Janie Crouch - Leverage

A huge crash of thunder shook the windows in Sally’s diner. “I can’t take off in this anyway. I’ll need to let Megan and Sawyer know I’ll be delayed for a few hours.”

Shelby looked out the window at the rain now pouring down and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“Maybe you’ll let me buy you dinner to make up for my rude behavior. Since we have some extra time before I can fly in this.”

Shelby didn’t look convinced, but Dylan wasn’t going to let it go. The way he saw it, this situation was the best of all worlds: a chance to spend some time with a gorgeous woman, but one who would only be around for a couple of hours. Once the weather cleared and she gave him the codes, they’d go their separate ways. No complications.

But for now he could just enjoy her; her company and her beauty.

“Unless you’re in a hurry and just need to drop everything off and run.” Dylan gave her another smile. “But I hope that’s not the case and you’ll have dinner with me.”

She gave him a confused look, but then nodded. “Okay, dinner. A chance to redeem yourself.” One of her eyebrows arched as she looked at him.

“Deal. Let me contact Megan and Sawyer to tell them about the storm.” Afraid he might yell at Megan for not preparing him for how beautiful Shelby was, Dylan just sent a text to Sawyer.

Shelby in pocket, but storm will delay flight. Will contact with updated ETA soon.

Dylan received a reply just moments later from Sawyer.

Roger that. I’ll inform Burgamy.

Good, let Sawyer handle Burgamy. Dylan wanted as little communication time with his ex-boss as possible. He caught the attention of the young waitress who brought them both menus. Shelby began looking through it, but Dylan didn’t even need to.

“Already know what you want?” Shelby asked him.

“Yeah. Sally’s chicken pot pie is my favorite. I usually get that.”

“That sounds good. Perfect for a rainy night and to recover from my near-death experience a little while ago.”

As far as Dylan knew, most people didn’t have near-death experiences around Falls Run. He hoped she wasn’t talking about poor Tucker. He wasn’t that bad. “What happened?”

They both ordered pot pie and sweet tea then Shelby told him about the car that had driven her partially off the side of the road. It sounded as if the driver never even saw her.

“Wow, first almost being run off the road, then almost having to have dinner with Tucker. That’s a double whammy.”

She laughed and relaxed back against the booth. Her eyes sparkled with genuine amusement. Dylan assumed he was forgiven.

“Yeah, the roads around here can be dangerous even for someone who’s driven them for years,” he continued. “And somebody not paying attention? You’re really lucky.”

“I thought the same thing after my pulse settled down to something below two hundred beats a minute.”

The waitress brought them their iced tea.

“So you and Megan went to college together? Were you close?”

“Well, sort of. Megan was so young when she was at MIT, child prodigy and all that, so she’s younger than me. Plus, I’m not a real outgoing person, so I tend to keep to myself. But we banded together a little bit because we were both females in an overwhelmingly large group of men.” Shelby took a sip of her tea. “So she married your brother?”

“One of the two, yes. Sawyer. The playboy of the family. It was amazing how fast he fell.” Dylan chuckled at the thought.

“And now they have a new baby on the way. I’m happy for Megan. I know back in college she always felt concerned she’d never really fit in anywhere.” By the way her face lit up, Dylan could tell Shelby authentically cared for Megan.

The waitress brought their food and they began to eat. “So how many siblings do you have?” Shelby asked between bites.

“I’m thirty-five and the oldest of four kids. Sawyer is the youngest. Cameron is a couple of years younger than me and our sister, Juliet, is sandwiched between Sawyer and Cameron.”

“Anybody else married?”

“My other brother, Cameron, to a woman he was involved with a few years ago. They reconnected recently.” Dylan didn’t mention that Cameron and Sophia had reconnected when Cam had taken Sophia hostage while working undercover. That would probably come across as a little weird. “Juliet just got engaged to our longtime family friend Evan. They work together.”

Again, mentioning that Juliet and Evan had fallen in love after living through an attack by a crazed stalker probably would be an overshare. Love in the Branson family tended to be less than traditional.

And that was part of the reason Dylan tried to stay as far as possible from it.

“How about you?” Shelby peeked over her pot pie at him.

“Married once, a long time ago. But not in the cards for me any longer.” Dylan definitely did not want to talk about that. “You?”

“Nah. Haven’t found anyone yet I like more than my pets.”

Dylan laughed. “I don’t blame you. Are you a dog person? Please, not cats.”

“Both, actually.” Shelby smiled at him and began telling him a story about some trouble one of her dogs had gotten into. Dylan matched that story with one of a dog he once had. Soon they were both laughing so hard they could hardly eat.

They were still talking about all sorts of things—her job as a programmer, his as a pilot, her cats that tended to act more like dogs—as they finished their meal, ordered some of Sally’s pie and finished that.

Dylan couldn’t remember feeling this comfortable and attracted, hell, this invested , in a woman in a long time.

He found himself wishing this was more than just a meeting to pick up some data from his sister-in-law’s friend. That he and Shelby had more time to spend with each other. But glancing out the window, Sawyer realized the storm would be passing soon. He needed to get the codes to Omega.

The thought of Omega brought all the memories flooding back. All the reasons why Dylan couldn’t— wouldn’t —get involved with another woman.

Tension began to fill Dylan’s relaxed body as he realized spending too much time with Shelby was not a good idea. Her smile made him think of things that just weren’t in the cards for him. He didn’t have it in his heart to love another woman. Burying Fiona and their unborn child, knowing their deaths were his fault, had killed something inside Dylan. He would be wasting time, both his and any woman in his company, by pretending he had anywhere to go in a relationship.

Not that Shelby Keelan had said anything about wanting a relationship with him, for heaven’s sake. They were just enjoying a meal together, relaxed conversation. But attraction was fairly crackling between them. Their hands kept touching on the table as they each made some point in a story. He could even feel Shelby’s smaller foot next to his leg under the table.

She wasn’t being forward, they just had a connection. And Dylan hadn’t tried to keep it in check, like he normally would’ve—not that he’d felt this way about a woman in a long time. Since he’d known he and Shelby would only be together for a couple of hours before she gave him the codes and left, Dylan had deliberately left their natural chemistry unchecked.

He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to stop it even if he wanted to.

But his plan was backfiring. The more he talked to Shelby, the more he wanted to keep talking to her. Her acid wit kept him laughing, her intelligence kept him intrigued, and those freckles...

Those freckles were going to be his undoing. Even right now it was all he could do not to reach across the table and begin kissing a line from one freckle to the next. Starting with the ones on her nose, over to her cheeks and down to the one big one he could see where her jaw met her neck.