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pretty all right.”
    I swallowed hard and grimaced.   “I probably ruined your first day.   I mean, I kind of blew up back at my
father’s…I’m sorry about that,” I told her quietly.   “I was kind of a jerk.   It’s just…well, my father’s wanted me to have a bodyguard since I was a
teenager, and my independence is very important to me.   But then there was the whole accident
thing…”   Oh, my God, I was
rambling.   I silently cursed at myself
and bit my lip to shut myself up.
    “Yeah, that had to be downright
terrifying,” said Layne, shooting me a sideways frown.   “You came out pretty okay, though—you could
have been squashed like a grape.   Fortunately, you’re more a bruised apple than a grape.”
    I was laughing in spite of
myself.   “What happens when my stitches
and bruises are all healed up?”   I
teased her.   “Do you have anymore fruit
comparisons?”
    I kid you not:   Layne glanced at me sideways, but she was
absolutely, positively not looking at my face.   “Well, yeah.   But I think that’s
harassment, and it’s my first day on the job, so…”   She tossed her hair out of her eyes and grinned wickedly, keeping
her   gaze on the road.
    Speaking of fruit metaphors, I
think I blushed about as red as a cherry.
    I didn’t know what to say.   I mean, what do you say to something
like that?   From the moment I saw her, I
figured she had to be gay.   She was such
a butch, an incredibly attractive woman who knew exactly how attractive she
was, who prowled like a wolf through the world, confidant and powerful and so
magnetic I couldn’t take my eyes off her.   But did she know I was gay?   Was
she just guessing, or was she fishing for info with that bit of flirtation, or
did she get a vibe from me, or had I been staring at her a bit more than any
straight woman would?
    Or was she just, you know,
harmlessly flirting?  
    The time for a sarcastic retort or
a flirtatious response came and went, and I subsided into miserable
silence.   I’d wanted, so badly, to say
something funny or clever back to her, but this magnetic, gorgeous creature
just made me tongue-tied.  
    Normally, I’m the one flirting with
women, flashing a cheeky grin and cracking jokes and being a little
inappropriate, but mostly giving out the kind of come-ons that result in me
asking the woman out and the woman usually being a moderate level of charmed
and agreeing to it.   This sort of
thing—someone acting that way toward me— doesn’t really happen to me
because I don’t usually let it.   I’m the
kind of lady who gets out there and goes for what she wants.  
    Layne cast me a sidelong glance
after several moments and cleared her throat.   She didn’t apologize, only made a sound, and then sighed for a long
moment.
    “Look,” we both said at the same
time, then.   She chuckled at that as she
turned off the highway.   We had to take
city roads all the rest of the way now.
    “You first,” she said, one brow up.
    A really insidious thought had
stuffed itself into my head, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.   It’d been awhile since I’d been out on a
date.   I was, sadly, the kind of
workaholic that can get into an orchestra—meaning, I was a pretty bad
workaholic.   I practiced the violin for
about eight to ten hours every single day, and then there were the orchestra
rehearsals and life just seemed to be extra busy lately, which meant that I
really didn’t have time for anything that didn’t involve strings, a bow and
sheet music.
    And my dad was the kind of person
who liked to kill two birds with one really big stone.
    “My father,” I said, chewing on my
lip as I tried to figure out how to tactfully say this.   But there wasn’t really any sort of tactful
way, so I went for blunt:   “did he
choose you as a bodyguard because he was trying to set me up?”
    Layne laughed out loud at
that.   She had this rich, velvety laugh
that seemed to roll over me, but