Page 50 of Winter Vows

“And you always honor your word, right?”

“Absolutely.” He glanced at her. She looked downright forlorn. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

“About being friends? No, I suppose not.”

Something in her tone alerted Hardy that she was not being entirely honest here. He decided it was worth pursuing. “Because if you were to change your mind, if you did want to go out sometime on a date, it would be okay with me,” he said in what was probably the understatement of his lifetime.

He turned just in time to catch her frown.

“You don’t have to sound so blasted thrilled about it,” she muttered.

“Actually, I would be,” he said. “Thrilled, that is.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You would?”

He figured he was treading on thin ice here. She wasn’t exactly doing cartwheels over the prospect of dating him. He couldn’t afford to put his heart on the line, didn’t even know if he wanted to. He just knew things weren’t working out the way they’d been the past couple of weeks. There was too much sizzling tension in the air when they were together. The only way it was likely to die down was if they did something about it.

“Sure. Why not?” he said as if it were of no consequence.

She seemed to be struggling with indecision. “Okay, we could have dinner sometime,” she said at last, then hurriedly amended, “If Laura can come along, of course.”

Hardy fought a grin. “She’s awfully small to be a respectable chaperone,” he pointed out.

“That is not why...” she began, then let her voice trail off. “Okay, yes, I did think having another person along would keep things from getting, you know.”

“Too intense? Too intimate?”

“All of that,” she agreed.

“Darlin’, something tells me things could get intense between the two of us in a room filled with half the town.”

She regarded him glumly. “Yeah, I’m afraid of that, too.”

Hardy would have chuckled, but something told him he ought to be satisfied to count his blessings. Trish finally trusted herself—and him—enough to go out with him. Now why did that make him so blasted nervous?

He had perfected the art of dating by the time he was fourteen. He couldn’t even count high enough to calculate the number of dates he’d been on. Showing a woman a good time was as natural to him as breathing.

But Trish was different. A date with her actually mattered. He didn’t want to blow it, didn’t want to come on too strong. Didn’t want to do anything from which there would be no turning back.

Oh, he was losing it, all right. He was staring straight into something every bit as frightening as the jaws of death and preparing to jump right in. In fact, he was damned eager to jump in, which just proved what happened when a man lost track of the rules that had kept him free. Obviously, before this big date of theirs, he was going to have to brush off that rule book and take a refresher course or he was going to be in the kind of emotional trouble he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.

Why was she behaving like a lovesick schoolgirl?

Trish asked herself for the thousandth time as she dressed for her date with Hardy. She didn’t have his track record with dating, but she’d certainly been to dinner and the movies enough times that the thought shouldn’t have her palms sweating. She was as jittery as a teenager getting ready for a blind date. If she could have, she would have backed out, pleading a headache or anything else she could dream up. Unfortunately she knew that Hardy would see straight through any excuse she offered. After tonight, though, she’d rarely have to see him again. The work on the store was all but done. Hardy must have worked like a demon the night before to get the shelves finished and the floor polished. She had been astounded when she’d walked in that morning and seen the full effect of all their hard work. Tears had stung her eyes and she’d had to fight the urge to throw her arms around him and give him the resounding kiss he deserved. Fortunately she’d learned that kissing Hardy was seldom an innocent act. Her body always wanted to turn it into something more. She’d settled for giving his hand a quick squeeze, then walking around to do a thorough survey of the all-but-finished store. He’d watched her intently, his expression worried, until she’d finally turned back and beamed at him.

“Oh, Hardy, isn’t it the most beautiful bookstore you’ve ever seen?”

“I can honestly tell you yes,” he said wryly. “Of course, I probably don’t have nearly as much to compare it to as you do. To me it just feels real homey.”

That was precisely the effect she’d been going for, so nothing he could have said would have pleased her more. A sudden vision of this being their home, with a cozy fire blazing, had her turning away as if he might read her thoughts.

If ideas like that were going to be popping into her head, it was a good thing that their time together was drawing to a close, she concluded. What little work was left she could do herself. Tonight was to be a much-deserved celebration of sorts.

And an ending, she added, feeling more depressed than she cared to admit.

She tugged on a pair of wool slacks that she could finally fasten around the middle, then pulled one of her favorite soft-blue sweaters over her head. She added an antique necklace with a scattering of tiny sapphires to dress the outfit up, then studied herself in the mirror. Casual enough, she concluded, and not bad for a woman just shedding the extra pounds she’d added with pregnancy. She was almost back to her old figure again, except for her breasts, which were fuller. She scooped her hair up into a loose arrangement of curls, held in place by little butterfly clips made of sparkling blue jewels.

Finally satisfied, she went downstairs just as the doorbell rang.

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