When he got in, Jolene looked at him in surprise.
“Don’t you want to drive?” Not that she would let him, of course, but she thought it unusual that he didn’t just automatically come over to the driver’s side and hold his hand out for her keys. The men she knew all liked being in control.
He slipped on the seat belt. “Not particularly. It’s your car.”
Jolene got in behind the wheel. “Most men want to drive.”
The look he gave her penetrated through her aqua sweater and went clear through to her spine. She discovered that she was having a little trouble breathing and searched for the button on the armrest’s control panel to open the window.
“I’m not like most men, Jolene,” Mac reminded her quietly. “Besides, you know where the theater is, I don’t.”
All very logical. So why wasn’t there any air coming through the open window.
Behind her, Amanda began to rock in her seat. “Silly Sandy, Mommy, Silly Sandy.”
Mac grinned. “Yes, ‘Mommy,’ you’re wasting time.” He tapped his watch. “Silly Sandy is about to start.”
She ignored him. It was easier that way than acknowledging what was going on just under the surface. Things she definitely wasn’t happy about. “You’re absolutely right, Amanda. What was Mommy thinking?” Squaring her shoulders, she put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway.
She couldn’t wait to get into a dark movie theater so that she could ignore this man.
The theater at that time of evening was jam-packed and resonating with noise. It was the cartoon feature’s opening day and word-of-mouth had spread like wildfire among the under-six set. Everywhere Jolene looked, there were handfuls of harried adults attempting to keep track of gaggles of children.
Holding Amanda firmly by the hand and ushering Jolene in before him, Mac remarked, “Looks like we’re the only ones who aren’t outnumbered.”
She turned to look at him. Big mistake. If she’d been any closer to him, there wouldn’t have been enough room to slip a dime in between them.
She suddenly had firsthand knowledge of what the term “steal your breath away” meant.
Still, she managed to force out the question, “Outnumbered?”
He nodded, urging her on. “There’s two of us to one of her. From the looks of it, there’s just one adult for every five or six short people.”
Outnumbered was the term for it. And children had nothing to do with the feeling. She felt outnumbered just being this close to him.
Maybe this was not such a good idea. She’d thought that confronted with a kiddie movie, he’d run for the hills, not embrace the idea. If she hadn’t gone through what she had and he wasn’t what he was, he would have been looking pretty good to her by now.
But she had gone through hell with her husband and MacKenzie was Blair Memorial’s most desired hunk—and he knew it. Under no circumstances could she allow herself to forget that. Because if she did, if through some freakish act of nature, she temporarily lost her mind and allowed her guard to go down long enough to fall under this drop-dead gorgeous man’s spell, it would be all over for her.
The fall wouldn’t just hurt her this time, it would probably kill her.
The trick here, Jolene reminded herself, was not to go up on that high beam to begin with. That meant keeping both feet firmly planted on the ground.
Putting on a pair of blinders wouldn’t exactly hurt, either.
Once inside the movie theater lobby, the crowd began to disperse a little. One wall was lined with arcade games that instantly attracted an array of children.
Mac looked down at Amanda. “C’mon, princess, let’s go see ourselves a dog.”
Amanda, in Jolene’s estimation, looked prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth.
He turned and peered at Jolene over his shoulder. “Coming, ‘Mommy?”’
Her eyes narrowed. There was something irksome about his referring to her that way. And far too familiar. “Don’t call me that, Harrison.”
Making his way past a mother with triplets, all of whom were trying to outyell each other, Mac nodded. “I think I can foresee a fair exchange in the making, Nurse DeLuca.”
Why was it when he called her that, she felt as if he was teasing her? As if he found what she did amusing in some way?
Just her insecurity raising its ugly head, Jolene told herself. Matt had always found ways to undermine her, to make her feel that she was something only a little more capable than an orderly, and maybe just a shade more intelligent than a doorstop.
Mac saw the lines forming at the candy counter. Three teenagers in less than attractive brown uniforms were trying to fill the orders coming their way.
“Popcorn?” he asked Jolene.
She had a tendency to pig-out on popcorn. Another personal thing she didn’t want him to know about her. “We’re having dinner, remember?”
His smile was getting to be more and more disarming. There had to be somewhere she could go to get shots against it. And him.
“How can I forget? I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
He hadn’t been at the hospital at the same time she was on duty. At least, she hadn’t run into him. Part of her had taken that to mean that perhaps he’d thought better of their so-called date and had chosen to face the matter in typical male fashion: by avoiding her. Even though he was here now, she sincerely doubted that he had spent his day looking forward to this.
“Still,” he looked at the shorter of his two dates, “What’s a movie without popcorn, if only to leave behind?” He temporarily cut Jolene out of the conversation, centering the universe around Amanda. “How about it, Amanda? Want some popcorn?”
The little girl nodded her head vigorously. Jolene had the impression that her daughter would have agreed to almost anything Mac suggested. The man’s charm was deadly, leaving no one from two to two hundred safe.
“How about you?” His eyes shifted to her.
“I’ll pass.” Jolene inclined her head, lowering her voice so that only he could hear her. “You know, you don’t have to be nice to Amanda to get to me.”
Her breath was warm against his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. Mac felt his gut tighten. Drawing his head back, he grinned at her.
“And here I thought you were leaning over to nibble on my ear.” His eyes grew serious, his voice as low as hers. “I’m being nice to Amanda because I like Amanda. I like all kids. They’re what we all were before the world hit us with its garbage.”
He definitely unnerved her when he looked at her like that. Jolene changed the subject, nodded toward the counter. “There’s too large a line. We’ll be late getting into the movie.”
Mac didn’t answer her. Instead he made eye contact with a woman at the far end of the counter who was clearly in charge. Brightening visibly, the woman looked at him quizzically. Mac motioned her to the side and met her there.
He picked Amanda up into his arms. “My little friend here would like some popcorn, but we’re afraid we might miss the movie.”
“No problem.” The words were directed at him rather than the child they involved. The woman seemed only too happy to take this small obstacle out of Mac’s life. “Small, medium, large?”
“Large. We’re going to teach her about sharing today. No butter,” he added as the woman took a large container and plunged it into the sea of popcorn. “We don’t want her to pick up any bad habits this early.”
The woman nodded. “Very smart.” Jolene had the feeling the woman would have made the same pronouncement had MacKenzie said he was thinking of hang gliding off the theater complex roof.
“Five-ninety, right?” Mac handed the woman the proper change. She just closed her fingers over the amount without checking.
“I don’t believe it,” Jolene declared as they walked away from the counter. The woman went back to tallying containers and ignoring the people lining up along the counter.
Stopping before theater number three
, Mac looked at her innocently. “Don’t believe what?”
“You just flirted with another woman while you were on a—a—” She couldn’t bring herself to call it a date. “On an excursion with me.”
An excursion, so that’s what she called it. His mouth curved with amusement. “That’s not flirting, Jolene, that’s just interacting.” Holding Amanda’s hand, he momentarily set the large tub of popcorn down on the floor. “This—” he slowly ran his thumb along Jolene’s lower lip as he looked into her eyes “—is flirting.”
She’s been around the block more than once, in a souped-up car at that. She’d been married, divorced and experienced all the shades that existed in between the two states. Why then did the entire area suddenly go dark for the space of an eternal moment, as if they’d been thrown bodily into the eye of an electrical power grid failure? And why did her heart suddenly begin beating like a world renowned drummer wired with espresso coffee and a pound of dark chocolate?
She had no answer. None that she wanted to even mildly consider.
“Oh,” was all she managed. The lights slowly seeped back into existence and her bearing returned, slightly tilted but there. “The movie.” Somewhat shaky, Jolene pointed at the opened theater door behind him. The music had stopped playing, a sure sign that coming attractions were about to begin.
“Right, the movie.”
Mac turned toward the theater, his body locked in slow motion. For a moment there, something had happened, had sparked within him, and he’d be dammed if he understood what.
Had to be because the woman was resisting him so much. The last time he’d met up with resistance outside of a high school physics experiment, he’d found himself just entering puberty. And Sheila Royce hadn’t resisted for long. She’d kissed him under the bleachers at halftime less than a day after she’d played hard-to-get.
This woman was doing a much better job than Sheila Royce at getting under his skin.
“We’d better get inside,” he added needlessly, then turned to lead the way.
Walking in, Mac stood for a moment in the darkening theater, getting his eyes accustomed to the dim lighting, attempting to make shapes out. Or not make them out as the case was. He was trying to scout out three unoccupied seats that were together.
Jolene beat him to it. It was amazing what weakening knees made you do. “There.” She pointed to the area for emphasis.
He was still trying to focus. “Where? I don’t see any empty seats.”
Shaking her head, she took his arm and led the way up to the front of the theater. Part of her was convinced that he’d feigned not being able to see the seats for this exact reason.
The seats were three rows from the screen.
“Too close?” she asked.
He was surprised that she bothered asking him his preference. But as a doting uncle, he’d sat even closer than this.
“No, this is perfect for Amanda.” He looked down for a confirmation from the little girl and got it. “No big heads in the way, right, princess?”
She nodded her head vigorously, her wispy curls bouncing again. “Right.”
Mac led the way into the row. To Jolene’s surprise, he looked perfectly content to have Amanda planted between them. Settling in, he held the popcorn container where it was easily accessible to the little girl.
It was a ninety-three minute movie…ninety-three minutes of nonstop color, antics and song.
Jolene’d spent most of those ninety-three minutes watching MacKenzie rather than her daughter or the movie. Convinced that this too-good-to-be-true act of MacKenzie’s was just that, a ruse to get her into bed, she felt sure that once the lights were down and the movie was rolling, he’d begin to fidget restlessly. At the very least, she felt confident that he wouldn’t bother watching the movie.
She hadn’t expected him to watch the cartoon feature in its entirety, and certainly didn’t expect him to laugh. But he did both, leaning over occasionally to explain something to Amanda. Amanda was eating it up.
Just like a little girl who missed male influence in her life. Who missed having a father.
Somewhere after the third song, a duet sung by Silly Sandy and a purple cricket named Oscar, Jolene felt as if she’d intruded on an exclusive club.
Watching MacKenzie and her daughter, she suddenly felt a lump rising in her throat. If Matt hadn’t been such a bastard with an overeager sex drive, this could have been his. Amanda could have been giggling with him over the duet instead of with a stranger.
No, that wasn’t entirely right. Even if Matt had kept his zipper in its closed position and they’d remained a family, nothing in the world would have convinced him to go to the movies and spend an evening watching a cartoon dog spread cheer and sing. Matt just wasn’t good with children. She’d known that when she married him. She’d hoped, of course, that when their own came along, he’d change. And he had.
Except that the change had been for the worse. He’d reverted back to his premarried state with a vengeance.
“What’s the matter?”
MacKenzie’d whispered the question in her ear, his breath caressing her skin, causing a minor warm front to move in over her entire body. Startled, she jumped and looked at him. “What?”
“You look like you’re a million miles away.”
Amanda looked up at the two adults talking over her head and uttered an impatient, “Shhhh,” the way her mother had countless times to her when she was being too noisy.
Mac almost laughed out loud.
“Sorry,” he whispered to Amanda. “It won’t happen again.” To seal the deal, he crossed his heart and faced forward.
Jolene hadn’t realized just how appealing his profile was, especially in such low lighting. Or how heart softening.
With effort, she tried to pick up the thread of the story and stop noticing the sexy doctor less than two feet away from her.
She didn’t have much luck.
Chapter Eight
The Safari Restaurant, nestled in the heart of the sprawling Bedford Mall, was an experience for the senses that was discernible long before Jolene walked into it. Built without two of its walls, it relied on scenery such as palms, strategically placed fish tanks and configurations of mechanical beasts to lend structure to the enclosed place.
Amanda’s head seemed to spin like a top as the food server, dressed as an African safari guide, led them to their table. Jolene saw MacKenzie slip the young woman a twenty. In exchange for that, they were taken to a table that was in the very center of the restaurant. From there, they could see and hear everything.
The food server recited the specials of the day, complete with all the appropriate, cute names and waited to see if anything proved tempting. Mac ordered something called a Rhino Burger, suggesting that Amanda might enjoy a dish called Gibbon Food, which turned out to be home-styled potatoes and grilled, finger-size hot dogs.
Jolene went with the Mogambo Salad and was surprised when the women returned with a plate that took up half the tray and had everything on it but the proverbial kitchen sink. Given all the camouflaging lettuce, the latter could very well have been on the plate.
Jolene felt daunted before she even began. However, Amanda dived in as if she’d been starving for the last week instead of someone who had just consumed more than her share of popcorn at the movies.
Jolene had glimpsed the prices on the menu, which were longer than the names on the items. This was not an inexpensive date. In light of that, since he wasn’t about to get anything else for his investment, she supposed she at least should make an attempt at some kind of conversation.
Raising her voice to be heard above the din, Jolene asked, “How did you find this place?”
Watching Amanda’s reaction to the different animals tickled him. Mac raised his eyes to Jolene’s. “I didn’t. Karla and Ethan did.”
She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know them, or if she’d even heard him correctly. A person could go deaf working here, she thought. �
��And they are?”
“My niece and nephew. They’re ten and eight.” He took out his wallet and found the photograph that had all three in it. He passed it over to Jolene. “But Kirby’s the one who really loves this place. He’s five.” He glanced at Amanda. “I wasn’t too sure about a two-year-old, though.”
Jolene handed his wallet back to him. A man who carried around a photograph of his niece and nephews couldn’t be all bad, she thought, no matter how hard she struggled to keep the label affixed to him. “They’re very sweet.”
“Yes, they are,” he agreed with pride, returning his wallet to his back pocket.
He needn’t have worried about Amanda’s reaction to the place. The little girl looked as if she’d finally found her rightful home.
Very simply, the restaurant was built on the principle of perpetual noise and perpetual motion. Decorated to look like a tropical rain forest, it saw no embarrassing contradiction in having a full-size mechanical ape and a tiger, complete with cubs, periodically letting loose with their respective roars.
It was the perfect place to come in order to entertain a child and not talk to your date, Jolene thought. Not that MacKenzie was actually her date.
He was just the man she was allowing to pay for everything.
The irony of the situation hit her.
All right, so she had joined the fold. She was one of “Hunky Harrison’s” dates. But only by the most technical stretch of the word’s definition. They’d gone out together, shared a noisy movie and a noisier meal, but they were not going to be sharing anything else. Not if she had anything to say about it. She wasn’t even going to shake his hand at the door if she could help it.
“What’s wrong?”
Glancing up, she realized that he was saying something to her, but only because she saw that his lips were moving and he was looking at her with those piercing green eyes of his. His voice was completely drowned out by the sounds of a sudden thunder shower that was taking place not three feet behind her. The screech of a monkey heading for high ground was added in, making anything short of lip reading impossible.
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