Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out

ask for advice, but Dimi was wise enough to hang up on her.

WHEN TANNER heard the shower turn on, he imagined Cami in there, stripping down, stepping under the spray of the water. Imagined her wet, sleek, perfect body gleaming as she ran soapy hands over her limbs…

And smashed his thumb with his hammer.

While he was dancing and swearing, his cell phone rang.

“Get lucky yet?” his father asked.

“I’ve been working too hard to get lucky, thank you very much.” He sucked on his throbbing thumb.

“Love’s more important than money.”

“Can’t live off sex,” Tanner replied. Damn, that thumb was going to hurt all day.

“I said love, not sex.”

“Well, I don’t do love.”

“I raised you better than that.”

Tanner gave up on the conversation entirely, ignoring his father’s musing that maybe his son was overlooking something really special right beneath his nose simply to preserve his precious bachelorhood out of habit. Bad habit.

It wasn’t bad habit that kept Tanner single, but dedication and hard work. No woman would want to play second fiddle to a struggling business and long hours and…oh, hell.

He was ignoring something special-Cami-in order to preserve his bachelorhood, which meant his father was right.

He could live with that.

Tanner worked some more, and later watched Cami measure a customer for a spring wardrobe.

She’d already explained to him that sewing was how she made money until she got her design business going, and with that news he should have worried about his own paycheck.

Instead he watched her, fascinated. Watched her slim, capable hands spread material, saw her hunch over her plans and talk to herself as she stuck pins into paper and once into her finger.

When she brought that finger to her mouth and sucked, he actually got hard.

So he worked some more and told himself to stop watching her. Which lasted until much later, when she came into his view wearing yet another summer dress, looking nervous.

“Don’t tell me.” He tossed aside his tool belt and studied her. “You’re going through with tonight’s date even after the last fiasco.”

“I promised.”

He opened his mouth to tell her what he thought of her promises to do things she didn’t want to do, but at the look of trepidation on her face he closed it again.

The doorbell rang. They both looked out the window. A shiny red Corvette was parked in front of her walkway. Every inch of the car had been well tended; the chrome was polished to a mirror shine.

“There won’t be any car trouble tonight,” she said, staring out the window.

Any guy who drove a red Corvette with polished chrome was slick, Tanner told himself, and grabbed Cami’s purse off her shoulder.

“Tanner!”

He pawed through the mysterious mess that made up the contents of a woman’s purse and didn’t answer.

“What are you doing?”

Hell if he knew, except the thought of her with a slick, rich mama’s boy just didn’t sit right with him.

No way did he want them to have the convenience of a condom right in her purse. Of course the guy could be packing himself, and if he was smart, he was, but Tanner couldn’t control that.

Aha! His fingers closed over the condom, and he withdrew it.

“Hey!”

He pocketed the little packet just as the doorbell rang again. “Don’t drink and drive, and remember, call if you’re going to be late.”

She gaped at him, then lifted a finger and pointed it in the region of his face. “You’ve lost it,” she said, turning toward the door.

Her hair spun silkily, teasing him with its light scent. Her skirt whirled with her movement, brushing his legs. And her bare shoulders were such temptation he nearly bent and bit her.

Definitely, he’d lost it.

“Not too late to change your mind. Or to stand firm on your own wishes.”

She went still, her hand on the door. “If you know me so well, what are those wishes?”

“Maybe your fantasy date.”

“With who?”

“Maybe with me.”

The doorbell startled them both, and with a soft curse, she pulled open the door.

Tanner decided he couldn’t watch, so he left her alone and disappeared into the back half of the town house, where he had more than enough work waiting for him.

“Meow.”

He looked into Annabel’s face. She looked worried. Dammit, now he was really losing it. “She’ll be fine. She has a cell phone.”

She had one last time, too, and look what happened.

He bent for his tool belt, but the ridiculous image of Cami in that Corvette stuck with him. She wasn’t out with another Ted, that was certain. And for all her talent and charm, he knew Cami wasn’t especially…well, worldly. Not naive, exactly, but far too sweet to be on her own with a spoiled rich jerk.

He’d have to hurry or he’d lose them.

He dropped the tool belt and grabbed his keys, cursing himself the entire way to his truck.

“WHY ARE WE HERE?” Cami asked Joshua a few minutes later.

Her date turned off the engine, unhooked his seat belt and turned to her with a smile that made her nervous.

It wasn’t him, she assured herself. He was very handsome, in a boyish sort of way. In fact, he reminded her of a schoolgirl’s dream, the sort of guy who was captain of the football team, who wore a letter jacket and made every guy jealous and every girl swoon.

“Joshua?”

“I thought we’d have a backward date,” he said smoothly, reaching across her to unhook her seat belt, too. He slid closer, his lips curved, his eyes intent.

Oh, boy.

They were at the top of Tahoe Donner, miles above the town of Truckee and miles from civilization. Far below, the lights around Donner Lake twinkled invitingly.

Around her was nothing but darkness, reminding her of last night.

Her heart started pounding, because here it wasn’t Ted and his unreliable car. It was Joshua, who seemed to be famished for something, and since it obviously wasn’t dinner, she leaned against the door and gave him a weak smile. “You know what? I’m not really fond of backward dates.”

His hands closed over hers, squeezing once before traveling slowly up her arms. He licked his lips. “You’re far more beautiful than I imagined you’d be. My mother doesn’t usually have the greatest taste.”

Since Cami made his mother’s clothes and thought Mrs. Brown had excellent taste, she bristled. “Hey-”

“I’ll have to thank her.”

He was leaning close, far too close.

“You know what?” she asked on a shaky laugh. “I might have forgotten to mention-” Her back pressed into the door handle, hard. “I like my own space. You seem to be invading it.”

“Funny, too,” he murmured, his mouth unbearably close to hers. “I like funny.”

“Back off,” she warned, putting her hands to his chest.

“Ooh, and tough. Good. Get rough with me.” When his mouth slid over her jaw, she gritted her teeth and shoved hard.