Beauty and The Best (Once-Upon-A-Time Romance) (8 page)

Really, Jolie, just ’cause the guy has a magnificent one, you don’t need to harp on it. Get your mind out of the boxers and into this conversation
.

Naughty Girl was lecturing
her
?

“
Lunch,” Jolie managed to spit out. Finally.

“
I’m perfectly capable of throwing a sandwich together.”

“
Well, um, okay. Of course you are. But the dishes. I can do the dishes.”

His shoved his hands into his pockets. “I said I’d get to them. And I will.”

First the dinner location, then the whipped cream fiasco. It was probably in her best interests to just agree with him and get the heck out of there.

She side-stepped toward the patio door with an ungraceful lunge to grab her purse off the tabletop where it had fallen over. “Well, if you’re sure, then. I mean, if you really want to go to
The Midnight Maiden
, I guess I can’t stop you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem with
The Midnight Maiden
? It’s where you said you want to go, right?”

“
Problem?” Did she just squeak? That was so not attractive. He nodded. “No. No problem. Seven is fine. I’ll be ready.”

Of course she couldn’t exit gracefully. The darn purse got caught on the French door handle as she closed it and she had to make another exit. How mortifying.

God, she was only trying to do a good deed. She yanked open her car door and sat, banging her knee on the steering wheel of her Bug. The guy didn’t have to take her there. There were a zillion restaurants in the city; any one of them would do.

She turned on the ignition, the sputtering
rumble rumble
sounding as agitated as she felt. Why did he have to have his heart set on that one?

She backed out of his driveway and headed out of the cul-de-sac. Well, it wasn’t as if she had a say in the matter anymore. She’d tried. Now all she had to do was kill time until dinner. Thank goodness for Mr. Griff’s book. That ought to keep her occupied.

At the stop sign, she reached for her purse and opened it.

The book wasn’t there.

Oh crud. It was sitting on Todd’s kitchen table, right next to the bag of capers and spices.

Great. She was batting a thousand today. First she asked him to take her to his wife’s favorite restaurant, then she innuendo-ed all over the place with whipped cream, and then she left a love story sitting out in plain view.

Why didn’t she just rip the guy’s heart out and be done with it?

***

Todd stared at the bags on his counter after Jolie left.

It was so quiet.

Too quiet.

Funny, he hadn’t noticed the silence before today. It’d just
been
. Now, it screamed at him.

He grabbed the closest bag and removed sea salt, garlic, a bunch of parsley.

Get over it, Best
. He couldn’t use chatter to fill the space in his life. No matter how pretty the chatterer.

He’d lied to Mike earlier. Jolie wasn’t cute; she was gorgeous. Tall and lithe with a ballet dancer’s frame, Jolie had a beauty he could appreciate with his artist’s eyes. Perfect bone structure, creamy skin warmed by a curtain of mink hair, those eyes… He still hadn’t figured out what to call that color.

He exhaled and pulled a bunch of fresh basil from the bag. The last thing he should be thinking about was the color of his chef’s eyes. For all he knew, she had a boyfriend somewhere who wouldn’t appreciate Todd’s observations.

And he had no business looking at another woman.

His gut clenched. Damn it all. When would it stop? He wasn’t being unfaithful to Trista by finding another woman attractive. He knew that. It just hurt so damned much that he couldn’t let go.

A yellow flyer clung to the band around the oregano. St. Gabe’s Church was having its annual fundraiser again. He’d participated every year—well, every year that he’d been painting. He’d done one special picture for the art auction, painted just for the church. A one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-done-in-print piece.

Those paintings had brought in enough money to launch a daycare, a shelter, and fully fund the school. It’d been Trista’s idea.

He crumpled the flyer in his fist. That was why he hadn’t participated since her death. It brought it all back—the times they’d gone together, his first unveiling of the painting, her excitement like a child on Christmas morning, as if he’d painted it just for her.

Of course, he
had
painted it just for her. Every landscape had been painted for her, through the eyes of his love. He wanted to give her the beauty she’d seen in him, for the faith she’d had in him.

He folded the brown bag and stuck it on top of the others. He should get the food put away and maybe grab a swim. Exercise, a good sweaty workout, always helped to clear his mind, something to do with endorphins. Whatever it was, he’d better get to it. Jolie had had enough to deal with already; he shouldn’t bring his troubles to dinner.

Life went on.

And so would he.

Chapter Seven

Jolie heard the
vroom vroom
of Todd’s car and grabbed her watch off the bedside table. Six forty. Crud. She had to hurry; no telling what could happen to the Dream Machine outside her less-than-desirable-address apartment complex if she kept him waiting.

She marked her page and headed to the one small window allotted her by Mr. Murphy, the avaricious landlord (which explained how fifteen mostly vacant apartments could fit in a building designed for half that number) and peeked out.

Sure enough, there he was. Man of her dre—her heroine’s dreams.

Sheesh, for someone who required thirty minutes max to get ready, she should have been able to squeeze those eighteen hundred seconds somewhere in the last four hours. But no. She had picked up a favorite book and wham! the world disappeared.

Jolie rushed back to the bathroom, grabbed the curling iron for two little flips, brushed some mascara on and, oh what the heck, grabbed the tube of pink sparkly lipstick. Sugar Plum Ice, Sugar Plum Gloss, some sweet fruity name. She was a flurry of flicking hands and twitching hair and then into the sink went the magic wand of hairdos, the magic wand of eyelashes, and the newly acquired magic wand of lips. Yeah, she was definitely destined to write fairytale happily-ever-afters.

His footsteps
ching
-ed against the metal steps in the stairwell. What the heck did she do with her shoe? She’d chosen the turquoise dress and her kicky yellow flats just wouldn’t do. Silver sandals would have to suffice. Well, one of them anyway. Where was that other one? She lived in an eighteen by eighteen foot box—how far could one footless shoe go?

Shadows flickered beneath her door. Great, he was there and she was still shoeless.

She kicked a pillow that God-knew-why decided to spend the day on the floor, and luckily found the other one.

She wasn’t normally this disorganized, but for some reason she was all thumbs trying to get ready for this date—dinner.

It’s a dinner, Jolie. Nothing more
.

Tell that to her hormones.

Todd knocked.

“
Be right there,” she said, trying not to break her neck as she slid Foot into the sandal. Of course, she shoved the little thong thingy between the wrong toes, so she had to do it again.

Shoe on, she took a quick breath and found herself going all 1950’s glamour goddess before opening the door, brushing the hair from her forehead and running her hands down the dress. If she’d had a mirror by the door she would’ve glanced into it and puckered her lips, brushing at the corner with her pinky finger in case any lipstick was smudged. But, no mirror, so Todd would have to take her with smudged lipstick or not.

Oh, take me, take me.

And it was with that thought that she opened the door.

Hellooooo.

Naughty Girl was on the mark with that assessment. The man was looking good. Really good. Sinfully good. The kind of good that could get a good girl into trouble.

And she was so trying to be a good girl.

“
Hi,” Jolie said, trying to keep the husky glamour goddess from emanating from her throat
à
la
Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate.” Or Mae West with her “Come up and see me sometime.”

Would it be too clichéd to lean back against the door frame? Probably. Not to mention pathetic. He thought she was, quote, “cute, I guess.” Not the most inviting reason to do a come-hither.

Plus there was the job she had going with him. And that was
all
she had going with him and as soon as Naughty Girl listened up and paid attention, they’d all have a much better evening.

Well, no, that wasn’t true. They’d probably have the best time if she took Nasty’s advice, but that couldn’t happen.

“
You ready?” he asked.

“
What? You can’t tell? Well, gosh, I didn’t think the fifteen minutes I was missing in my normal routine would show that drastically. See what happens when you get caught up in a good story? Pages fly by and the time even quicker. Before you know it, you’re missing dinner—and obviously necessary primping time—because you’ve got to find out if Lady Hammonton sashays across the crowded ballroom right into the oh-so-dashing Jeremy Godfield’s arms and—”

“
Jolie?”

Okay, let the floor open up and swallow her whole right now.

“
Um… right. Sure. I’m ready. Just let me grab, um… my bag.” Luckily, she’d had the forethought to hang her bag on the closet door so she wouldn’t have to do the throw-the-clothes-all-over-the-bed/sofa thing in front of him.

Bag in hand, she stepped through the door, pulling it shut behind her. “All ready,” she told him.

“
You look very nice,” was what he told her in return, the upward curve of his lips drawing her attention to the sparkle in his green eyes and those crinkles at the corners.

And there went her knees to mush.

It only took four words. Four words! How did he do that? She’d have to remember that one and throw it in her book somewhere.
Turn heroine’s knees to mush in four simple words, by Todd Best.

“
Uh, thanks.”
Uh?
Uh
?
Good God, Jolie, your vocabulary is regressing
.
“You look pretty spiffy yourself.” Khakis with a forest green golf shirt tucked in the waistband showed off his upper body quite nicely. Not that she was supposed to be noticing. That “she was human” excuse was getting a bit thin.

It was a breezy night with the soft wind off the river, perfect for cooling the summer air. The early arrivals to the evening cricket chorus warmed up their “instruments” from the grove of elm trees behind the parking lot, Jolie’s heels clicking a soft rhythm along the pock-marked cement walkway. At the top of the steps to the asphalt, she turned to look at Todd and darn if she didn’t touch him on the arm. His touchy-feely-ness must be catching. “We’re eating outside, aren’t we? I hope so. I love to watch the stars come out.”

He tested the railing then pulled his hand back as it shook in the loose moorings of crumbling concrete, and lightly gripped her elbow instead. “Sure. We can eat on deck if you want.”

“
Thank you. Oh, look.” She pointed to a flock of birds fluttering in for a landing. “How cute! Pigeons.”

“
Pigeons are cute? That’s a new one,” Todd laughed. “Most people I know think they’re pests.”

“
You must hang around city people. They call them rats with wings, but I think pigeons are pretty, with their soft gray feathers and all those jewel tones in their necks. I like to feed them. Appreciative little things, though I have to remember to stay away from parked cars when I bring them leftovers, ’cause my neighbors are not so appreciative.”

“
You seem to have a penchant for feeding things,” he said as he held open the door to the Dream Machine.

That was a first. Never had a man opened a car door for her.

Showed the kind of guys she dated. Not that there’d been too many, anyway, but yes, there had been a few and she’d been “curious,” but once she saw what it was all about, she’d decided she was going to better herself so she had a choice of an improved caliber of men. If only her mom had had the same epiphany.

“
I guess I just like to feed God’s creatures.” Plus their begging for scraps ran a little too close to home with memories of her childhood, so, yes, she fed them.

She slid into her seat, swinging her silver sandaled feet into the car, looking for a way to change the subject before becoming lost in the miasma that was her past. “Oh, look how the sky is laced with all those pretty shades of pink and orange and red.”

“
Um hmmm,” Todd said, slipping into his tan leather seat beside her.

“
Pretty non-committal for a guy who paints for a living.” She pulled the seatbelt across her chest, latching it in place.

“
Do you have a music preference?” Todd reached for the radio.

Okay.
Ixnay
on the artistic talk. But music worked. “I enjoy classical.”