“Could we sneak her into your condo? If somebody turns you in to your landlord you could say you’re just dog-sitting.”
Vonni laughed. “I already tried both of those things,” she said, appreciating his concern nevertheless. “There’s a two-day limit for keeping someone else’s pet and my neighbor across the landing—Mrs. Dunwilly—keeps track. She’s who turned me in the last time I tried to take Charlie home. Besides, Charlie is a barker—that’s the other thing that upset Mrs. Dunwilly.”
“How about my house? I don’t have much of a yard—just a patch of grass—but it would be enough for a temporary thing. You want to keep her there?”
“Mrs. Dunwilly? Absolutely!” Vonni had intentionally misunderstood, making him laugh again.
“I like you a lot, but I don’t know if I like you enough to take in your cranky neighbor,” he said with an affectionate glance. “Your dog—yes. But Mrs. Dunwilly? Not a chance.”
“Scared of a little seventy-nine-year-old busybody?”
“Terrified.”
“You probably should be. She’s looking for Husband Number Five and I’d bet she’d trample right over your no-marriage-ever rule. Or seduce you out of it....”
“Eww....” He laughed and groaned and grimaced and made Vonni laugh once more, too. “Seventy-nine?” he repeated. “She’s older than my grandmother!”
“Only a few years, and your grandmother is getting married,” Vonni reminded him.
“You know, sometimes I think there’s a little bit of a mean streak in you,” he countered as he pulled into the small lot behind her shop. “But I still stand by my offer—Charlie can stay at my house until you get into your own.”
It was a nice suggestion, but not one that Vonni could accept. Something had happened today to make things between them seem even more friendly and familiar than they’d already become. Hardly any formality from the business association was left and, in fact, if she thought too much about it, she knew that today could easily have qualified as a really good extended date. But that was all dangerous and letting him keep her dog made it even worse.
So as they began to unload his SUV she said, “Thanks, but Charlie is familiar with the shelter and it’s probably better not to disrupt her with two moves.”
“Well, if you change your mind...”
She wouldn’t. Any more than he was likely to change his mind about his no-marriage-ever vow.
Which was a shame. Because what the day with him had shown her once again was how much there was about the man to recommend him....
* * *
After dropping off the baskets and their contents, Dane insisted on buying Vonni dinner. He suggested La Loma—a Mexican restaurant blocks from her apartment. But the fact that he could park near her apartment and they could walk was not the only reason Vonni let him talk her into it.
Not even hours and hours with him had made her ready to end the day, and by then she’d given up trying to deny how much she was enjoying being with him.
They’d both been to La Loma before and agreed that it had the best green chili in town. They also agreed that the margaritas were wonderful, and they liked so many of the same foods on the menu that they decided to order the green enchiladas and the chili rellenos and split them.
Over dinner Dane reassured her that she’d done the right thing in making an offer on the house they’d looked at, and let her know he loved her dog but resisted when she urged him to adopt Ralph. On the whole they talked and talked and laughed and laughed until well into the night before either of them noticed they were the last customers there.
Even then Dane didn’t seem any more eager than Vonni to call it a night, but it was obvious that they had to so he paid the check and they headed for her apartment.
“I don’t know when I’ve had a day I liked as much as this one,” Dane said on the way.
She wished that wasn’t true for her, too, but it was. They hadn’t done anything she wouldn’t have ordinarily done by herself, but she was well aware of how much more fun it had been with his company.
His company—because she’d spent days like this one with other men she was in relationships with, relationships she’d been convinced were going somewhere serious, and never had she enjoyed any one of those days as much as she’d enjoyed this one with Dane. Being with him just wasn’t like what she’d found with anyone else....
“Thanks for letting me tag along,” he was saying, breaking into her thoughts.
“Thanks for tagging along—it was fun,” she countered as if it had been insignificant when it sooo hadn’t been. At least not to her.
“And what excuse should I use to see you tomorrow?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
Vonni laughed lightly at his wording. “Club hopping,” she said.
“On a Monday night?”
“We’re on a time crunch, remember? Actually, it’s more like lounge hopping—you said your grandmother and her fiancé want romantic music from the fifties and sixties. I contacted the people I use to hire bands and orchestras and they have a quartet playing tomorrow night at a lounge in Larimer Square—”
“So no hopping, just one lounge?”
“Unless you don’t like them and then my booker told me about a trio playing in a hotel bar on Colfax, and a Frank Sinatra sound-alike working in lower downtown.”
“We’ll hope the first group is great!” Dane said with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“Not a big fan of romantic music of the fifties and sixties?” she asked with yet another laugh.
“I can honestly say that I don’t own any.”
“Maybe this will broaden your horizons.”
“Anything is possible,” he said dubiously, laughing once more and making Vonni realize that they’d done a whole lot of that today.
They were coming up to his SUV parked on the street and she told him she could go the rest of the way to her apartment on her own. But he wouldn’t hear of it and walked her to her six-plex, up the wooden stairs and to her door.
Where she was extremely tempted to ask him in.
But the day had almost been too good, and she was a little worried what might happen if she did.
So rather than doing that she showed him her keys and said, “Okay, safe and sound at my door.” Then she nodded in the direction of the apartment that faced hers and whispered, “Probably with Mrs. Dunwilly watching through her peephole.”
“Aah...Mrs. Dunwilly...” he said as if he was intrigued.
“Should I introduce you?”
“You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you—if I said yes? Like feeding me French fries when I didn’t think you would, and rolling around in the grass with dogs like a kid, and the poems or whatever those things were—”
“Ditties,” she corrected, using her grandfather’s terminology for what were the slightly off-color limericks he’d taught her. “I don’t even know how you got me to recite those for you.” But he had, in the car between looking at houses.
“I knew ‘Lidia The Tattooed Lady,’ but the rest?”
“My grandfather learned them in the army and he used to say them all the time. They just stuck.”
Dane grinned and shook his head. “You just aren’t like the women I usually hang out with.”
“The Chrystal Burkes? I like Chrystal but no, I’ve never been much like her or her other friends.”
“You’re kind of a breath of fresh air.”
“Don’t ever tell one of your girlfriends that they’re stale air or you’ll completely blow your image as a good guy,” she advised.
“You don’t think I’m really a good guy?” he challenged.
That was part of the trouble—she did think he was a good guy. A really good guy.
Who didn’t want what she wanted in life....
So why
didn’t she just say good-night and leave him on her doorstep? Why was she prolonging this time with him by staying there, looking up into those blue eyes of his and wanting so badly for him to want what she wanted?
Wanting so badly to have him kiss her again....
“I do think you’re a good guy.” She admitted that much. But very quietly. Then, because she didn’t want to get herself in too deeply, she added more playfully, “You must be, you’re like the Pied Piper when it comes to kids and dogs—Charlie and Ralph and that other big dog that came in as we were leaving the shelter all loved you, and everywhere we went today kids singled you out as if you were Santa Claus—”
“It’s probably the beard,” he said, rubbing his chin where it was stubbled with five-o’clock shadow that only made him all the more ruggedly sexy.
And oh, but she wanted things with him to be different!
So much it was almost an ache inside of her....
Then she did get one of the things she wanted—he raised a big hand to cup her jawline, tipped her face up and kissed her.
It almost made it worse for her, though, because unlike the quickie of the night before, this one was a great kiss. A tremendous kiss. A perfect kiss.
Firm but not too firm. Lips parted but not too far. The tiniest bit moist—just enough. And a hint of a sway to it that made her drift away, lost in it....
Until it was over and Vonni almost forgot to open her eyes, remembering to at the last second and finding him studying her when she did.
His hand was still on her face, his thumb brushing her cheek ever so lightly. And his expression was thoughtful and maybe a little stunned, too, as if he’d found something there, between them, that he hadn’t anticipated.
Before he could regroup.
He took his hand away. He stood straighter and away from her. And he gave her a small, more reserved smile. “Thanks for today,” he said.
Vonni wasn’t sure she could trust her voice, so she merely returned his smile.
Then he turned and went down the stairs and Vonni forced herself to unlock her door and go into her apartment.
But somehow even once she was inside with her door closed behind her, she felt as if she’d still brought a little part of him with her.
The faint scent of his cologne.
The warmth of his hand on her face.
The feel of his lips on hers....
And tonight there weren’t as many shouldn’t-haves torturing her as there were couldn’t-haves.
Because hate it though she might, she knew without a doubt that Dane was someone with whom she couldn’t have what she truly wanted.
Even when, more and more, she did seem to want him in spite of herself....
Chapter Seven
On Monday night after Vonni and Dane had both worked late, Vonni found a way to kill two birds with one stone. The bartender she was recommending to Dane was working at a restaurant across from the Larimer Square lounge where the quartet they were checking out was playing.
This time Vonni insisted that she buy Dane dinner, which they ate at the bar while the bartender made samples of his specialty drinks for them to taste.
A sip here, a sip there, no more than a sip, but by the time the meal was finished Vonni was very relaxed. So relaxed that when they stepped out of the restaurant as darkness was just falling, she lost sight of the fact that she wasn’t on a date and grabbed Dane’s arm to stop him so they could watch the canopy of white streetlights coming on overhead.
The lights set the historic street apart from other Denver streets, but all she could really think about in the moment was her hold on Dane. She was grasping his bare forearm—thick and warm and strong—and she knew she had no business making this kind of contact, let alone liking the feel of it as much as she did.
She forced herself to let go and watched as the rest of the lights went on. Then she commanded herself to get back to business and only business.
But as they started to cross the street, Dane placed a hand to her back. And while more alarms went off in her head, she still couldn’t help enjoying that sensation of physical contact.
Or moving a little closer to his side.
The Larimer Lounge was down a flight of stairs bordered by a wrought iron railing. Dane kept his hand on her back as they went from the sidewalk into the stairwell. At the foot of the stairs he opened the single door to the place and urged her in ahead of him.
That was when he broke contact, and Vonni fought a pang of disappointment even as she told herself to quit it.
Inside they were faced with a small bar in a square pit. A hostess greeted them and took them around the bar to one of the tables that surrounded the dance floor.
The basement establishment was dimly lit, with scant light over the bar, over the dance floor and only slightly brighter light over the bandstand where the Fisher Quartet had already begun to play.
The place wasn’t overly crowded and the clientele tended to be older. But Dane didn’t seem to mind as he held out her chair for her and then took the one next to it for himself so that they were both facing the stage.
“The singer has a good voice,” he observed after the waitress had brought them their order of two iced teas and they’d listened to a song. “He has that old crooner sound. GiGi likes that. I’m going to have her listen....”
He placed the call and after getting his grandmother on the line, held his cell phone in the direction of the singer for a few minutes.
Then, he said into the phone, “What do you think?” And after a pause, “Okay, sure, put him on.” He held the phone out a second time, presumably for the groom to listen, as well.
That went on for a few minutes before they had the go-ahead for the band.
“So we don’t need the other two stops tonight?” Vonni asked, fighting another wave of disappointment at the thought that the evening could end soon.
“Nope, we’re home free. But we’d better drink the tea and dilute all those booze samples,” he answered.
That bought her at least a little while longer and Vonni told herself she was only glad because she liked the music her grandfather had taught her to dance to.
Dane leaned toward her then and said, “You know—”
But that was as far as he got before a tiny, very old white-haired man in a dapper suit came up from behind them and said to him, “Around here if you waste a girl like that by not dancing with her, somebody’ll steal her from you. Maybe me....” The man winked at Vonni and made her laugh.
“Thanks for the warning,” Dane said, playing along before looking to Vonni again. “That was what I was just about to ask you, anyway. Dance with me?”
She was tempted to deny his request, but she was slightly worried that the elegantly dressed elderly gentleman really would ask her to dance. And she could tell just sitting there that she would be inches taller than he was, even in the ballet-style shoes she was wearing, which matched her black slacks and white blouse perfectly.
So she nodded at Dane, who took her hand in his, led her onto the floor and swung her into his arms.
And she had to admit, it was great to resume the physical contact that had started when she’d reached for his arm on the street.
He pulled her just close enough so their bodies were touching ever so lightly, and she silently shouted at herself, He’s a client! Plus, she should be sticking to her goal of steering clear of men for a while.
But it didn’t matter. She continued to feel excited and happy and content and complete, as if there wasn’t a single thing about this that was wrong.
Dangerous feelings that she tried not to dwell on as she said, “Thanks for saving me.”
“The old guy just gave me the excuse,” Dane answered, smiling down at her.
He was clean-shaven and smelled o
f that cologne she liked. He was also a very good dancer and Vonni was itching to rest her cheek on his chest. But she managed to combat that inclination by reminding herself that while she might not have a handle on what was going on with her when it came to this guy, she was still out with a client. If she was going to write off the dinner she’d paid for, she certainly couldn’t be snuggling up to him on the dance floor.
No matter how much she wanted to.
With occasional pauses to drink their iced teas, Dane kept her dancing for more than an hour before he saw something over her head and bent close to her ear to say, “I think if we don’t get out of here I’m about to be cut in on.”
And while Vonni wasn’t thrilled to have to stop, if she wasn’t dancing with Dane, she didn’t want to dance at all. So she agreed and before her elderly suitor could get to her, they were back out on the street.
“Okay,” Vonni said as they headed for the lot where Dane’s sports car was parked. “Now we have music and a bartender for the wedding. You’ve picked everything out, invitations are sent, flowers are ordered, we have a venue, a caterer, a menu, a cake and nameplates and gift baskets that I’ll do this week. We’ve actually managed to get through my to-do list, and that means your part is done. Now it’s up to me and the suppliers and vendors who have promised to put a super-rush on everything.”
She’d realized earlier in the day that tonight might be the end of getting to spend any concentrated amount of time with him. But coming to this moment still hit her harder than it should have, and she felt such a wave of despondency wash through her that it nearly leveled her. But she couldn’t let him know that.
The fact that he’d finished his part in planning his grandmother’s wedding seemed to come as a surprise to Dane. His eyebrows were arched as he opened the passenger door for her and then closed it again after she’d gotten in.
He went around to the driver’s side and slipped behind the wheel before he said, “I have two things I still need to talk to you about.... But really? Tonight is it? I thought you and I would be racing all the way to the finish line.”
“I’ll be doing that, but it isn’t true for you. After you’ve chosen everything—and now you have—I take it from here. So you’re off the hook.”
A Camden Family Wedding Page 11
