explain.
Lucy was studying his face when he looked around at her. “He seemed nice,” she said.
“Yeah, he's okay.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Couple of years.”
“Is he married?”
He felt his eyebrows dip even further downward. “Why?”
“Just curious about your friends,” she said, her expression surprised innocence.
“No, he's not married. Never has been. Like me he's too much the oddball to settle into an average domestic routine. Unlike me, he was smart enough to figure that out before he tried it.”
She seemed to digest his words for a few minutes, as though thinking about the not-so-subtle message carried in them. And then she turned toward the kitchen. “I think the cake should be about done. And I'm hungry.”
It took him only a moment to switch mental gears and follow her. He was getting better at keeping up with her conversational switches. But that didn't exactly mean he and Lucy were meant to be together, he reminded himself with a hollow feeling somewhere deep in his gut.
“What do you usually do after dinner?” Lucy asked as she and Banner cleared away the dishes. They hadn't had dessert yet, but they'd eaten hearty portions of the spicy gumbo. They'd dined without much conversation, but once again it had been a companionable quiet between them, and Lucy hadn't felt the need to fill it with babble.
Banner shrugged as he bent to place the gumbo pot in a lower cabinet. “Sometimes I work. Sometimes I read or watch TV.”
“Do you ever go out?”
“There's a place not far from here where a bunch of guys get together to play pool or darts. I hang out there when I want company-a couple of times a month at the most.”
“Have you dated much since your divorce?”
“Not much,” he said, closing the cabinet door with a finality that also seemed to close that line of conversation. “Want me to make a pot of coffee?”
“Only if you want some. I'll wait until we have our cake.”
They moved into the living room where Banner turned on the television and settled on the couch. She wondered if he intended the noise from the TV to serve as a barrier of sorts between them so she wouldn't ask any more personal questions. He should have known her better than that by now, she thought with a faint smile.
Rather than choosing one of the other chairs, she curled on the couch next to him, nestled comfortably against his shoulder. After a moment he shifted to better accommodate her, draping one arm around her.
Her smile deepening, she glanced at the television. The sound was barely turned up loud enough to hear the newscast that had been playing when he turned it on. Since Banner didn't seem particularly interested in the latest news from the Middle East, Lucy didn't hesitate to start talking again. “Tell me about your siblings.”
Either he had been expecting more questions or he was simply getting used to her unabashed nosiness. He sounded more resigned than surprised when he responded, “All of them?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because-”
“I want to get to know you better,” he finished in unison with her, making her laugh.
And then he sighed. “I've already told you that my father has two overachieving offspring-Brenda, the medical student, and Tim, the first-year law student. Brenda's very intense, highly focused, goal oriented. She wants everything in her life to fit into neatly organized slots. Including me, I'm afraid. It bugs her that she can't categorize me as easily as she thinks she should. She's always been so intent on being the perfect daughter and impressing the old man that she can't understand why I don't feel the same way. I think he's an overcontrolling, self-centered stuffed shirt. But maybe she knows him better-after all, she grew up with him, I didn't.”
Filing that seemingly offhand comment away in the back of her mind, she prodded, “What's Tim like?”
“I can't say I know him all that well. He's always been involved in sports and clubs and fraternities so he was usually gone more than he was home when I was around. To all outward appearances, he's pretty much a clone of his father.”
His father. Another telling little slip. “Is your father a lawyer, too?”
“No. He owns a successful real estate firm. Spends more time at the office than with his family, but his motto is still Father Knows Best.”
Lucy didn't think he was quite ready to talk directly about his parents or stepparents, so she focused on the slightly less sensitive, but still revealing, subject of his siblings. “Tell me about your other sisters. Your mother's daughters.”
“I know them a little better, since I spent more time with them growing up, but we're not particularly close, either. Eileen's a dental hygienist married to a dentist, and they have a son they call Sammy, after my stepfather, Sam Osborne. Jenny's a full-time homemaker and aspiring children's book writer, married to a defense attorney.
They have a daughter and they're expecting twins. Jenny's heavily into liberal politics and community service, and it annoys her that I have no interest in either.”
Lucy tried to decide if she was imagining a hint of warmth in Banner's voice when he talked about his sisters. She decided after a moment that it was there, just masked. Despite his unemotional facade, Banner was fond of his siblings in his own way. She was convinced that it was primarily his feeling of not truly belonging to either nuclear family that kept him apart from them.
“They all sound nice.”
“I never said they weren't.”
“You just didn't want to spend Christmas with any of them.”
“I simply wasn't in the mood to deal with my parents' competitive games this year. Or to listen to my father's lectures about how I'm wasting my life, or my mother's criticism of my social life-or lack of one.”
For the first time it occurred to Lucy that maybe Banner had actually wanted to spend Christmas with family. That he had chosen to stay away more to avoid any potential conflict than because he really wanted to spend the holiday alone. He would rather spend the holiday by himself than cause more trouble in the families he had spent his life shuttling between.
Looking uncomfortable again, he cleared his throat, glanced at the television, then reached for the remote. “I don't suppose you're interested in college football.”
“Are you kidding? I've followed the games all season. I love watching the bowl games.”
His hand stilled. “Yeah? Who are your favorite teams?”
“Lots of them. But I do have a soft spot for the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida State Seminoles, since I attended both those universities while I pursued my degrees. Who are your favorites?”
“Since I never went to any college-much less two of them-I have no loyalty to any one particular school. I just like the game.”
Once again the difference in their educational backgrounds seemed to be bothering him. Because she didn't want him dwelling on that again, she snuggled closer to him and said, “Which team's the underdog in this game? I'll cheer for them with you.”
They had their dessert and coffee at half time.
“Good cake,” Banner said, seeming to savor each bite.
“Thanks. It's my aunt's recipe.”
He insisted on carrying the used dishes and coffee cups back into the kitchen, since he had to let the dog out, anyway. She heard the water running and the dishes rattling as he cleaned and put them away.
She was getting to know him a little at a time-mere glimpses into his life, she mused, thinking of his friend's visit earlier. Still, they were moving forward, if only in tiny steps. And she hadn't learned anything yet that made her less interested in him.
She was smiling in welcome when he came back into the room. Something about her expression must have caught him off guard. He paused just inside the doorway, his gaze locked on her mouth. She felt her smile fading as a ripple of response ran through her, leaving a shivery longing behind.
Lifting his gaze to lock with hers, he moved toward her. As if pulled by an invisible string, she rose to meet him.
