Isn't it Romantic?

by Ronda Thompson

  “Who did you fail?” she asked, resenting whoever the woman might be.

  Quickly, his mask settled back into place. “Linda. My ex-wife. I didn’t measure up to her grand expectations. Putting food on the table and busting my ass to become everything I thought she wanted left me a little too busy to slay any dragons for her. Linda didn’t want reality, she wanted fantasy. We did not live happily-ever-after.”

  “No, there’s no such thing as happily-ever-after,” she agreed softly.

  “You don’t believe in romance. You don’t believe in everlasting love or a love that conquers all. You’re a fake.”

  His accusation lifted her gaze. She met the challenge in his eyes. Did she dare confess? Did she dare tell him how desperately she wanted to believe? With a past littered with rejection, could she tell him how frightened she felt of committing her heart to anyone save Shelly again?

  “A person can dream,” she answered, shrugging. “Different things appeal to different women. I dream better in the past. History is romantic to me.”

  “And heroes like Sean McNeil more desirable than mere flesh and blood men?” he prompted.

  “Yes,” Katrine lied. In her opinion, Trey Westmoreland put the border lord to shame.

  “We’ll see.” He shook out his napkin and stuffed one corner in the collar of his shirt.

  “Trey,” she warned. “The waitress is headed this way with our food. Promise me you won’t quote a two-hundred-year-old fictitious character during dinner. You’ll either get your face slapped or the both of us thrown out.”

  He considered her request long enough to add greater tension between them, then smiled. “All right. I promise not to quote Sean McNeil.”

  As a wary waitress settled their plates before them, Katrine breathed a sigh of relief and sipped her wine. Chez Fred’s definitely reeked of romance. Compared to their first date, this article should be a snap.

  “Will there be anything else?” The waitress fearfully met Trey’s eyes.

  With a flash of dimples, he melted her on the spot. “No, nothing right now.”

  The girl simply stared at him. “A—Are you sure?”

  “We’re sure,” Katrine snapped. “Everything looks wonderful,” she said more courteously. When the girl seemed to get control of herself and went about her business, Katrine snatched her napkin from the table and spread it across her lap. “That was disgusting,” she muttered. “I’m surprised she didn’t offer to cut your meat for you.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” He paused to remove his cuff links. “And, if she wanted to, well, as you said earlier, different things appeal to different women. Tonight I’m trying to appeal to you.”

  If that were so, he wouldn’t have a napkin hanging out his shirt like a five year old, Katrine thought. If that were so, he wouldn’t be shoving the sleeves of his jacket up to his forearms that very moment.

  “Does the meal meet with your satisfaction?”

  The fact that his inquiry had been stated with nothing but polite concern sent off warning bells in her head. “It smells delicious,” she answered as the aroma of roasted Cornish hen drifted up from her plate.

  “Then let us feast.”

  Staring curiously back at him, Katrine found nothing amiss in his expression. She lowered her gaze and picked up her silverware.

  “Wench,” he added.

  Slowly, she lifted her head. Forewarning of doom shrouded the romantic atmosphere of Chez Fred’s as Trey Westmoreland, respected columnist, proceeded to tear into a Cornish hen with his bare hands. Bone snapped as he wrenched a leg neatly off the bird. He gave a grunt of appreciation, sinking his teeth into the juicy meat.

  Once again, Trey had managed to imitate Sean McNeil to perfection. “You promised,” Katrine whispered.

  “I said I wouldn’t quote him,” he reminded, not bothering to swallow or even chew his food before speaking. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t eat like him.”

  ———

  Fifteen minutes later, Kat Summers and T. West were shown the door of Chez Fred’s.

  “I can’t believe you did this to me,” Katrine choked, stomping across the parking lot toward the waiting limo. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!”

  Trey strolled behind her at a leisurely pace, attempting to remove the grease from his face with a handkerchief. “Some people just don’t appreciate a romantic man.”

  Katrine whirled on him. “You hit a customer in the head with a bone!”

  “The guy shouldn’t have been sitting so close to the hearth,” Trey defended. “My aim’s not as good as it used to be.”

  “It wasn’t a hearth,” she ground out. “It was a fireplace and it was a good ten feet from where you were sitting, or more exactly where you were growling like a dog while devouring a Cornish hen!”

  “McNeil growled,” he reminded. “I thought it might turn you on.”

  “Sean was an uncivilized border lord who had the manners of a pig!” Katrine shouted, unconcerned over the curious looks they received from couples coming and going from Chez Fred’s. “If you’d read further, you would have realized I gave him that disgusting fault so the heroine, who was a grand lady, could teach him etiquette.”

  “I did read on,” Trey admitted. “I liked him better before she civilized him. It stands to reason, if the man had been a jerk for thirty years, no ‘slip of a duchess from England’ would change him.”

  “It’s fiction,” Katrine pointed out tensely. “In reality, you’ve more than proven, once a jerk, always a jerk.”

  “I take it I won’t be lifting your skirts later?”

  His question drew her up short. Unfortunately, it also made Katrine see red. Trey transformed what might have passed for a romantic evening into the most humiliating experience of her life She began to swing her beaded purse on its dainty chain.

  The dull security lights made her eyes glitter like a cat in the dark. Trey watched her purse swing back and forth, back and forth until he almost felt hypnotized by the motion. She was bluffing, he assured himself. Katrine Summerville wasn’t the type to totally lose control of her emotions.

  “You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” he said.

  Her purse hit him in the head. A few chuckles from a crowd gathering on the parking lot added to his embarrassment.

  “Kat—”

  Again, she swung. The small purse couldn’t hurt him, still, he wasn’t going to stand in a parking lot full of people and continue to let her humiliate him.

  “That does it.” He rushed her, hefting Katrine over his shoulder. “Sean McNeil wouldn’t take this off a woman.”

  The crowd applauded. A camera flashed to his left and Trey strode purposely toward the waiting limo.

  When her fists began to pummel his back, he slapped his captive lightly on the rear. “Behave yourself, Wench. Action, reaction. Remember the first rule of writing.”

  “S–Should I get the door,” the limo driver stammered.

  “I’d appreciate it, Bob. I have my hands full at the moment.”

  Depositing Katrine into the limo proved difficult. As soon as Trey lowered her to the back seat, she tried to kick him. He clasped her ankles to keep from being injured, taking a moment to admire the length of her legs.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said softly.

  He wondered if she referred to positioning himself within purse swatting distance, or what he was really thinking about—climbing between those long legs and having his way with her.

  His gaze traveled upward, past her slim hips, snagged on her heaving breasts and finally found her face. If looks could kill, he’d be more than dead, he’d be viciously mutilated, as well.

  “I’m warning you, Trey. If you climb back here, I won’t be held accountable for my actions!”

  “That makes two of us,” he said, eyeing her exposed flesh without shame, then releasing her ankles to quickly shut the door. Taking a deep breath of cold air in an attempt to lower his libido, Trey walked
around the limo and got in the front.

  “Has the evening come to an end?” Bob asked hopefully.

  “I think it’s safe to assume Ms. Summerville has had all the romance she can handle for one night.” He smiled. “The past finally caught up with her.”

  ———

  Katrine, still seething in the back seat, tried to rearrange herself inside a dress that didn’t compensate her sudden need for modesty. The moment her purse hit Trey’s head, she knew she’d lost control. Realizing she’d gone off the deep end hadn’t stopped her from swinging at him again. The man drove her crazy. She couldn’t be in his company for longer than ten minutes without wanting to either kiss him or kill him. More often the latter.

  He certainly met a challenge head on, she grudgingly admitted. Once again, she’d have a hell of a time writing about this date. The past had caught up with her all right, however, Sean McNeil would have done more about the fire burning in his eyes a moment ago than Trey had done. Not that Katrine wanted him to run his hands up her legs or kiss her into submission, but if he planned on competing against heroes from a bygone era…

  An idea suddenly occurred to her. A wonderful idea. She had another favorite era in history and wondered if Trey could step into that role as easily.

  “Bob, do you know where a place called The Watering Hole is?”

  “I know where it is, Miss Summers,” he answered nervously. “But I don’t think the two of you—”

  “Take us there,” Katrine demanded. “This is my date, I’ll decide when it’s over. Cynthia told me about this establishment. She highly recommended the entertainment.” When Trey’s shoulders stiffened, the smile threatening Katrine’s lips surrendered. “Don’t worry, Trey. To my knowledge, this place doesn’t have any mud-wrestling midgets.”

  What The Watering Hole did have was a planked sidewalk, swinging doors, and cowboys. A room full of seasoned ranch veterans lined up and waiting for a chance to prove their grit on a contraption fondly named ‘Ball Buster’.

  These hired hands had their own code of the west. No greenhorn who entered their domain, much less one who’d brought a beautiful filly with him, could leave unless he’d gone eight seconds on the mechanical bull. Ten if he was wearing a monkey suit.

  Chapter 13

  “About time you came in,” Jerry Caldwell glanced up from his desk to complain. “Never late one single day in six years and you pick today. We went nation wide. Hell, we made the front page of Texas Trash and … what’s wrong with you? Why are you walking like that?”

  Trying to stifle a grimace of pain, Trey continued toward the wing-backed chair across from his editor. “I’m walking like this because, thanks to Katrine Summerville, I’m sore in a place a man doesn’t like to get sore in.”

  A wide leer spread across Jerry’s features. “Did she do that to you?”

  Trey’s gaze rolled heavenward. “Not in the way you think, but she’s responsible. Katrine and a mechanical bull.”

  A shrill whistle escaped Jerry’s teeth. “You climbed on one of those contraptions?”

  Flinching as he shifted his weight, Trey refused to meet Jerry’s eyes. “With encouragement from a room full of cowboys who didn’t think a filly almost wearing an aqua dress should leave with a man in a monkey Suit. At least, not until he proved himself worthy.”

  “I saw that dress she was almost wearing.” Jerry nodded. “I don’t know what is really happening between you two, but Texas Trash got a shot of you in the parking lot of Chez Fred’s that did modern-man proud.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This.” Jerry handed him the rag’s weekly edition.

  When Trey unfolded the paper, he wasn’t prepared for the eight by ten on the front page. His vision blurred. He felt a strangling sensation in his throat. Crumpling the paper in his fist, he left Jerry’s office and hobbled to his own. Once there, he allowed himself the right to be enraged. “Head over heels.” He snorted with contempt. “Not likely.”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wondering why that conclusion brought an empty feeling to his insides, or why he wasn’t flying high over making the national news. A bright future loomed ahead, and no one to share it with. His feelings for Katrine were changing, growing and he feared failure. What could be more disastrous to his future than getting emotionally involved with her?

  “Trey?”

  He glanced up and came face to face with the answer.

  ———

  “My gosh,” Cynthia Lane gasped. “It looks just like a cover from one of your books.”

  Katrine might have smiled at the irony of it all had the picture not brought about a case of hysteria. A hunk, a woman with cleavage and a headline that read: Romance Writer Head over Heels about Columnist, sent her running from the grocery store with Shelly, her basket of food forgotten and the copy of Texas Trash clutched in her trembling hands. Charlie Grimes had shown up at her doorstep early that morning. The man brought pictures of little Trey and wanted to discuss his every expression, his belches, his gas, all the things that make babies so precious. Katrine finally used the excuse of needing to shop in order to get rid of him. He thoughtfully offered his cab, free of charge, on account he owed them. After seeing the picture, Katrine needed a friendly face. She only had one friend.

  “My, my, my,” Cynthia drawled. “I never realized Trey was such a barbarian. This picture makes my thighs quake.”

  “Mine were quaking at the time,” Katrine grumbled. “I wanted to kill him.”

  Unusual silence from the other side of the table brought Katrine’s gaze up to meet Cynthia’s knowing smile. “What?”

  “You.” Cynthia laughed. “I’ve never seen you this way. Sitting in a public restaurant with your sweats on, your hair in a ponytail and hardly any make-up on—talking about killing a man. You’re never this animated when discussing anyone except a character in your books. You’re fallin’ for him, aren’t you?”

  “I most certainly am not!” Katrine argued. “Trey Westmoreland makes me crazy! He’s too perfect and too flawed and—”

  “And the same man you’ve loved in your imagination for years,” Cynthia interrupted. “Katrine, you’ve found your hero. Admit it.”

  “No.” Katrine shook her head. “He’s real, I can’t get close to him, I—”

  “Can’t control his every thought, his emotions, or the end of the story,” Cynthia finished for her. “Look Kat, I know you won’t talk about your past, but you can’t live there. You’ve got to move forward and take chances. I took a chance on Harold. He’s not much to look at, but he’s my Prince Charming. There’s one out there for every woman, but only a few know what they’re looking at when they see it. Open your eyes, open your heart.”

  Did Katrine dare admit to possibly being in love with him? “All right, just say I’m interested in having a serious relationship with Trey. What makes you think he’d be interested? I mean, with those dimples, I imagine he has women falling all over themselves to go out with him.”

  “That’s true enough,” Cynthia agreed. “Picky boy, Trey Westmoreland. You know in the six years he’s been coming here for lunch, I’ve only seen him with a date maybe four or five times. Never the same person. I’m inclined to believe he has a habit of taking a woman out once or twice, then never calling her again. At least I assumed that’s the reason he approached me about finding him a date for the awards banquet. He said something about burning all his bridges.”

  “Yeah, I bet he burned them all fight,” Katrine muttered with annoyance. “He probably only wants one thing, just like every other jerk we’re stuck with in the twentieth century.”

  “Hey, watch who you call what,” Cynthia blustered. “Harold isn’t a jerk. I don’t believe Trey’s a loser, or I wouldn’t have set you up with him. He’s too smart to sleep with every woman who’d go to bed with him. He wants a serious relationship, but just hasn’t found the right … he’s a jerk.”

  Katrine’s head automatically beg
an to turn, searching for the source of Cynthia’s wideeyed stare.

  “Don’t turn around. Speak of the Devil.”

  “Trey’s here?” Realizing what a slob she looked like, Katrine instinctively slumped lower in the booth.

  “Worse, he’s with a woman.”

  “A woman? Is she pretty?” As soon as the question left Katrine’s lips. she resented asking.

  “Only drop-dead gorgeous,” Cynthia unkindly provided. A flush of embarrassment bespoke her regret. “That is, if perfection appeals to you. Still, she has a sort of, I don’t know, plastic look about her. Surely she’s had surgery.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel better,” Katrine bit out. “How am I going to get out of here without being seen?”

  “You can either get down on your hands and knees and crawl out, or stay for lunch. Why not let them leave first?”

  “Neither choice is too appealing,” Katrine complained. “I don’t want to be forced to sit here while he’s with another woman. And, oh, Shelly!” Katrine sat up straight. “Too late.” Cynthia sighed. “She’s spotted him.”

  ———

  Trey glanced away from his companion when Harold called a greeting. He nodded politely then noticed a familiar face seated on a stool next to Harold’s cash register. Rather impolitely, he walked away from his date. “What are you doing here, Shelly?”

  “Mom’s having coffee with Cynthia,” she answered, eyeing Trey’s companion. “As for what I’m doing here, I’m allowed out in public once in a while, you know? What are you doing here? With her?”

  Her displeased expression made him smile. Children were at least honest with their jealousy. “She’s an old acquaintance of mine,” he explained. “I haven’t seen her in a long time and she just happened to be in Dallas—” Trey quickly closed his mouth. He sounded like a husband caught in the act.

  “She doesn’t look all that old to me.” Shelly studied the woman. “What kind of acquaintance?”

  “Trey, Darling, do you think we could find a table?”