“Stop it.” Grinning, Lucy smacked Kelly’s hand away.

“Better.” Kelly’s heart inflated, like it always did when Lucy flashed her a smile, one that reached her eyes and lit up her face.

Kelly’s phone chirped. For a minute, she considered ignoring it. Then her mind ran rampant. It could be Jo, her mum, Nicole, or worse, Paula.

Lucy started walking toward the carpark. “You gonna get that?”

Kelly fell into step beside her. “I should, it might be Mum.”

It was Jo. “You’ve got a good woman there. Let me know what happens, I’m worried about you. About you both.”

A huge smile spread across Kelly’s face. On impulse, she grabbed Lucy by the arm and yanked her to an abrupt stop.

“Oops, sorry,” Kelly apologized to a scowling couple as they stepped around her.

“Here.” She shoved her phone into Lucy’s hand. “Read this.”

Eyeing Kelly curiously, Lucy shielded the screen from the sun. Her frown morphed into a silly grin. “That’s sweet. But I don’t want her to worry about me.”

Across the road, a green sedan made a hasty exit from the service station leaving a puff of exhaust fumes in its wake.

Lucy wrinkled her nose and coughed. “I hate the smell of petrol.”

“I kinda like it,” Kelly confessed.

“You like petrol fumes but hate petrol heads. Got it,” Lucy said with a decisive nod.

Even under duress she was on form. It was another trait of her personality that Kelly found alluring.

“Let’s grab a cold drink for the road. We have a two-hour drive to figure out what to do, okay?”

“Sure.” Lucy punched the button by the zebra crossing.

A breeze ruffled the bottom of her slacks and drew Kelly’s attention to her strappy sandals. Kelly couldn’t say she was a foot person, but Lucy had beautiful feet, long and elegant, like the slope of her neck.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Lucy narrowed her gaze.

“Like what.” Kelly feigned innocence.

Lucy leaned in close and whispered in Kelly’s ear, her warm breath sending tingles up Kelly’s spine. “Like you want to eat me.”

“Oh, that. That’s my normal look around you.”

The little green man flashed, and the walk sign dinged. They crossed the street, swept along with the crowd like a piece of driftwood floating downstream.

Chapter 26

Half an hour later, they were well on their way home. As the traffic thinned so did the tension radiating off Lucy.

“You really don’t like the motorway, do you?” Kelly asked.

“No. I feel like I have to have eyes in the back of my head. Not only that, but with all the one-way streets, if I’d miss a turnoff we would’ve been screwed.”

“And not in a good way,” Kelly mumbled.