“You’ll be as big as they are pretty soon,” he told her. “Then they won’t be able to push you around.”
“Sorry.” Sighing, the woman picked her daughter up. “It’s been a long trip. Scotty, you’re going to sit on your hands for the next ten miles.”
When Jacob turned to leave, the little girl was smiling at him. And so, he noted, was Sunny.
“Are you talking to me again?” he asked as they walked back to the car.
“No.” She tugged on her gloves as she sat in the driver’s seat. It would have been easier to go on hating him if he hadn’t been so sweet with the little girl. “I’m a great deal harder to charm than a three-year-old.”
“We could try a neutral subject.”
She turned on the engine. “We don’t have any neutral subjects.”
She had him there. He lapsed into silence again as she merged with traffic. But he could have kissed her when she turned into those golden arches.
She followed a sign that said
He started to ask for a McGalaxy Burger and a large order of laser rings, but he didn’t see either on the menu. Once again he put his fate in her hands. “Two of whatever you’re having.” Because he couldn’t resist, he toyed with the hair at the back of her neck.
Annoyed, she shook his fingers off. She spoke into the intercom, listened for the total, then joined the line of cars waiting to be served. “We’ll make better time if we eat while we drive.”
They inched forward. “Are we in a hurry?”
“I don’t like to waste time.”
Neither did he, and he wasn’t sure how much more they had together. “Sunny?”
No response.
“I love you.”
Her foot slipped off the clutch. Her other slammed the brake pedal when the Land Rover stalled. The car was still rocking as she turned to gape at him. “What?”
“I said I love you.” It didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would. In fact, it felt good: Very good. “I figured we might as well have it out in the open.”
“Oh.” As responses went, it wasn’t her best. But she was staring straight ahead into the rear window of the car in front. There was a stuffed cat suction-cupped to the glass. It was grinning at her. The car behind her gave an impatient beep of the horn and had her fumbling with the ignition key. Rattled, she pulled up to the service window.
“Is that all you can say?” Annoyance colored his tone as she turned to blink at him. “Just ‘Oh’?”
“I . . . I’m not sure what . . .”
“That’ll be $12.75,” the boy shouted through the window as he held out white paper bags.
“What?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s $12.75. Come on, lady.”
“Sorry.” She took the bags, dumped them in Jacob’s lap. Even as he swore at her, she dug out a twenty and passed it to the boy. Without waiting for her change, she pulled into the first available parking space and stopped the car.
“I think you singed my—”
“Sorry,” she snapped, cutting him off. Because she felt like a fool, she rounded on him. “It’s your own fault, Mr. Romance, dropping something like that on me while I’m stuck in a line of cars at a fast-food drive-in. What did you expect me to do, throw myself in your arms while they were adding on the pickles?”
“I never know what the hell to expect from you.” He reached into the bag, brought out a foil-wrapped burger and tossed it to her.
“From me?” She unwrapped the burger and took a huge bite. It did nothing to ease the fluttering of her stomach. “From me? You’re the one who started this, Hornblower. One minute you’re snapping my head off, the next you’re telling me you love me, and then you’re throwing me a cheeseburger.”
“Just shut up and eat.” He shoved a paper cup into her hand.
He’d bite off his tongue before he’d say it to her again. He didn’t know what had come over him. Gasoline fumes, undoubtedly. No man in his right mind could fall in love with such an obstinate woman. And—no help from her—he was still in his right mind.
“A few minutes ago you were begging me to talk to you,” she pointed out, sucking on her straw.
“I never beg.”
She turned then, eyes smoky. “You would if I wanted you to.”
He could have strangled her then, for saying what he realized was no more than the truth. “I thought we were going to drive while we ate.”
“I changed my mind,” she said tightly. The way her insides were shaking, she wasn’t sure she could navigate ten feet. She’d be damned if she’d let him know it. Since it wasn’t possible to kick him, due to their position, she simply turned and stared through the windshield.
She continued eating mechanically and cursed him for spoiling her appetite.
Imagine, telling her that he loved her while they were waiting for hamburgers. What style, what finesse. She tapped her fingers on the wheel and bit back a sigh. How incredibly sweet.
Cautious, she cast a sidelong look at him. His profile was set, his eyes were steely. She had seen him angrier, she supposed, but it was a close call. Something about the way he fumed in frustrated silence made her feel incredibly sentimental. Twenty years from now she would look back and smile over the way he had said those magic words the very first time.
She scrambled onto her knees and threw her arms around him. He gasped as cold liquid splashed on his knees. “Damn it, Sunny, you’ve spilled it all over me.”
He squirmed, then stilled when her mouth found his. He tasted her laughter on the tip of her tongue. Hampered by the gearshift, he struggled to drag her closer.
“Did you mean it?” she demanded, shoving what was left of their lunch aside.
No way was he going to let her off that easily. “Mean what?”
“What you said.”
He settled her awkwardly in his lap, making sure her bottom came in direct contact with his wet knees, “Which time?”
Her breath came out in a huff, but she curled her arms around his neck. “You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”
“I might have.” He worked his hands up under her coat but had to be content with the flannel of her shirt. “Or I might have been trying to start a conversation.”
She bit his lip. “Last chance, Hornblower. Did you mean it?”
“Yes.” God help them both. “Want to fight about it again?”
“No.” She rested her cheek against his. “No, I don’t want to fight. Not right now.” He felt her sigh move through her body. “It scared me.”
“That makes two of us.”
After pressing a kiss to his throat, she drew back. “It gets even scarier. I love you, too.”
He’d known it, and yet— And yet, hearing her say it, seeing her eyes as she spoke, watching her lips form the words, nothing could have prepared him for the force of feeling that poured into him. A waterfall of emotion. Tumbling through it, he pulled her mouth to his.
He couldn’t bring her close enough. It didn’t seem odd that they were huddled inside a car in a parking lot beside a busy street in broad daylight. Much odder was the fact that he was here at all, that he had found her, despite the centuries.
When he lived, she couldn’t go. When she lived, he couldn’t stay. And yet, in this small space of time, they were together.
Time was passing.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about this,” he murmured. There had to be a way, some equation, some theory. But what computer could analyze data that was so purely emotional?
“One day at a time, remember?” She drew back, smiling. “We’ve got plenty of time.” She hugged him close, and she didn’t see the trouble come into his eyes. “Speaking of which, we’ve got almost two hours before
