He smiled at her wit. “Can I help you set the table or something?”
“No. You can turn on the television if you like. I’m just going to heat the bread and set the table.”
Tyler wandered into the living room again. His attention was drawn to the television set and an array of DVDs sitting on top. He looked through them, and stopped when he spotted a “Work Out With the Oldies,” video. He carried it with him into the kitchen. “Whose is this?”
Carlie paused in the process of serving the stew. “Mine. Who else would it belong to?”
“You work out to the oldies?”
“I like older music. It’s more fun than this new stuff kids listen to.”
“So do you hop and jostle around in a pair of tights?”
She smirked at his expression. “You’re looking at my workout clothes.” She spread her arms in the air. The shirt raised a bit and he caught a glimpse of the pale flesh of her belly.
To his disbelief, and annoyance, he felt a brief spurt of interest. It had only been a flash, an instant of white skin, gone too quickly to really appreciate, if indeed, there had been anything there to appreciate.
With the clothes she favored, it was hard to tell for certain. But she definitely had a large bosom. He’d established that today when she was exercising, her body bouncing in all the right places. And from that prominent point, her clothes fell almost straight down, giving no hint of curves or dips and hollows.
But her arms had felt slim when he’d shaken her the other day. And when she’d come into the house, she’d kicked off her shoes, showing narrow feet and trim ankles.
It was simple curiosity, he decided, that was making him react to her. Not that he would ever consider doing anything about it. She was a schoolteacher, which was bad enough as far as dalliance went, but on top of that she was too damn prickly, and was his sister-in-law’s best friend, to boot. She was so far off the scale of available females, he knew he didn’t have to concern himself. But he did, anyway.
He’d never met a woman so dedicated to a cause, so at ease with children and so giving. She was totally disinterested in his supposed prowess, in his community standing, in his reputation. All she wanted from him was his help in achieving a worthwhile goal.
Disgruntled with his thoughts, and his overactive imagination that kept him guessing at her elusive figure, he stalked toward her and asked bluntly, “How much do you weigh?”
Carlie halted in the middle of opening a package of butter. “That’s none of your business!”
“You’re working out, so you must feel you need to lose some weight, right?”
“Wrong. I work out to keep in shape. Everybody should.” She poked him in the middle. “Don’t you?”
“Of course. But that’s different.”
“Why?”
“I go to a gym. I’m a man.”
“Well, I can’t afford to go to some fancy gym. And no one ever told me being a man was synonymous with being outrageously snoopy and impertinent. I would have thought a man your age would have learned some manners by now.”
It was her teacher’s voice again, and Tyler saw that he’d made her truly angry, though she was trying to hide it. He watched as she slammed bowls onto the table, then practically threw the spoons next to them.
“What are you drinking?” he asked cautiously, waiting to see if she would end up throwing something at him.
“I’m drinking milk. You can find yourself something in the refrigerator.”
He did. Milk.
After sitting down to eat in perfect, strained silence, he ventured, “I’m sorry...?”
“You’re not sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I just didn’t know if you would want me to speak to you. I, ah, seemed to have hit a nerve.”
Carlie sighed, dropping her face into her hands.
Tyler had the awful suspicion she was going to cry. In a near whisper, he asked, “Carlie?”
Her shoulders shook, and Tyler’s heart stopped. “Aw, Carlie don’t. Sometimes I just stick my foot in it. You shouldn’t pay any attention to me. Really. Carlie?”
She slowly raised her head. A wicked grin spread across her features. One look at Tyler and she broke into peals of laughter. He fell back against his chair, glaring at her.
“Oh, Tyler. You didn’t hit a nerve, honestly.” She chuckled again, then removed her glasses to wipe her eyes. “Actually,” she put in, obviously intent on controlling her hilarity and not entirely succeeding, “you’re finally acting exactly as I thought you would.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
He felt the sting of her insult, deliberate, he was certain. “So, you assumed all along that I was a jerk? Is that it?”
“Not a jerk. Not really. You’re an okay guy. But you think you can make up your own rules and everyone, especially females, will abide by them. You deliberately provoke me, and you’re purposely outrageous. You don’t even try to follow normal codes of manners or behavior. And why should you? Women relentlessly fall at your feet, despite your attitude, so why should you change to accommodate polite society?”
He didn’t like having her categorize and analyze his faults as if he fell into an expected mode of “male behavior.” “All this lecturing simply because I commented on your weight?”
“Because you felt it didn’t matter if you were rude. After all, I’m not a woman you’d aspire to sleep with. You have no personal, sexual interest in me, so why go out of your way to be charming? There wouldn’t be any benefit, now, would there?”
He studied her, his eyes probing. Damned if he wasn’t letting her get the best of him, again. So far, that was how it had been. She consistently sliced him up, verbally at least, while he was sitting there admiring her. Laughing with him was one thing, but Carlie was actually laughing at him. It was intolerable. “I’ll be honest with you. For some inexplicable reason, I’m intrigued by you.”
Her eyes widened enormously, and she choked on a breath. Her amusement was instantly, and completely, gone.
He waited impassively until she’d regained her breath. “I’ve decided it’s because you’re so damned mysterious.”
She sent him a wary look, then shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. “No. No, I’m not. I’m an open book. You simply refuse to accept there’s a woman who isn’t bowled over by your charm.”
He pretended she hadn’t spoken. “What does your body look like? That’s what I’m wondering. How plump are you? How big are your breasts, how bountiful is your bottom? I’m used to looking at a woman and seeing what’s there, be it attractive or not, not this infuriating guessing game, trying to see beneath layers of ugly clothing.”
Very slowly, Carlie laid her spoon by her bowl. She stared at him, then tightened her mouth. “You’re terribly spoiled. You think nothing of going for the jugular just so you can win. All right. So I’m overweight.” She lifted one shoulder in a stiff shrug, holding his gaze. “It runs in my family. And flaunting my body would be a bigger crime than hiding it. But so what? I don’t need a man’s approval to feel good about myself. I’m a very nice person, and I do a very good job, and I care. About this community, about the children, about people in general. Can you say the same, Tyler? So you’re handsome. So what? What real contribution have you ever made to your own small part of the world?”
He spooned up a bite of stew, saluting her with