Gracie’s heart sank. He was right. He had done his homework and she hadn’t. She’d assessed and labeled him based on a single meeting and concluded she could wear him down eventually by throwing more and more money at him. She wasn’t even taking advantage of this dinner to pump him for information or to search for any weaknesses she could exploit in her own behalf.
“Okay, Mr. Daniels, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”
He chuckled at that. “No way. I’m not making it that easy on you. If you want information, you’re going to have to work for it.”
“Dammit, can’t you just give me a straight answer?”
“Sure,” he said agreeably. “As soon as you ask me a straight question.”
Gracie sighed.
“Relax, darlin’. This won’t be half as painful as you’re anticipating.”
“It’s already way past painful. It’s excruciating.”
“You must not have gone on many dates, Gracie.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked, instantly defensive.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re not very good at small talk,” he observed.
The accusation stung. She’d heard it before. She could see to the comfort of hundreds of hotel guests a month, but she couldn’t make small talk with a man sitting across the dinner table from her. How many times had she been told she was too serious, too focused, too uptight? More times than she could count. The only reason she and Max had gotten along halfway decently was that he’d had a singletrack mind as well.
It was ironic that she was so good with the hotel staff, so deft at handling the vendors who supplied everything from soap to mushrooms. She made it a point to learn and remember little details about all of them, so she could ask about family members, favorite hobbies, whatever. Obviously she needed to apply the same skill to Kevin.
“Okay, let’s start over,” she suggested. “Tell me about your family. Any brothers or sisters?”
He took another sip of the same beer he’d been nursing all evening. “Nope.”
“Parents alive?”
“Nope.”
“You rattle around in that big old house all by yourself?”
“Nope.”
Gracie fought her exasperation. His deliberate, single-word responses were not going to derail her attempts to get to know him. She was just going to have to become more clever at phrasing her questions.
“Who lives there with you?” A horrifying thought struck her. “Your wife?”
He grinned at that. “It’s a little late to be panicking that I might be married, don’t you think? We’re already well on our way to getting downright intimate.”
Gracie choked on a sip of ginger ale. She stared at him. “Are you crazy?”
“Nope.”
“Would you stop that?”
“What?”
“Saying nope to everything I ask.”
“If it’ll make you happy.”
“It will make me deliriously happy.” She frowned at him. “Just don’t go getting any wild ideas about the two of us, okay?”
“Sweetheart, I’ve been getting ideas about the two of us since you walked into my yard yesterday. I can’t help it. It’s just my nature.”
“Well, put a lid on it.”
“I’ll do my best, but it won’t be easy.”
“Try.” She worked to keep a pleading note out of her voice. “Now can I assume that there is no wife in the picture?”
“If it makes you happy.”
“Kevin!”
“Okay, no wife. Not now. Not ever.”
Because he sounded so fierce about it, she couldn’t help taunting, “How come? Are you gay?”
That got him. He sputtered indignantly for a full minute before laughing. “Okay, you got me. I’ll try to give you straight answers from now on.”
“No pun intended?”
“Be still my heart,” Kevin said with exaggerated astonishment. “The lady made a joke.”
“You know, it’s a wonder someone hasn’t murdered you by now,” she muttered. “Do you take anything seriously?”
“You’d be surprised at just how seriously I’m considering kissing you right now.”
“Kevin!”
He grinned. “What’s the matter? Hasn’t anyone ever wanted to kiss you before?”
“I have been kissed plenty,” she retorted, then regretted allowing herself to be drawn into such a ridiculous discussion.
“Care to do a little comparison test?” he inquired.
“I don’t think so.”
“How else will you know what you’re missing?”
She drew herself up and declared primly, “In my experience, men who have to ask permission aren’t very good at it.”
He chuckled at that. “I’ll remember that. Something tells me that catching you off guard might take a while, but it’ll be worth waiting for.”
The warning—or promise?—made her tremble. No man had affected her like this in a very long time. Why this man? she wondered irritably. She didn’t even like him very much. He was annoying. He lacked ambition. He had absolutely no understanding of the rules of decorum. She might be overdressed, but the same surely couldn’t be said for him. His jeans were marginally less revealing than the first pair she’d seen him wear, but his T-shirt looked as if he’d grabbed it out of the dryer.
All in all, she suspected that Kevin took his greatest pleasure in flouting rules of any kind.
So why was her gaze locked on his mouth? Why was she already imagining the feel of his lips on hers? Why was she guessing that he kissed with a kind of no-holds-barred lack of restraint?
Probably because that was exactly what he’d intended, she realized. He’d deliberately, sneakily, planted the notion in her head, then waited for her imagination to run with it. She wasn’t wild about the all-too-vivid, X-rated results.
“Is it too warm in here?” Kevin asked mildly. “You look a little flushed.”
“I’m fine,” Gracie declared, gritting her teeth. Or she would be, if she could just gulp down a couple of glasses of ice water. Her last sip of ginger ale had done nothing to soothe her suddenly parched throat.
She was not going to let him see that he’d rattled her, though. She forced a brilliant smile. “It’s been an absolutely fascinating evening, Kevin. Thank you so much.”
“In a hurry to get home all of a sudden?” he inquired in that lazy manner of his.
“No, of course not. I just don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
“Darlin’, I have all the time in the world. You need to loosen up a bit, learn to relax, slow down.”
“And do what?” she asked with genuine curiosity, unaware until too late how revealing the question was.
“Read a book. Stare at the sky and watch the clouds roll by. Go fishing. Pick daisies. Whatever comes to mind.”
The last book Gracie had read