“I’m good.” Instead of meeting his gaze and letting him drown in those emerald-green depths, she glanced around the room. “There’s Travis and Mary Karen Fisher. I need to pop over and say hello.”
Ryan’s heart dropped as she started to walk away, her high-heeled boots clicking on the hardwood, her cute little derriere swaying in those tight-fitting jeans. But at the last minute, she glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a brilliant smile.
“You take care of Betsy,” she said in a low husky voice that conjured up images of rumpled sheets and entwined limbs. “See that she has a good time.”
“Anna,” Betsy moaned, but Ryan scarcely noticed.
How long had it been since Adrianna had smiled at him with such warmth? Years, he thought to himself, too many to count. She was clearly softening to him, which meant if he played his cards right, it wouldn’t be long until she was his.
Betsy stared at her friend’s retreating back and felt heat rise up her neck. The next time she got Adrianna alone, she was going to read her the riot act. Why, she’d practically thrown her at Ryan.
Not that he’d protested, she thought, looking for the silver lining. In fact he seemed in a remarkably good mood.
“Do you want to scope out the appetizers?” she asked. “Not that you have to go with me. Adrianna was just kidding. I don’t need anyone taking care of me.”
She was on the verge of saying more when she snapped her mouth shut. Men hated women who babbled, and right now she was poised to babble with the best of them.
“I’d like to check out the food.” Her heart skipped a beat when he held out his arm. “If I remember correctly the only thing you need to avoid is anything with shrimp.”
Betsy groaned. Honest to goodness groaned. “Of all the things to remember, you had to recall that?”
“It’s not every day I get to see a person covered in hives,” he said with a little too much enthusiasm for her liking. “You even had them on your—”
“Scalp,” she said. “Yes, I remember.”
“Keenan put that pink stuff all over your skin,” he said, warming to the memory. “It looked like Pepto-Bismol.”
“Don’t remind me.” She remembered that night well. Her mother had been out running around God knew where and Betsy had been hungry. She’d eaten some old shrimp rollups they’d had in the freezer. That’s when the hives had broken out. She’d been terrified, then relieved when Keenan had come home early.
But when she saw whom he was with, her terror had turned to horror. The last person she’d wanted to see her with those big red welts covering her skin was Ryan. But he hadn’t laughed or made fun of her. Instead he’d called his parents to find out what they should do.
While Keenan had helped smear the Caladryl lotion on her hard-to-reach places, Ryan had run to the corner store and gotten an antihistamine for her to take. By the time her mother finally dragged herself through the front door at 3:00 a.m., the hives had already started to fade.
“Hey.” He leaned closer, a teasing glint in his eyes. “How many men can say they’ve seen you at your worst?”
“Ha, ha.” Betsy was thankful her voice came out all casual and offhand, which was a real feat considering her knees had gone boneless and she was having difficulty thinking with him so near.
He sat back and his gaze zeroed in on a large buffet table at the back of the great room. A pristine white linen cloth with scalloped edges covered the oak top, but it appeared to be the food which had captured Ryan’s attention.
“Is that—” he turned to her, his eyes wide and guileless “—shrimp cocktail? I could get you one. Maybe you’re not allergic anymore.”
Betsy jabbed him in the ribs, forgetting he was the man she’d loved—and lusted after—for years. “Settle down, or I’m going to tell everyone the story of when Keenan locked you out of the locker room in your boxers—”
“You’re right. Stay clear of the shrimp.”
She couldn’t help it. Betsy laughed with sheer joy. This was the Ryan she wanted. Not the perfectly behaved gentleman lawyer who hadn’t cracked one joke all week. But the Ryan who made her laugh and with whom she shared a common history.
If only she could figure out a way to capture this moment. And better yet, find a way to translate friendship into love.
* * *
In the past ninety minutes Adrianna had talked to everyone but him. Yet Ryan wasn’t discouraged. He’d already accomplished a lot for one evening. When the hostess suggested a rousing game of charades, he knew it was time to leave on a high note.
Ryan glanced at the woman by his side, delicately picking a piece of chicken meat from the bone. Her brows were pulled together and she was studying the tiny piece of meat as if it were a complex legal case she was researching. He got the feeling Betsy was bored, too.
Actually, he realized, she was what had saved this party from being a total washout. They’d roamed the room like a couple of old friends, laughing and talking to others they knew and some they’d just met. The buffet table had drawn their attention several times and they’d picked and chosen from its sumptuous bounty.
Betsy was fun, with a quick wit and a sly sense of humor in sync with his own. They talked about the old days and he’d just finished reliving his high school prom debacle when Betsy had decided she desperately needed more wings.
“It’s no wonder you had to lasso a few more,” he said to her. “There isn’t enough meat on one to feed an ant.”
A becoming shade of pink rose up her neck, but she lifted her chin. “I didn’t eat supper. So I’m not quite the porker I appear to be.”
“Porker?” He dropped his gaze and slowly surveyed her lean but curvy body. “Not hardly.”
The pink on her cheeks deepened to red. “You don’t need to make nice,” she said with a dismissive wave. “I love to eat. In fact several times during my childhood I was sorely tempted to cut the candy heart out of my Raggedy Ann.”
“You played with dolls?”
“I did when I was a little girl.”
“You just never seemed the doll-playing type to me,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing any lying around your house.”
“That’s because I hardly had any.” Betsy dropped the chicken wing to her plate, then wiped her fingers on a linen napkin. “Keenan bought Raggedy Ann for me with his paper-route money. She was my first and only doll. He was ten and I was five.”
“Keenan bought a doll with his paper-route money.” Ryan could barely fathom that the rough-and-tumble friend from his youth would do something like that, even if it was for his little sister.
The realization that perhaps he hadn’t known Keenan as well as he thought he did hadn’t even had time to settle in when Betsy grabbed the front of his sweater in her hand and pulled him close. “Don’t you say one word to him about it either.” Her eyes grew piercing. “Understand?”
Ryan considered teasing her a bit more, but something in her eyes made him simply nod. Growing up in the McGregor household hadn’t been easy for either Keenan or Betsy. If his friend had found a way to make it easier on his little sister, well, Ryan would give him a break on the doll thing.
Betsy’s gaze drifted to the groups already forming for the game. She wrinkled her nose. “I hate charades.”
“That makes two of us,” Ryan said. “Want to sneak out?”
A look he couldn’t quite decipher skittered across Betsy’s face. Then she sighed. “You came with Mitzi, remember?”
Mitzi? Heck, he hadn’t