The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) (4 page)

“No, I have a mother question. Or rather, a solution to a meddling-mother situation.” He was very quiet on the other end. Was that a good sign, or had he fallen asleep? “Our mothers want to get us together. I never told you,” she segued quickly, “but I once overheard them talking about how terrific it would be if, when you and I grew up, we’d get married.”

His voice was stripped of all emotion as he said, “No, you never told me that.”

“At the time I heard it, I thought it was too gross to repeat,” she explained. “But it obviously has never stopped being on their minds.”

He was trying to follow her logic and found that there were gaping holes in it. “And you think that your mother calling you to see if you delivered the game to me is actually some kind of a confession on her part that she’s trying to get us to the altar?”

She knew he was mocking her and forced herself to swallow a few choice words. “Her asking me what I think of your looks is pretty transparent.”

Where was all this going, anyway? “So you called to warn me?”

She shifted the phone to her other ear. “No, I called to get you to cooperate with an idea I have.”

He
really
didn’t like the sound of that. “This never turned out well for any of the characters in those sitcoms you always liked so much,” Dave pointed out.

That he remembered she used to watch them astonished her. She told herself it meant nothing and kept talking. “What if you and I pretend to go out together? Pretend to, you know, like each other.”

It sounded as if she were forcing herself to endure a fate worse than death. “Assuming I’ve had my rabies shots,” he said sarcastically, “how is this going to teach our mothers a lesson? This is what they want—according to you.”

Kara sighed. “You really don’t have an imagination, do you?”

“I have one,” he told her. “I just don’t let it go off on wild tangents.”

She took offense and shot back through gritted teeth, “Okay,
Davy,
let me spell it out for you. We go out. We pretend to fall in love, and then we have one hell of an argument, making sure that we have this fight where our mothers can hear us. After the argument, we go through the throes of an agonizing ‘breakup.’ A devastating breakup,” she specified, really throwing herself into the role, “where we both act as if there’s no tomorrow—”

“Being just a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” he interjected.

He really was spoiling for a fight, wasn’t he? Not that she was intimidated, but she wanted this to get under way quickly. The sooner the better.

“Maybe. We’ll have to play it by ear. But they’ll be so upset that we’re upset, I guarantee that it’ll cure them once and for all from trying to play matchmaker with us on any level—separately or together.” She paused to take a breath. “What do you think? You game?”

If he said no, he had a feeling she’d keep calling and badgering him until he agreed. Still, throwing his lot in with Kara made him uneasy.

“Why do I get the feeling that I’m about to sign my own death warrant?”

What was it about him that set her off like this? Eighteen years and nothing had changed. Except that he was better looking, but that had no bearing here.

“Because you’re running on next to no sleep, you have no imagination and you don’t know a good plan when you hear one. Shall I go on?”

He laughed shortly. “Not that I have the slightest doubt that you could, but please don’t.”

She was still waiting for an answer. “Does that mean no?”

This was the moment of truth. He could still walk away. But he had a feeling that she had a point. Though he loved his mother dearly, he could think of nothing he wanted less than to have her playing matchmaker on his behalf.

“That means that I’m probably going to really regret this, but you do have a point.”

Yes!
“Glad you recognize that.”

He wanted to move this along while he still had a prayer of getting some sleep. “All right, mastermind, so what’s our next move?” he asked her.

She would have thought that was self-evident. “We pretend to go out.”

“And what, notify the press first? How are our mothers going to know we’re going out? I think they’d be suspicious if either one of us just picked up the phone and called to tell them.”

She smiled. He was almost cute when he tried to be flippant. The key word here was
almost.

“Ah, there is more than just space between those manly ears. You’re absolutely right. How about that birthday for your cousin’s son?” she asked. “The one I got you the video game for.”

“Ryan,” he supplied.

“Ryan,” she repeated. “Ryan’s going to have a birthday party, right?”

“Yes—” He got no further.

Kara pounced on the next question. “Is your mother going to be there?”

Okay, so now it was all crystal clear to him. Not bad, he acknowledged, albeit silently. Saying it out loud would just give her a bigger head. “Yes.”

“Okay, then we will be, too. All we need is one eyewitnessing mother to spread the news to the other.”

“Eyewitnessing,”
he echoed. “Is that even a word?”

“It is for this purpose,” she said glibly. “Anyway, they’ll think their plan is working—until we show them otherwise. So, are you in?”

“I’m in,” he answered even as part of him had the sinking feeling that by agreeing, life as he knew it would never be the same again. This very well could be a huge mistake.

Joining forces with Kara was always dangerous. It was a known fact that she possessed a golden tongue. It was also a known fact that she could abruptly leave him holding the bag if it suited her purposes.

He had no reason to believe that eighteen years had changed anything, her greatly improved figure notwithstanding.

Chapter Four

T
he phone rang just as Paulette walked past it. On her way out, she debated just letting the answering machine pick it up. But there was something about a ringing phone that always captured her attention to the exclusion of everything else. It was irresistible.

Pausing, she lifted the receiver from the cradle and brought it to her ear. “Hello?”

“I thought you’d want to be the first to know—well, not really first, but close,” the voice on the other end said.

Lisa. Paulette dropped her purse to the floor, kicked off the high heels she’d just slipped on and deposited her body into the overstuffed chair in her living room. There was no such thing as a quick exchange of words between her and Lisa.

“Almost the first to know what?” Paulette asked. Even as she did so, she mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that her little plan had succeeded in its next stage.

“That Dave called Melissa and asked her if she’d mind if he brought someone to Ryan’s birthday party.”

Paulette could hear the smile in her friend’s voice. It mirrored the one on her own face. “And this friend wouldn’t be Kara, by any chance, would it?”

At this point, it was a rhetorical question. She sincerely doubted that Lisa would be calling her to say that her son was bringing someone else to the little boy’s party.

And then Lisa confirmed all her hopes by saying, “Yes, it would.”

Paulette would have clapped her hands together with glee if both of them had been free. “See, I told you so. All it took was for the two of them to be in the same place at the same time.” And just like that, she was flying high on confidence. “The rest will soon be history.”

“Don’t start sending out the wedding invitations just yet,” Lisa cautioned. “I mean, it’s not like Dave hasn’t dated before. And you’ve told me that Kara has gone out with a few guys from time to time. Wasn’t there that guy, Alex something-or-other, she was seeing pretty regularly a while back?”

The name instantly brought a wave of anger. “You mean the bigamist?”

“He was
married?
” Lisa asked, horrified.

“Well, not exactly,” Paulette backtracked. “But he
was
seeing several women at the same time, including a live-in girlfriend who just
happened
to be the mother of his little boy. Kara was devastated when she accidentally found out—devastated and furious. He’s the one who made her swear off having anything to do with men.”

At the time that it happened, she’d kept the news to herself in deference to Kara’s wishes. But in her opinion enough time had passed for the truth to finally come out. Besides, she wanted Lisa to know that her daughter wasn’t a wallflower because no one was interested. She was one by choice.

“I don’t think you realize what this actually means,” Paulette continued.

“Enlighten me,” Lisa urged.

“If Kara actually agreed to go out with Dave, it means she’s ready to get back into life. This is a really big deal,” Paulette enthused. “Why don’t we get together at the end of this week and celebrate?”

As ever, Paulette was getting ahead of herself, Lisa thought. “A family gathering for a child’s birthday doesn’t exactly fall into the same parameters as a date,” Lisa pointed out.

“Walking down the block holding hands is a date,” Paulette insisted. “Anything involving two consenting people is considered a
date.
C’mon, Lis, don’t rain on my parade.”

It wasn’t that she wasn’t as hopeful about the outcome of all this as Paulette was, it was just that she was a little more grounded than her friend. And yes, a little more pessimistic.

“I’m not raining on it, Paulette, I just want you to have an umbrella handy—just in case,” Lisa explained. “By the way, about Ryan’s party… There’s always room for one more. Would you like to come?”

“You know I would, but…”

Lisa thought that Paulette would have jumped at the chance to be there to watch over her daughter interacting with Dave. “But?” she questioned.

“If I’m there, Kara might feel self-conscious and not be herself.” Her daughter also might think she was being spied on, Paulette thought.

Lisa sighed, considering Paulette’s reasoning. “I suppose you have a point.”

Paulette paused, chewing on her lower lip. “On the other hand, I also have an insatiable desire to see them finally come together.” She weighed the two sides for a moment, thinking. Desire won out over sensibility. “Oh, what the hell? Count me in.”

Lisa laughed. As if there was ever any real doubt, she thought. “Consider it done. I’ll call Melissa right now,” she said, ending their phone call.

This was taking way too long. By all rights, it should have been a snap, Kara told herself as she took yet another outfit out of her closet and looked it over carefully.

Ordinarily, she’d reach into her closet and throw just about anything on. Or, at the very least, she wouldn’t regard everything she’d taken out with such a critical eye.

Why did how she looked matter so much? She upbraided herself.

The problem was that she worked for a company that had no dress code—beyond requiring that their employees show up at work clothed. During the summer she went in wearing a tank top and shorts half the time. And since she hadn’t had a date since the Alex fiasco had burned her so badly, all of the things she might normally wear for any sort of actual occasion had been pushed to the back of her closet. Now, as she pulled them out, she kept finding something wrong with each outfit.

What was the matter with her? This was just Davy she was going with. Comfortable, old stick-in-the-mud Davy. And this was all pretend, anyway. There was no need to fuss like this.

“Damn it,” she said to her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. “It’s a kid’s party. A stained T-shirt and dirty jeans would probably blend right in.”

Even so, she took out yet another garment, this time a light blue sundress with white piping along the edges of the skirt, spaghetti straps and bodice. Holding it up against herself, she decided that it was as good as anything she’d pulled out so far. Maybe a tad better than most. For one thing, the color brought out her eyes and the dress’s waistline brought out her own.

Finally.

Or maybe—

Kara glanced at her watch. How had it gotten to be so late? This was supposed to take her only ten minutes, not an hour. The party was beginning in less than half an hour.

“Sundress, it is,” she declared.

She’d no sooner shed her tank top and shorts and put the sundress on than her doorbell rang.

Now what? she wondered. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

Maybe it was the new gaming system she’d ordered, Kara thought hopefully. It wasn’t scheduled to be delivered until next week, but you never knew. Once in a blue moon the mail actually arrived before it was supposed to.

Leaving the dress unzipped in the back—she wasn’t planning on walking away from the mailman—Kara hurried to the door.

“Coming!” she called out, hoping the mail carrier wouldn’t leave before she got there.

She yanked the door open, and disappointment descended swiftly. “You’re not the mail carrier.”

“Very observant,” Dave commented. “Were you expecting him?”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you,” she informed him crisply.

Since she wasn’t inviting him in, Dave took hold of her shoulders, moved her slightly to one side and walked into the apartment on his own.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the one who said we’re supposed to be ‘pretending’ to be on a date while attending Ryan’s birthday party?”

God, but he irritated her, she thought. There was no reason to talk down to her like this. “Yes, but I thought we were meeting there—at Melissa’s house.”

“It occurred to me while driving to the party that arriving in separate cars didn’t seem very datelike,” he pointed out. “Is that how all your dates go? Because if so, I might have the answer as to why you’re still unattached.”

Maybe she should just kill him here now and be done with it. The idea had definite appeal.

“You could have called and given me a warning. And never mind how my dates go,” Kara snapped, closing the door he’d left open. She frowned, then shrugged. “Well, since you’re here, I guess we can go to the birthday party together. But I’m not ready yet,” she informed him. When he raised a quizzical eyebrow she explained, “I don’t have my shoes on.”

“I thought you looked shorter.” And then his mouth curved in a half-amused smile as she moved away. “You don’t exactly have your dress on yet, either.”

She turned back and looked at him sharply. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

Rather than answer her, he turned her around and then zipped up her dress, his knuckles lightly skimming along her bare skin.

Something warm and shivery shimmied up and down her spine, discharging tiny zaps of electricity as it went. Kara struggled not to let the tingling sensation get to her.

“There,” Dave pronounced. “You’re decent. It’s a kid’s party. Ryan’s precocious for his age, but he’s a little too young to see his first half-naked woman, no matter how tempting the sight might be.”

Her temper flared. “I’m not—” The rest of his statement suddenly hit. “Wait, did you say ‘tempting’?”

That had been a careless slip on his part. He had to remember that Kara pounced on the least little thing. “Just a general observation,” he said mildly. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he deliberately moved away from her and looked around the room. “Nice place,” he commented. “A little claustrophobic for my taste, but nice.”

She’d forgotten about that. Dave had been claustrophobic as a kid. The second she’d found out, she’d taken every opportunity to put him to the test. She herself was fearless and couldn’t fathom anyone breaking into a sweat just because they were confined to a tiny little space.

“Thanks,” Kara responded.

Preoccupied, she was still mulling over his “tempting” remark. Had that been a slip of the tongue or just a word he’d used carelessly? There was nothing in his tone or his facial expression that gave her the slightest clue.

Most likely, she decided, he was setting up a joke at her expense. There was no reason to believe just because he’d become a doctor who volunteered at a free clinic once a week that he’d suddenly become a noble specimen of manhood. At least, not as far as she was concerned, anyway.

Getting her shoes, Kara stepped into them and then grabbed her purse from the coffee table before pausing to pick up a large shopping bag next to the sofa.

With a toss of her head, she announced, “Okay, I’m ready.”

Dave began to walk out. Noticing the shopping bag, he nodded at it. “What’s that?”

“A present for Ryan. You didn’t expect me to go to this party empty-handed, did you?”

When it came to Kara, he really didn’t know what to expect. He never had. The logic he cherished had no place in her life.

“I thought ‘The Kalico Kid’ game was from both of us,” he admitted. “Reinforces this dating thing you’re trying to sell everyone on.”

“Not
everyone,
” she corrected. “Just our mothers, remember? And as far as
reinforcing
anything, coming with one video game between the two of us only reinforces the idea that we’re cheap since I do work for a video game company.”

“Ryan doesn’t know that,” he pointed out. “And I suggest that if you don’t want to find yourself under attack from a whole bunch of kids, you might think twice before making that little fact public knowledge at the party.”

She looked at him in silence for a moment, then smiled. “If I didn’t know better, Davy, I’d say you were being thoughtful.”

“I was being practical,” he corrected. “And I’ve asked you before, don’t call me Davy,” he added with feeling.

They walked out the door, and he waited until she locked up, then led the way to his car. “So what are you giving him?”

The company was releasing two new games at the beginning of the month. Senior engineers were allowed to get the first copies. She was passing hers on to Ryan but she didn’t want to say as much to Dave, so all she said was, “You’ll see.”

When they came to a stop before a gleaming red sports car in the guest parking, she looked at him incredulously. This did
not
go with his usual image. “This isn’t your car, is it?”

He might have known she’d have some kind of crack about it. Admittedly, it was an indulgence. He’d just gotten rid of the secondhand car he’d been driving since his senior year of college. Since it had been so reliable, he hadn’t wanted to give it up until it wasn’t functioning anymore.

Dave braced himself for a punch line. “Why wouldn’t this be mine?”

“Because it’s sleek and powerful with a hell of a lot of horsepower.”
And a damn beautiful vehicle,
she added silently, then raised her eyes to his. “Everything you’re supposedly not.”

“You have no idea what I am, Kara,” he informed her coolly. Hitting the security release on his keychain, he unlocked the car doors, then nodded toward the passenger side. “Get in.”