Almost A Honeymoon

“He likes you, that’s obvious. There’s no way I’m leaving you with someone you can wrap around your little finger. You’d have him out sight-seeing by tomorrow. We can’t take that chance.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Like hell you wouldn’t.”

She frowned. “Well, maybe I would. But I’d be really, really careful.”

“There’s no such thing in this situation.”

Paige pushed herself out of the chair and moved to the refrigerator. She pulled out two bottles of spring water, held one up to Rye in question, then passed it to him and opened her own. “I can’t believe I got myself into this mess. It seems so...so like a B movie.”

“Even his name’s a cliché,” Rye commented. “Joey Falcon.”

The same thought had occurred to her more than once, but she bristled at his rubbing it in. “That’s interesting. That was my impression of you at the airport.”

“What was?”

“That you were a walking cliché, with your black leather jacket and everything.”

“Black is unobtrusive. Am I supposed to wear camouflage?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You seemed pretty interested in me, cliché or no.”

“I was not.”

“You weren’t checking out every inch of me by the baggage carousel?”

His self-assuredness irritated her enough to circumvent any embarrassment at having been caught surveying him. “I noticed you because I recognized you from the plane. And because you stood motionless when everyone else was working the kinks out after the flight. And because you seemed so fascinated with the woman in the red minidress.”