She stared down at the hot baking sheet, looking serious and shy and even more delicious than the cookies. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure.” He found himself gripping the spoon hard enough to bend it. “But something is different about you the past few days.”
“You’re very perceptive.” She said it as if it was a surprise. She took the cookies to the counter and started sliding them onto a cooling rack, her back to him. “I went to see Marie on Friday.”
Was this about the party? “You had lunch with her?”
“No, I went to the Milwaukeedates.com office.”
Small alarm bell. He pushed another ball of dough onto the sheet. “Why?”
“I’m going to start dating.”
“No.” He realized how that sounded when she turned, startled. “No … way, really?”
“I know, shock, right?” She made a wry face before she went back to the cookies. “Little mouse-girl wants herself a man.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.” This was bad. Nathan had a negative image to overcome with her; his only hope was to take things slowly. If Kim met some guy right away and was hot for him from the beginning … “You’re not a mouse. More like a sleepy lioness.”
“Hmph.” She flushed with pleasure even as she sent him a scowl. “I don’t think so.”
“I do.” He dipped the spoon into the bowl, trying to act casual. “Any good prospects?”
“A couple.”
“Sounds promising.” Sounds horrible. “What are they like?”
Kim left the baking sheet on the stove, ran water over the silicone mat, wiping it down carefully. “One is an author and computer geek.”
He wanted to groan. The guy sounded ideal for her. “Good things.”
“I don’t know….”
“No?” He tried not to sound hopeful. “Why not?”
“He’s absolutely gorgeous.”
Oh, just effing great. “This is a problem?”
“I don’t like guys like that.”
Nathan managed to unfreeze his face. “Yeah, we absolutely gorgeous guys can be real jerks.”
She laughed, flicking water at him.
“What?” He blinked innocently, scraping up the last of the dough from the bowl. “What about the other one?”
“Dale? He seems pretty great.”
No. Dale was not pretty great. Dale sucked. Nathan was absolutely sure of that. “Yeah? What’s his deal?”
“He’s some kind of consultant. Travels a lot. I wrote to him already. He wrote back right away.” She came over to pick up Nathan’s filled sheet; he could smell her flowery scent under the sugary vanilla aroma in the kitchen and wanted to devour her. “He’s vacationing. In Jamaica.”
Jamaica. This was bad. Nathan couldn’t afford to take Kim to Jamaica. Nathan could barely afford to take Kim to Applebees. “He’s probably there buying drugs.”
“Nathan!” She swept his baking sheet over to the oven.
“Who goes to Jamaica alone for any other reason? Or no, I’ve got it.” He pushed back his chair, turned it to face her. “He’s there with his wife. Or his fourteen-year-old girlfriend. Or both.”
“You are a hopeless cynic.” The timer went off. Kim took out the second cookie sheet and put his batch in.
Yeah, a hopeless cynic, who happened to be struck dumb by his first sight of this woman over ten years earlier. A woman who still hadn’t looked back. “I know how men think because I am one.”
“You’re not all of them.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m going out with Kent and Steve tomorrow tonight. Want to come?”
“Watch you all get shit-faced and try to get laid? No thanks.”
“Kim.” He stood up, wanting some advantage, any advantage, even something that seemed like advantage. The invitation had come out of his mouth in desperation. Because he was desperate. “I haven’t ‘gotten laid’ like that in quite a while.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“How do you know?”
“I hear from Kent.”
Nathan gestured in frustration. Kent exaggerated. Her brother never used to be so swaggering until he’d come back from New York and started hanging around with Steve, the Master Swaggerer. “That’s not all I’m about. I’ve never tried with you.”
She gave him a withering look. “Like you would.”
“Why not?”
She laughed, then saw he was serious; her laughter died and she glanced at him uneasily. “I’m not exactly your type.”
“No?” They were going to bust at least this part of the myth right now. “What is my type?”
“Bubbly with big boobs and a bent for blow jobs.”
Instinct told him to take the joke further. So instead he caught a stray piece of her hair, stroking its soft length between his thumb and index finger, hoping she’d experience an unexpected and highly sensual shiver. “What if I told you my type was blond and shy with hidden passion waiting to be—”
“Hidden passion?” She yanked her hair back as if he were about to set it on fire.
Crap. She was not experiencing anything like an unexpected sensual shiver. “Someone else said that. There’s no way I would say anything so stupid.”
“Geez, Nathan.” She wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t, either.
“You’re selling me short. There have been many women I’ve dated who aren’t bubbly and who don’t have big boobs. Many.” He gazed at her earnestly. She started looking cornered, folded her arms across her chest and stepped away from him. Oh, no. Scaring her was not what he wanted to do at all. He frowned. “Well … one, anyway. Maybe.”
She laughed in nervous relief and he grinned, cursing under his breath, wishing he had the guts to stay serious with her, wishing he had the nerve to set her straight. But it was still too soon. He needed time to win her. He thought he’d have plenty. But if she was going to start dating, he’d need to regroup, find a way to get her to think differently about him much sooner than planned.
Because otherwise, he could lose even the hope of her, and after ten years of wasted time, he just wasn’t willing to do that.
3
MARIE WENT DOWN THE stairs from Roots Restaurant to the Cellar bar. Quinn Peters would be waiting there for their usual Friday night “meeting.” She’d call it a date, but she’d promised herself to keep any and all romantic thoughts about Quinn firmly under control, under wraps, underground. No point being a masochist by indulging in such fantasies.
She was late tonight. Ten minutes before she was due to leave, her delightful ex-husband, Grant, had called. He rarely did, but whenever his number showed up on caller ID, it was a guarantee Marie had some teeth-clenching time ahead of her. Tonight had been no exception. The louse had the nerve to ask if she’d consider returning the ruby-and-diamond channel-set ring he’d given her for their tenth and final anniversary, the one Marie called the Guilt Ring because Grant had already been having an affair with Lizzy, a woman nearly