“Forget it, Annie. Do you see any evidence that they’re upset about anything?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Even Jason has been on his best behavior since the trip to Miami, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“And Tracy’s not as moody.”
“True.” Tracy had, however, started offering to lend her clothes in colors she knew Hank liked. She’d even brought home a new blusher, eye shadow and a bolder shade of lipstick and left them openly on Ann’s dresser. The hints were obvious and, no doubt, part of the whole plot that had her worried.
“But don’t you think it’s odd…” she began.
“Ann, there is nothing to worry about. Drink your tea.”
He was trying to placate her. She recognized the tone. It added to her jittery state of mind. “It’s so pleasant to have someone to talk things over with,” she snapped irritably.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” he said, deliberately misinterpreting her sarcasm. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Well, you can just go to hell. I have nothing to say to you.”
She got up and stomped out of the room, passing Tracy and Jason in the doorway. She caught the odd look that passed between them, but she was too furious to try to interpret it. Right now all she wanted to do was get away from Hank and the emotions that seemed to get all tangled up inside her whenever she was in his presence.
She had wasted an entire afternoon in her office stretched out on her sofa trying to analyze what was happening between them. She’d viewed it as something of a private therapy session. She had toted up Hank’s attributes, which were many. She had pinpointed each and every one of his flaws, also legion, and decided, on balance, that there was no rational reason to consider a future with the man. He would never be the placid, rock-solid, even-tempered man she’d always dreamed of sharing her life with. He was volatile and unpredictable on the one hand and too darned neat on the other. Even if she could get those awful doughnuts from him, she’d probably never get him to give up the rest of his junk food.
Stop being petty, some little voice had nagged. None of that really matters. What mattered was the fact that she knew deep down inside that Hank didn’t really want to be a family man. He was kind and generous, the kind of man who’d even give a meal to a stray cat, but that didn’t mean he’d keep it around for the rest of his life. He didn’t want that sort of long-term commitment. He’d practically told her as much when he’d revealed the secrets of his childhood. Forget all her degrees, even an amateur psychologist could figure out the impact his mother’s behavior had had on his ability to relate to women. She understood all that. She really did. Better, apparently, than he did himself.
So, she had concluded at the end of the session, she was just going to treat him casually for the few remaining weeks they were likely to have together. They would part as friends. Good friends. Caring friends.
Not lovers.
“You know, Annie,” said the voice of her good, caring friend right behind her. A shiver shot down her spine and made mincemeat of her intentions.
She whipped around angrily. “Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“Sneaking up on me.”
“I did not sneak up on you,” he said reasonably. “I walked out of the kitchen right behind you. I did nothing to hide my actions. You were just lost in thought. What were you thinking about, Annie?”
She recognized that innocently quizzical expression in his eyes. More important, she spotted the neatly set trap. He wasn’t catching her in it. No, sir. “Nothing in particular,” she said in a voice so cool it could have chilled champagne. “Was there something you wanted?”
Blue eyes lost their innocence at once. They captured her and pinned her right where she was with masculine intensity. Her heart skittered crazily.
“Hank,” she protested weakly.
“Hmm?”
“I asked if there was something you wanted.”
“Yes,” he murmured, leaning toward her, his gaze fastened on her mouth.
“I meant something else,” she said. Her voice sounded strangled.
“First things first.”
She took a hastily drawn and very deep breath, then darted past him calling at the top of her lungs, “Melissa! Time for bed.”
She heard him sigh heavily as she made her narrowest escape yet. And for just a minute, she felt a fleeting pang of regret. Then she reminded herself that what she was doing was in her own best interests and in Hank’s. It was getting harder and harder to remember that, though.
Hank retreated to the backyard hammock. It was getting to be absurd. He was acting like a third grader with a crush trying to steal kisses on a playground from a reluctant classmate. That’s what Ann had reduced him to with her stubborn denial that anything had changed between them on the trip to Miami. Whether she would have behaved exactly the same way had Jason not run away was a moot point. The fact remained that she was intentionally distancing herself from him. And he, despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, had no idea what to do about it. He’d thought the marriage proposal would convince her, but it had only made her more skittish than ever. It left him completely at a loss.
Ann was not one bit like the women he’d been attracted to in the past. A dozen roses, a bottle of expensive wine or a box of imported chocolates would be wasted on her. She had a yard filled with rose bushes, she wasn’t crazy about wine and he could just imagine what she’d have to say about the candy. He could always send her a gallon jug of apple juice or bring her a dozen oat-bran muffins, but where was the romance in that? As for taking her out to a candlelit dinner, she’d probably insist on hauling all six children along.
