The Surprise Princess (18 page)

“That … that isn’t friendship.” She paused, then added, staring straight ahead, not focused, “Is it?”

Her flat voice carried little or no accusation, but it didn’t need to. He could supply plenty of accusation himself. He’d broken his own rules.

“Sorry. Sorry, Katie.”

He grabbed his bag on the way and closed the door behind him.

S
he remained on the couch, trying to sort out what had happened.

That kiss hadn’t been friendship. She’d been sure of it. And for an instant, the flare of hope had seared her, tightening her throat, immobilizing her muscles.

Then he’d apologized and left.

He’d regretted kissing her. That was the only thing that made sense. He’d regretted kissing her the way a man kissed a woman. The way a husband kissed a wife.

He regretted it, this man who had put himself and his career on the line for her. She owed him so much. The only thing she could do to repay him was to accept his regret and protect him from it.

It was early afternoon before she resumed cleaning. Even later when she got in the shower. And then, with the afternoon nearly gone, her cell rang. She answered before the first ring ended. Not because she’d been looking at her phone, considering calling him. Not at all.

“I need your help.”

“Brad?” Of course it was Brad. Caller ID said so. Her ears said so. Her heartbeat said so.

“Yes. I need your help. At my place. Right now. You know where it is?”

“I have the address.” She had addresses for all of the staff.

“Good. Get here now. It’s an emergency.”

Emergency
. The word had her out of her chair, grabbing her purse, making sure she had her keys. “Are you okay?

“I am now, but I won’t be.”

The address was close to the center of town, a block off the main street. It belonged to a large, two-story stone house with stacked bay windows on each side and a double door in the center that must have been built around the same time as the courthouse.

The front door had four buttons. She pressed 2A – Spencer — and was immediately buzzed in.

The big door opened into a two-story hallway with a wide staircase. Upstairs, she turned left and saw 2A next to a door already opening.

“Damn. You’re here already.” Brad showed no sign of injury. He’d shaved, but wore the jeans and shirt he’d had on when he left her house, now with a green and blue striped kitchen towel decorating his shoulder. “I was about to call to ask you to pick something up at the store on your way.”

“The store?” The small entry way opened to a living room to the left and a dining room to the right, with the kitchen further to the right, and tucked back. “But—you said it was an emergency.”

Even with the sun nearly set, the front bay window and another good-sized window at right angles to it provided lots of natural light. Beside the second window a bookcase system covered most of the wall. The large center area held a generous but not outrageous TV screen, with other electronics below it. Narrow sections held CDs and DVDs. Other than that, there were books.

A leather couch sat across from the TV. An upholstered chair and a floor lamp occupied the bay.

“It is. Doesn’t matter how great the recipe is if you don’t have the ingredients.”

She’d been to bachelor pads. This wasn’t one. He even had art on the walls. In frames – and not a basketball picture among them. A framed photo of Brad’s grandmother, mother, stepfather, and two half-sisters had a prime spot on the shelves.”Ingredients? You called me for a
cooking
emergency?”

“C’mon back to the kitchen. I’ve got something on the stove.” The dining room was divided from the compact kitchen by an island with stools on the dining room side and a cooktop on the kitchen side. He went to the working side. “Speaking of which, remember we can’t say anything when they get here.”

“Who gets here? Say anything about what?” Her head hurt.

“About being married.”

“We’re not saying anything about that to anybody.”

“I know. But it’ll be harder with Andy. She has a way of sucking words out of people that they had no intention of saying.”

“Andy?” But he was halfway inside the fridge, moving jars and containers around like beads on an abacus. “What are you doing?”

“Hoping against hope I have heavy whipping cream stashed in the back of a shelf where I’d forgotten about it.”

“If you’ve forgotten about it, it would be moldy and gross.”

“Not in my refrigerator.” That was the most arrogant she’d ever heard him. “Damn. None.”

She retrieved her purse from a stool. “Okay, I’ll go to the store for whipping cream.”

“
Heavy
whipping cream. That’s what I need for this killer shrimp and garlic dish. But there’s no time. They’ll be here before you could get back. And you do not want to deal with Andy when she’s hungry, which she will be, since they’re getting here at seven and she usually eats at six-fifteen on the dot. At least I don’t want to deal with her. I need to figure out something else.”

He closed the fridge and faced her. “Think. What can take the place of heavy whipping cream?”

“Uh, yogurt?”

“Of course, why didn’t I—?” He pulled a container out of the fridge, but his shoulders slumped. “Strawberry.”

“Shrimp, garlic, and strawberry yogurt.”

“If you keep laughing, I’ll tell Andy you’re the reason for this and leave you to your fate. Think, Katie, think.”

“Okay, okay.” White. Soupy … “What about vanilla ice cream?”

His head came around to her but his gaze was unfocused. “Vanilla ice cream. Too sweet for … but… Leave out the sugar and … Yeah, that’ll work.” He took ice cream from the freezer, put away a couple spices, pulled out others, adding them to a skillet on the stove.

“So you were worried about Andy knowing you didn’t have heavy whipping cream?”

He grinned.

Bradford Alan Spencer’s grin should be banned in forty states and against the rules in the rest of them. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t ethical. It was dangerous.

She turned away, devoting great attention to the dining room. It had a second bay window out the back. A door replaced one angled window, leading to a deck. It was a great apartment.”Nah. Worried she’ll know I haven’t been here and then she’ll want to know why. She’d left a message on my landline. She knows my cell’s the way to get me with my traveling and she uses it all the time. But once in a while she’ll leave a message like this on the landline. It’s like she’s giving me a pop quiz, only I don’t know what the subject is. Or, maybe … Well, anyway she left this message saying her neighbor is driving her up to some gardening thing they’re going to tomorrow in Madison. They’d stop in and have dinner with me here unless I objected. And then she says, ‘So if I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, we’ll plan on Saturday night.’ I don’t even know when ‘tomorrow’ was. Could you do something else for me?”

“Something with cooking?” she asked doubtfully. She felt safer on this side of the island.

He grinned again. “I might ask you to stir this. But first, how about setting the table. There are mats and napkins in that drawer.” He tipped his head toward the buffet on the far side of the dining table. Then he jerked his chin down near his hip. “Silverware’s around here. And if you want to wash your hands, the bathroom’s down the hall.” This time he tipped his head backward.

Down a short hallway the first door was to the bathroom. An open door next to it showed his bed. The comforter was pulled up and pillows in coordinating shams stacked at the top.

She returned and gathered silverware, mats, cloth napkins. “You have a very nice place.”

“It’s the clean towels in the bathroom that get the girls,” he said wisely. “Direct quote from Coach. You know how he always says being a guy doesn’t mean you’re automatically a slob. He hammered that in to us.”

“Did he also hammer at you being able to cook?”

“Nah, Coach is a strong believer in restaurants. Cooking was Andy.”

She considered her handiwork, remembering Carolyn and C.J.’s festive table whenever they had people over for dinner. “Should there be something else on the table?”

“Salt? Pepper?”

“Something decorative.”

She turned, watching him. He moved quickly, easily. Hands so sure and powerful handling a basketball now deftly whisked ingredients in a bowl held at a dangerous angle.”Good idea. Look for a vase on the bookcase, but I don’t have anything to put in it.”

She eyed the columnar dark blue vase currently separating two stacks of books. “Too tall. Nobody could see over it. How about that plant?”

“Sure, though the pot’s not much.”

“I have an idea. Do you have a rubber band?” He pointed to another drawer in the kitchen. She collected the rubber band, the pot, a cloth napkin and got to work. “What kind of plant is this?”

“Shamrock. Got it for St. Patrick’s Day two years ago.”

“So you can also grow plants, not only order them to be cut down?”

“Hey, you admitted the house looks a lot better without—”

“I never said ‘a lot.’ “

“—those behemoths. Besides, I added plants last weekend— Looks good, Katie.”

The rubber band secured the napkin around the pot. The excess fabric flopped down to cover it. He stepped to the end of the counter to stand beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

The squeeze seemed to urge her to turn toward him, and then it was so natural to look up. Was he…?

No.

He kissed the top of her head.

He released her quickly and returned to the cooktop. “Got to stir this so nothing sticks on the bottom.”

The doorbell sounded.

Amid greetings and introductions, Andy pulled Brad’s face down to kiss him on the cheek. Katie shook hands with Andy’s friend, Viola. Releasing Brad, Andy opened her arms and engulfed Katie before she could think or hesitate. She returned the embrace, smiling.

Stepping back from the hug, Andy’s eyes sharpened. She turned and squinted up at Brad as he hugged Viola, who said, “It smells heavenly.”

“It should,” Andy said, moving to the pan and peering at it. “It’s my recipe.”

“With a twist.” Brad edged into the kitchen between the two older women, reaching over Viola to give the pan a stir, then checking the rice. “We’ll see if you can figure out what’s been done to it.”

“Oh, I have a pretty good idea what you’ve done,” his grandmother said dryly.

E
ven as they enjoyed the meal and chatted easily, Brad could see his grandmother plotting to get Katie to herself for a dose of Andy cross-examination.

He was torn between throwing himself in front of the truck with no brakes that was his grandmother when she was on a mission and letting events play out.

The important thing was he and Katie appeared to be mostly back on an even keel.

If hashing out what had happened this morning would have helped, he’d have hashed as long as it took.

But it wouldn’t have. It would have made her more uncomfortable. Far better to demonstrate that things could be light and easy between them again. And it appeared to have worked.

As long as he kept his hands off her.

His grandmother interrupted his thoughts.

“Viola heard a noise in her car driving here. Will you take a look at it for her, Brad?” Andy asked – if a general giving an order ‘asks.’ “Katie and I will do the dishes.”

Brad didn’t miss Viola’s surprise at hearing her car needed looking at. But he didn’t fight. Better to get it over with.

“How are you and Brad progressing, dear?”

Katie sucked in a breath at the direct question. “Mrs. Spencer – Andy – I’m afraid you misunderstood about me coming with Brad back in March—”

“No. I didn’t misunderstand. Brad had spoken of you many times before he brought you to meet me and for me to meet you. He’s done that with very few women.”

“We work together, that’s all. Truly—”

“No.” She tipped her head. “At least not on his part. I don’t know you well, Katie, so I can’t be sure of your feelings. Brad’s are a different manner.”

“He can’t have said—”

“He doesn’t need to say. Not to me.” She smiled. “You know he was once engaged.”

Brad engaged. Planning to marry someone. Was this the “until” Carolyn had mentioned? Had he backed out? Had she broken his heart, this phantom woman? How did he feel now—

“No,” she said, as much to her rampaging thoughts as an answer to Andrea.

“His senior year at Ashton. She broke it off right after he wasn’t drafted to the NBA. Could she have been any more obvious? But I knew she wasn’t right for him the first time he brought her to see me.”

“You shouldn’t be telling—”

“He was helping her off with her coat by the front closet – you know how tight that can be – and she practically knocked me over in her rush to get away. Brad didn’t follow her. He stayed back there hanging that coat up like it was a military operation. So I knew. And I could have told him, but no man will listen to such things.” She snorted. “So I kept my mouth shut. Then watched while Brad realized what was what. At least he knew it before she broke off. Sure wasn’t disappointed when it ended.”

Katie waved from the front window as Brad walked Andy and Viola to the car – which was working perfectly – for their hour’s drive to Madison. Then she resumed the cleanup.

“Whatever Andy said to you when she wrangled time alone, forget it,” Brad said as soon as he walked in the door. “Hey, you don’t have to do that.”

She gently scrubbed at a spot on a pan that had been soaking in the sink. The glasses, dishes, and silverware were already in the dishwasher. “This is something I know how to do in the kitchen.”

“I’ve had your spaghetti and stew and cake – you know how to do plenty in the kitchen.”

“Staples. Nothing fancy, like you made. In fact, I know almost nothing about fancy food or fancy anything.”

“Just a different recipe to follow. Hand me those covers, they go in the dishwasher. Find a recipe and dive in. Nothing to be scared of.”