“Six.”
“And you said, you shouldn’t do that, the gardener will get mad…”
“And you did it anyway.”
“And tore up the lawn. And the gardener did get mad, and so did my parents. I was grounded for two weeks. Then there was the time when we set up a ramp at the edge of the pool. We had new scooters and we were sure that with enough height we could jump the shallow end. There you were, doing your you-shouldn’t-do-that thing again. I’m pretty sure I said something rude to you and told you to go away. You wouldn’t go away and I figured I’d show you that you were nothing but a dumb kid. I ended up in the pool, destroyed the scooter and broke my leg. That cost me another two weeks of grounding.”
Tanya laughed. “I honestly don’t remember ever saying you shouldn’t do anything.”
“Then there was my party—”
“I remember the party. You were seventeen, I was ten. I watched from the bushes until my mom caught me. But I still don’t recall a ‘you shouldn’t do that.’”
“Oh, yeah. I had permission to have twelve people over to swim that night. But nobody was going to be home so Buzz and I handed out flyers to everyone we knew and some people we didn’t. We paid an older guy to buy beer and we were sneaking the kegs in the back and talking about what a huge, blowout bash the party was going to be. And again you appeared from out of nowhere to say—”
“You shouldn’t do that?”
He pointed an index finger at her. “The you-shouldn’t-do-that kid.”
They both laughed.
“That one cost me a month out of my summer—I was going to get to stay home while my family vacationed in Italy but because of the party, my parents decided I couldn’t be trusted and made me go with them.”
Tanya shrugged. “Guess you shouldn’t have done that,” she joked as she stood and began to clear the table.
She half expected Tate to remain seated there while she did the work but he got up, too, and, side by side, they cleaned the dinner mess.
“What about you?” he asked as they did. “Did you go through your teens toeing the line like you thought I should have?”
“I kind of did, actually,” she answered. “We might have grown up in the same general vicinity for the most part but, believe me, my life was completely different than yours. From the minute I was old enough to work I was expected to show responsibility by getting a job. So when I was here I worked in the ice cream shop—more food service. When I was with my grandparents I worked—”
“When you were with your grandparents? I didn’t know you spent time away from here.”
“Quite a bit of time. But that’s a whole other story.” And since the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, his kitchen was in order again and it was getting late, she said, “A whole other story I’ll save so we can call it a night—I promised my mother I’d be back before she went to bed and you must be tired yourself.”
“Trouble sleeping, remember? But I wouldn’t want you to keep JoBeth up waiting for you.”
And worrying that she was staying any later than was necessary…
Tate walked Tanya to the door and put his hand on the knob to open it for her. But rather than doing that, he stayed in that position while pausing to look at her with the door still closed.
“This was nice,” he said as if that surprised him.
“It was. Thanks for dinner. You get points for today and points for your cooking talents, too.”
“Points? I didn’t know there was a scorecard.”
“Not literally.”
“And why did I get points for today?”
“Because what I saw of you was so eye-opening.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t remember the ‘you shouldn’t do thats.’ But I do remember you doing some wild and reckless things in pursuit of fun and frolic—which was all I thought you were about. Mr. Good-Time. But today I saw for myself that there is more to you…”
Why had her voice gotten softer by the end of that? Why had it sounded almost intimate? And why was she staring up at him and thinking that she really was seeing him through new eyes? And that she liked what she was seeing so much more than when she’d thought he was just a handsome face…
“Anyway,” she said, trying for a more normal tone and to halt the thoughts and feelings that were suddenly running through her. “I admired what I saw of what you did today and it will definitely be a part of the collage of the McCords.”
He smiled. “I was impressed with you today, too,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you were all talk or not, but you dug right in. And you didn’t even flinch when old Nesbit came wandering out of recovery in the buff.”
Tanya laughed. “That I won’t be reporting on,” she said. “Though you were really quick with that chart you held in front of his dangling participles so the lady I was giving juice to didn’t see much.”
“Dangling participles? Things were definitely dangling…” he said wryly, laughing too.
Tanya was having a much better time than she wished she was. It made it hard for her to make herself leave. And Tate wasn’t encouraging it—he was still standing there with the door closed, looking down at her.
And it wasn’t just any look in those clear blue eyes. He was looking at her in a way other men had looked at her. Just before they’d kissed her…
Was he thinking about it? Tanya wondered.
Because she was…
You shouldn’t do that—the phrase that had been repeated so much tonight echoed through her head. And she knew it was true, that kissing him wasn’t what she should do. Or let him do.
Even if something in her was shouting for him to go ahead and do it…
Then he cocked his head just a bit to one side. But Tanya couldn’t tell if he was even aware that he’d done it because he was staring so intently, so deeply into her eyes.
He leaned forward. Barely. Almost not at all.
Her chin went up about the same amount, on its own.
Shouldn’t do that…
Except that she wanted to.
She really, really wanted to…
But maybe the mere thought that they shouldn’t do that somehow transmitted to Tate, who finally took heed of it. He straightened up again and turned the handle to open the door so she could go out.
Which was exactly what she knew she had to do. She had to get out of there before she did something stupid…
“Tomorrow?” she said as she stepped across the threshold, stopping only when she felt the cooler night air on her face to turn and look at him from a greater distance than had separated them in the house.
“I have surgeries scheduled all day and dinner with the family tomorrow evening. But I’ve left orders for all the family albums to be dragged out of storage—I thought maybe we could go through them tomorrow night after dinner. That should give you a fairly decent family history.”
Why did tomorrow night seem so far away? And why was she thinking about how endlessly the hours would drag on instead of being aggravated by the fact that the entire next day would be wasted?
But that was how it was and she couldn’t help it. She could only hope the time would