and sighed. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. The list is about experimentation.”

“I don’t really like to experiment unless it’s connected with my job.”

“So you want to just keep doing what you’ve always done? You don’t need a list for that.”

The prospect of being stuck in her current position forever made her want to scream. “No. You’re right. I need to experiment. But I don’t know how to start.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sky dive?”

Her stomach clenched. “That’s a little drastic, but parasailing looks interesting.”

“Put it on your list. What else?”

“I’ve always wanted to sit in the front row at a concert,” she admitted.

“Any group in particular?” he asked.

“I’m flexible.”

“Write it down. Want to climb a mountain?”

“No, that’s a guy thing. But I always wondered what it would be like to be someone totally different than me.”

“So you’d like to switch identities,” he said.

“Not forever.”

“For a day.” He grinned. “Write it down.”

“But how could I do that?”

“Make up a person you’d like to be. Dress like her, talk like her, eat like her. Do whatever she would do that day. It’s just an expanded version of Halloween.”

“You probably think I’m nuts,” she said.

“Nah. It’s fun being part of your evolution.”

“What about your own evolution?”

“I’m way past you. I know what I want.”

“And that is?”

“To limit my commitments, always be ready to take the next step and not waste time looking back.”

“That sounds a little cold. You never look back?”

“Only when it’s profitable,” he said with that razor grin. “I heard a football analogy that you can only make one play at a time. If you’re thinking about an earlier play or a future play, then you’re not focusing on what you need to do now.”

“Hmm. Did you play football?”

He shook his head. “Not enough money as a kid for me to do anything but work after school. My mother wasn’t exactly a wise financial planner.”

“And your dad?”

“Wasn’t around,” he said. “Let me guess your family situation. Mom and Dad sat down with the kids for dinner every night. You took a family vacation in the summer, visited grandparents at Christmas and you lived in the same house growing up.”

His accuracy irritated her. Was she that transparent? That predictable? “My father wasn’t at dinner every night because he worked out of town sometimes. Sometimes my grandparents would visit us. We moved once,” she said.

“Bet you had some kind of music lessons, too,” he said.