I’m trusting you, the look said.Don’t fuck this up.
Patrick nodded back.I won’t, sir.
Frank gave one slow nod, and the accord was struck.
Patrick helped her down the steps and opened the passenger door, waited until she was settled, then closed it and walked around to the driver’s side, feeling like a man who’d just won the lottery.
He was smiling before he’d started the engine.
The mountain road was dark and quiet, the sky a clear, deepening blue filled with stars.
“Thank you,” Morgan said, a few minutes into the drive.
“For what?”
“For this. For… everything.” She looked at her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this.”
His heart thumped as he reached over and gently took her hand in his, pleased when she didn’t protest. “I disagree. This is already the best date I’ve ever had.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Right.”
He smiled along with her, but he was one hundred percent serious. She was hiscroie, which made everything he did with her ten times more pleasurable. Dinner. Solving murder cases.Sex.
Especially the sex.
He shifted slightly in his seat, trying to discreetly adjust himself. Just thinking of their time together shot his desire up several notches.
He glanced at her. The dashboard light caught the line of her profile, the slight smile she was suppressing, the rosy tint to her cheeks. She was thinking about it too.
He returned his eyes to the road before he drove them into a ditch.
“Okay,” she said several moments later. “You said you’d tell me why. Start talking.”
His lips quirked. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re in the car.”
She waved her other hand. “So?”
“So,” he said with exaggerated patience as he stroked his thumb over hers, “I want to be looking at you when we have that conversation, and I can’t do that while I’m driving.”
“That bad, huh?” she murmured. “So this dinner is a way to soften me up? Because I have to tell you, I’m a firm believer in ripping off the band-aid quickly.”
He laughed. “I didn’t realize you were so impatient.”
“I’m not usually.”
He lifted their twined hands and pressed a kiss on her knuckles. “Just trust me, okay?”
She exhaled. “Fine. I… do.”
He knew. Because the fact that she was sitting there beside him looking like a goddess said more than words ever could.
He heardher quick intake of breath when the Celtic Goddess became visible. Built right into the mountain, it was an impressive sight, especially at night. Morgan’s eyes grew wider as they wound their way up to the columned entrance, taking in the way the white stone caught the light, the floor-to-ceiling glass with the warm glow of the dining room behind it, the mountains rising like dark sentinels behind it.
After handing his keys over to the valet, he put his hand lightly on the small of her back as they walked. She didn’t stiffen. If anything, she calmed.