Spring River Valley: The Spring Collection (Boxed Set) by Clarice Wynter Page B

mister.”
    He smirked and tugged her toward the bedroom. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to pin me…let’s go.”
    He broke away from her, and she chased him into the bedroom where she proceeded to teach him some moves that he had no desire to defend himself against.

Chapter Twelve
     
     
    Evie woke to the aroma of fresh coffee. She stretched and focused her gaze on Tanner’s bedside clock. How wicked was she to have spent the night in her boyfriend’s bed in the middle of the week, when she had to be at work in two hours?
    Boyfriend. The word log -jammed the flow of her sleepy, satisfied thoughts. Is that what he was? They hadn’t even been on a single proper date so far, yet they’d spent two nights making love. This wasn’t the way a relationship was supposed to go—catapulting right to the level of intimacy that had her carrying a toothbrush in her purse and planning an early morning stop off at her own apartment to change clothes for work.
    She sat up slowly, letting the warm blankets fall around her waist and brush ed strands of her hair back with her fingers. Was this who she was? In the space of a week she’d shifted her focus from the career she’d been struggling to build for years to a relationship that was so new she didn’t even know his middle name.
    More than once she’d considered that she should be terrified of what was happening, and each time she’d put those thoughts aside in order to enjoy the moment. Maybe that was the key to finding the happiness that had eluded her for so long in the romance department. Maybe it was time to sit back and just let things happen.
    With a secretive grin, she slithered out of bed and retrieved some of her clothes, just enough to make herself presentable in order to wander through the living room, tempted by the scent of the coffee.
    Through the crack as she opened the bedroom door she saw Tanner sitting at the tiny dinette, his back to her. A steaming mug sat by his right hand and a bakery box rested in the middle of the table. So he’d been out already this morning to find them breakfast. She decided this weekend she’d take him food shopping and help him stock his kitchen so they could spend more nights like last night, curled on the couch, watching old movies, feeding each other, and laughing, talking, kissing. The truth of it was, she’d never need to go out again. If these two and a half rooms became her whole world, she’d be happy as long as Tanner was here with her.
    Like a cat, she stalked past the couch, prepared to whisper something sinful in his ear and snatch away the newspaper that was spread out in front of him. When her fingertips made contact with his shoulders though, she froze. Through the material of his white T-shirt, the granite stiffness of his muscles halted her advance.
    He neither moved nor spoke when she touched him, and slowly she lowered her hands. “Tanner? What’s wrong?”
    He didn’t look at her or say a word. He merely folded the paper back to the front page and moved it over so she could read the headline.
    Woman in suicide pact with Diele begged EMTs to save him before near fatal blast.
    By Evie Prentice.
    Evie grabbed the paper in trembling hands. Tanner turned to her, his eyes cold. “You got up in the middle of the night again. I’m assuming that’s when you called in your story.”
    “No! That’s not true, I…” She scanned the damning words beneath her very first front-page headline. The story she’d thought she’d sent to the trash bin must have gone to Janet’s in-box by mistake. “I wrote this yesterday afternoon, but I never—”
    He waved off her shaky reply. “Everything you told me yesterday about not wanting to write rumors and innuendo, that was all just a big lie—and not only that, you made it very clear you got the information from me. ‘Sources at the scene ’…I was at the scene. Do you know what my commander is going to think, after Quinn and I assured him we wouldn’t