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Tia could also see how Ethan’s overprotectiveness could drive his grandmother nuts. He was starting to prick her nerves, too.
“Not out for the evening. Gone,” Ethan reiterated. “She took off on the back of some old geezer’s Harley to pursue some ludicrous list.”
“She what?” Tia’s jaw dropped before the corners of her mouth tilted upward. She covered her lips with her fingertips to smother her first laugh of the day. “Well, good for Carol.”
The man facing her made a sound low in his throat that sounded like a growl.
“There’s nothing good or remotely funny about this situation,” he said. “Exactly what did you say to my grandmother this morning? Did you know she was planning to take off with some man?”
Tia sighed. She should have gone down for that cup of tea. Too bad the tranquil blend didn’t come in double shots like espresso. “She didn’t mention going on a trip, but Carol is a grown woman. She doesn’t have to check in with me.” Or you.
He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a sheet of paper that looked as if it had been crumpled in his fist.
“What do you know about this?” He held it out to her.
Tia took the paper and smoothed it out against her flat stomach. It was a copy of the same list Carol had shown her this morning, only with red-ink notations and exclamation marks she assumed were added by Ethan.
“Carol’s bucket list,” she said.
“You don’t seem to be surprised by the items on it or the sheer lunacy of a woman her age pursuing them.”
“She’s an adult.” Tia shrugged and handed it back to him. “And it’s none of my business.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen this list before, haven’t you?”
“You should be talking to your grandmother.”
“You have,” he said, answering his own question. “And why do I also think this whole bucket-list garbage was your idea in the first place?”
Tia walked around her desk and plopped down in her chair. She looked up at Ethan, who was still glaring at her, nostrils flaring, waiting on an answer.
“So what if your grandmother is off having some real fun for a change instead of filling her time with garden clubs and baking brownies for fund-raisers?”
Bracing his arms on her desk, Ethan leaned forward. Close enough for Tia to pick up the notes of sandalwood in his aftershave when she inhaled. Crap attitude or not, the man smelled good.
“It was a life she was perfectly happy with until you came along, putting stupid ideas like this bucket list into her head.”
Tia rose from her chair and met his hard stare head-on. “You’re wrong. She wasn’t happy,” she said. “Carol was stuck in a boring existence and identity she didn’t know how to break out of, so if I indeed played a small part in helping her claim a more exciting life for herself, I’m thrilled.”
If it were possible for a human head to explode, Tia suspected Ethan’s was on the brink of it. Still, she was on a roll and pressed on.
“If you want my advice, I think you need to chill out and give her some much-needed space.”
“Un-freaking-believable.” Ethan then muttered something about fruit loops. He threw his hands in the air and began pacing a path in front of her desk. “After all the trouble you’ve caused, you’re still dishing out more of your awful advice. Lady, you need to stick to hairdos and mud packs.”
“M-my advice isn’t awful,” she sputtered. This time it was her own head in danger of spontaneously combusting.
He stopped midpace. “My seventy-four-year-old grandmother is planning to jump out of a plane. All because of you.”
Skydiving sounded a heck of a lot better than gluing Popsicle sticks on crafts day at the senior citizens’ center, she fought the urge to point out. It would only escalate an already tense conversation into an ugly game of tit for tat, which wouldn’t resolve anything.
Tia stood. Reaching across the desk, she placed her hand on his forearm. A pulse of awareness shot through her at the feel of his bare skin beneath her hand, its intensity increasing to a throb as her fingertips grazed the ropes of sinewy muscle.
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