Page 177 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

She speaks first. “It’s a business deal I’m working on.”

Henley makes this announcement as she twists her body in the front seat so she can pet Roger in the back.

“You and Roger have a business deal?” I ask, since two-plus-two isn’t equaling four.

“No. The thing that’s going on with me. The thing that distracts me,” she says as we return to the conversation we had before the Monkey Mayday Call.

“The reason I kept checking my phone. The reason I left you last night to meet with John. I have to keep it totally quiet or it could fall apart. I’m sorry if I’m distracted.

I’m not supposed to be saying a word, but I can tell it drives you crazy. So I wanted you to know.”

She must be working the biz dev angle hard, wheeling and dealing and lining up new clients. She’s got the skills under the hood, but I bet she’s damn fine at luring new clients, too, and I do understand the need to keep that close to the vest.

“I get it,” I say, as a long stretch of rain-slicked quiet country road spills before us. The GPS voice instructs us to stay on this road for a mile. “It does drive me crazy, but that’s not fair. The truth is, I’m a jealous ass when it comes to you, and I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.”

She adopts a shocked expression. “You’re jealous? I hadn’t noticed at all.”

“It can be pretty hard to spot at times. You might need a magnifying glass,” I say drily, as the windshield wipers flick against the glass.

“Listen, Henley, I’m sorry I’ve been so worked up.

I just want to know what’s going on in your life, because I want to know you.

You asked what was happening here between us, and that’s what’s happening,” I say, drawing a deep breath.

Then I decide it’s time. It’s just fucking time.

I can’t keep stewing in my own frustration.

“I know I’ve said that us being involved would be a terrible idea, but after the last few days, all I can think is that us not being involved would be much more terrible.

I want to know you even more. Because everything I know already I like so much.

So much that lately you’re all I think about. ”

She leans across the console and brushes her lips against my cheek. “The same,” she whispers. “It’s the same for me. I think about you all the time.”

All that crazy stuff that was happening in my chest?

Those funny feelings like pancakes flipping and the world spinning in circles?

I get it now. I understand it fully. Because my heart soars as if it’s rising in a hot air balloon.

As she pulls back from my cheek, I want to tell her everything I feel for her.

“Everything that drives me crazy is just because I’m crazy for you. ”

Her voice is rich with happiness. “I’m so crazy for you I want to tattoo my name on your arm so everyone knows you’re taken.”

I laugh then reach for the Sharpie she left in the console. “Do it.”

“For real?”

“Why the hell not?”

She uncaps her black pen. I’ve got one hand on the wheel, one on the shift stick. She writes on my forearm. Ten seconds later, she declares, “Done!”

I glance down, and her tattoo couldn’t be more perfect. It says Tiger .

I’m about to tell her more, to say how we’ll find a way to manage work and us, and that there’s nothing we can’t figure out, when the robotic voice of the GPS interrupts us.

“You are nearing your destination. Turn right in two hundred feet.”

I flip on my turn signal as a pair of big brown eyes shine from twenty feet away. My heart gallops. A deer stands before me in the middle of the road; it must have just run onto the street and stopped.

“Shit,” I mutter, as I lay my hand on the horn, but he doesn’t move, and there are no more choices to be made.

My pulse jackhammers as my choices crystallize to only one. I jerk the wheel to the right, slamming on the brake as I skid into the shoulder, out of the way of the animal.

An ear-shattering, bone-crunching din rips through the air. My head snaps back as the white airbag inflates instantaneously, jamming into my chest. The sound of crunching metal fills my ears and Henley’s head slams back against the headrest.

Roger yelps, Henley moans, and the engine sputters to a stop.

The deer scampers across the street and into the woods. He’s gone.

“Henley!” I shout her name as cold, black fear floods my veins.

Roger shrieks from the backseat.

I ignore him as the world narrows to this second. To this single solitary moment as Henley’s head lolls against the headrest, her eyes closed, the airbag wedged against her chest.

I shake her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Terror races through me, as if I’ve been pumped full of it. I’ve gone from fine to horrified in less than three seconds, faster than a sports car can hit sixty. My heart pounds in my ears, and blood roars in my skull. I fumble around her, reaching for her seat belt and unsnapping it.

“Are you okay?”

No response. But she’s breathing. And I can’t fucking believe that’s the hope I’m holding on to—that she’s breathing. I need more than breathing. I need everything.

“Henley, open your eyes,” I say, desperation and fear ripping through me as I try to shove the airbag out of the way.

A hard, black thing swipes across her shoulder then her face, and I startle. Henley’s lips part. A small chuckle escapes. Her eyes flutter open. Roger is swiping his tail across her cheek. Roger is petting her face with the tip of his tail.

Roger. Good old Roger.

No wonder Cynthia needed him. Henley turns her face to me and smiles. “I’m okay.”

I press my forehead to hers and breathe again. It’s not even a sigh of relief. It’s absolute gratitude.

The front end of Blue Betty is wrapped around a tree.

“Guess that’s what we call a tree hugger,” I say as I inspect my prized possession, now crumpled into the trunk of an oak. Thank Christ I took the time and spent the money to install these airbags. Complete pain in the ass and completely worth it.

“I’m so sorry this happened to your baby,” Henley says, running her hand down my arm.

The car’s the only one damaged. I’m fine, Henley’s fine, and so is the monkey.

Come to think of it, the deer is probably enjoying a nice serving of grass somewhere not far from here.

We stand in the bank on the side of the road, while Roger clings to Henley’s side again.

I pat the battered hood. “It’s okay. She took one for the team.”

“But Max,” Henley says, sadness coloring her tone. “This is Blue Betty. She’s a?—”

“She’s a wreck.”

But I’m not. And as I assess the devastation to the car I’ve wanted since I was a kid, the one I painstakingly restored with my own hands, I don’t feel that crushing fear, that rush of nerves.

Blue Betty is just a car, and I’ve got Triple A, as well as the wherewithal to fix it. “Let me call a tow. Why don’t you take your new boyfriend to Cynthia and Creswell,” I say, nodding at the monkey. Cynthia’s house is a few hundred feet away.

Henley gives me a knowing look, her brown eyes clear as day as she gazes straight at me. “ He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I know someone else then who’ll apply for the job.”

“Tell him he already has it,” she says, stroking the primate’s head.

I grin like a man who just bought a beautiful vintage Triumph, not a man who’s standing by the wreckage of one.

I retrieve the emblem, the champagne, and the wine from the floor of the car as Henley walks along the driveway in her purple dress, with Roger in her arms. My prized car has been butchered, and all I can think is how outrageously happy I am.

I guess this is what it feels like to fall in love.