The Liar

“An old bench, maybe a rocking chair. You could sit and rock and look out at the gardens you worked so hard planting.”

“I’m planting gardens?”

“With a wisteria arbor in my imagination, those pretty weepers.” She dried her hands after wiping up his cooktop. “I had a wonderful time. I don’t just mean . . . well, I wouldn’t want to leave out the tour of the second floor.”

He slid his arms around her waist. “I’ve still got a lot to show you.”

She let herself melt in, just sink into the kiss. And pulled back with real regret. “I really have to go.”

“Okay, but you’re going to come back for the rest of that tour.”

“I don’t think I could resist it.”

She picked up her purse; he plucked keys out of a dish on the counter.

“Oh, are you going out?” she asked as they walked to the front door.

“Sure. I’m following you home.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly. I’m following you home. Argue if you want, I’m still doing it. The woman who threatened you was shot less than a week ago right outside where you were working. You’re not driving home alone after dark.”

“I can’t stop you from trailing me all the way home, then doubling back, but it’s silly.”

“Either way.” He tugged her back for a kiss, then walked to his truck while she walked to her van.

Silly, she thought again, but sweet, too. He was just racking up all sorts of points.

Lord, she hadn’t thought of the point system in years. She and Emma Kate had devised it in high school. Amusing herself, she began counting up Griff’s.

Good-looking, scale of one to ten. She’d definitely give him a ten, she decided, and didn’t think she was pushing the mark.

Conversation skills. Another ten there. He knew how to talk, how to listen.

Humor. Another winner. She made the turn onto the road, watched his headlights follow.

Considerate. Maybe even a little too much, such as wasting his time following her home on roads she’d traveled all her life.

Good kisser. Right off the scale. She rolled her window down, let the air cool the heat just thinking of it brought on. She could honestly say she’d never been kissed better.

What were the rest of the requirements for the perfect boyfriend? She must have them written down somewhere. They’d made them up before either one of them had had sex, so that hadn’t been on the list.

The adult Shelby list would include it, and he’d top that scale, too.

She took the back roads, automatically skirting the town, taking the winding path, with Griff’s headlights not far behind.

And all right, they made her smile. It wasn’t such a bad thing to let someone look after her, just a little. As long as she remembered she needed to be in charge of her own life, and Callie’s.

She pulled into the drive, noted her parents’ bedroom lights were still on. When she got out, she thought she’d wave Griff off, but he was already getting out of his truck.

“You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

“Sure I do. That’s how it’s done. And if I don’t walk you to the door, how am I going to kiss you good night?”

“I like the second part. The first time I was kissed at this front door, I was fifteen, and Silas Nash—a descendant of the infamous Nash clan—gave me one that had me floating through the door and dreaming of him half the night.”

“I can beat that,” Griff said after a moment. “I can beat some teenager named Silas.”

“He’s getting his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law.”

“I can definitely beat a lawyer,” Griff claimed, and to Shelby’s mind, proved it.

“I guess I’m going to float upstairs and dream about you.”

“All night.” He gathered her hair into his fist, kissed her again until the world spun around her. “I’m not settling for half.”

“Good night, Griffin.”

“’Night.”

He waited until the door shut, walked back to the truck. He’d do some dreaming of his own tonight, he thought. The woman had him wrapped. Everything about her struck home for him.

He glanced up, imagined her going in to check on Callie. And thinking of him, she’d better be thinking of him, when she undressed for bed.

He’d sure as hell be thinking of her.

He pulled out, and as she had, took the back roads.

No hurry, a lot to think about. Plans to make.

He had a pizza date with a pretty little girl to think about, and a picnic with her and her mother to look forward to.

Maybe he’d pick up a bottle of champagne, give the picnic a classy, unexpected edge.

He glanced in the rearview at the headlights behind him, and since he’d been dawdling, picked up the speed a little.

Apparently not enough, he thought, as the headlights beamed closer. He waited for the truck—he could see it was a truck now—to pass since it was in such a damn hurry.

Instead it rammed him from behind hard enough to slap him against the steering wheel and back.

Instinctively he hit the gas. He thought of the phone he’d put, as always, in the cup holder, but didn’t want to risk taking a hand off the wheel.