“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,”