Drop Dead Gorgeous (18 page)

His fingers had managed to find the soft upper swell of her breast instead of her shoulder. He gripped the steering wheel once more. “Sorry. Automatic response.” More than she knew.

“You're such a dad, T. Larry. Very protective.”

Dad. Brother. What about lover? Didn't she ever think about that? “What happened with Harriet?” The question sounded sharper than he intended.

Madison didn't flinch. “She seems a bit…upset.”

“That's a mild way of putting it.”

“You didn't tell me she'd named me in her suit.”

He'd wanted to save her the consternation. “It doesn't matter. I'm handling the problem.” Which sounded irritatingly like what he'd said to Ryman. “Don't worry.”

Zach had failed miserably in the first attempt. Laurence, of course, had a backup plan, though he'd conceded to a day's cooling-off period before they acted again.

“I just don't know how to help her.” Madison heaved a sigh Laurence felt throughout his body.

“Help her?” The thought was ludicrous. Harriet didn't want anyone's help.

“She's so misunderstood.”

“Harriet?”

“This wouldn't have happened if we'd been more sympathetic.”

“Are we talking about Harriet the Harridan here?” Against his better judgment and intentions, he started to boil. Harriet treated Madison abominably. “She's envious, Madison. You could wear sackcloth, and she'd still be jealous.” He struggled to find the least nasty comment. “Harriet simply doesn't know how to…laugh.”

Madison grabbed his thigh. He almost lost control of the car. Again. “Oh my God, T. Larry. That's it. I have to teach her how to laugh. Especially at herself.” She bit her lip. “But first I'll have to get her to stay in the same room with me.”

The woman was crazy. He peeled her fingers one by one from his leg before he wrecked the Camry. “Stay away from Harriet. You'll only make things worse.”

“I don't think they can get much worse,” she murmured, tucking herself into her corner by the door, an atypical Madison position.

“She really bothered you, didn't she?”

“I don't think I've ever been hated before. At least not that I know of. It's not a nice feeling.”

In some ways she was so naive, so untouched. All the more reason to keep Dick the Prick from taking advantage of her. “Harriet doesn't hate you—”

She stopped him with a look.

“All right. She hates you.” He wanted to protect her from Harriet's hurtful words just as he wanted to save her from whoever had slashed her tires. Unfortunately, he was sadly deficient on the Harriet front, a fact that turned him grumpy. “Let's talk about something else.”

She shrugged off Harriet as if she were a coat too heavy to wear. “Where are we going?”

One couldn't stay grumpy with Madison around. Except Harriet.

“It so happens, we're here.” He'd exited the freeway and entered a worn, cracked parking area while she sulked in her corner, not that sulk was really a word that applied to Madison.

Castles, windmills and a giant laughing clown mouth rose above them. Madison jumped from the car, stood transfixed, her smile wide and the skirt of her spandex dress hugging her bottom. Watching her, Laurence could have died a happy man if that was the picture he'd take to his grave. Madison's smile did nothing less than bowl him over.

“Miniature golf,” she said in hushed, reverent tones. “Do you know how to play?”

He settled at her side. “I was champion of my senior class.”

“Oh, T. Larry.” Were those tears in her eyes? “I didn't think you had it in you. I really didn't.”

He hadn't known he had it in him, either. Planning for the future, he'd thrown off those youthful games. Watching Madison gave him a tiny stitch in his side. Maybe he'd missed something in the ensuing years, something Madison knew innately.

“I'm proud of you.”

Laurence's chest swelled unaccountably, though he wasn't quite clear why she was proud.

She looked down at her hands, then flipped one out. “Picnic.” She flipped out the other. “Mini golf.” Repeated the process. “Picnic. Mini golf.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm trying to decide which is more romantic.”

He grabbed her hand and tugged her over the scarred macadam to the entrance. “Miniature golf is far more romantic,” he decided for her. He'd be damned if he'd allow her to make Dick comparisons on
his
date. “Subject closed.”

Nothing was ever closed with Madison unless she decided it was. “Well, I really think it depends on the man.”

He snarled as he dropped her hand to grab for his wallet. She moved to her purse. He snarled again.

“But it's dutch.”

Dutch over his dead body. Not when she'd gladly let Dick pay for her meal. This was a
date.
He'd want to be with Madison in this moment whether or not someone had slashed her tires and regardless of Dick the Prick entering the picture. Finally admitting the full truth to himself, relief suffused him. He no longer needed to make excuses. No more minimizing his emotions. He wanted Madison's sweet, crooked smile all to himself.

He had their tickets, scorecards, miniature pencils, and not a red cent from her. “Choose your weapon.”

She viewed the range of putters, picked one with a neon-pink handle with no regards to accuracy.

“About the romantic angle…” She'd bitten into the damn question with a tenacious grip.

He selected his own putter, minus the neon bright. “You said this was an outing, not a date, so you're talking apples and oranges.”

She took a practice swing, her delicious rump agitating. “
You
only called it an outing because you wanted to make sure you slipped neatly through all those rules you made up today.”

Actually, she'd been the one to call it an outing. He'd always considered it a date. Not that it mattered. She was with him, and that's all that counted.

The night was balmy on the Peninsula, several degrees warmer than it had been up in blustery San Francisco. Tuesday night didn't appear to be a particularly big golfing night, two couples battling it out four holes ahead of them, and no one in line behind. Good, no one would notice the way he eyed Madison's sweet rear end in that too short, too stretchy, perfect dress.

A scalloped neckline left her collarbones bare. There was something sexy about bare collarbones, especially Madison's.

“Ladies first.” He smiled, anticipating the view.

She bent daintily to place her lime-green ball on the tee. Nice muscles. Nice calves. Nice…everything.

“Now, about a picnic being more romantic.”

Nice everything except her topic of conversation. “We never agreed a picnic was more romantic.”

She straightened, lips pursed prettily and that damnable lipstick all moist and shiny. “Will you let me finish? I'm trying to figure this out for future reference.”

“Fine. Talk while you're putting. We don't want to get behind.”

“There's no one behind us.”

The telltale rumblings of a family outing sounded from the parking lot, and Laurence wanted to get a good five holes ahead of them. “Putt.”

She did. Her ball clattered right through the faded covered bridge and landed within four inches of the hole.

Damn.

She skirted the bridge, bent down on the other side to stare at him through the bridge's overhang, then stuck her tongue out.

His putter got stuck on a tuft of plastic turf, and the ball skewed to the right, bouncing off the cement siding and coming to rest inches before the wooden planks of the bridge.

“You did that on purpose.”

She laughed. “Did what?”

Bent over. Couldn't say that aloud, though. “Take your shot.”

She wiggled, she wriggled, she stuck the tip of her tongue between her teeth, then she made the four-inch putt. Laurence closed his eyes when she bent over for her ball. His heart couldn't take anymore right then.

“So anyway, what I was saying about taking the man into consideration when you're determining the level of romance.”

“I'm concentrating.” His ball had rolled a few inches from the concrete edging, but he still didn't have a straight shot through the bridge.

His need for concentration didn't concern her. “For one man, a champagne picnic—”

“Champagne?”

“With strawberries soaking in it.”

He groaned. He'd never be able to compete with strawberries and champagne in a park. So, he took his shot with geometric calculation, banking the ball off first the right wooden wall, then the left, and watched it roll straight into the cup.

Madison clapped, bouncing on the two-inch soles of her snazzy black sandals. “I think you cheated.”

“Then we're even.”

She moued and preceded him to the next hole and obstacle course. “Okay, so a champagne picnic can be nothing out of the ordinary for one man. And another man—”

“Can we please stop talking about this?” Laurence didn't like the rise of these feelings of inadequacy.

Madison ignored him as she did that deliberately intoxicating wiggle-wriggle before her ball. “And another man might be wholeheartedly romantic when he takes a girl miniature golfing. Or…” She straightened, a gasp on her lips, putter in midswing behind her. “Or bowling. Like the time Marge Simpson fell in love with her bowling instructor because Homer gave her a bowling ball for her birthday.”

“I've never watched
The Simpsons.
And putt, you're throwing off our schedule.”

“Well, it was very romantic because in the end, Marge chose Homer over that French bowling teacher.”

He balanced his putter on the toe of his canvas shoe. “Are you trying to say bowling is more romantic than a moonlit picnic?”

“No, I'm saying it depends on the woman.”

“I thought you said it depended on the man.”

“It depends on both.”

He ground his teeth. How had he allowed himself to be trapped into this “comparison” game? The operative word was trapped. He had to know. “So which is better, a picnic or miniature golfing?”

She turned back to her ball. “Maybe you should give me champagne while we're playing so it'll be a fair comparison.”

She hit. A flash of neon green zipped through the clown's laughing mouth, shot past the arc of the pendulum tongue, came out on the other side, then slid right into the cup. Hole in one.

Madison jumped, her skirt riding dangerously high. “Come on, tough guy, beat that.” Then her hands spread. “Oh my God, is that what the
T
stands for? Tough Guy?”

“That would be
TG.
”

She stopped then, halfway around the clown face on the way to retrieve her ball, though she was too far away for him to gauge her relative seriousness. “Is this a date, T. Larry?”

His heart seized. The distant sound of freeway traffic faded, childish laughter blew away into the night. There was only Madison. And him. “That depends on your answer to my question.” His pulse pounded in the silence waiting for her answer.

“I've known you for seven years, T. Larry. I think this should be just an outing.”

He wasn't hurt. Real men didn't get hurt. They didn't wear their feelings on their sleeves. He was simply angry. What did the length of time she'd worked for him matter? Unless it was that word. Work. And the fact that
she
worked for
him.
Damn and blast.

He hit his ball harder than he intended, watching with a jaundiced eye as it skidded just to the left of the swinging tongue and plopped right into the hole.

Hole in one. He didn't leap the way Madison had.

“Does this mean we're tied, T. Larry?”

Perhaps in miniature golf. In everything else, Madison was winning. “I think it means we need a bet.”

“What kind of bet?”

“Over who wins the game.”

“What will we bet?”

He stepped closer. “What do you want?”

“How about lunch?”

“Think bigger.” Five inches separated them. Her scent matched the glossy pink-and-red flowers on her dress and filled his senses.

She chewed her lip, eating off a taste of her lipstick. “How about a week of lunches?”

“Done,” he said before she could shrink the date range.

“Starting Thursday, because you have that appointment tomorrow with Davis Dullard.”

“It's Dillard. And don't call him that to his face.”