by Lisa Plumley
The sarcasm in his tone hurt. “That’s not fair, and you know it.”
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Didn’t he care about salvaging things between them? If he didn’t, even the neat, thorough list she’d prepared would be no help.
Brad put his arms around her shoulders and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “I’m sorry. But you keep pushing me to it. I told you this isn’t a good time for me. I’m still adjusting to having my space.”
He kneaded the tense muscles in her shoulders, then dropped his hands. He peered into her face. “Better now?”
Holly nodded, feeling disgruntled. “I guess so.”
“Good. Let’s get on with the game, then.”
He rubbed his hands together and devoted his attention to choosing a driver for his next shot. Beside him, Holly did her best to regroup. She should have anticipated Brad’s reluctance to discuss their relationship, but she hadn’t.
She waited until they’d reached the back nine—and Brad was ahead of her by twenty–four strokes—before trying again.
“I thought things were going really well between us,” she ventured as they walked together toward the tenth hole. As proof, she offered, “In the whole year we lived together, we never had a single disagreement. Plus, we had such a nice routine going, just like an old married couple.”
Liking the sound of that, she smiled. It might have been an old-fashioned viewpoint, but growing old together with somebody you loved sounded like a pretty good future to her.
“Yeah,” Brad muttered. “Just like an old married couple.”
“You don’t sound happy about that.” She raised her eyebrows. “I thought—”
He stopped her with an irritated look. “Let’s talk about this some other time. I can’t concentrate with you yammering at me.”
Okay. A logical appeal wasn’t working. She’d have to move on to the next phase of her plan—an emotional appeal. Maybe Brad would respond better to a non–conversational approach. And if that failed, there was always the third and final phase of her plan—seduction. Although Holly didn’t think she’d have to resort to such drastic measures.
Beside her, Brad frowned at the flag fluttering over the next hole. Straightening his legs, he took his next shot. He appeared to be doing an excellent job of pretending she wasn’t there. She might have been invisible for all the attention he was paying to her. The realization didn’t do her feminine ego any favors.
In the distance, the buzzing sound of an engine drifted over the hills between them and the clubhouse. It sounded like somebody mowing the grass, although that couldn’t be, not while there were players on the course. Curious, Holly shaded her eyes with her hand and looked for the source of the sound.
A couple of minutes later she saw it—an aqua–colored golf cart, zooming straight down the path toward them. A lone man hunched over the steering wheel, driving at a speed that made the cart waver from side to side. The vibrant–colored canopied top shimmied and snapped in the breeze as the cart came closer.
Brad squinted at it. “I didn’t know those things could go that fast,” he remarked, frowning. “Must be some hot–rod kid—”
His words faded when the cart squealed to a stop a few feet from them. The driver got out.
“Sam! What are you doing here?”
Feeling ridiculously glad for the interruption in her game, Holly waved for him to come nearer. She couldn’t help it. It was wonderful to see a friendly face looking back at her for a change. Obligingly, Sam strode across the green, with more casual ease than should have been strictly possible for a man his size. Brad, only as tall as Holly, was dwarfed beside him.
Sam shook his hand. “Hi, Doc. How’s the game?”
“Fine, thanks.” Surreptitiously, Brad slid the scorecard in his shorts pocket with his free hand. “Holly’s having a little trouble, though.”
Sam turned to her. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I saw that drive you made back there. You looked good.”
The appreciative way his gaze roved over her new dress made Holly wonder if it was really her golf form he was talking about. At the moment, though, she didn’t care. She felt like soaking up his praise like a flower basking in sunshine.
“Thanks.” She couldn’t resist an I–told–you–so look at Brad before turning back to Sam. “Would you like to join us? There’s always room for one more….”
Brad snickered and elbowed Sam in the ribs, man–to–man style. “She’s still got a lot to learn about the game,” he said. Turning to Holly, he explained, “You can’t add players midway through the course. Your friend here…”
“Sam,” the friend in question supplied helpfully.
“That’s right. I remember. Your friend Sam, here, will just have to wait for another time to play with you, Holly.”
Sam waggled his eyebrows at her, turning Brad’s comment into the most ribald of double–entendres. He heaved a mock sigh. “Okay. I guess I’ll play with you later, Holly.”
They both laughed. It was hard to remain serious with Sam around, Holly was discovering.
Brad wasn’t laughing—he was staring impatiently at the next hole. He cleared his throat. “Well, Sam, we’ve got a game to finish here, so if there’s nothing else…”
“Actually, there is. I came out to get you, Holly. There’s an emergency situation you’ve got to take care of.”
She sighed. She might have known the instant she actually took a personal day—her first all year—a crisis would come up. She turned to grab her golf bag, but Sam had already thrown it over his back and was carrying it to the cart.
“I’m sorry, Brad. I’ve got to go.”
He only shrugged. He’d experienced enough work–related emergencies himself to know that she had no choice but to leave. It was a familiar pattern between them. Even when they’d been living together, they’d seldom had the same days free from work.
“Let’s get together in a few days,” she suggested. “Is Francie’s okay with you?”
Waiting for his answer, she crossed her fingers. Brad couldn’t refuse dinner with her at the restaurant where they’d had their first date, could he? It was the linchpin of the second phase of her plan.
At least in this instance, he didn’t disappoint. “Call my office. We’ll arrange a time.”
“Okay.” With one last backward glance—and a sigh for the failed first phase of her plan—Holly headed for the golf cart where Sam waited for her.
Sam drove back to the clubhouse at a reasonable speed, now that he’d found Holly and gotten her safely ensconced on the golf cart seat beside him. As they reached the edge of the fairway, he glanced at her.
“You look great,” he said, admiring her short, flowery dress again. It ended a few inches above her knees and was held up by thin straps at the shoulders, the kind of thing that made him think of hot summer days at the beach. He liked it. He liked the looks of Holly wearing it.
It was a funny choice to wear golfing, though. Even given the sunny Arizona weather. He’d bet she’d meant to improve more than her golf scores with it.
“New dress?”
“Mmm–hmm,” she murmured absently, digging around in her golf bag. She pulled out her fat day planner and rifled through it, flipping past what looked like a Christmas greeting card list. “When my office called, did they tell you what the emergency was?”
He stopped the cart at the clubhouse. “Well, I didn’t actually say it was an emergency at your office, now did I?”
Sam felt her suspicious stare on his back while he returned the golf cart keys to the attendant.
“What do you mean?” she asked when they were alone again, walking across the parking lot toward his truck.
“Don’t get mad.”
Holly stopped and stuck both hands on her hips.
“You look mad.”
“You look like you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“Okay.” Sam swung her golf bag into the bed of his pickup
, raising a cloud of dust as he did. He pulled out his keys. “Clarissa told me where you were when I ran into her at your office earlier today.”
“What were you doing at my office?”
Why was she looking at him like that? “I was going to take you out to lunch, but you weren’t there. So I took a chance you’d say yes and came out here to get you.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’ve just been bamboozled out of my golf game?”
“Maybe because you were.” Sam smiled, went around to the passenger–side truck door, and opened it for her. “Come on. I’ll take you anyplace you want to go.”
Holly crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve got my car. I can drive myself.”
“All right.”
She didn’t move.
Stepping back to make room for her to get in the truck, Sam raised his eyebrows. “Would you rather go back to your golf game instead?”
She glanced back toward the fairway. “No…it wasn’t exactly going the way I’d planned,” she said cryptically.
Did that have something to do with the “plan” Clarissa had mentioned? Sam made a mental note to get more information about it from his cousin—the matchmaker.
Holly looked indecisive, as though torn between going with him and bolting for the security of her car. “Will you bring me back for my car later?”
Sam nodded, waiting.
Grumbling something about “masculine ego,” Holly uncrossed her arms and came to meet him beside the open passenger–side door.
“Does this mean you’re not mad at me?”
“It means my feet are freezing,” she grumbled, waggling one sandal–clad foot in demonstration.
He grinned and gave her a hand up into the truck cab. She hovered above the bench seat, swiping away the dust, papers, and CDs so she could sit down. Her voice, complaining about the messy state of his truck, came through the open window as he got in the other side.
“So what’s the big emergency?” she asked once he was settled.
“Persistent, aren’t you?”
She just looked at him.
“There’s no emergency,” he confessed, pulling the truck slowly into traffic. He shot a glance at her. “I just wanted to spend some time with you. How else am I going to convince you this love at first sight thing is real?”
Her eyes widened.
“Put your seat belt on,” he added.
He felt her gaze on him the whole time she was pulling the belt across her body and buckling it. Everything in her body language screamed wariness. Sam felt like smacking himself on the forehead. Idiot. Holly probably thought he was a love–crazed lunatic. He couldn’t exactly blame her for it, either. He felt like one.
“You know, you can’t just go around kidnapping people from golf courses. Does this ploy actually work for you?”
“Not all the time.” Sam wasn’t sure, having never tried it before.
She gave a little harrumph sound. “I’ll just bet. Where are we going?”
She gripped her day planner tight in both hands, probably ready to whack him with it if he got out of line. It looked heavy enough to give him a real shiner if her aim was good. Clearly Holly was a woman unused to spontaneous fun.
“We can go right back to the golf course, if you want. Or I’ll take you to get your car and you can go home, to the office, wherever. It’s up to you.”
She loosened her death grip on her day planner. Sam relaxed, too, feeling he was making some progress.
“I almost forgot. There’s something for you in the cooler.” He nodded at the Styrofoam cooler near her feet.
“No, thanks. I had a lot of iced tea back at the—”
“It’s not a drink.”
“What is it?”
He’d never met a woman harder to give a gift to. “It’s nothing sinister, if that’s what you’re wondering. Just open it, okay?”
It was worth every bit of trouble just to see the look on Holly’s face when she opened the cooler and pulled out the miniature container of potted poinsettias from inside.
“If you’re trying to soften me up with flowers, Sam McKenzie, I’m afraid you’re succeeding.” She smiled. “I love these! They’re so Christmassy.”
“It’s a little early, I know. But they’ll last through the holidays, I think.” He grinned back at her. “The florist kept aiming me toward other kinds of flowers, but you look like a poinsettia girl to me.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d think that.”
Her teasing tone didn’t fool him. Holly loved Christmas, and everything that went with it. He’d learned that much about her after helping decorate her house—her whole house—for the holidays. Not that he’d minded. There hadn’t been anything tough about stringing fake garland and spraying artificial snow on the windows next to someone like Holly.
Sam glanced at her again. She was still smiling, looking flushed and surprised. A sudden image occurred to him of Holly as a little girl, her red hair in two pigtails instead of the businesslike layered haircut she had now, a sprinkling of freckles over her nose. If they had a little girl someday, she’d probably have freckles, too.
Whoa. Sam slapped the brakes on that idea, shaking his head to clear it.
Returning to the matter at hand, he said, “Now that you’ve been kidnapped from the golf course and duly softened up, what do you want to do? Go to the zoo, to the mountains? I hear there’s a winter carnival down at the fairgrounds. We could even”—he paused for dramatic effect—“go bowling.”
“Bowling?”
They both laughed.
“Fun is all in how you look at it,” he protested. “With the right attitude, anything can be fun. I’m going to see that you have a whole day of nothing but fun.”
At the stoplight, Holly bit her lower lip. “I really ought to go back in to work…”
Her objection sounded halfhearted at best.
“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun. And you look as if you could use some cheering up. Weren’t things going very well with Brad back there?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a feeling.” And the way she’d looked so miserable standing next to the guy. “What do you say?”
She took a deep breath. “First there’s something I’ve got to know.”
That sounded ominous. “What is it?”
Holly lifted her flowers. “Did you really mean to put these on ice?”
Sam laughed. “Yeah. I was afraid they’d get wilted.”
“Good. In that case, maybe you’re not as crazy as you seem after all. Let’s go.”
Chapter Six
They went to the winter carnival. Standing beside Sam as she had her hand ink–stamped by the attendant, Holly could see why he’d suggested it. Given all the rides, the flashing lights, and the junk food, it was the perfect place for a boy in a grown man’s body like Sam McKenzie.
He took her hand and they walked beneath the fairground’s holiday-light-bedecked archway, their shoulders nearly touching. It felt surprisingly natural to be so close to him. As long as she was being spontaneous again, Holly decided, she might as well throw herself into the experience. She gave his hand a squeeze.
He smiled down at her. “Better than golfing?”
A nod. “What should we do first?”
“Eat,” he said decisively.
“Eat? It’s not even dinner time.”
“You do everything by the clock?”
“No, but…quit shaking your head at me. What’s wrong with having a regular schedule?”
“Nothing.” Sam gave her a goofy, smiling look she couldn’t quite decipher. “There’s nothing wrong with it. But I don’t think my stomach’s on your schedule yet. Come on.”
He made a beeline for the hot dog vendor’s umbrella–topped wagon, where the hot dogs spun endlessly on a revolving rotisserie. Every time he opened the rotisserie door, the scent of roasted meat wafted in the air. Holly’s stomach growled.
Sam pulled some money f
rom his wallet. “It’s on me. What would you like?”
She hesitated, watching in appalled fascination as the vendor plopped a hot dog on a split bun and began piling on ketchup, mustard, relish—every condiment in the array before him. She wouldn’t have thought so much could fit on a single hot dog.
“I’m not sure. Why don’t you go ahead and order while I decide?”
Five seconds later, Sam—not nearly as indecisive as she was—had ordered two hot dogs with everything and a root beer.
The vendor started on his order, then paused, spoon in midair. “Chili?”
“On both, thanks.” Sam glanced at Holly. “Anything look good to you?”
She examined the hot dogs again. “Well…yes, but—”
Waving, she caught the vendor’s attention. “Excuse me, but can you tell me what those are made of, please?”
He stared at her as though she’d just started speaking Japanese.
“I mean, are they all–beef hot dogs? Or turkey? Or…what?”
Holly let her voice trail off. Now Sam was looking at her funny, too.
“They’re just hot dogs, lady,” the vendor said. “You want one or not?”
“Ummm….” She couldn’t decide. She was starving, but did she really want to eat something she couldn’t identify—or worse, something that was almost pure saturated fat? It wouldn’t be smart. If she got fat, she wouldn’t stand a chance of winning Brad back with her plan. Brad disliked women who let themselves go.
“Is this another MSG reaction thing?” Sam asked. “Or is it something else? We can go to another vendor if you want.”
“Is this kind of stuff all you ever eat?” Holly asked him, wondering how he’d managed to get so big on what seemed to be an exclusively take–out diet of pizza, Chinese food, Christmas cookies, coffee…and hot dogs.
He shrugged. “Never thought about it much.”
She’d have to show Sam how to cook himself a decent meal. At the rate he was going, he’d keel over from a cholesterol overdose by the time he was thirty–five. He needed somebody to watch out for him. He need taking care of.
