But he’d dealt with that impulsive, totally male response during dinner. He’d lectured himself on the sheer folly of any intimate contact with her. He’d joined in the speculative jokes his buddies were making about Hank and Ruby. He’d focused intently on Kevin’s apparently endless barrage of questions. He’d teased their waitress, pleaded for Joey’s surprisingly incredible recipe for spaghetti sauce. He’d done everything he could think of to get his mind completely off Deanna.
He’d done all that, but he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. She was always at the periphery of his vision. The sound of her laughter was always teasing him, drawing his focus away from his friends. Hell, he could almost swear he could even pick out the scent of her perfume when she was two aisles away. How pathetic was that?
Given all that, it was little wonder he was destined to cave in to insanity when he followed her into the kitchen. One instant he’d been defending himself against her fury over his overbearing attitude, the next he’d been hauling her into his arms to silence her with a mind-numbing kiss. He was surprised she hadn’t slugged him.
Of course, that could be because she’d been too stunned, he thought, a grin tugging at his lips. He recalled her dazed expression when he’d brusquely apologized and walked away. A tiny, satisfied sensation stole through him. God, he was such a man, he thought with disgust, taking pleasure in having caught a woman off guard and having gotten her to respond to him. Responses earned that way didn’t mean anything. Not really, anyway.
“What’s your problem?” Hank asked, joining him in the sleeping quarters where Sean had retreated when they got back to the fire station.
“Nothing,” Sean lied, deliberately stretching out on top of the sheets as if he’d just come in to catch a quick nap.
“Woman troubles,” Hank assessed knowingly. His own mood seemed to be much improved. “You and Deanna have a fight?”
Sean ignored the question. “You and Ruby make up?”
“Ruby and I never fought.”
“Could have fooled me,” Sean said.
Hank’s gaze narrowed. “And you’re deliberately changing the subject. Why is that, I wonder? You’ve been uptight as hell ever since you came out of the kitchen at the restaurant. Did Deanna tell you to get lost?”
That could be one interpretation of her angry diatribe about his meddling in her life, Sean decided. But if her words had held him at a distance, the way she’d returned his kiss had been the exact opposite.
Geez, what was happening to him? He was hanging around his bunk pondering the implications of a stupid kiss. He never did stuff like this. A woman kissed him or she didn’t. She slept with him or she didn’t. Her choice, always. He never got hung up over it one way or the other. That Deanna had him weighing the meaning of it all was a very bad sign. It was time to run for the hills.
But he didn’t want to run anywhere…except straight back to the restaurant so he could kiss her again and make sure that the wicked wonder of the first time had been real.
Deanna sat at Ruby’s kitchen table with her jar of tips and began sorting the money. She did it once a month, then deposited the cash into her savings account, the one she’d started when she’d been convinced that if she planned ahead she could put enough money aside to buy a little house someday for herself and Kevin. The costs associated with getting back on her feet after the fire had wiped out every last penny she’d accumulated to that point.
Kevin wandered into the kitchen, his eyes widening at the sight of all the wrinkled dollar bills and change. “Wow,” he said, climbing into a chair opposite her and propping his elbows on the table for a closer look. “That’s a lot of money. Are we rich finally?”
She smiled at the question. “Hardly.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “Do we have enough to get our own place yet?”
Deanna’s head snapped up at the plaintive note behind the question. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked staying here with Ruby.”
“Sure,” he said at once. “Ruby’s the best.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I was thinking maybe if you and me had our own place, Sean would come to see us.”
It wasn’t the first time Sean’s name had come up around the house. Kevin had been quoting him nonstop since the fire. Going to the fire station and then seeing him at Joey’s had only reinforced his hero worship. In Kevin’s view, Sean Devaney pretty much hung the moon. Deanna knew allowing that to continue carried risks, but she didn’t want to steal the one bright spot in her son’s life. Still, she had to caution him against expecting too much.
“Honey, you can’t expect Sean to come around. He has his own life.”
“But he likes me. He said so.”
“He’s also a very busy man. He has an important job, and I’m sure he has his own grown-up friends that he likes to spend time with when he’s off. I don’t think he’s staying away because we live with Ruby.”
“But I’m his friend, too,” Kevin said reasonably. “And if we had our own place, I could invite him to dinner. He’d come. I know he would, especially if you fixed spaghetti like Joey’s.”
“Then he did like it?” Deanna asked. She’d wondered about that. She’d intended to ask him, but they’d gotten sidetracked in the kitchen. She nearly groaned at the understatement. They’d gotten more than sidetracked. Every rational thought in her head had flown straight out the window when he’d kissed her. Even now, just thinking about the way his mouth had felt on hers, she had to drag her attention back to Kevin.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Sean said it was the best spaghetti he’d
