by Megan Hart
"I feel terrible." She groaned, crumpling the note paper into a sweaty ball in her fist.
"What’s this got to do with Mr. Gorgeous?" Darren took the paper away from her and tossed it into the trash.
Lila shrugged. "Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. Nothing now, I guess."
"But before?"
"I told him when we met that men like him didn’t date women like me." The confession made her feel stupid.
"What?" Darren yelled so loud Lila was grateful she had shut her door. "Damn, girl, what’s the matter with you?"
He looked so righteously angry that Lila couldn’t help smiling. "I’m a moron?"
"Yes, you are a moron. And I hope you get over that."
"I just don’t want to get hurt again." Contemplating, Lila bit the end of her thumb. "And the way things are going, I think I could."
"Could, shmould." Darren sounded so much like Rivka, Lila had to smile. "You never get anywhere if you don’t take risks."
"Do I pay you to give me advice?" Lila still felt horrible about the scene with Ned, but Darren was right. William had hurt her on purpose. It didn’t make what happened with Ned right, but it did make seem less wrong.
"You know what I got to say to that." Darren got up from his chair. "I thought we were going to lunch."
"Sure, let’s go." She would carry the scene at the mailroom with her for a long time. Knowing she hadn’t meant to cause Ned pain didn’t make her feel any better about it, but at least it had made her think.
CHAPTER 6
Shoppers crammed the mall from one end to the next. Lila began to regret her decision to come at all. She hated being forced to press up against people she didn’t know, and long lines at the cash register made her crazy. If she hadn’t already scoured every specialty shop in downtown Harrisburg for the perfect gift to give her sister as congratulations on the gallery opening, she’d just turn right around and go home.
"Let’s make a break for it!" Tom pointed to a spot in the crowd that had magically cleared.
For such a large man, he moved with the grace of a dancer. Grabbing Lila’s hand, he wove them in and around the other shoppers until he had pulled her into the slightly less crowded food court. Spotting an empty table ahead, he dove for it and nearly knocked over a teenage couple more intent on seeing how many body parts they could press together than on watching where they were going.
"Sorry," Tom told the young man, who merely shrugged. "C’mon, Lila, let’s sit down and have something to eat. I’m starved."
"My treat for putting you through all this."
"All what?" Tom looked around the crowded mall with mock surprise. "Being part of a stampede is my idea of a good time."
She laughed. She laughed a lot when she was with him. It was just the way he made her feel.
"Thanks for coming with me. I really want to find Rivka something special."
"Any reason to spend some time with you is good enough for me." Tom leaned over and brushed a kiss against her lips.
Lila knew she was grinning like an idiot, but couldn’t help it. The past two weeks with Tom had been like something out of a movie. When work or other commitments prevented them from meeting for dinner, he invariably called her before going to bed. They’d spoken every day for two weeks and had never run out of things to talk about.
"What can I get you?" She wanted to kiss him again, but was well aware of the crowd around them. It wouldn’t do to get carried away, and she knew herself too well. She didn’t have a whole lot of self-control where Tom was concerned.
He wiggled his brows lasciviously. "You know what I like, baby."
Lila rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know what you like. But what do you want me to buy you for lunch?"
"Cheeseburger, fries, soda. The heart-attack special."
"Hold down the fort. I see a couple of mall crawlers over there eyeing this seat."
"I’ll guard it with my life." Tom spread out his hands as though to cover the entire table. "Hurry back. I’m so hungry I could eat a bowl of lard with a hair in it."
Lila screwed up her face in disgust. "You have such a way with words, Tom."
"Thanks."
"Modest, too."
Tom grinned an aw-shucks smile. "You’ve got me pegged, Lila."
She was pretty hungry herself. Shopping did that to her. She made her way through the throng, heading toward Mr. Burger. Though she tried to stay away from junk food, Tom’s order had suddenly got her mouth watering. She gave the order to the paper-capped teen behind the counter, adding a chocolate milkshake instead of a cola for herself.
"In for a penny, in for a pound," she said wryly, mentally calculating the calorie load. "Or more like four or five pounds."
While she waited for the food, Lila glanced back to where Tom sat. He was no longer alone. A tall, auburn-haired woman now sat across from him. As Lila watched, the woman laughed, tossing back her head until her gorgeous hair flowed halfway down her back.
A tiny sense of unease crept into Lila’s stomach. She shook it off. She bumped into people she knew all the time at the mall. Tom had obviously just met someone he knew.
And knew rather well. A sudden sick sensation flowed over her. The redhead leaned across the table to lay her hand across his. From Lila’s angle she couldn’t see Tom’s reaction, but the other woman’s face was clear as spring water. The redhead was smiling and fluttering her eyes. She was flirting.
"Order’s up," the gangly youth in the Mr. Burger uniform announced.
"Thanks." Lila took the tray.
She didn’t really want to walk back through the crowd. Not with the redhead still sitting in Lila’s seat. Lila’s mouth felt like sand, and the tray felt as heavy as stone. She forced a blank smile to her lips and made herself put one foot in front of the other until she had reached the table.
"Lila!" Tom seemed glad to see her.
"Oh." The word came out from the other woman's painted lips in exaggerated innocence. "Am I sitting in your seat?"
"That’s okay." It was a lie, but Lila set the tray down on the table and made room for it by pushing aside her own bag, though the redhead’s purse was actually taking up more space.
"I was just leaving anyway." The other woman’s tone clearly implied her haste to exit was mostly because of Lila’s arrival. "I just saw Tommy here and had to stop and say hi."
Lila nodded silently, a look of what she hoped was neutral interest upon her face. The redhead got up, obviously reluctant to leave Tom’s side though she’d already said she was going. Lila decided not to wait for the other woman to move away from the chair and instead made room for herself at the other end of the table.
"Lila, this is Heidi." Even with Tom’s introduction, Heidi continued to hover over him. "We used to live in the same building before I bought my house."
"Which you’ve never invited me to see." Heidi pouted prettily.
Tom cleared his throat and looked from Heidi to Lila and back. "Sometime, Heidi, I promise."
"All right." Heidi sighed and squeezed his shoulder in a way that made Lila grit her teeth. "But you promised. You heard him, didn’t you, Lila?"
"I certainly did." Even to herself, her voice sounded faint.
"See? Lila’s my witness," Heidi said. "Well, Tommy, I’ve got to run. It was great seeing you again. Call me…my number’s the same!"
With a swirl of auburn hair, Heidi slipped off into the crowd. Lila kept her eyes fixed on the tray she was unloading. She refused to look at Tom. She wasn’t going to make a scene, though the other woman had obviously been flirting.
"This burger looks great!" Tom enthusiastically tore open the grease-stained paper. "Thanks."
"No problem." She forced the lightness.
She nibbled her burger, though it sank like a stone into her stomach. Seeing Tom with the gorgeous Heidi hadn’t done a lot for her appetite. It was too bad, too, because the burger really did look great.
"I haven’t seen Heidi since I moved into my house." He
sounded too casual. He washed down a handful of fries with some of his soda.
"Hmm."
"I hardly even know her."
Now she met his gaze. "You don’t have to apologize for talking to someone else, even if she could be a supermodel."
"Her? No way. She couldn’t model with a paper bag on her head."
His exaggerated comment brought a small smile to her lips. "Tom, I’m not blind. She was gorgeous."
Tom shook his head and grimaced. "She’s got a big butt. Huge, in fact. And her left earlobe was bigger than the other one. Disgusting. I could hardly stand to look at her. She’s a hag, a troll. She’s a troglodyte, Lila." He shuddered.
Lila’s smile turned to a laugh. "You have such a way with words."
"That’s me." He had no pretense of modesty. "Mr. Eloquent."
"She called you Tommy." The fact no longer bothered her.
Tom made a strangled noise in his throat. "Reason enough to despise her. Lila, she came over to me. I didn’t ask her to sit down."
"It doesn’t matter." It really didn’t. "I don’t own you. We’ve only been seeing each other a short time. We haven’t even agreed not to see other people."
"Do you want to see other people?"
Their food lay uneaten while Lila thought about what to say. Her next words could be a big deal. "No."
He let out a sigh of relief. "Me neither."
"Don’t rush into this—"
He stopped her with a kiss. "I’m not rushing into anything. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. And you, my lovely Ms. Lazin, are definitely worth doing."
A thrill shot through her at his innuendo. "You’re bad, you know that?"
"But it’s a good kind of bad." He winked.
They just sat there for a moment longer and stared at each other. The silly grin plastered on his face was a mirror of hers, Lila was sure. Suddenly, the mall didn’t seem crowded at all. Suddenly, the only person she could see was Tom.
* * *
Tom was glad they had finished. By the time they’d eaten lunch, found a present for Rivka, and started making their way out of the mall, the crowds had grown even larger. Getting out at last was a relief, though being forced into such close proximity with Lila had its advantages. For one thing, he’d been able to link his fingers with hers at the merest excuse.
"Thanks again for coming with me, Tom."
They’d finally managed to escape the hordes of shoppers. They had just broken out of the building and had paused on the sidewalk to breathe in air untainted by the sweat of bargain-hunters.
"My pleasure."
It had been, too. Though he hated shopping, especially in the frou-frou, delicate sorts of shops she’d dragged him into, being with Lila made even porcelain clowns seem bearable. Not that she’d bought a porcelain clown, of course, and thank God. As much as he liked her, seeing her plunk down good money for such an atrocity might have dimmed his estimation of her.
She’d bought Rivka a delicate six-pointed star of stained glass. In vivid shades of purple, red, green, and blue, the star would look beautiful in the front gallery window surrounded by the hues of Rivka’s paintings. It was a perfect choice, one that had made him think Rivka wasn’t the only sister with artistic talent.
"Oh, no," Lila protested when he voiced his thought aloud. "I don’t have an artistic cell in my body. I’m the pragmatic Lazin daughter. It’s like that old joke about sisters, you know? She’s the pretty one, and I’m the smart one."
"Does that mean poor Rivka’s ugly and stupid?" He liked to see her blush at his teasing.
She immediately caught his meaning, which pleased him inordinately. He’d never been with a woman who didn’t need his jokes explained to her. She didn’t protest, which pleased him even more. He reached out to brush a stray chocolate curl from her cheek. He’d tell a thousand jokes if it made Lila smile. A light snow had begun to fall, the first of the season. It dusted the ground everywhere with white, like the sugar on a powdered doughnut. It made him feel like a kid. As they walked to where he’d parked his truck, he even managed to skid a little, sliding sideways through the slush like he was on a skateboard.
"Snow." Lila’s face had lit up in wonder. "How pretty."
She tilted her head back to catch a flake on her tongue. At the sight of the small pink ribbon sticking out from between her perfect lips, the low flame of desire in his belly kindled into something stronger. Lila was giggling, trying without success to catch some snow. In the harsh fluorescent light from the parking lot, her face was sculpted into lines and shadows broken by the curve of her mouth as she laughed. She was beautiful.
"Tom? My God, is that you?"
The feminine voice from behind them broke him from his silent admiration of Lila’s face. Her cheeks pinking, Lila stopped trying to catch a flake. Tom turned.
"Susan." He wasn’t at all thrilled.
Cloaked with the reek of cigarette smoke, Susan exclaimed loudly in her husky voice how glad she was to see him. It had been ages, just ages, hadn’t it? Why hadn’t he called?
"And who’s this?" Susan turned her bright, ferrety gaze on Lila and stuck out her hand. "I’m Susan Warner. A friend of Tom’s."
"Lila Lazin." To her credit, Lila shook the other woman’s hand with no apparent attempt to crush her fingers.
With the introductions over, Susan quite conspicuously looked Lila over from head to toe. Then, obviously dismissing her as no threat, Susan turned her attention back to Tom. She forced a hug on him, one he did his best not to return.
"Remember the time we went on that ski trip? What a blast! Let’s do it again this year, Tom! The ski club’s having the same trip. Lila, do you ski?"
Lila looked like a rabbit flushed out in front of the lawnmower. "No, I don’t."
"Too bad," Susan crooned, turning back to Tom. "Let me know, Tom, okay? You have the number."
Before he could stop her, she’d forced her lips against his cheek. Tom wasn’t one to be rude, but he wanted to push the annoying woman away. Of all the times to run into her, just after meeting Heidi…it was a nightmare.
Then, thankfully, she was gone. The stench of her cigarettes still lingered, though. He saw Lila tactfully waving away the air in front of her nose, as if to disperse the foul odor.
"We belong to the same ski club," he began by way of explanation.
Lila held up a hand to stop him. "Tom, it’s okay. Really. You had a life before I came along. I understand that."
"I just don’t want you to think I dated all those women." In fact, he’d dated both of them once or twice, which was one or two times too many in his opinion.
"All those women?" Lila quirked her brow at him. She was giving him "the look." He was coming to realize it meant she wasn’t up to taking any bull. "I only counted two."
"Two in the same day." He suspected that little fact hadn’t slipped by her.
"You dated women, so what?" She shrugged, though the effort seemed forced. "I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t."
"Because of the way I look." It angered him it had come back to that again. He finally unlocked the doors to the Tahoe using the remote entry. He doubted he’d have been able to find the keyhole with the way his fingers had become numb. His whole body, in fact, was becoming numb, a feeling he was not used to and definitely did not like.