Page 10 of Trees Take the Long View

"Sure you were."

He drummed his fingers on the wheel. "Is there time to stop?"

"Yeah, there's time to stop somewhere, but you really don't need to—"

"Shut up." He gunned it.

I clicked my tongue. "You're so rude."

A couple of breakfast sandwiches and bit more flirting later, I arrived at work, dropped off in great style, with only a spot of ketchup on my shirt, where I'd made a mess because I'd happened to be staring at a certain someone instead of paying attention to what I was doing.

Even the work seemed nicer today. Yes, it was still hard, working in the heat of the day, out in the hot sun with heavy rocks, but I kept thinking of Dean, and nothing seemed as bad when I thought about him.

He definitely knew what was up. I was attracted to him: deeply, viscerally, and enough to want him for my mate. It would be enough to send many people running scared. But he hadn't run scared. It was almost like we were engaged in a little mating dance about it. One of us advancing, the other retreating, till we could sort it all out to mutual benefit.

The thought made me immeasurably happy. Because it seemed at least possible, perhaps even likely. Let's be honest, if he really wasn't interested at all, he had no need to stick around. And he certainly gave off some serious "interested" vibes, to my wolf senses and my human gut instinct.

"What are you smiling about?" asked a dour coworker partway through the day. I shrugged, mumbled "Dunno" and tried to curb the good cheer—to little avail. I kept finding myself smiling all over again.

Towards the end of the day I listened with half an ear for the sound of a certain familiar vehicle approaching. At last I heard it, and grabbed my things and headed out. "Hey! Where you going? At least put the tools in the back of the truck." The boss pointed to the company truck, glaring at me.

"Sorry." I hurried to comply. As I went, I heard him mumble something about a stupid, lazy wolf, but I didn't even care.

They'd hired me because I was a wolf, hadn't they? I was the only one strong enough to handle all that heavy stone without special machinery, and all by myself.

I hurried towards Dean's vehicle, smiling, a bit of a skip in my step. I shouldn't look overeager. But damn, I wasn't a great actor; he was going to figure me out eventually even if I played Mr. Cool Beans successfully from the beginning. Which I can say for certain I hadn't.

"Hey," said Dean, giving me a casual nod and a smile, as if he wasn't at all flustered anymore. "You pick the restaurant today, okay?"

"Oh? You're taking me out to eat again?"

"Of course I'm taking you out to eat again."

"And today we won't talk about the cops."

"Today we won't talk about the cops. Where do you pick?"

"Uh, that little place on the edge of town. Diana's? Dina's? Something like that. There's some letters missing on the sign."

"That place? But it looks like a dump."

"Yeah, but they do good coffee, and they don't use a microwave in the back."

"Are you saying the place we went to yesterday uses a microwave for their gourmet dishes?"

"Hey, I'm not saying anything that can get me into legal trouble. Just happens that someone I work with may have mentioned they microwave a lot of stuff at that place."

He went silent for a few moments. "Huh. You could have said something, if you didn't want to go there yesterday."

"Are you kidding? I was trying too hard not to stare at you to say any such thing."

He smiled a little. "And here I just thought you didn't want to look at me."

I felt so warm inside, being this close and easy with one another, after only a little more than a day of knowing him. Things were changing so much. There had to be a possibility, right? It wouldn't be this easy to be around him, if there wasn't.

He took me to the little diner, and we had excellent service from a waitress who looked like she knew everything that went on in town and nothing could surprise her anymore. I got two burgers and a bunch of sides, and he got meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Everything was delicious, and we ordered dessert afterwards.

We were just digging into cherry cheesecake that tasted better than any dessert had to me in years, when the sheriff walked through the door. The bell went ting above the door when he pushed his way inside, and he squinted around, looking uncertain and a bit lost in the dimmer interior for a moment, before he could get his bearings. I stopped chewing and watched, eyes narrowing, as the waitress hurried forward to seat him.