Speed Dating (18 page)

“You don’t like orange juice? Everyone likes orange juice.”

“I don’t like it chewy. I like it better out of a box or a can.”

“Philistine.” She reached over and snagged a slice of bacon off his plate.

He grinned at her. “Can you really cook?”

She seemed surprised by the question, probably because he was eating food she’d cooked.

“Of course I can. I love cooking.”

“Huh.” He thought back. “I don’t think I’ve ever been with a woman who cooks.” He finished mopping up the last of the egg yolk with the last of the toast. “And that includes my mom.”

“I only have a small galley kitchen in my apartment. In this gorgeous kitchen? I could work miracles.”

“Honey, if you want to cook in my kitchen, I’d be more than happy to let you. Truth is, places to eat around here are pretty limited.” He pushed his plate away and sipped coffee.

“Okay. I’ll cook. I’m happy to do it.” She leveled a crafty pair of gray eyes his way. “But if I’m cooking, I’ll decide what we’re eating.”

“Are we talking health food here? ’Cause I gotta tell you, I can eat pizza every night before I’m eating an alfalfa sprout.”

She sipped her coffee. “I see. What’s your position on tofu?”

“Is that a motor oil? I’m not allowed to use it. Not one of my sponsors.”

She rose and collected his plate. “It’s going to be a very long two weeks.”

As he watched her moving around his kitchen as naturally as if she belonged there, he thought two weeks was going to be all too short.

T
HERE WERE
a couple of trees that had come down. They’d been felled and bucked, and were ready to cut into firewood. After helping Kendall with the dishes, Dylan headed outside, grabbed an ax and started in.

For some reason, her comment about him playing Ashlee’s games wouldn’t leave him.

Considering Miss Stick-Her-Nose-In-Everything Kendall was supposed to be in love with him, she hadn’t exactly gone all sweet and worshipful, like women usually did. Kendall in love with a man was a lot like Kendall not in love with a man, except for her being more pushy about giving him her opinions about his life.

Crack.
He brought the ax down hard and made a nice split down the side of the log. Another couple of swings of the ax and he had four neat fire logs.

He pulled up another slice of tree and swung his ax again. He fell into a rhythm of work, feeling the impact of each blow of the ax along his arm and ricocheting down his spine.

Who did she think she was? A woman who got dumped by a guy named Marvin, and who managed to get herself demoted from the most boring job in the universe. Yep, she was a fine one to tell him how to run his life.

The sooner she was on her way, the better for everybody. Maybe he’d tell her he didn’t need her for the next two weeks after all. She could pack her stuff up and go—today, if she wanted.

As the thought vanished, a kind of gnawing ache took its place. He didn’t want her to go. She could say whatever she liked about luck not existing and statistics and analysis until they’d both gone deaf with old age, but the only thing he knew was that he was racing better than ever in his career. And yet it wasn’t winning he thought about when she was around.

He thought about last night, and how she’d sided with him unequivocally when they dined with his parents. The idea of her as an exotic dancer or an actress was almost as funny as the way his folks had believed it.

She made him laugh and she made his life better and the thought of her leaving made him ache. Why was that?

He swung the ax hard. Why the hell was that?

He worked through until he figured it was time to clean up for lunch, stacked the wood and headed back into the kitchen. He went to wash up at the kitchen sink but Kendall pointed in the direction of the bathroom without saying a word.

Give the woman free rein in his kitchen and she started acting like a wife.

Although, he amended, not like the only wife he’d ever had. Ashlee had tried to cook a couple of meals, but mostly they’d eaten out or subsisted on takeout. Now that Ashlee had a cook and a housekeeper, Harrison wouldn’t ever be subjected to her cooking. Of
course, the way things were going, he wouldn’t be subjected to Ashlee much longer, either.

Any more than Dylan was going to be subjected to Kendall.

A
SHLEE AND
H
ARRISON’S
home was as grand inside as it was outside. The door was opened by a housekeeper, which for some reason irked Kendall. “If I had enough money to hire a housekeeper, I’d still answer my own door if I’d invited friends over,” she whispered as they followed the middle-aged woman down the hall.

“That’s why you’ll never be a grand lady,” Dylan told her.

“Fine by me.”

“Fine by me, too.”

She was insensibly pleased. “So, you mean you’d never hire a housekeeper?”

He shrugged. “Not live-in. I have someone come by whenever I’m coming home.”

By this time they’d trailed through a home that could be confused with the set from the
Antiques Roadshow.

“Ashlee likes antiques.”

Kendall got the feeling that every antique store in Ashlee’s path had been denuded of antebellum artifacts.

“And she gets what she wants?” Right now, Ashlee had her eye on Dylan, and Kendall wondered how long he was going to be able to escape his ex-wife’s acquisitive grasp. The way she felt now, Kendall was thinking of marking him down to sweeten the deal.

It felt as if an arrow had pierced her chest when she thought of Dylan and Ashlee together again. They were never going to make each other happy, whatever Ashlee’s astrologer thought. Kendall wanted to cling to
Dylan and make him promise that whatever he did, he wouldn’t marry Ashlee again, but she bit her tongue. It wasn’t her place to cling or demand. She had no right. Loving a man did not give her the right to make demands. She had a strong feeling that she was very, very good for him, but if he wanted to let her go, how could she stop him going back to a woman who was so obviously wrong for him?

Their feet echoed on the black-and-white marble floor tile and their reflection was bounced back from a multitude of mirrors, many wavy with age. Dark paintings of long-dead men and women dotted the walls. The furniture was period, the carpets soft with age. Then they came into the glassed-in conservatory where Ashlee sat in a wicker lounger flipping through
Glamour,
and it was like stepping into another age.

Ashlee looked soft and fragile, and even Kendall, who pretty much had her number, had to squelch an impulse to ask her if she needed a cup of tea.

Orchids were everywhere. Kendall had never seen so many. She knew they were notoriously difficult to grow, and these ones seemed to thrive. Not surprisingly, Ashlee seemed right at home among the difficult-to-tend hothouse flowers.

Looking at Ashlee was like looking in the window of the Versace store. She seemed too expensive, too unattainable, out of Kendall’s budget altogether.

Dylan walked over and gave her a peck on the cheek, and Kendall was struck by the fact that he belonged in that world.

Kendall felt as if she should ask the housekeeper if she needed help in the kitchen.

“Hi, Kendall,” her hostess said.

“Hi. I’m sorry Harrison isn’t here,” she said.

“If he’s so worried about what I do all day and who I do it with, he should be here,” Ashlee said in a burst of logic that Kendall had already discovered was peculiar to Ashlee.

Dylan, instead of answering, crossed the room to Kendall and rubbed her shoulders. “You cold, honey?”

Okay, so his logic was as peculiar as Ashlee’s.

“No. I’m not cold.”

“There’s some champagne left from the wedding,” Ashlee said, motioning to a wine cooler sitting on the wicker table, which, Kendall noted, was set for three. “Can you open it?”

Dylan glanced over at her and she shrugged. As clearly as if he’d spoken, Kendall knew that he was wondering about the propriety of drinking Ashlee and Harrison’s wedding champagne. The way Kendall looked at it, it wasn’t really their issue. If Ashlee was bound and determined to drive Harrison insane with jealousy, she seemed to be going about it the right way.

Dylan popped the cork of the Cristal and poured the wine into three flutes.

“Here’s to us,” Ashlee said, tilting her glass toward Dylan. He returned her toast, turned and repeated the gesture with Kendall, doing his best to include her.

She glanced at her watch and calculated how much of this she was going to have to put up with before they could leave.

Ashlee had put aside her magazine, but she wasn’t knocking herself out as a hostess. Silence reigned.

“What beautiful orchids,” Kendall said.

“Do you like them?” Ashlee asked.

“I think they’re gorgeous. Do you grow them yourself?”

“You’ll be sorry you asked,” Dylan said with a groan.

“Oh, you are such a guy,” Ashlee replied. For the first time, she looked at Kendall with real warmth. “I cultivate them. I swear I married Harrison for his conservatory. The orchids love it here. The light’s perfect, the atmosphere is easy to control. He had a special misting system installed for me so I don’t have to worry if we go away.”

“So what’s he planning to do at work today? More layoffs?”

She shrugged so that one of the lacy straps of her white silk camisole slipped off her shoulder. She didn’t bother to hike it back up again. “I don’t know what he does.”

If ever Kendall had seen a bad case of buyer’s remorse, this was it. If Ashlee could return her very valuable groom back to the store for a cash refund, she’d do it in an instant.

The housekeeper appeared with a tray of open-faced shrimp croissants. Dylan hated shrimp. Kendall knew it after only a few weeks with him, and Ashlee, who’d been married to the man, seemed to have forgotten, if she’d ever known. For some reason that small fact depressed Kendall. If she couldn’t have Dylan, she at least wanted him to be happy.

During lunch, they talked about local people Kendall knew nothing about. At first, Dylan tried to bring Kendall into the conversation but after a while she could see him give up. It was too hard to get her up to speed on a lifetime of old friends. She felt, as she was certain Ashlee meant her to feel, like a stranger at an intimate family event.

She ate her croissant, and watched as Dylan scraped off the shrimp and ate only the bread, while Ashlee picked at the shrimp and nibbled only a corner of her croissant. They might as well have shared one sandwich.

“Coffee on the terrace, I think,” Ashlee said to the housekeeper when she came to clear their plates.

Get in the car and go home, I think.

It was warm outside, but surprisingly pleasant on the veranda, overlooking the river and the big, old oaks. They sat in deep wicker armchairs with cherry-and-white striped cushions. Along with the coffee came a tray of fresh fruit and pecan tarts pretty enough to grace a magazine cover.

Dylan scarfed three. Kendall figured he was hungry from lunch.

They didn’t talk about anything much, but Kendall was aware of an uncomfortable undercurrent of emotion. Ashlee wasn’t only flirting with Dylan. It seemed there was a kind of desperation in her that made Kendall wonder what was really going on.

Perhaps she recognized the desperation to be loved because she felt it herself. She wondered which of them was the more pathetic and decided it was probably herself. At least Dylan had loved Ashlee once, or been close enough to it that he’d married her.

All Kendall had ever been was a counterfeit girlfriend—a roadblock to keep Ashlee from claiming him back. With her new self-knowledge, she saw how foolish she’d been to ever have agreed to play such a part. She’d fallen into Dylan’s life so easily; no wonder he believed she could fall out of it as effortlessly.

And Dylan? What did he feel, she wondered, caught between two women? Looking at him, it was hard to believe he thought much of anything. He appeared to be the handsome, successful jock whose only concern was the next race.

While she was watching the golden couple, thinking how good Ashlee and Dylan looked together, Harrison came striding around the corner. He wore gray dress pants and a white short-sleeved shirt. He was looking grim, and his mouth firmed even more when he saw Dylan. Ashlee was leaning toward him and talking animatedly, and Kendall could imagine the scene from Harrison’s eyes—the two former lovers chatting like the old friends they were, and Kendall sitting slightly apart, obviously left out of the tête-à-tête.

“Kendall, Hargreave,” he said with a curt nod. “I didn’t know you were entertaining, Ashlee. I’d have tried to come home earlier.”

His wife fluttered her birdlike hands and said, “Well, I didn’t plan to entertain, but I was bored when you left me here all alone, and I remembered I wanted to talk to Dylan about the hospital fundraiser.”

Dylan blinked. “Since when are you interested in hospitals?”

She fiddled with a coffee spoon. “I need something to do with my time, is all.”

“Ash has been volunteering in the children’s ward,” Harrison said with a note of pride. “She wants to get a big, new TV and some computer access for the older kids.”

“That’s great, Ash.”

“Well, it’s something I can do since I spend so much time alone,” she said, glaring at Harrison.

“I hope everything’s all right at work,” Kendall said, thinking that Harrison wasn’t upset merely about their visit.

“There was a malfunction on some equipment,” he said shortly. “It means we won’t run at full capacity for a couple of weeks until we can get it fixed.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “The machinery’s getting old and needs updating.”

Kendall glared at Dylan, ready to jump in and talk over him if he tried to make any cracks about layoffs, but surprisingly, he didn’t. Maybe it was as obvious to him as it was to her that Harrison wasn’t happy about the situation.

Ashlee rose. “Do you want some lunch, honey?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Or some champagne? I think there’s some left.”

He stared at his wife for a moment and said, “No. I’m going to go and check the new foal and then head back to work.” So, he’d come home specially to spend time with his wife only to find her entertaining. Not good.

Ashlee smiled brightly. “Oh, what a good idea. Why don’t you take Kendall with you? I’m sure she’d love to see a brand-new baby horse.” Turning to Kendall she added, “Harrison owns a couple of racehorses. He bred one of the mares and she foaled two nights ago.”