Slowly I smiled back. If he was game for this, then so was I. "I saw you pull in, and needed something to cool me off." I fanned myself while gazing up at him adoringly.
His eyes crinkled at the edges. I was pretty sure he was laughing on the inside.
I said, "You should stop by my house later, Mason, because I bought a new lip gloss that could use a test run . . ."
"Ah. Kissing game?" he said without missing a beat.
I shot a covert glance at Calvin to gauge how he was handling the flirting. Much to my enjoyment, he looked like he'd caught a mouthful of lemon peel.
"You know me--always spicing things up," I returned silkily.
Calvin cleared his throat and folded his arms over his chest. "Shouldn't you be heading out, Britt? You really should get to the cabin before dark."
Something undecipherable clouded Mason's eyes. "Going camping?" he asked me.
"Backpacking," I corrected. "In Wyoming--the Tetons. I was going to tell you, but . . ." Ack! What possible reason could I come up with for not telling my boyfriend about this trip? So close to pulling this off, and I was going to blow it.
"But it seemed unimportant, since I'm heading out of town too, and we won't be able to spend the week together anyway," Mason finished easily.
I met his eyes again. Good-looking, quick on his feet, game for anything--even pretending to be the boyfriend of a girl he'd never met--and a frighteningly good liar. Who was this guy? "Yes, exactly," I murmured.
Calvin cocked his head at me. "When we were together, did I ever take off for a week without telling you?"
You took off for eight months, I thought snidely. And broke up with me on the most important night of my life. Jesus said forgive, but there's always room for an exception.
I said to Mason, "By the way, Daddy wants to have you over for dinner next week."
Calvin made a strangled noise. Once, when he'd brought me home five minutes after curfew, we'd pulled into the driveway to see my dad standing on the porch tapping a golf driver in his palm. He'd marched over and smacked it against Calvin's black Ford F-150, leaving a nice round crater. "Next time you bring her home late, I'll aim for the headlights," he'd said. "Don't be stupid enough to need three warnings."
He hadn't meant it, not really. Since I was the baby of the family and the only girl, my dad had a grouchy streak when it came to the boys I dated. But actually, my dad was a lovable old bear. Still, Calvin never broke curfew again.
And never once had he been allowed to come to dinner.
"Tell your dad I could use a few more fly-fishing tips," Mason said, continuing to hold up our charade. Miraculously, he'd also correctly guessed my dad's favorite sport. This entire encounter was starting to feel . . . eerie. "Oh, and one more thing, Britt." He combed his hand through my hair, pushing it off my shoulder. I held perfectly still, his touch freezing my breath inside me. "Be safe. Mountains are dangerous this time of year."
I gawked with amazement at him until he pulled out of the gas station and drove off.
He knew my name. He'd saved my butt. He knew my name.
Becca Fitzpatrick lives in Colorado. Hush, Hush was her first novel, followed by Crescendo, Silence, Finale, Black Ice, and Dangerous Lies. When she's not writing, she's most likely to be found prowling sales racks for reject shoes, running, or watching crime dramas on TV. You can visit her on www.beccafitzpatrick.com, or on Twitter: @becfitzpatrick, or Facebook.
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