Covering Kendall(3)
“Kendall, would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?”
A FEW MINUTES later, Drew and Kendall sat down at a table in the Starbucks next door. She set the plastic bookstore bag and her handbag next to her chair. The typically crowded, noisy coffee shop was now almost deserted. The employees had even dimmed the overhead lights a bit. She took a sip of the green tea latte Drew had bought for her and watched him gently nudge the plate holding a couple of cookie bars toward her.
“How about a blueberry oatmeal bar? I whipped it up myself.”
She let out a laugh, and his lips moved into a grin. His smile softened chiseled facial features that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Viking: strong brow, high cheekbones, deep-set cornflower-blue eyes flecked with silver, square chin, straight white teeth, and blond stubble. He must have been taking a break from the wenching and pillaging tonight. The laugh lines around his eyes and his mouth that appeared when he smiled told her he was most likely a happy person.
She knew she’d seen him somewhere before. She couldn’t put her finger on where, though. His shoulders were broad and the fleece jacket he wore concealed what she imagined were bulging muscles. When he unzipped his coat, he revealed a black thermal-type Henley. She spent so much time looking at professional athletes that a guy with his build wasn’t out of the ordinary to her. It was kind of cute that he didn’t take off his knit hat, though.
Maybe he’d got a bad haircut and he felt a little shy about it. His eyebrows were dark blond. His hair must be as well.
“All this, and you bake?” she said.
“Wait until you see what’s in the oven right now.” The look in his eyes as he held hers was confident.
“Lucky me.” She twirled the protective sleeve on her cup with her fingers, and he raised an eyebrow. “So, Drew, what are you up to when you’re not baking or rescuing women in bookstores?”
He took a sip of his chai tea. “Working, reading, the usual.”
She wanted to ask him what he did, but she could almost guess: personal trainer, or he ran a gym. Guys didn’t get those muscles from sitting at a desk in a software firm twelve hours a day.
She wasn’t about to tell him what she did. Whenever she told a man where she worked, he spent the rest of the night peppering her with questions about the NFL, about the San Francisco Miners, or how she managed to get along with a volatile head coach known around the league for being difficult to deal with on a daily basis. When the guy wasn’t demanding inside information, he was subtly (or not) hinting around for free game tickets.
San Francisco was Seattle’s archrival, but she was pretty sure guys here weren’t above scoring some tickets and team merchandise, either.
She took another sip of her drink. “I’m guessing it won’t be a surprise to you that I love to read as well.”
“What’s the last book you read?”
She eyed the saucer in front of them. Should she be good and select the blueberry oatmeal bar, or should she pick the one she really wanted: sea salt chocolate caramel? She slid the chocolate caramel bar onto a napkin in front of her.
“How did you know I wanted the blueberry oatmeal one?” Drew said.
“I hoped you didn’t want chocolate,” she said. “The last book I read? Hmm.” She pretended to think for a minute. She wasn’t about to tell him she’d spent most of a night earlier this week reading Loretta Chase’s latest. She typically relaxed after a day spent dealing with her hyper-masculine colleagues by immersing herself in the love stories of fictional characters that lived almost two hundred years ago. She also read current non-fiction bestsellers as well, and she’d just finished one. “I read Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. I wonder why some people succeed beyond their wildest dreams despite setbacks in life, and I thought his conclusions were interesting.”
She nibbled at the chocolate caramel bar. It tasted even better than it looked. Drew gave her a nod.
“How is it?”
“Unbelievable. You’ll have to give me the recipe.”
“I’ll work on that,” Drew teased, raising one eyebrow. “In the meantime, I have a question. Do you think you’ve succeeded in life beyond your wildest dreams?”
He reached out for the oatmeal blueberry bar and took a bite. She had a job she’d been seriously pursuing (and working toward) since she got out of college, but she wanted more. Anyone who was ambitious wanted the most they could attain from life—the most success, the most money, the most recognition by their colleagues. She wasn’t any different. She wasn’t sure how he would react to this, so she kept it light.