by JoAnn Ross
“All leaving without paying their checks,” Maddy said. “Which would not have made me all that happy.” She locked the door, leaned against it, and folded her arms. “So, what’s going on? You”—she pointed at Annie—“looked about as serious as you have since I’ve known you.
“While you,” she said, turning toward Sedona, “appeared to be undergoing a tax audit.”
“Worse,” Sedona said. “I was being interviewed for this business the guy’s setting up.”
“So it wasn’t really a date? He’s not into you or your cupcakes?”
“No. Apparently all my customers who were betting on when he was going to ask me out had the wrong idea. He was merely trying to get up the nerve to ask me to lunch. The guy might be rich enough to buy the entire town, but believe me, communicating with the opposite sex isn’t high in his skill set.”
“He looks familiar,” Annie mused. “He’s not bad-looking. Sort of like Clark Kent before he changes into Superman.”
“Yep, he is good-looking. In a nerdish sort of way. Maybe you saw him on the cover of Fortune magazine a few months ago. He’s a member of that illustrious one percent of the wealthiest people in the country, having made gazillions in the tech business. He’s working on a new start-up. Which is the only reason he wanted me to have lunch with him.”
“He wanted financial advice?”
“Hardly. No, he’s doing this personality interview thing, then plugging all my answers into some computer program he’s developed that, according to him, will set people up with compatible partners. With, he assured me, ninety-nine-point-six percent accuracy.”
“Are you talking an online dating service?” Maddy asked.
“Exactly. He’s calling it ‘My Matrix Match.’ Apparently, although he’s been collecting e-mail interviews from subjects for the past year, I’m the first daughter of former flower children he’s run across.”
“Not surprising, in his line of work,” Maddy said.
“True. Plus, the fact that I made such a major change in occupations apparently adds a variable element outside the mean, to fit into his mathematical model.”
“Wow, and doesn’t that sound like a fascinating lunch conversation for a lovely summer day?” Maddy said.
“It seems that you being a CPA-turned-baker would make you more difficult to plug into any niche,” Annie mused.
“Possibly. But I really don’t care whether he can fit me into his metric niche. I just want to get out of here.” She looked pleadingly at Maddy. “Couldn’t you set off a fire alarm or something?”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Believe me, it is.” Sedona sighed, reached into her purse, took out a zippered mesh bag, and repaired her lipstick. “As much as I was really hoping for some of that seasonal marionberry ice cream you’ve got on the menu, I’m just going to go back to the table and tell him there was some sort of emergency at the bakery. If I have to spend another minute with Goonie Guy, I’ll go stark raving mad.”
“He likes The Goonies?” Annie asked.
“Apparently the movie changed his life. Why?” Her gaze sharpened. “Oh, don’t tell me—”
“I thought it was fun,” Annie said. “Except for the giant octopus at the end. Which made no sense to the story line.”
“That’s exactly what he said. Maybe we ought to switch lunch dates.”
“As much as I value our friendship, and you know I think of you as the sister I never had, I’ll pass on that.”
“I would too, in her place,” Maddy said. “After all, every woman in town has been throwing herself at Mac Culhane. And here our own Annie has him hooked.”
“It’s just lunch,” Annie insisted.
“You’ve always been the worst liar,” Sedona said. “I’ve no idea how you survived foster care. From the little you’ve said, life there sounds like the pilot for a Survival of the Fittest show on the Nature Channel. You two have a lot more than lunch going on.”
“She’s right,” Maddy agreed. “If the chemistry between the two of you had gotten any hotter, you would’ve set off the sprinkler system.”
Fortunately, Annie was saved from answering when the doorknob jiggled.
“I’ve got to get back to the kitchen,” Maddy said.
“I need to escape.” Sedona said. “Like yesterday.”
“And I’m going to go back and try to remember all the reasons I’m not going to have a hot, sexual fling with Midnight Mac,” Annie said.
“Good luck with that,” both women said in unison as Maddy unlocked the door and they all walked out past the waiting woman, who said, “Thank you,” to Annie.
“You’re welcome. For what?”
“They set up a pool down at Bennington Ford, where I work in customer relations, about when you two would first get together in public. I guessed here, for lunch. Today. Which means I win. So not only did you and hottie Midnight Mac pay for my lunch, I’m going to be able to buy that Coach bag I’ve been coveting at the outlet mall in Lincoln City.”
Apparently Mac hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told her they were the topic du jour everywhere in town. She’d realized, early on, that everyone in Shelter Bay lived in each other’s pockets, which was mostly a good thing, since the flip side was that everyone cared about everyone else.
Until she’d made that late-night phone call to Midnight Mac, she’d managed to fly comfortably under the radar.
As she walked back to the table, suddenly aware that nearly every eye in the place was on her, Annie tried to wrap her mind around the idea that people were actually betting on her and Mac’s relationship.
Not that they actually had a relationship.
Damn.
As he looked up at her and smiled, Annie knew that Sedona was right. She was a lousy liar. Especially when she tried to lie to herself.
27
What the hell are they doing in there? Women, Mac thought, as he tapped his fingers on the table, were dangerous enough by themselves. When they got together, well, it was time for a guy to be scared, because they were definitely plotting something.
He would have been scared. Hell, maybe he should’ve been. But the fact was, he was too freaking turned on by what she’d just said, right before Sedona had the bad timing to call her into the ladies’ restroom for some kind of girl confab.
The guy the cupcake baker had been having lunch with didn’t even appear to be missing her. Instead, he was busily drinking his fizzy water and typing away on a BlackBerry as if he was in some sort of bubble. Like the Cone of Silence in Get Smart.
When Maddy had headed for the ladies’ room as well, Mac decided he might be in for a long wait. He glanced down at his watch, making note of the time, because although patience had never been his long suit, he was willing to wait as long as it took for Annie to return. But he damn well was going to deduct the time she spent in there with the other two women from the agreed-upon length of their lunch date.
Finally, Maddy emerged and headed back to her kitchen, while Sedona returned to her table, where BlackBerry guy didn’t even bother to look up. Which was proof that he was either blind or some sort of robot.
Since their table was the farthest from the small alcove leading to the restrooms, Annie had the longest distance to walk. Which allowed him to drink in the sight of her, the sway of that yellow gingham skirt, the crest of her breasts swelling above the dress’s neckline, those thin little straps that he’d discovered, while following her to the shelves in her shop, crossed on her smooth bare back.
Today’s cat-eye glasses reminded him of the ones Marilyn Monroe had worn in How to Marry a Millionaire, which he’d caught late one night on TV when his ghosts had kept him from sleeping. Although Annie might not have Monroe’s voluptuous curves, that didn’t stop her from being every bit as sexy.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she sat back down across from him.
“No problem.” His only problem was that from the way his guy parts had gone on red alert, he wasn’t
sure he was going to be able to walk out of this restaurant without giving the town a new scandal to talk about. “Is everything all right?”
She slid a glance over at Sedona, who was signing a credit card receipt. “It is now.”
“She deserves better,” Mac said.
“You’ll get no disagreement with me there.” She picked up the handwritten menu, which changed daily. “The raspberry crème brûlée certainly looks good.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Though maybe the blackberries with the crème fraiche,” she mused. “Did you know that if you mix heavy cream with buttermilk and let it rest for twelve hours in the refrigerator, you get crème fraiche?”
“No. That’s not something they taught us in the Air Force.”
“I learned it in one of Maddy’s classes. We made a three-course French dinner.”
“Sounds great.” Telling himself that this lunch was all about getting to know each other, he stomped down the fantasy of ripping that dress off, spreading crème fraiche all over her body, then licking it off. “Did you mean it?”
“About the cream and buttermilk?”
“No. About what you said, just before you went off to the women’s summit. About wanting to kiss me.”
“I shouldn’t.” She was pretending a deeper interest in the menu.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Yes.” She sighed heavily, then looked up at him. How had he never realized he had a thing for women in glasses? “I shouldn’t,” she repeated.
“Why not?”
“Because I was serious about not wanting to get into a relationship.”
“I think it’s a bit early to worry about that.” Though he was beginning to. Mac hadn’t decided how he felt about this complication. “And believe it or not, I’m no longer the party animal deejays are made out to be, so I don’t tend to sleep with women on the first date. But if you want to just use me for sex, hey, I’m okay with that, too.”
She didn’t immediately answer as those faint lines appeared between her brows again. “I’m trying to decide if you’re serious or not.”
“That makes two of us.” Then her big gray eyes dropped to his mouth, as if remembering that kiss she’d said she wanted, and all his good intentions to take things slow went south. Straight from his brain to below his belt.
“So,” he managed. “Which sounds good? The blackberries or the crème brûlée?”
He nearly groaned when she licked those lips he was dying to taste again with the tip of her tongue.
“I’m not really in the mood for dessert,” she said.
“How about a drive out to the beach?”
“To that place you told me about earlier?”
“Yeah. Or we could go to your place.”
“No.” Her response came quickly, giving him the impression that while she might be up for another kiss, or hopefully more, she wasn’t ready to jump into bed. Which was probably the wise, sensible decision.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling either wise or sensible at the moment.
“The beach,” she decided. “But I really do need to get back to the store soon.”
“Deal.” He waved the server over for the check, and to save time, rather than waiting to go through the credit-card-charging routine, he tossed some bills into the lavender folder.
Playing the gentleman, he pulled her chair out for her. Then, with his hand on her smooth, bare back, they walked out of the restaurant together.
28
“You realize we’ve probably just landed ourselves on the front page of the Shelter Bay Sentinel,” Annie said as they drove away from the restaurant and back toward town.
“You’re overestimating our importance,” he said. “We’ll probably land somewhere between the notice of the Taste of Shelter Bay festival and the police report.”
“Which last week consisted of a call about a suspicious car stopping at mailboxes, which turned out to be the mail carrier,” she said. “Another mailbox was vandalized when someone painted a yellow smiley face on it and a domestic disturbance reported by a neighbor next door to a home where the couple who lived there turned out to be engaging in ‘vigorous sexual role-play.’”
“Don’t forget the pool of blood on the pier,” he said.
“Which turned out to be spilled Pinot Noir.” She’d laughed when she’d read that one. “So, the top crime on the Shelter Bay police report hit parade was two cars stopping on a Forest Service road outside of town, some teenage boys getting out, having a fistfight, then getting back into their cars and driving away.”
“The first rule of Fight Club is never talk about Fight Club.” Mac glanced over at her. “And you don’t sound all that upset.”
Annie shrugged. “It was a little unsettling, since I’m not used to being in the spotlight. But everyone was already speculating about us. At least we’ve livened things up until the next excitement.”
“Someone’s bound to get drunk on the Fourth and do something stupid,” Mac said encouragingly. “That should take the heat off us.”
“I’m not sure. Especially since the mayor made that proclamation declaring Shelter Bay the ‘Romance Capital of the Oregon Coast’ and decided to add a matchmaking fair as part of the Fourth of July weekend festival.”
“That’s a plus. There’ll be lots of other couples to focus on, so we won’t be stuck in the bull’s-eye.”
Annie wished they’d be so lucky, but she doubted they would, especially once they showed up with Emma and Mac’s father. Wouldn’t that get speculative tongues wagging? She suspected Dottie and Doris, the elderly owners of the Dancing Deer Two boutique, would immediately start looking through wedding dress catalogs. With so many people getting married lately, their stock would have to be depleted.
“Though Sedona and her date didn’t exactly look as if they’re going to be part of those festivities,” he said as he turned onto Harborview, which ran along the bay. Most of the commercial boats were out to sea, though more sailboats were skimming across the water, sails raised to catch the wind.
“He’s some rich tech guy who was interviewing her for a start-up he’s doing,” she explained. “A matrix match-up service that supposedly fixes you up with your perfect partner. Like that’s going to work.”
“You never know.” He opened the sunroof, then rolled down both front windows enough to let the fresh air in. “Look at us.”
“We didn’t meet online.”
“No. But the situation was much the same. We probably talked more honestly because we didn’t know each other than if we had, at least that first night you called in.”
And wasn’t that what she’d been thinking herself?
“We did skip past all that early getting-to-know-you stuff,” she said. “Like favorite foods, music, top three fave movies—”
“That’s an easy one. The Godfather. Platoon. And Die Hard. Oh, and I’m adding a fourth. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“Ah, the usual guns, guts, and glory.” She wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“I am a guy. We like that stuff.” The hot-guy look he shot her spurred a bone-melting desire that had her rethinking her moratorium on men. “Your turn.”
“It’s hard to pick just three. Or even four. But I tend to lean more toward the classics. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. When Harry Met Sally. Dirty Dancing.”
“‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner,’” he said, quoting the famous line from her third choice.
“You’ve seen it?” Unlike his choices, that one didn’t have a single weapon in it.
“Since women usually end up choosing the video for movie nights, once you reach a certain age, odds are you’ve seen that one.” He made the right turn toward the iron drawbridge leading out of town. “Swayze was always pretty much a guy’s guy, even when he was dancing, which made watching it not that much of a sacrifice.”
Annie was thinking that she wouldn’t mind if Midnight Mac put her in a corner. Up against the wall, with h
er skirt hitched up, and her legs wrapped around his waist . . .
And she was totally losing her mind.
“Favorite ice cream,” she said, desperate to change topics.
“Vanilla.”
Which came as a surprise, since there was nothing vanilla about him. Then he flashed her a wicked grin. “With chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top.”
The way he was looking at her, as if she were a hot fudge sundae that he’d like to eat up, made her feel as if she were coming down with the flu. How else to explain her swimming head and the swarm of butterflies flapping their wings in her stomach?
Not to mention that tingling under her skin when he put a tanned hand on her thigh as if it had every right to be there.
“We’re just talking about a kiss,” she insisted. “Nothing more.”
“Agreed.”
“That first one was pretty good,” she admitted. Which was a major understatement, but it was important to keep this relationship, whatever it was, on somewhat equal ground. “But it could’ve been a fluke.”
“What happened wasn’t any fluke.” The loud blast of a warning horn shattered the air; a gate went down in front of the truck, and a moment later the bridge began going up to allow a ship to pass through. “Which I’ll prove to you soon enough.”
Those wickedly clever fingers slipped beneath the hem of her dress, continuing upward, making little circles that were leaving sparks on her skin.
“We’re going to be stuck here for a while,” he said as a gleaming white yacht headed toward the bridge. “Let me give you a sample. To help you make up your mind.”
He unfastened his seat belt.
“Driving without a seat belt is illegal,” she felt obliged to point out.
“I’m not driving.”
To accentuate his point, he twisted the key, turning off the engine. Then leaned toward her, and with unnerving sensual intent, took off her Marilyn Monroe glasses and put them carefully on the black leather dashboard.
With that out of the way, and radiating testosterone, pheromones, and a dangerous male vibe that, instead of making Annie want to run, had her holding her breath, he inched closer to her.
