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tell Quinn! I promised Bret I wouldn’t tell you he told me.”
    “I won’t say anything to Quinn.” She walked off the jogging path and put her heel on the back of a park bench to stretch.
    Reed tilted his head admiring her flexibility. Is she teasing me? “You’re really fast. How long have you been running?”
    “A few years,” Peyton said, tightening her ponytail then starting to walk the path.
    Reed jogged a few steps to catch up. It seemed he was always chasing her. “So, I know the shop closes early on Saturdays. How about dinner?”
    “Not tonight.” He’s not going to give up.
    “That’s better than a flat-out ‘no.’”
    Peyton giggled. She couldn’t help it. He was so persistent and cute. She knew it was a bad idea, but God help her, she liked him.
    An English Bulldog got off his leash and ran up to them, slobbering on a ball in his mouth. “Satchmo!” the dog’s owner cried. “Come here, boy!” Instead of coming back, the dog dropped the ball and started licking himself.
    Reed gave the dog a little pat and threw the ball towards his owner. “If I could do that,” he said, “I’d never leave the house.”
    “Maybe you should get a dog,” Peyton snarked, “and you two can sit around and pleasure yourselves all day.” She began to walk again, and Reed fell in line with her.
    “Why are you so pissed?”
    She stopped again and looked at him, his confident face now soft, his steel blue eyes now innocent. “I don’t know you well enough to be pissed at you.”
    “Oh, come on! You can do better than that.”
    “Fine, because you are the stereotypical playboy, with no personal goals other than where and when you’re going to get your next piece of ass, and always strutting around acting like your God’s gift.”
    “How dare you!” Reed grinned. “I don’t strut around at all.”
    Peyton threw her arms in the air. “If you ever want to go to dinner, you have to show me something.”
    “Right here in the park?”
    “No, idiot, show me who you are!”
    “Oh, I was confused, since there are so many people around, but I’m not really shy so ....”
    “Do you think about sex like every ten seconds?”
    “No, like every hour or so. But around you it might be every ten seconds.” Reed smiled. “So like about 50 times since we’ve been talking here.”
    Peyton eyed him curiously, unsure whether to laugh or slap him. “Do you honestly think I’m going to have sex with you?”
    “Yes, I guarantee it.”
    “You think I’m like those whores you screw, always rushing to the bathroom stall for a quickie?”
    “Whoa!” Reed took a step back and put his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that’s not my thing.”
    “What is your thing?”
    Reed shrugged. “I like women. I enjoy them.”
    “And after you’ve enjoyed them?”
    “Look, I’ve never been a relationship guy. I go out and have fun. That’s it. No one gets hurt.”
    “And these women are OK with that?”
    “Yeah, they know what they’re getting with me. I don’t lie to them like other guys.”
    “So I’d be one of your buffet of women?”
    “ Buffet ?” Reed laughed out loud.
    “Well, that’s what it seems like. Quantity over quality.”
    “I have my favorites. So it’s not really a buffet.”
    “More like fast food then? Quick delivery and a fast getaway.”
    Reed laughed again. “I hope my delivery isn’t too quick!” Peyton rolled her eyes and walked off. “I wouldn’t expect you to be on the buffet,” he called out.
    She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “Good, because I’m definitely more like five star dining.”
    * * *
    Before Peyton opened up for the day, she prepped her pie crust, or at least tried to prep, completely distracted by her unexpected morning encounter. She’d never met anyone like Reed before — sexy, charming, maddening. There was something else that interested her, too — some secret, some insecurity, hidden underneath the hard body and