Tom could see the wisdom in that. Of course, backing off meant losing time, when he only had a finite amount of time to convince Jeanette that they had something special. A part of him didn’t want to waste a minute of that.
“How long?” he asked Ronnie.
Ron chuckled at his obvious impatience. “As long as it takes.”
“Does it have to start right this second? I’m supposed to pick her up for lunch in a couple of hours.”
“Up to you,” Ronnie told him. “But canceling could be a good thing.”
Tom shook his head. “And you had to work this hard to get Dana Sue?”
“Harder,” Ronnie said. “I had a whole lot to make up for and, believe me, she didn’t make it easy. I assure you that I have some firsthand experience with the value of patience and persistence.”
“Patience and persistence?” Tom echoed thoughtfully. Persistence he could handle. Patience? Not his strong suit. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“Hope you don’t mind me interfering,” Ronnie said. “And if the situation starts getting to you, you can always call me or Cal and schedule a football game to work off some frustration. Nothing like a little sweat and a few beers to take the edge off.”
“Yeah, nothing like it,” Tom agreed. Unless it was some energetic sex with the woman who’d gotten under his skin.
* * *
Mary Vaughn was surprisingly nervous about her upcoming dinner with Sonny. A lot was riding on how this evening went. If they couldn’t come up with a really good plan, it was going to be hard for her to keep saying no to Rory Sue’s pleas to go to Aspen for the holidays. The only thing worse than having her daughter gone would be having her underfoot and moping around the house as if her life was ruined and it was all her mother’s fault.
She’d taken to heart Sonny’s comment about her penchant for getting caught up with business and showing up late. Determined to prove she could be on time, she’d canceled her appointment and was waiting at Sullivan’s fifteen minutes early. It gave her a great deal of satisfaction to see the shock on his face when he walked in and saw she was already seated.
He leaned down and dropped a casual peck on her cheek. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” he said. “Did your appointment cancel?”
She bristled at the suggestion that she wouldn’t have been on time otherwise, then shrugged ruefully. “I canceled it myself. I wanted to prove something to you.”
“Darlin’, there’s nothing you need to prove to me. You are who you are. I accepted that a long time ago.”
She listened closely for any undercurrent of nastiness in his tone, but he sounded more amused or resigned than anything.
“Well, I’m turning over a new leaf,” she swore to him. “I’m going to be more considerate of other people’s time.”
Sonny didn’t look entirely convinced. Instead, he glanced around in search of the waitress. “You want a drink, Mary Vaughn? Maybe some wine?”
“Just a glass,” she said. “They have a nice red zinfandel.”
When the waitress arrived, he ordered that, then a beer for himself. Mary Vaughn shook her head. No matter how hard she’d tried to cultivate his taste for wine, Sonny had always preferred beer. In a way it was admirable that he stuck to what he liked, rather than setting out to impress people by buying fancy wines the way she did. Though she’d tried her share of beer way back, just like all the other kids, she’d cut herself off years ago. Her aversion to it had come from having a father who indulged in way too much of it.
She studied Sonny closely as he chatted with the waitress, the daughter of one of his salesmen. He was tanned, fine lines fanned out from the corners of his dark blue eyes, and his light brown hair had more threads of silver in it than the last time she’d seen him. He was wearing navy blue slacks, a pale blue silk-blend shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a designer tie that had been loosened. She recognized the tie because she’d helped Rory Sue pick it out last Christmas. She wondered if he’d chosen it deliberately because of that, or if he even remembered where it came from. Either way, he looked good. Better than he had during the last year of their marriage when the tension had left him looking harried and unhappy most of the time. She’d recognized his unhappiness way too late.
“Give us a few minutes,” he told the waitress. “We haven’t even looked at the menu yet.” He turned to Mary Vaughn. “Or are you in a hurry?”
“I’m in no rush,” she said, finally letting herself relax. She’d been half-afraid that he was going to insist that she get to the point so he could bolt back to the dealership. She smiled at him. “You look good, Sonny. Rested. Are you playing a lot of golf?”
“A couple of times a week,” he said. He looked her over. “How about you? Still working too hard?”
“Most of the time, especially with Rory Sue gone.”
“New man in your life?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I thought there might be something brewing with you and the new town manager,” he said. “At least that was the hot rumor at Wharton’s a couple of weeks back.”
“Bad information,” she said succinctly. “What about you? Have you been dating?”
He chuckled. “Aren’t we a pair? Asking all these civilized questions about each other’s love life. Who would have thought we’d ever get to that point?”
She met his gaze. “We were friends before we were anything else,” she reminded him, then added
