by Sally Felt
“I was expecting your truck,” she said, glimpsing a footlocker and at least three pairs of sports shoes in the back.
He laughed. “You don’t want to go anywhere in that heap,” he said. “Besides, you’re far less likely to wind up sitting on a stray tool in this one.” He ran his hand over the seat as if checking for tools and grinned. “Of course, there are never any guarantees.”
He had two vehicles. That was twice as many as Isabelle, who was still driving her work van everywhere and dreaming of a time when she wouldn’t have to load groceries in amongst shelving and shoe drawers.
Two vehicles. Nice clothes. Great taste in flowers. And yet he’d said he needed cash.
She wasn’t going to ask. It wasn’t any of her business. If he was another comfort-seeking con artist, he would be sorely disappointed tonight. They weren’t dating.
“Orange,” she said of the Jeep. “I approve.” She got in.
Kim caught himself watching Isabelle’s dress slide up her creamy thigh as she got into the passenger seat. He closed the door for her and took a few deep breaths as he circled to the driver’s side. He could do this. He could be near her curvy body and wicked smile and still manage to respect her old-fashioned standards. Never mind the inviting elegance of her bare neck. And soft arms. And full, healthy thighs under her short, red…
Focus. Breathe.
Why was he doing this, again?
Favor. She’d asked him to.
Damsel in distress.
Check.
He could do this.
He got in and put on the shoulder belt before starting the Jeep. Time to start eating up the miles between Isabelle’s south Dallas bungalow and the restaurant, way up in one of the more northern suburbs.
“I appreciate your doing this, but you don’t have to try so hard,” Isabelle said.
“What’s that?”
“This isn’t a date until we meet up with Stacey and Bob.”
“Sure it’s a date—a double date.” He grinned, hoping to see her agree to that much at least, and got huffed at for his trouble. Uh oh. “So the flowers were wasted, then?”
“‘Fraid so.”
“Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I’m only saying, no need.” She shifted in her seat and had to grab the beaded shawl that tried to slide off her lap.
“So this isn’t supposed to be any fun for me?”
“Are you having fun?”
She was surprised?
“I was until a minute ago,” he said.
“I’m sorry. This is my first just-for-show relationship. It’s difficult to know where to draw the line.”
He nodded. “Me too.” Just for show. Why did that seem even harsher than we’re not dating?
Kim pulled onto Stemmons Freeway and started north. He edged the Jeep up toward eighty miles an hour. Push it higher than that and it would start to shimmy. He had to have that looked at before he moved.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You were cool with us pretending to be a romantic item last night. You’re cool about pretending tonight. Either I’m easier to tolerate than most men, or I’m merely convenient. Tough to say which is harder on my ego.”
She sighed. “You’re wonderful. Thoughtful. Great kisser. Drool-worthy. You’re perfect.”
She didn’t sound sarcastic.
“That’s good, right?” he said cautiously.
“Sure. Until I find you in bed with another woman.”
What? “When did I get into bed with another woman? Is it because I’m not sleeping with you? Is it why I’m not sleeping with you?”
“Yes, in fact,” she said. “It’s why we’re not even dating.”
“Lost me,” he said, his head starting to hurt.
“I know.”
Kim had entered the Canyon, an ever-forking high-speed maze of concrete that brought a fistful of major highways together at downtown Dallas and then peeled them off again. It wasn’t the best place for a complicated conversation.
She’d called him drool-worthy. A great kisser. How did she get from there to an apparently militant we’re-not-dating stance?
Once on the Tollway, Kim wound his speed back up to eighty. He was still getting passed. He definitely had to get the Jeep looked at.
Concentrating on the road was simpler than trying to figure this woman out. He’d been taken with her—her wit, her spirit, even her ankles. Clearly, his fantasies were not being reciprocated. He should let it go. Show her a good time tonight and leave her alone. A gentleman did not push, especially not a gentleman with plans to leave town.
He endured another ten minutes of silence while they made their way through the pricey Park Cities and farther north, past LBJ Freeway and the Dallas Galleria, and farther north still. Then she surprised him by saying, “Is it really safe?” She sounded far away and uncertain.
“The Jeep?”
“Wall Werx.”
“Absolutely. I’ve been climbing now for…” Kim paused to get the right number and realized he wasn’t counting weeks or even months, but rather years. Well, almost years. One year and change. Astounding. A record.
And as recently as this afternoon, he was still finding fun, new things to try. Wow.
“Kim?”
“Sorry. I hadn’t realized it had been almost two years. Surprised me, is all. And yes, it’s safe,” he said. “You don’t climb without at least a little instruction. And in the Big Top—the big room you saw today—you don’t climb without a rope and a trained partner at the other end of it.”
“But that boy fell,” she said. “As high as he was, he could have been killed.”
“The kid had a better chance of being hit by a car than getting killed climbing,” he said, choosing not to mention that most climbing-related injuries were suffered by girlfriends watching from the ground below. “He had a quality climbing harness that really fit him. He had a secured, locking carabiner at his tie-in. All the anchors were bombproof. Only the untrained idiot on belay posed any danger, and it was pretty minimal. Cameron probably only fell about ten feet.”
The concrete walls to either side of the Tollway were rising again as they burrowed ever northward. This was where Kim grew less sure. The Galleria was generally as far north as he ever went.
“You realize, ‘hit by a car’ and ‘fell ten feet’ were the only English words in that sentence.” She sounded pissed.
“It’s safe,” he told her. “It’s also the most fun you’ll have with your clothes on. Come by sometime and I’ll show you.”
“I don’t think so.”
Something had her in a mood. He glanced over at her. “I said ‘safe’ not ‘date’. Did I say ‘date’? I did not say ‘date’.” It was the clothes-on thing. Had to be. She was thinking he was obsessed with sex. She’d have to take some responsibility there. That dress was an invitation to obsess. It looked like a nightgown from the forties, low cut both back and front and shaped to cup her breasts just so. The fabric looked liquid, as if he could just slip its little straps off her curvy shoulders and—
Focus.
“I’m not mad. I just don’t…”
She didn’t seem willing to finish that sentence. Instead, she said, “Tell me about your family, Kim.”
His hands tightened on the wheel as he sailed past another toll plaza. “Not as interesting as yours,” he said. “You never told me how you came to have a brother at thirteen.”
“Charlie’s dad’s a widower and my mom liked being married, just not to my wandering-eyed dad. I’m happy they hooked up, even if Charlie did stand me up today. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“He stood you up?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
It was true. He didn’t care. “I can’t imagine any man standing you up.”
He changed lanes. Their exit had to be somewhere soon.
“I don’t like heights,” she said.
“What?”
“I thought I
would pass out just looking up this afternoon at Wall Werx. There. That’s my embarrassing confession. Your turn.” It came out as one long sentence, a staccato rush of words.
Kim hadn’t seen that one coming. Afraid of heights? He couldn’t even imagine it. Not to the extent the tightness in her voice betrayed. Not to the degree that it would be a big-deal confession. Maybe she expressed fear as anger. He could understand that much, at least.
“I have a half-brother, Mom’s first marriage, ten years older than me,” he said, trying to keep his own voice from getting tight, though fear had little to do with why.
“That’s a big difference in age. Does he live in Dallas?”
Did he ever. “Much too close.”
“You don’t like him?”
He wanted to laugh. “Ever had someone in your life with all the answers?”
“I wish.”
Huh. She didn’t seem the type to live under another’s thumb.
“Even if he didn’t care you didn’t ask?”
“Oh. Pushy, is he?” She turned more fully toward him. Could he manage another civil answer?
“Superior is more like it. Married a perfect wife, has awesome kids, runs a respected business. It’s like he’s got license to meddle.”
“But you do good work. You’re successful. Doesn’t he see that?”
Hands too tight on the wheel, Kim shook his head. “I’m not looking for an ‘attaboy’. Not from him.”
Silence suggested she was expecting him to say more. As far as Kim was concerned, the less said the better.
“And your folks?” she asked.
Isabelle had apparently found a topic she liked. Too bad it wasn’t one of Kim’s favorites. Next thing you know, she’d be asking where he went to college. He hadn’t realized there were so many things he didn’t want to talk about. “Mom lives in Houston. Last I heard from my father, he was looking for work in California.”
“I’d say your family was far more interesting than mine.”
He grunted, not trusting himself to say more. He took comfort in knowing they were nearly to the restaurant and exited in silence. Kim had always liked the hiss of rubber on asphalt, whether on a bike or in a car. Something about the sound of objects in motion. Like him. Not like Kerry, who moved only in the well-worn path set before him by his sainted father.
And apparently, not like regal, wounded and undeniably passionate Isabelle Caine, the Immovable Object.
So much for perfect. Isabelle turned her gaze out the dark window, feeling as alone as she had in bed last night. She’d started to trust Kim, to suspect he had a conscience, some kind of code he lived by. But a man who had nothing nice to say about his family was a man without roots. And she knew what happened with those kinds of men.
Just another reason to be glad she’d been clear about tonight’s arrangement.
By the time they pulled up at the squatty suburban strip mall where Mirabelle made its unlikely home, she wasn’t sure she could even fake her way through a meal.
Kim parked. “How did we meet?” he asked.
“What?”
“Our relationship. Did you call for a plumber? Or did our eyes meet across the ice rink at the Galleria?”
Oh.
“Kim, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe you should take me home.”
“Hang on.” He came around, opened her door and waited until she took his offered hand as she stepped down to the pavement. The touch of his sandpaper fingers surprised her again.
“Okay,” he said, still holding her hand. “If you’re going to break my heart, do it here. It’s always better face-to-face.”
“Oh, please. As if you are ever the break-ee.”
His voice changed from joking to blanket-soft. “If you had any idea how much I want to kiss you, you wouldn’t say that.”
“Then tell me,” she said. “Tell me how much. Make me believe.”
And he did.
Her awareness shifted from a white scar that interrupted his right eyebrow, to a fan of dark eyelashes, then down to his parting lips and cleft chin and…mmm. Isabelle slipped her hands beneath Kim’s open coat. She spread her fingers across his silk-covered chest as his arm wound around her and pulled her inexorably closer.
This time, there was no teasing of her lips or polite hesitation. He was drinking her, drawing her, promising her something that had no words. Her body understood. She stepped closer, one of her feet between his, leg to leg, belly to belly, chest to chest.
Warmth and humidity and the sense that something very old was being shaken awake. Oh my.
Her hands felt restless. Her pulse, heavy. Her body itched. She pressed herself closer, hip to hip, heat to heat. Kim’s hand cupped her neck, sliding up into her hair, his rough skin making her shiver against him.
She gasped.
He eased back, still holding her cheek in one rough palm. Their bodies were still pressed together. His eyes seemed very dark in the parking lot’s eerie sulfur light. She knew he was seeing nothing but her and it made her feel like the most desirable woman ever to draw breath on earth.
And she was looking at the most desirable man.
“Maybe you should take me home,” she said again for entirely different reasons.
“Isabelle.” The longing in his voice made her shiver again.
“Change of plan,” she said. “We are sleeping together.”
* * * * *
They needed a chaperone.
Kim sat opposite Bob at their square table at the restaurant and decided the word might be old fashioned but the concept was as relevant as ever, at least if the couple in need cared about staying clothed and out of jail.
Trouble was, he and Isabelle had become the couple in need. Even if they weren’t dating.
He should know by now that kissing Isabelle Caine was no casual matter, that once he kissed her, it became hard to think about anything other than kissing her again. And when she’d ignited in his arms in the parking lot, suddenly a heated, willing accomplice in what had become the most confusing attraction of his life, he couldn’t. Think of anything else, that is. Unless thoughts of getting her out of that dress counted.
This was out of hand.
Isabelle’s friend Stacey sat to his left. Tonight, the blonde was wearing a sleeveless dress, black of course, cut to frame her cleavage. Bob seemed unable to look outside the frame.
Kim understood. Every time he turned right, he got hypnotized by wild ringlets and bare neck and the most inviting mouth he’d ever seen.
She may have said he was a great kisser but she had a way of making him forget he’d kissed any other, making him need to invent the idea of a kiss and offer it to her in hopes of being invited to offer another. In the parking lot she’d invited considerably more, and for the next couple of hours, he could even allow himself to think about that. Double date. Sleeping together. He could indulge in thinking pretty much anything.
“Would you care to see the wine list?”
Kim freed himself long enough to track the voice. The man had to be the sommelier or the owner—his suit was too nice to be their waiter.
“I’ll take that,” said Bob, waving a hand the size of a dinner plate.
Of course. Wouldn’t want the plumber to pick the wine.
While Bob opened the impressive folio and began to read, Kim said, “I’m curious.”
The sommelier was instantly at his shoulder. “Sir?”
“What do you think of wines coming out of the Walla Walla Valley?”
The man smiled. “It’s an interesting region for wines—very remote, inspiring unusual esprit des corps among the vintners.” He had the faintest hint of an accent. Maybe Spanish.
Bob laughed. “Walla Walla.”
Stacey laughed along and hugged his arm, half out of her seat.
Kim ignored them. “So you don’t carry any in your cellar.”
“Not at all, sir. We have a ninety-four merlot from Woodward Canyon, very dark, rich and spicy. Or wou
ld you prefer a white?”
“Oh no,” Kim said, looking at Isabelle in her red dress, “red is definitely my color tonight.”
She blushed and laughed. Either she was a hell of an actress or the kiss in the parking lot had shifted her thinking. Kim started to hope. He wrestled his attention back to the sommelier, who was speaking again.
“I don’t know how you feel about a syrah, but I have one bottle I have been saving.” The man had definitely warmed to them if he was suggesting a lone bottle of something.
“Syrah,” Kim said. “Blackberries and leather.”
He was surprised by Isabelle’s hand on his leg under the table. Hope stirred. If she were merely acting, she would be groping him in plain sight, right?
“Very good, sir. This one also has a bit of cinnamon and gingerbread about it. Full bodied. Very nice. Would you like to taste it?”
Isabelle’s hand moved fractionally farther up Kim’s thigh. More than hope was stirring.
“Yes, please,” he said with difficulty.
The sommelier went off to get the wine. Bob was still reading the wine list. At least his lips weren’t moving as he read. Kim gave him points for that.
He covered Isabelle’s hand with his.
“Leather?” said Stacey. “The wine tastes like leather?”
“Sounds delicious,” Isabelle said, practically purring.
Kim should have taken her home. If he’d turned around when she’d asked him to, they might be doing something about this torment even now.
“Don’t worry, Stace,” Bob said. “We’ll get a nice Sonoma Semillon.”
“Vanilla,” said Kim. “Good choice.”
Under the table, Isabelle’s thumb trapped his. Above the table, her eyes suggested she was trying not to laugh. He’d tell her about Austin, he decided. After dinner, maybe on the drive back to her place. If she invited him in anyway, he was golden. If not, well, he’d have to accept that they really weren’t dating.
There was plenty to enjoy in the meantime.
The sommelier returned with a bottle wrapped in a cloth napkin, which struck Kim as odd. The bottle remained wrapped as the man pulled the cork and laid it on the table. Kim picked it up.