Ready & Willing (17 page)

Say yes.

Oh, no,
she immediately told herself.
No, no, no, no, no. You do
not
want to go out on a date with Nathaniel Summerfield
. What on earth was she thinking, for that to ever enter her mind? Yeah, okay, he was a handsome guy. And yeah, okay, she’d seen a side of him today that wasn’t as brittle and unpleasant as what she’d seen of him before. The guy was soulless, she reminded herself. Even before he’d lost his soul, he’d been soulless. He was far more preoccupied by thoughts of business than of pleasure, of work than of play, of making money than of living life. He would be one of those guys who, on his death bed,
did
regret not working harder when he’d had the chance. He wasn’t—

She swallowed hard. He wasn’t Sean. But then, she thought further, no man ever would be. And that, if nothing else, was reason enough to decline.

“Um . . .” she started to say. But for some reason, she just couldn’t get the rest of the words out that she needed to say.

He seemed to realize where she was headed, though, because he pushed on, “I’d really like to talk more about this . . . this . . . about what we talked about earlier.”

Well, they
did
need to talk about that
, Audrey thought. And since neither of them had had dinner yet, it made sense to, oh . . . meet someplace for a bite. Nothing fancy. Nothing heavy. Nothing, you know . . . datey.

“Then you do believe me,” she hedged.

But he hedged, too. “Please, Audrey,” he said in much the way he had that afternoon, when she’d gone from feeling warm and whimsical to hot and bothered. And damned if it didn’t do the same thing to her now, sparking that nearly forgotten heat that was becoming less and less forgotten . . . and more and more tempting.

All the more reason not to have dinner with him
, she told herself. Besides, the darker hours had a bad habit of buffing all the edges and angles off of people. Darkness made people infinitely more mellow. Maybe she could meet Nathaniel during the day sometime, around noon perhaps, when the sunlight was at its most unforgiving and showed off every tiny blemish—though she doubted even unforgiving sunlight could make Nathaniel Summerfield look bad. And they could rendezvous—no, not rendezvous, because that was French and therefore sounded romantic. So they could . . . connect . . . yeah, that sounded nice and banal . . . someplace that was in no way evocative of a date. Like maybe the library. Or no, better, the Laundromat. Oh, wait, better still, the landfill. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

She was about to say, “Hey, Nathaniel, I have a better idea. I’ll meet you at the landfill at noon. Don’t forget to bring a filter mask.” But then she remembered that her days were going to be pretty full for a while, what with the opening of her shop tomorrow. If she was going to get together with Nathaniel, she would have to do something like—

“Meet me for dinner,” he said, punctuating the sentence with a definite period instead of a question mark, something that ceased to make it an invitation and turned it into a command. Then, as if he hadn’t already positioned himself nicely for Neanderthal of the Year award, he grunted an additional edict, “At Buck’s.”

As if,
Audrey thought. For one thing, she wasn’t going to be told to show up someplace, nor would she be told where she wasn’t going to show up. Those last two statements should have
really
put her back up. Instead, she found herself rising to the challenge.

There was no way she’d meet him at Buck’s. It was far too affable and urbane, and way too cozily lit. It was a definite date destination. So she countered, “How about Third Avenue Café instead?”

Which was also
kind of
a date spot, but it was far too fun and too full of whimsy to give a man like Nathaniel—who would doubtless never eat in a place where the plastic tablecloths were deliberately gaudy—ideas of anything other than having dinner.

She could tell he wasn’t happy about her having changed his plans, but he conceded, “Okay. But I’m buying.”

Oh, no he wasn’t. But they’d tackle that later. She would definitely pay own her way. Because this wasn’t going to be a date. It was just going to be dinner. Dinner that wasn’t soup and a sandwich. Dinner that they both needed to eat.

And also conversation, she added belatedly, wondering how she could have forgotten the reason they were doing this in the first place. Because it sounded as if Nathaniel did finally believe at least part of what she’d told him. Now all she had to do was convince him that the rest was true, too. Then they could figure out how they would win back his soul for him. And then, finally, she could go back to living her life. Alone. Just the way she liked it.

 

THIRD AVENUE CAFÉ WAS WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE
of Audrey’s house, but it was packed by the time she arrived. Belatedly, she remembered that it was Friday night, and Fridays generally meant brisk business for restaurants, especially popular ones like this. It had been so long since she’d done anything on a Friday night that she’d forgotten what a social event it was. That was reflected in her attire, as well, because she’d deliberately thrown on the first thing she pulled out of her closet, since she hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of this, because it absolutely, unequivocally, was just dinner and not a date. And, um, also conversation and not a date. As was reflected by the fact that she’d opted for a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt.

Just because they were a pair of jeans she’d never worn before because they were embellished with a little beadwork around the waist, and just because she’d never worn the shirt, either, because it was decorated with a cool, glittery graphic of Paris and she’d been saving it for a special occasion didn’t mean anything, either. It didn’t. Jeans and a T-shirt was what she always wore for dinner at home.

Well, she
did.

As she drew closer to the café she saw Nathaniel waiting for her just beyond the crowd of diners sitting at the dozen or so sidewalk tables, looking at his watch. He looked like he wasn’t considering this a date the same way Audrey wasn’t, because he’d cleaned up some, too. His previously rumpled khakis and shirt had been replaced by in no way rumpled charcoal Dockers and a different oxford shirt—still white, but this time pinstriped in the same color as his pants, its shirttail tucked in. In place of the sweater, he’d tossed on a tweedy jacket, even though, as far as Audrey was concerned, the night was a little on the warm side. Obviously, he continued to suffer from the cold, however temporary had been his relief when he’d held her hand that afternoon.

Something warm and wistful bloomed in her belly at the memory, something she hadn’t felt since—

Her steps faltered at the realization. It was the same sort of sensation she used to feel in the pit of her stomach whenever Sean had touched her in a way that made her want to touch him back. Not a sexual feeling. An intimate one. A feeling of wanting to just be close to him physically. To run the pad of her thumb down the slope of his shoulder. To trace her fingertips over the camber of his biceps. To brush her lips along the curve of his jaw. Touches that told him yes, he turned her on, but, more even more important, she loved him.

She must not be remembering correctly, she thought. It had been so long since she’d felt anything like that, after all. Because she certainly didn’t love Nathaniel Summerfield. She barely knew the guy. Nor did she want to touch him in any way that might be construed as intimate. He didn’t even turn her on. Well, not in any way that led to intimacy. Just in a way that might lead to smokin’ hot, steam-up-the sheets, deeper-baby-faster-baby-harder-baby-longer-baby sex, which wasn’t nearly as important or significant as intimacy.

It
wasn’t
.

At least, it might lead to that with someone other than Nathaniel Summerfield. Sex with whom wasn’t even in the forecast. It
wasn’t
. She was just feeling nervous right now, that was all. Anyone would feel nervous at the prospect of spending time with a man like him, one on one. A man who evoked feelings of smokin’-hot, steam-up-the sheets, deeper-baby-faster-baby-harder-baby-longer-baby sex—in other women, she meant—which wasn’t nearly as important or significant as intimacy.

Ahem.

Just as she forced her feet to move forward again, Nathaniel glanced up from his watch and saw her. And, just like that, she stumbled over her own feet again. And heat exploded in her belly again, but this time it was unlike anything she’d felt before, not even with Sean—especially not with Sean—a confusing maelstrom of heat and combustion that was by turns fiercely frantic and sweetly seductive. He was just such a compelling mix of certainly and solicitude, of arrogance and apprehension. And suddenly, Audrey began to think that going to dinner tonight was a really bad idea, because she couldn’t stop thinking about Sean, and about how much she wasn’t thinking about Sean the way she should be thinking about him, because she was thinking about Nathaniel that way instead.

When he saw her approaching, he shifted his weight to one foot and hooked his hands on his hips, something that pushed his jacket open and pulled the shirt taut across his chest. His gaze captured hers, but not before she noted the dark hair coiling at his open collar, so different from the smooth flesh of Sean’s chest. He was different from Sean in just about every way. Her husband had been blond, blue-eyed and fair, prone to broad smiles and laughter, his disposition easygoing and good-humored. He’d been nearly as tall as Nathaniel, and as solidly built, but he’d been as lean and slim as a diver, so hadn’t seemed so . . . Well . . .

Potent
was the word that came to her when she looked at Nathaniel. Potent and strapping and tough. The kind of man you didn’t dare mess with. Which was odd, considering the fact that he was an attorney and her husband had been a cop, and Sean should have been the one who seemed more intimidating. But Sean couldn’t have intimidated anyone if he tried. Which, she couldn’t help thinking, was the very thing that had probably had gotten him killed. He’d tried to defuse a domestic dispute with his usual affable warmth, thinking he could sweet-talk an enraged—and armed—man into turning over his weapon. Instead, the man had fired the weapon. Three times. Into Sean.

Audrey pushed the thought away. She would
not
think about that tonight. She wouldn’t think about it again. When she remembered Sean, she focused on his sunny smiles and loving embraces, not the way he had looked in the hospital. The good, not the bad. Because there was far more good to recall.

“Looks pretty busy,” she said as she came to a stop in front of Nathaniel, trying not to notice how the heat in her belly had multiplied the closer she had drawn to him . . . and how thoughts of Sean had receded. “Guess we should have made a reservation.”

“I
did
make a reservation,” he told her, leveling a pointed look at her. “At Buck’s.”

Which meant he’d done it before he even called her to ask her—no, command her—to go out with him. Sean would never have done something like that. He’d been cocky, sure, but he’d never presumed that Audrey would do what he wanted to do. Or, if he had, he’d at least pretended her desires were as important as his own. No, he’d never pretended, she immediately corrected herself. Sean had always taken her feelings and likes and dislikes into consideration, and he’d never made even the most unimportant decisions without her input.

She had to stop comparing Nathaniel and Sean, she told herself. And really, why was she even doing it? Her relationship with Sean was nothing like the one she would have with Nathaniel. She wouldn’t even be
having
a relationship with Nathaniel. She was here to help the guy get his soul back, however they ended up doing it. His place in her life and Sean’s bore absolutely nothing in common.

“Oops. My bad,” she said in response now to Nathaniel’s remark. “Well, maybe the wait won’t be too awful.”

“It’s more than an hour,” he told her. “I asked.”

Ah, yes, the beginning of the Derby Festival. Tomorrow was Thunder over Louisville, the official start of the Festival, but people started getting into a festive mood long before this weekend. The newspaper had been asking people to send in their Derby plans since January and had been showcasing Derby fashions for weeks. The mood and pace of the city truly did start picking up about now. Even people who didn’t make it a habit of going out suddenly went out more than usual. As difficult as it was to get into restaurants and nightspots any other time of the year, this time of year, the difficulty—and wait times—multiplied as quickly as the tourists.

“There must be some Derby thing going on,” she said.

“But there are a million restaurants around. One of them is sure to have room for us.”

“Buck’s does. The reservation is for seven forty-five.” He looked at his watch again. “That’s ten minutes away.”

“You didn’t cancel it?” she asked.

The look he leveled on her then told her she should have known better than to even ask that question. “I was afraid something like this might happen.”

Meaning he clearly
wasn’t
a stranger to Friday night socializing, Audrey thought. For all she knew, he had standing reservations in restaurants all over town. He probably went out with a different woman every weekend. And they probably wore something nicer than blue jeans and T-shirts. Even if her own jeans and T-shirt happened to be pretty damned stylin’.

“We still have time to make it,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, we won’t. It’ll take longer than that to walk there.

He covered the three steps necessary to put him beside a black Porsche Carerra, the passenger door of which he immediately opened. “Oh, look. I’m parked right here.”

Unbelievable,
Audrey thought. Anyone else would have been forced to park blocks away with this crowd. Even without a soul, he was the luckiest SOB on the planet.

“We’re not dressed up enough,” she pointed out.