Page 47 of No Kind of Hero
She gave him a smile, and it was nothing like the brittle, sharp edges he’d seen that first day at the beach. She smiled at him like a woman with a whole lot of soft places in her soul for a man to fall into, and like a woman who knew that the man she wanted couldn’t wait to love her. It was a good look. “Thank you for taking me to see dragonflies again,” she said. “Thank you for taking me in the boat. You said you wanted to make tonight special for me. I want you to know—you already did.”
Evan started up the boat again at last, and she was sorry, but she was glad. Nothing about any of this fling of theirs had gone the way she’d expected, least of all tonight. She’d hoped he’d like the way she looked. She hadn’t counted on him touching that scrunched-up mess that was her heart, loosening the kinks in it with those patient hands.
It wasn’t easy to talk over the noise of the motor, so they didn’t. But she thought she knew where they were going. And when the low white building came into view with its groupings of blue umbrellas on two levels of patio, she knew for sure. By the time Evan pulled the little bowrider up to an empty mooring amidst the cruisers and speedboats and deck boats and leaned over to slip the mooring line over a stanchion, her heart was doing a dance.
“Remember,” she asked him as he helped her out of the boat, then kept her hand as they walked along the dock, “that day in Robinson’s when I told you I’d been out with a doctor?”
“Anderson St. Clair? Nah. Don’t remember.”
She laughed, then kicked up a foot behind her and pretended to have to adjust her shoe, just so she’d have to take his arm. “This was where we went.” Tiny lights were twined around the railings that lined the path from the dock to the restaurant’s broad patios. As the two of them got closer, the lights winked on. Nearly sunset, and candles were already lit on the white-clad tables, soft music was playing from invisible speakers set all over the place, because she could hear it just fine down here, and Evan’s arm was solid and strong under her hand. “This is a lot better,” she told him. “Being with you. I have a surprise for you later on, too. Just because I like you so much.”
He looked down at her, his ice-blue gaze at its most intent, his face at its most unreadable. “Do you?” he asked. “Could be I have a surprise or two for you, too. We’ll see.”
That didn’t heat her up much. They’d reached the hostess stand, and Evan said, “Two, please,” to the hostess.
The woman looked around, checked her seating chart, then picked up two menus and said, “Right this way.”
Evan stepped back to let Beth go first. But as he waited, one hand resting lightly at the small of her back, he murmured in her ear, “Want to tell me about your surprise?”
She smiled back over her shoulder, felt the copper ribbons around her ankles, knew he was smelling her perfume, and said, “Nope. I’ll make you wait for it.” And then walked ahead of him like a woman with a secret. A woman who’d spent three hours at the salon and another two shopping today, and who was letting her inner Marilyn fly free.
“So where’s Henry tonight?” Evan asked as the hostess left them and he spread his napkin across his lap.
“Henry,” she said with deliberation, “is staying with my parents. Just in case.”
She wanted to look at Evan, but she had to look at the lake, too, the azure and sapphire of sky and water, the pink tinge of those fluffy clouds. Maybe it was that she felt exactly like those pink clouds, light as air and floating free.
“What good news,” Evan said. “I think we might need a bottle of wine for this. White wine, maybe, since it’s warm out and we’ve got candles burning and the sun’s setting. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Gris? What do you say?”
“I didn’t think you liked wine,” she said.
He gave her that lopsided smile. “Every once in a while, a man might need some wine. And you might need it more. So which?”
“Sauvignon Blanc, then. Please. But I’m thinking . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you could come sit by me,” she said. The table was square, and he was too far away. “If tonight is about giving the lady what she wants.” Then she looked at him sidelong, a little smile on her face, going full Marilyn. And it worked.
That was why, when her mother’s best friend Candy Farnsworth, the town’s leading realtor, walked up with her husband Rob, president of the Wild Horse branch of First National Bank, Beth was sitting back with a glass to her lips, savoring the aroma of passionfruit and peach, and in no hurry at all for her dinner to arrive. And also why her bare toes were brushing against the denim of Evan’s jeans, then retreating as she swung her crossed leg lazily back and forth. And why those eyes of his were locked on hers.
“Beth,” Candy said, and Beth jumped. She hadn’t even noticed them. “How nice to see you out and about at last. It’s a beautiful night to eat dinner outdoors, isn’t it?”
Evan had already risen, his expression all the way back to wooden. Beth stood too, and Candy pulled her close and kissed her cheek, then stood back and said, “Darling hair. Is that new?”
“Yes,” Beth said. “Just today. Thank you. Do you—”
She didn’t finish, because Rob was kissing her cheek now, and Candy was looking her up and down, her eagle eye not missing a thing as she went on to say, “Your mother told me you were lying low, or I’d have invited you out on the boat. Or better yet, you should give Melody a call. She’d love to see you, and she’s a lot more fun than we are.”
“Thanks,” Beth said, thinking,Yeah, right. Because there aren’t enough two-faced shark-women at Kentworth, Docherty and Valentino. I need to hang out with them on my breakdown, too. That’ll help.She asked, “You know Evan O’Donnell, don’t you?”
Were they just going to ignore him? She could have waited to see how long it would take, as an interesting experiment in the sociology of small towns, except that it was making her furious. She could feel the heat creeping up into her cheeks as Rob shook hands with Evan and Candy finally turned her attention to him. They would think she was blushing because she was embarrassed to be with him, and that made her even madder. She took a step closer to Evan, put a hand on his arm, and said, “We came over on Evan’s boat. It was beautiful out on the lake.”
“Of course I know Evan,” Candy said after the briefest of pauses. “You’ve painted for some of my clients, haven’t you?” she asked him. “Though I don’t know if you’ve met my husband Rob before. Evan paints houses, honey. With Dakota Savage.”
Evan had gone into Full Wooden mode. “We haven’t met socially before, no,” he said. “How are you.”
“Honey,” Candy said to Rob, smiling brightly, “why don’t you get our table, and I’ll take Beth with me to the ladies’ room. You know how girls hate to go alone.”
