Tempt Me Tonight (23 page)

Of course, the possibility existed that this was a rash decision. Brought about by what had happened with Joe. When real life got challenging, Trish traditionally focused on her work—and right now, this was her work. So was she planning to turn the diner into a Crayola-colored beatnik coffeehouse just to distract herself from how close she’d felt to Joe yesterday afternoon?

When she’d made him tell her what had happened with Beverly, she’d sensed the agony just dripping from him. And she’d seen him toughing it out for her. And she’d felt herself falling, falling…a little deeper in love with him with each passing moment.

And sure, she could keep telling herself she
didn’t
love him, that it was all sex-induced crazy talk in her mind—but she really feared she did now. Love him. She let out a heavy, whooshing breath. Whoa. That was big.

And now she had eight café tables and twenty-four chairs to paint. Not to mention ten booths. And a lot of walls. Boy, she hoped she knew what she was doing. With the diner, and with Joe, too. Both felt pretty iffy right now. Life was easier when it came with pointy-toed pumps, power suits, and legal briefs.

“What the hell is this?”

Trish spun to find Debbie standing in the doorway in a bright pink rain jacket, the bell above her head tinkling beneath her brash greeting.

Trish tried to act cool, as if she hadn’t gone totally overboard. “Some paint. And a few tables and chairs.”

Debbie’s eyes narrowed. “Are you moving in?”

“I told you I was sprucing things up, making things more modern. Some buyer is going to love it, trust me.”

Debbie’s shocked gaze dropped to the numerous cans of paint, all of which had their sample swatch taped to the side for easy recognition. “I hope they’re color blind.”

Trish grimaced. “I thought you had a job this time of year. Why aren’t you at it?”

“Lunch break,” Deb announced, her tone shifting instantly into “cheerful.” She handed Trish a greasy bag. “Burger Barn.”

And as usual, Debbie’s thoughtfulness totally overrode Trish’s irritation at her—at least for the moment, since she was hungry. “Thanks, Deb.”

But as her best friend slid into an aqua booth, she scowled slightly again, still looking around. “I thought you said this place was hot property
already.
Why on earth would you invest money just to sell it?”

Trish sat down across from her. “This was all less than a thousand bucks—the tables and chairs were a steal. And it
is
hot property—I just want to make it even hotter.”

To her surprise, Debbie replied with an impish little smile. “Speaking of hot…aren’t you gonna tell me you had help with the hay yesterday?”

Yeesh
—Trish kept forgetting that she and Joe had
no
privacy given that they shared mutual best friends. “So I have
you
to thank. I wasn’t sure if it was buttinsky you or your buttinsky husband.”

Debbie lowered her chin to cast a wicked look. “Sticks and stones, but we all know you can’t resist him.”

Trish let her eyes go wide. “That’s the problem!” Then she took a big bite of her hamburger. “I can’t resist him, yet you keep shoving him in my face.”

Debbie pushed up her glasses with her index finger, just as she used to do in high school. “For your info, this is actually the first time I shoved him at you. Last Friday night, we accidentally ran into him. The next night, you decided to go have sex with him. The night after that, he decided to bring your bra back. I was responsible for none of that.”

Trish’s face dropped, along with her stomach. “Crap. You’re right. I guess it just
felt
like you were butting in.”

“All
I
did was get you some help with your stupid hay, and I’m betting you needed it.”

“I did,” she admitted quietly. Then lifted her eyes to her friend. “Why didn’t you ever tell me his dad left him and Jana?”

“I tried. But those were the days when—”

“Oh yeah.” The days when the topic of Joe had been strictly off limits, and anytime Debbie had brought him up on the phone, Trish had stopped her cold with something like,
“I don’t want to hear about Joe. He’s not in my life anymore. Got it?”
The only time Debbie had persisted was when Joe’s mom had died. “But God, Deb, that’s huge. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me anyway.”

Debbie sighed. “I recall trying to tell you, like, five or six different times, but each time you shut me down.”

“Oh.” Fair enough. Trish had eventually eased up on hearing about Joe, yet all that bad stuff had happened to him less than a year after their breakup, when he’d still remained a very sore subject. Trish let out a huge breath. “I can’t believe he had to raise Jana from the age of twelve. And he was still dealing with his mom’s death and finding out about Bev’s baby—” She almost said
not being his,
but caught herself, remembering Debbie didn’t know and that Joe meant to keep it that way. Yeesh, that was close!

“You guys must have had
some
talk,” Debbie said, eyes wide.

“Yeah. It was, um, intense.”

“So, did you do him on the hay wagon? Or maybe it was the tractor.”

Trish responded with an exaggerated eye roll. “My God, Debbie, of course not! Why do you always assume something like that?”

“Where then?”

Trish sighed. Oh, hell. “Outside the barn, in the rain.”

Debbie’s eyebrows rose about a foot. “Ouch, girlfriend!” Then she grinned. “Although I’m betting it didn’t exactly hurt.”

“Not at all. Except a little, in the good way.”

“There’s a good way for it to hurt?” Debbie’s expression twisted. “God, what have I missed by being married my whole adult life?”

Trish laughed and ate a slightly limp French fry. “I just meant that he’s, you know…kind of big. And that can be a tight fit—but a lot more good than bad.”

“Oh. My.” Debbie actually flushed.

Figuring she might as well get to the part Debbie would eventually drag out of her anyway, Trish went on. “We talked afterward. And I…sort of agreed to see him again.”

Debbie’s face lit up. “Trish, that’s fantastic!”

But she just shook her head. “No, that’s bad. And weird. And confusing.”

Debbie’s voice went wry. “Why?”

“Because I told him before that I couldn’t keep having sex with him if it didn’t mean anything, and that it
couldn’t
mean anything because I’d never forgiven him. So if I’ve agreed to see him—which kind of equals having sex with him, since I can’t seem to see him and
not
have sex with him—isn’t that sort of like saying the sex means something and that I’ve forgiven him?”

Debbie slapped her palms down on the table, making Trish jerk. “Stop the madness!”

“What?”

She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Listen to me. This is simple, and you’re making it complicated.”

“This is
so
not simple, Deb.”

“I disagree. It’s like this. Joe is a hunka hunka burnin’ love. You
like
his burnin’ love. So just go with the flow while you’re here, Trish. Just fuck his brains out.”

Trish went a bit cross-eyed for a minute but then shook free of it, scrunching her nose. “Since when do you say things like that?” Neither of them ever had.

Debbie held up her hands. “Sometimes it’s easier to just say it, flat out.”

Trish sighed. “Fair enough. But…what if I have feelings for him when I’m doing this? What’s going to happen when it’s over, when I’m done working on the diner and I head home? What then?”

“There’s the beauty of it, Trish,” Debbie said as if Trish were thick-headed. “
You
get to decide. It’s all up to you. But for now, you just have fun. You just hang out with him and do what feels good and worry about the rest later.”

Trish blinked, a bit dumbfounded. “Is that the advice you’re going to give your boys when they grow up?”

“No.
” Deb rolled her eyes. “But you’re different from them. You
need
to have some fun, let yourself go.”

“And I haven’t been doing that with Joe already?”

“Yes, and keep it up. But nix the overanalyzing. In fact, stop analyzing it at all. He’s a hot guy. You want him. He wants you. For once in your life, Trish, just go for it and stop worrying.”

Two hours later, Trish was painting a yellow squiggly line around the edge of a table she’d transformed from gray to purple that morning. She smiled, realizing that painting was actually relaxing her. She’d never done a lot of painting before, so it came as a surprise.

And maybe Debbie was right. Trish had
gone for
plenty of things in life, but she seldom
stopped worrying
. She was a lawyer—it was her
job
to worry. And maybe it spilled over into her personal life—just a tad. So perhaps that was an area she could stand to do some work on.

Could she really do what Debbie said? Go for it? Without worrying about the consequences?

She drew in a deep breath, worrying—as usual.

But then she finished her squiggle with a flourish and tried to relax again.
Go with the flow. Go with the flow.

When her cell phone rang a few minutes later, she set her brush aside and retreated to the booth where she’d left her purse. She didn’t recognize the number, but flipped it open and answered. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

Joe. Warmth moved all through her, just from his voice. “Hey.”

“Debbie gave me your number.”

Trish couldn’t help laughing. “
Of course
she did.”

She could almost feel his smile. “I know it can be hellaciously annoying, but it comes in handy sometimes, too.”

“Very true,” she agreed of her best friend, and realized she could hear the sound of something banging in the background. He must be calling from the garage.

“So about the Cobra…” Something in his voice sounded determined—and slightly wicked.

It curled her toes, along with other key body parts. “What about it?”

“Wanna go for a ride, little girl?”

Yeesh. Why was that sexy as hell? “Yeah,” she said, “sure,” trying to sound completely casual and not as if this had been the absolute best sixty seconds of her day so far.

“How about tonight? Rain’s supposed to clear by then.”

Her stomach churned. Tonight? Already? She was supposed to give up worrying that fast? “Sounds good,” she heard herself say. She firmly suspected it had been her
body
answering—but if she worked really hard, maybe she could get her mind to go along with it.

He sounded surprised. “Damn,
that
was easy. I expected a fight.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she said, her voice coming soft.
I don’t want to keep fighting my attraction to you.

She could tell it stunned him. “Me neither, honey.”

But the whole point of not fighting anything anymore was to lighten things up, right? So she said, “Besides, how can I pass up a chance to see the famous Cobra?”

“I’ll take you on a ride you won’t forget, cupcake.”

Mmm,
she didn’t doubt it.

“Seven o’clock? We’ll get dinner while we’re out.”

“Okay,” she said. Miss Agreeable, suddenly.

Looked like she really
was
going for it.

Rest:
to be finished presenting the evidence in a case, as in “the plaintiff rests”;
or
relief or freedom from anything that wearies, troubles, or disturbs; to quit fighting something.

Trish dressed in a long peasant skirt and beaded tank top, thankful she tended to overpack for any trip she went on. And between a day of painting and pep talks, she was ready. She
could
have a casual albeit sizzling affair with Joe—in fact, she was
going
to.

She peered in the white wicker-framed mirror in her old bedroom as she slid a long necklace over her head—small beads sprinkled with chunkier wooden ones—then hooked her delicate cat bracelet around her wrist.

No more I-love-yous, though, even in your head.
That was the only way to play this, the only way to
enjoy
it.
And if you were right earlier, if you really do love the big lug…well, deal with the fallout later, like Debbie said.
Of course, Debbie didn’t know the L word was bouncing around in Trish’s mind. But still, the same theories applied—have fun, then move on with your life.

Upon descending the stairs, she found her mother washing up dinner dishes. Although her mother didn’t complain often, over the last few days Trish had noticed the way she slowly flexed her hands between tasks and knew her mom’s arthritis was flaring up. Funny the things she couldn’t see over the phone, yet maybe they were going on all the time. “Let me finish those for you, Mom,” she said, coming up behind her.

Just then, her mother pulled the stopper from the sink, sending the water down the drain. “Too late,” she said, turning to Trish with a smile. “I’m done. And I wouldn’t have let you do it anyway. You’re going out and I’m sure your nails are done up pretty.”

Trish forced a smile and curled her hands into fists. Her nails were far from pretty right now, given her work at the diner, but she couldn’t let her mom know that. Trish had finally told her parents she was putting up some new curtains and doing a thorough cleaning, but that was all.

“You look nice,” her mom said as she dried her hands with a dish towel, then added with a wink, “Joe’ll think so, too.”

“Speaking of Joe…” She glanced toward the living room where her father remained laid up in his recliner. “Does Dad know where I’m going tonight?”

Her mom shook her head. “I just said you had plans, that’s all.”

Trish nodded, then made her way into the living room. “How’s the back?”

Her dad shrugged. “Getting a little better, I think.” He looked more relaxed than he had in days, which relaxed her, too.

Until she heard a car pull into the driveway and decided it was her cue to leave. “Okay then, I’m off. See you later.”

“Going out with Debbie again?” he asked.

She knew she could lie, but upon suddenly feeling backed into a corner, Trish refused to let her dad keep making her feel like a teenager. “No,” she said calmly, grabbing up her purse and opening the front door. “Joe.”