by Linda Seed
“You look nice,” he told her.
He ran the pad of his thumb along his lower lip in an unconscious gesture that, had he noticed he was doing it, he would have admitted was sexual in nature.
“You too.”
“So, what did you end up doing with the kids?” he asked.
“The neighbor across the street is babysitting. She’s a very nice older woman, and the kids love her. So that worked out.”
“I’m glad.”
He’d thought she was attractive in her usual mom mode. But he was delighted by how well she cleaned up.
He raised his eyebrows in question. “Are you ready to go?”
Delilah had thought tonight would be fine. It would be friendly. But the way Quinn looked at her when she answered the door wasn’t friendly.
It was predatory.
Normally, having a man like him look at her like that would be a positive development. But tonight, it just made her nervous.
For one thing, what was his game? A man who looked like Quinn Monroe didn’t feel raw sexual hunger for someone who looked like Delilah, so why was he pretending he did?
For another, he was just too damned good-looking for her to think. It was ridiculous. Bad enough when she’d seen him in his regular life, but now, with his fresh shave and his pressed slacks and his combed hair—not to mention the light, spicy smell of his cologne—she could barely remember where she was or why. For God’s sake, how was she supposed to function in the presence of all that?
She hadn’t realized how well the children had served as chaperones, making everything between Quinn and Delilah sunny and innocent, until they weren’t there. Being alone with him was unsettling.
Didn’t Quinn notice she was carrying twenty extra pounds? Didn’t he notice she wasn’t especially glamorous even under the best of circumstances?
She felt like she was in some teen rom-com where the captain of the football team asked the nerdy girl out as a prank.
Those movies usually involved a lot of crying.
“You’re quiet,” he said from the driver’s seat of his car as he parked in front of Madeline’s. “Is everything okay?”
“What? Sure. Yes.” She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she’d barely heard him.
“You worried about the kids?”
“I … no.”
“Well, whatever it is, maybe a nice meal will get your mind off it,” he suggested. “Let’s go in.”
Quinn couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d screwed this up, even though the date had barely started and there wasn’t much he could have screwed up, even if he’d wanted to.
Delilah had barely spoken two words to him since they’d left the house, and he didn’t know whether that had anything to do with him. Usually, though, when he was with a woman who had a pissy attitude about something, it was a safe bet that he’d somehow caused it.
Was it something he’d said? Or something he hadn’t said? The choice of restaurant, maybe? Or was she just worried about her kids and trying to pretend she wasn’t?
Why did everything have to be so complicated? Why were women such a puzzle?
They went inside and the host showed them to their table.
Madeline’s had a small dining room with white tablecloths and dim lighting. The place was about half-full, and their table was halfway back, along the wall. A glass partition separated them from the couple at the next table.
Quinn picked up the wine menu and perused it. “Would you like some wine?”
“Hmm?”
She hadn’t been listening to him. Either that, or she was annoyed. Maybe it was the whole man-taking-the-menu thing. He offered the menu to her in case that was it. “Wine menu,” he said.
“Oh.” She took the menu and looked at it for such a brief moment that she couldn’t possibly have read anything. Then she put it down. “Just water for me.”
Okay, it wasn’t his imagination, then. In his experience, when a woman who had no objection to drinking alcohol refused a drink on a first date, it was because she thought she might need to flee before the appetizer.
Goddamn it. He was on his best behavior. What was going wrong?
“Look, Delilah. Obviously, something’s bothering you. Do you want to reschedule?”
“Is that what you want?” She sent the question back over the net in his direction.
“No, I want to have dinner. But if you’ve got something going on …”
“I don’t. There’s nothing. Let’s just order.”
Delilah was flubbing this, and she knew it. She was failing miserably at trying to hide her doubts and insecurities. And now Quinn wanted to abort the whole thing, and really, who could blame him?
This is an exercise, she reminded herself. It’s a step toward living happily without Mitch. So try, damn it.
“I think I will have some wine after all.”
Quinn didn’t know what was going wrong, but he knew for sure that something was. Delilah seemed tense and uncomfortable, and he had no idea what he’d done to cause it.
Maybe he hadn’t done anything. Maybe this was about her ex. He was pretty sure this was her first date since the divorce, so maybe that was all this was—the pain and difficulty of trying to move on.
They ordered their wine and their food without saying much, while Quinn tried to figure out the best approach for breaking through this wall she’d erected between them.
When his steak and her pasta had been set on the table and the server had left, he gave it his best shot.
“Are you thinking about your ex-husband?” he asked gently. “Because if he’s on your mind, I can certainly understand why this might be hard.”
She looked at him, her fork in her hand. Then she put the fork down, and her eyes got shiny and red.
“I’m making a mess of this.” She blinked a few times, and one tear squeezed out. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He refolded the napkin in his lap. “I get it. First time out with someone since the divorce, right?”
She nodded.
“Which, what? Makes it seem real? Makes it clear that the marriage is really over?”
“It’s not so much that,” she said. “It’s more a complete lack of optimism. You know? Why try, if that’s how things end up?”
It struck him that if she was worried about how things would end up, in a larger, where-is-my-life-going sense, then she probably had entirely different expectations for this date than he did. Quinn had hoped things would end up in someone’s bed, and he really hadn’t thought much beyond that. But Delilah apparently was seeing a future of emotional devastation and inevitable heartbreak.
“They don’t always end up that way,” he offered. “And anyway, sometimes things are just fun. Sometimes they’re just … light.”
“Light,” she repeated.
“Yeah. Sure.” He shrugged. “Why not?”
In other circumstances, it might have offended Delilah if a man she was out with implied that all he was looking for was fun. This time, though, it wasn’t an offense so much as a relief.
She was putting too much pressure on herself, that was all. She was so conditioned to thinking of dating in terms of a long-term relationship that she’d forgotten what it was like to spend time with a man just for the pleasure of it.
If a good time was all Quinn wanted and they both knew that up front, then surely she wasn’t in any danger. A serious long-term relationship with any man might have been an unattainable goal for Delilah, but fun? That was something she could do.
“I’m out of practice with keeping things light,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to try.”
And I’m out of practice being sensitive to women’s emotional needs, Quinn thought. But I’m willing to try, too.
In the interest of keeping things low-key, they kept the conversation off of things like exes and relationships and people’s futures for the rest of the meal. Instead, they talked about his work, her kids, what kinds of books they both enjoyed, and what she pla
nned to see and do in Cambria for the rest of her stay.
To Quinn’s mind, things were going better. They shared a bottle of wine, and Delilah even smiled and laughed a few times.
The laugh—that was something he wouldn’t mind seeing and hearing more of. When she laughed, the happiness reached every part of her face until she was aglow with it. When Delilah laughed, Quinn felt some warm thing in his chest squeeze his heart.
It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it was alarming, nonetheless.
After they left the restaurant, Quinn wasn’t ready to take Delilah home yet, so he considered other things they might do—a movie in San Luis Obispo, maybe? Or listening to some music at the Cambria Pines Lodge? He’d have been happy just to take a walk on the beach with her, but it was already dark and the moon was obscured by an overcast sky.
Next time, he thought, which made him note that he was already thinking about a next time.
“It’s still early,” he told her. “There’s not a whole lot of nightlife in Cambria, but there’s some. Or we could go to Morro Bay. There’s a club there that—”
“I’d better get back to the boys,” she said.
“Right.” He nodded. “Of course.”
Either she really was just worried about her kids or she was fleeing at the first opportunity because the date had sucked just that much for her.
“I had a good time,” she told him as they stood next to his car.
“Really?”
“Yes. After a rough start, I did.”
He hesitated, then took a chance. He lay his hand on the side of her face, leaned in, and kissed her.
She let out a little noise at the touch of his lips—a little whimper—and it was maybe the sexiest sound he’d ever heard. His body reacted as the blood rushed to one of his favorite body parts.
He wanted to ask her to come home with him—God, he wanted that so much—but he knew she’d never go for it. Not now. Not yet. So instead, he pulled away, took a ragged breath, and opened the car door for her.
“You ready?” he said.
Delilah hadn’t kissed any man besides Mitch for more than twelve years. She’d met Mitch during her freshman year in college, when she was only eighteen, so there hadn’t been many kisses before that, either. All in all, she could count the number of people she’d kissed on one hand and still have one finger left over.
So, maybe her reaction had something to do with her lack of experience. All she knew was that her entire body had felt like it was melting at the touch of his lips.
How could one man’s lips on hers make her thighs weak and her toes hot? For God’s sake.
She got into the car feeling grateful that it was dark inside so he wouldn’t see how his kiss had affected her.
He drove her back to Otter Bluff, and she thanked him for dinner and got out of the car before he could try kissing her again.
If he did, she didn’t know how she could summon up the will to stop him. Or herself.
Chapter 13
Well, she’d done it, Delilah reflected the next morning as she made coffee and got breakfast ready for herself and the boys. She’d gone out on her first date since the divorce. She’d ripped off the Band-Aid. It had stung some, but it hadn’t killed her.
She felt like she deserved some kind of ribbon or certificate of accomplishment—something that showed she’d survived her divorce and emerged on the other side in one piece.
Delilah felt grateful that Quinn had done that for her, grateful, too, that he’d shown her she could still be attractive to a man who wasn’t Mitch.
Now, with all of that achieved and behind her, it was time to forget about frivolous things like dating and get down to fixing what was left of her life.
She put cereal, milk, and a plate of cut fruit in front of the boys at the dining room table, ate some toast, then poured herself a cup of coffee and went onto the back patio to enjoy the view while she drank it.
She’d just settled into the Adirondack chair when she heard someone calling her.
“Delilah? Yoo hoo!”
She looked up and over the waist-high fence to find Dolly walking across the street and waving at her.
“Oh. Dolly. Hi.” Delilah indicated the chair next to her. “Have a seat. You want some coffee?”
“No thank you, honey. My doctor says I have to lay off the caffeine. Blood pressure.” She let herself in through the gate and settled into the chair next to Delilah.
“Oh. Well. Thanks again for watching the boys last night,” Delilah said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Think nothing of it.” Dolly waved a hand dismissively. “Those boys of yours are dolls. Just dolls. They had a lot of fun, and I think I enjoyed it more than they did.”
“Still, it was a big favor, so thank you.”
Dolly stole a glance at Delilah out of the corner of her eye. “I heard you had a pretty nice time, yourself.”
She’d heard about Delilah’s date? How? From whom? Delilah was thrown off, and she sat up straighter in her chair and turned to gape at Dolly.
“What did you hear? How?”
“I heard that you were out with Mr. Gorgeous, that Quinn Monroe. As for how I heard it? Well, this is a small town, honey. Everybody hears everything.”
“But …”
“My friend Lola is the general manager over at Madeline’s.”
“But how does Lola even know who I am? How would she even know to tell you? I—”
“She was over at my place the other day having coffee—well, decaf for me, like I told you, my blood pressure—and you were getting Jesse and Gavin loaded into the car for some outing or another. Lola wanted to know if I had a new neighbor, so I told her about you.”
“Oh, Dolly. I don’t—”
“Now, you’d better get used to that sort of thing if you’re going to be spending time here.” Dolly let out a cackle. “Nobody means any harm in it, but we do like to mind other people’s business.”
Once Delilah got over the surprise of knowing her activities had been monitored and reported, the other part of what Dolly said hit her.
“So … you know Quinn?”
Dolly waved a hand airily. “Like I said, everyone—”
“Knows everyone,” Delilah finished for her.
“That’s right. Another friend of mine—Deb Foster—lives next door to him. I have to say, you couldn’t have done better in the looks department. That man could be a movie star or a model or something. If my Melissa wasn’t already married …”
Of course, Delilah already knew Quinn was hot. What she didn’t know was pretty much everything else.
“Quinn and I just met,” she told Dolly. “What kind of person is he?”
Dolly readjusted her butt in the chair and seemed to consider it. “Well, I don’t know him personally, I just know who he is when I see him at the Cookie Crock or out on Main Street. But Deb says he’s a nice boy.”
Well, that was something. “That’s good to know.”
“He checks on her, you know. Deb’s in her seventies, and she doesn’t walk so well anymore—her doctor says she should start using a cane, but she’s so stubborn she keeps refusing to do it—and he makes it a point to stop in and make sure she’s okay.”
Oh, God. It wasn’t bad enough that he was irresistibly gorgeous. Did he also have to be helpful to old ladies? Delilah needed reasons not to like Quinn, not additional reasons to like him.
She was in enough trouble as it was.
Except I’m not, because I’m not going to get involved with him, she reminded herself. We had a date, that’s all. And that’s all it’s ever going to be.
But that wasn’t all it was. There had also been the kiss, and Delilah suspected she’d reacted to it in a way that would embarrass her if she were viewing it as an outsider. She’d reacted as though she’d been drowning and he’d saved her.
The only one who was going to save Delilah was herself.
“You’ve gotten quiet,” Dolly observed.
“I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Dolly glanced at her with a mischievous grin. “You’re tired after a date with a handsome man? Well, honey, good for you. Whatever happened last night to tire you out, I hope it was worth it.”
Delilah felt herself blush, but she didn’t correct Dolly. All that had happened was a kiss—that was true. But she’d wanted it to be so much more.
Dolly’s smirk was at least somewhat justified.
To Quinn’s mind, the fact of the kiss, and the chemistry behind it, meant he and Delilah were going to see each other again.
Why wouldn’t they? The kiss held so much promise. You kissed somebody as a test of whether you’d be good together physically, and they’d passed the test with spectacular success.
He still held firm on his idea that he was never going to get seriously involved with a single mother. But that was the beauty of the situation. She was only in town until the first of the year. The thing had a built-in expiration date. So, there could be no misunderstandings, no unrealistic expectations. They could have fun until January first and then part on happy terms.
It was perfect.
That was why he found it so puzzling when she ghosted him.
He texted her the afternoon after their date and got no reply. He waited a while, then called her. The call went straight to voice mail, so he left a message. He waited for her to call him back or text him, but again … nothing.
Really?
Surely there had to be something wrong with her phone or some crisis she was dealing with. She couldn’t just be ignoring him.
His conviction on this issue came from years of experience with women. He was the ghoster, not the ghosted. To have it go the other way was just … surprising.
He told himself to forget about it as he went about his day. He finished the salmon article and submitted it to his editor at the fishing magazine. The furniture website was mostly complete, with just some fine-tuning left to do, so he sent an e-mail to the client with a link to what he’d done so far so he could get approval to finish up.