She surveyed the familiar dining room. She didn’t want to tear Mica and Christopher away from Keith, and she couldn’t imagine leaving her brother, Reenie or Reenie’s three girls. She was also afraid of what she might do if she were to go back. Trouble waited for her there in the form of her former tennis coach.
Briefly, she wondered if her infatuation with Dave Shapiro, seven years her junior, was the cause of her less than enthusiastic response to the much more eligible men she was dating in Dundee. “It’s becoming home.”
“You don’t think the same thing will happen for me?”
“I doubt it.” She pushed at her potatoes with her fork, avoiding his gaze. “I’m guessing you’re too ambitious for these parts, too interested in climbing the ladder of success. Which means you won’t be staying long.”
“You say that as if ambition is bad.”
“Not necessarily. As long as you don’t mind temporary relationships.”
“Dundee’s not a real hot spot,” he agreed, washing down another bite of meat with a sip of wine. “But there’s nothing wrong with temporary relationships. People pass in and out of other people’s lives all the time. You never know what you might learn from someone, how a particular person can enrich your experience, even if they don’t become a permanent fixture.”
She chuckled softly. At least this guy made no apologies for who or what he was. She had to respect that. “Your words sound an awful lot like that country song, ‘Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do.’”
He laughed out loud. Feeling triumphant at seeing through him so quickly, she was tempted to let her lips curve into a smile. But she suspected that his motivations weren’t quite that simple. He just wanted her to think so.
She buttered a sourdough roll. “How’d you meet Senator Holbrook in the first place?”
“When I went to college—”
“Where’d you go?”
“Harvard.”
Liz refused to let that impress her.
“Anyway, I thought I wanted to go into politics, so I interned for a state senator in Massachusetts. After I graduated, he hired me full-time and I ran his first campaign.”
“But then?”
“But then I took a different career path. When I eventually decided to get back into politics, I contacted him. He didn’t have an immediate opening, but he asked around and almost before I knew it, I was flying out here.”
“I see. So you’re looking for someone to help stave off the boredom while you’re in Dundee? Is that it?”
“I’m interested in company,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not sure about anything else.”
“By anything else…you mean a relationship?”
He chewed thoughtfully before answering. At last, he said, “Probably.”
“Well…” She gave him a confident smile. “You don’t have to put me on notice.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
A dimple flashed in his cheek, seeming rather out of place amid the hard planes of his face. “Interesting you think so.”
“Why?”
“What I’ve heard so far wouldn’t lead me to believe that.”
Her knife scraped against the surface of her plate. “Because my husband cheated on me?” she asked, forcing herself to stay calm.
“He was husband and father to another family through your entire marriage and you never suspected it. That’s a pretty big thing to miss.”
Senator Holbrook’s new right-hand man certainly didn’t sugarcoat his thoughts. “If you’re intimating that I didn’t see the truth because I didn’t want to, you’re wrong.” Liz was tempted to tell him how devoted Keith had been, how he’d never even shown interest in another woman when he was in her presence. Reenie hadn’t suspected, either. But why waste her breath? She wasn’t ever going out with this man again.
“If you say so.”
“Are you trying to offend me, Mr. Hudson?” she asked.
“I’m trying to figure you out.”
She forked another bit of potato into her mouth and swallowed without tasting. “Don’t bother.”
He poured her more wine. “Too threatened by taking a hard look at yourself?”
She felt her eyebrows draw together. “Excuse me, but this is a first date.”
He studied her. “And that means what?”
“I’d rather pretend I’m having fun.”
She expected him to be offended. But her words seemed to have the opposite effect. He actually chuckled as though he approved of her response. “So you do have a backbone.”
“You were checking?”
“I was curious. Something has to explain what happened.”
“That’s it.” She nearly spilled their drinks as she shoved her chair away from the table. “I’m finished here.”
“Just because I won’t play according to the rules, Ms. O’Connell?”
“The rules?” she echoed, standing over him.
He didn’t bother getting up. “Stick to tedious small talk. Never say anything that evokes an emotional reaction. Be as solicitous and fake as possible. Those rules.”
“Maybe I like playing by the rules.”
“Then you’re smart to call it quits, because I value my time too much to waste it on superficial encounters.”
She blinked, surprised that he’d come right back at her. Earlier, she’d been halfway convinced he wanted to take her home with him. She’d had no plans to comply, but his willingness to let her go so easily still came as a shock. “That’s it?”
“If it’s all you can handle,” he said.
She stared at him. For the sake of her friendship with Reenie and Reenie’s parents, she knew she should sit back down. But she couldn’t. She had more than enough to worry about, getting her new business up and running. She didn’t need this.
“Fine, no problem,” she said and stalked off.
KEITH WAS BUSY TAPING the wall he’d just fixed when Liz came in through the back of the shop.
“Hey, that’s not bad,” she said.
The surprise in her voice made her ex-husband scowl. “You didn’t think I could do it?”
“You’ve never been known for carpentry. But most computer guys aren’t,” she added.
“I’ve been working at the hardware store ever since…Well, for a while,” he said, obviousy choosing not to refer to the reason he had given up a $190,000-a-year job with Softscape, Inc. to work for twelve dollars an hour in Dundee.
Liz was grateful he hadn’t reiterated what had caused the destruction of the life she’d previously known. She didn’t need to be reminded of the fact that he’d abandoned her in an effort to save his marriage to Reenie. Carter had already done that.
“I’m getting the hang of being a handyman,” he added.
She didn’t think he’d ever be much good at manual labor. It wasn’t in him. But she was grateful for his efforts, all the same. She’d sunk every dime