Page 14 of The Playboy and the Widow
“Because I won’t let you wear panty hose.”
Joan nodded. “You’ve got to remember, I’m growing up!”
Diana swiped the hair off her face. At this moment she didn’t need to be reminded of the fact her elder daughter was turning into a woman right before her eyes.
Katie had emptied half the contents of the refrigerator on top of the counter by the time Diana entered the kitchen. “Find anything interesting?”
“Nothing I’d seriously consider eating,” Katie said. “Can we have Kentucky Fried Chicken tonight?”
“Not tonight, honey.”
“How about going to McDonald’s?”
“If we can’t afford KFC, we can’t afford McDonald’s.”
“TV dinners?” Katie asked hopefully.
“Let me see what we’ve got.” She opened the freezer door and glared inside, hoping against hope she’d somehow find three glorious flat boxes.
The doorbell chimed in the distance. “I’ll get it,” Joan screamed, and nearly knocked over the kitchen chair in her rush to get to the front door first.
“Oh, hi.” Joan’s voice drifted into the kitchen. “Mom, it’s for you.”
The list of possibilities ran through Diana’s mind. The paperboy, Shirley Holiday, the pastor. She rejected each one. Somehow she knew even before she came into the room who was at the door. She’d longed for and dreaded this moment.
“Hi,” Cliff said, smiling broadly. “I was wondering if the three of you would like to go on a picnic with me.”
“Sure,” Joan answered first, excited.
“Great,” Katie chimed in.
Cliff’s gaze didn’t leave Diana’s. “It’s up to your mother.”
Three
“I thought we’d go to Salt Water Park,” Cliff said, his gaze holding Diana’s. He resisted the urge to lift his hand, touch her cheek and tell her she’d been on his mind from the minute he’d left her. After their dinner date he’d instinctively realized that if he were to ask her out again, she’d refuse. The only way he could get her to agree to see him again would be to involve her daughters.
“Can we have Kentucky Fried Chicken?” Katie asked, jumping up and down excitedly.
“Katie!” Diana cried. That girl worried far too much about her stomach.
“As a matter of fact,” Cliff answered, “I’ve got a bucket in the car now.”
“Mother,” Katie pleaded, her eyes growing more round by the second. “KFC!”
“I’ll get a blanket,” Joan said, rushing through the living room and down the hall to the linen closet.
“I’ve got to change shoes,” Katie added, and zoomed after her sister, leaving Diana and Cliff standing alone.
“I take it this means you’re going?”
Diana decided his smile was far too sexy for his own good, or for hers. “I don’t appear to have much of a choice. If I refuse now, I’m likely to have a mutiny on my hands.”
Cliff grinned; his plan had worked well. A streak of dried dirt was smeared across her chin, and her blond hair was gathered at the base of her neck with a tie. Her washed-out jeans had holes in the knees. Funny, but he couldn’t remember the last time a woman looked more appealing to him. She was everything he’d built up in his mind this past week, and more.
What he’d told her that night was true—he’d never had a woman respond to his kisses with tears. Unfortunately, what Diana didn’t know was that he’d been equally shaken by those moments in the moonlight. He’d been attracted to her from the minute she’d stared up at him from beneath her kitchen sink and described a plumber’s wrench. She’d amused him, challenged his intelligence, charmed him, but what had attracted him most was her complete lack of pretense. This wasn’t a woman whose life centered around three-inch long fingernails. She was gutsy and authentic.
Over dinner, he’d discovered her wit and humor. On social issues she was opinionated but not dogmatic, concerned but not fanatical. She was unafraid of emotion and possessed a deep inner strength. All along he’d known how much he wanted to kiss her. What he hadn’t anticipated was the effect it would have on them both. A single kiss had never touched his heart more. Diana had been trembling so badly, she hadn’t noticed that he was shaking like a leaf himself. He experienced such a gentleness for her, a craving to protect and comfort her. He felt like a callow youth, unpracticed and green. Thrown off balance, he hadn’t enjoyed the feeling.
