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“That you’d even consider…that you’d even be willing…”
“Better me than anybody else I can think of.”
“Is it…” She paused and squeezed her eyes shut. “Such a sacrifice, then?” At his astonished laughter, she opened her eyes.
“Are you kidding?” He stared at her in wonder. “If word got out that you were in the market, the line outside your door would stretch all the way to the Nugget.”
“You think?” He’d never, ever given her such an extravagant compliment about her sex appeal. His compliments on that score had been nonexistent, come to think of it.
“You could have your pick,” he said. “You don’t have to settle for me. I just thought—”
“That I’d feel more comfortable with you. Thank you, Mac. And I probably would. Once I get over the shock.”
“Take your time.”
“You won’t change your mind?”
He shook his head.
“But what about my brothers?”
He let out his breath in a great gust. “I won’t pretend that won’t be tough. But I’ve kept our secrets from them before.” He gazed at her. “I guess I can do it again.”
She’d never been so impressed with another human being in her life. “I don’t deserve such a good friend.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Don’t go giving me too much credit. This wouldn’t be the worst assignment I’d ever drawn in my life.”
“So you think you could have…fun?”
“I think I could manage that.”
Tess leaned back in the booth and fanned herself with her hand. “Wow. This blows me away.” She glanced at him with his fresh shower, shave and clothes. “Did you decide this before you showed up tonight?”
“No. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to say to you when I got here. Then, while we were talking, I finally decided this was the only solution I could live with.”
She hesitated, feeling unbelievably shy. “The reason I asked is that I wondered, considering that you’re all cleaned up, if you thought that we’d just…take care of it.”
He coughed and cleared his throat. “Is that what you want?”
She couldn’t seem to control her racing pulse, and every breath was a struggle. “I don’t know. I realize this is my project, but I’m not feeling very much in charge right now.”
He gazed at her. “I have a suggestion.”
She swallowed. He was the sexiest man she’d ever seen in her life. How had she missed that in all these years? “Okay.”
He leaned forward and beckoned her to do the same. He lowered his voice and his eyes grew smoky blue. “Maybe we need to work up to this. We could take a drive, park somewhere, do some old-fashioned making out and see how it goes. And to take the pressure off, we’d agree not to go all the way this first time.”
He was so close that his breath caressed her face. His hands—hands that had positioned her grip on a baseball bat, picked her up when she fell off her bike and pinched her when she’d dropped the frog down his back—had taken on a whole new significance. And they lay less than an inch from hers on the Formica tabletop. As she looked into his eyes, her heart beat so fast she thought she might have a heart attack. This was a Mac she’d never met before. “I g-guess we could do that, but…”
“But? And how were you envisioning the process?”
Her cheeks grew hot. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
She kept her voice to a low murmur, which increased the sense of intimacy in the booth. “If you’d set me up with someone, I envisioned a one-night stand, to get it over with.”
He winced. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“It is?”
He held her gaze with those electric eyes. “I thought you wanted to have a nice time.”
“I do.” She drew a shaky breath. “But couldn’t I have a nice one-night stand?”
“Not you. Some women, maybe. Not you. You need to ease into it.”
“That’s why I’ve been reading all those books. And I’m a quick study.”
His eyes twinkled and his mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile, but he didn’t.
“What?”
“It’s just so you, to thoroughly study a subject before you get into it.”
He had her totally off balance, and she wasn’t used to feeling that way with Mac. She tried to equalize the situation. “I could probably teach you a few things, Mr. Know-It-All!” she whispered a little louder than she’d meant to. Then she glanced around quickly to see if anyone was listening. Nobody seemed to be paying them any attention, which wasn’t surprising. Seeing the two of them huddled over the table in the back booth of the Nugget was commonplace.
Mac leaned back against the worn seat, amusement in his eyes. “No doubt you could.” As they continued to gaze at each other in silence, his expression became more guarded. He picked up his spoon and balanced it on his forefinger. “The question is, do you want to? Last time I checked, the ball was still in your court.”
“I don’t know, Mac. This is very…personal.”
“That’s a fact.” He concentrated on the perfectly balanced spoon.
“You know me so well.”
“About as well as anybody.”
“Things would never be the same between us.”
He laid the spoon down. “They’re already different.” He glanced at her. “Am I right?”
Oh, yes. The blue eyes she’d always taken for granted now had hidden secrets, and she was already wondering how those eyes would look filled with passion. Passion for her. The thought made her body tighten and throb in ways that had nothing to do with friendship. “You’re right,” she said.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Anticipation leaped in her, making her shiver. “What about your dinner?”
“I wasn’t hungry to begin with. But if you want, we could have Janice box it up.”
“Let’s not bother. It won’t last in this heat.”
“Probably not.” Mac reached in his back pocket for his wallet. “We don’t need a bill. As long as we’ve been eating this Thursday-night special, we should know what it costs.”
“Right.” Tess opened her purse.
“Put your money away, Tess.”
She glanced at him. “But we always split the bill. I don’t want you to think that just because—”
“New game, new rules. You’re my date tonight, and dinner’s on me.”
The gesture thrilled her more than she was willing to admit. “Aren’t you taking this a little too literally?”
“Nope.” He slid out of the booth. “I would expect any man in my position to have the courtesy to buy you a meal.”
Her feminist conscience pricked her. “What, as some sort of barter arrangement?”
He took his hat from the hook at the end of the booth and settled it on his head. “No, as an expression of gratitude.”
Her breath caught in her throat at his gallantry. No wonder he’d had women falling at his feet. She’d never quite understood it, but then, he’d never turned the full force of his charm on her.
Janice ambled over toward them. “Leaving so soon?” She glanced at their plates in surprise. “Was something wrong with the meat loaf?”
“No,” Tess said. “We—”
“Goodness, you’re flushed.” Janice put her hand against Tess’s cheek. “You’re feeling feverish, child. I’ll bet you’re coming down with the flu.”
“I think she might be, too,” Mac said. “That’s why we decided to leave.”
“My Steve came down with the flu last week. You wouldn’t think a bug could survive in this heat, but it seems to be going around. Best thing to do is stay in bed.”
Tess felt her face heat, and she didn’t dare meet Mac’s gaze. “Right.”
“Look at you!” Janice exclaimed. “You’re burning up! Better get on home.”
“What’s wrong with Tess?” called Sam Donovan from his stool at the counter.
“Flu!” Janice called back.
“Flu?” asked Mabel Bellweather, popping up from the booth where she’d been sitting with her sister Florence. She hurried to Tess’s side. “Should I call your mother, honey? She’d want to know if you’ve come down with the flu.”
“I’ll call her, Mrs. Bellweather,” Mac said.
Mabel patted his arm. “You’re a good boy, Jeremiah MacDougal. Anybody’d think you were kin to Tess, the way you’ve watched out for her over the years. I know she’ll be in good hands.”
Tess looked at the floor, at the walls covered with Frederic Remington prints, at the golden light of sunset outside the café windows. Anywhere but at Mac.
“Just get along now,” Janice said, guiding them toward the door.
Although she wanted to run out the door, Tess made herself walk like a sick person as she preceded Mac through the restaurant. They exited to a chorus of get-well wishes.
Mac helped her into the truck. “Well, at least we’re being inconspicuous about this.”
“We can’t go through with it,” Tess wailed. “Soon everybody in town will know that you took me home from the Nugget, and—”
“And what?” He started the truck and switched on the air-conditioning. “You’re letting a guilty conscience run away with you. They aren’t the least bit suspicious of us being together.” He backed out of the parking space and headed down the street toward her house.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. You saw the way Mrs. Bellweather patted me and told me I was a good boy.”
Tess glanced over at him. “And is that what you intend to be?”
He pulled up at the town’s only stoplight and gave her a look that threatened to fry her circuits. “Depends on your definition.”
* * *
STAY COOL, MAC told himself. He was supposed to be the experienced stud, the one who knew the score. If he gripped the wheel tightly enough, Tess wouldn’t know that his hands were shaking. And if she noticed he was sweating, then he’d blame it on the hundred-degree temperature.
The reaction they’d gotten at the Nugget had convinced him of one thing—nobody would suspect that he and Tess had progressed to more than friends for the same reason he’d taken so long to come around to the idea. It was totally out of character for both of them. Even the Blakely brothers wouldn’t guess, if he and Tess could keep from tipping them off.
But oh, God, what had he done? His whole world was turning upside down. If Tess agreed, then they would become lovers this summer, assuming he didn’t turn out to be like his old dog George, who’d been taught to stay out of the living room when he was a puppy and now couldn’t be dragged in there. Mac wasn’t sure how deep his hands-off conditioning ran, but he might find out soon.
He’d already discovered he was more possessive about Tess than he’d ever dreamed. If he made love to her this summer, that possessiveness could get out of control. And he couldn’t allow that, because she was going to New York, and she’d meet other guys there. And that would lead to…he didn’t even want to think about where that would lead. He was setting himself up to go crazy, that’s what he was doing.
But he couldn’t see any other way around the problem.
“Are you really going to take me to my house?” she asked.
He glanced at her. She still hadn’t committed to anything. “Do you want me to?”
“Not really.” She was staring straight ahead, holding on to her little straw purse for dear life. Sunglasses hid her eyes, but her cheeks gave her away. They were the deep pink of the sunset lining the horizon. Her chest rose and fell quickly, making the pearl quiver in the valley where it lay against her golden skin.
The air in the cab grew sweet and thick with desire, until Mac felt as if he could lick it like a cone of soft-serve ice cream. “So you want to take that drive?” His voice was slightly hoarse.
“Yes, but I’ve figured out what we should do. Let’s go to my house and sit in the driveway for a little while, in case anybody notices. Then I’ll get down on the floor of the cab, and we can drive away to…wherever you had in mind.”
Instantly he became aroused. Apparently the old dog would be able to learn new tricks. “All right.”
She still didn’t look at him. “You know, we might not be able to do anything. We might start laughing or something.”
“Laughing’s okay. Laughing usually means you’re having a good time.”
“I mean because we feel ridiculous.”
That hadn’t occurred to him. “Do you think you will? Feel ridiculous?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should pretend you’re someone else.”
