Turnabout's Fair Play (39 page)

“They told you face-to-face—and at least you got taken out to lunch. Cookie told me over the phone while I was in the middle of a basketball game with Darrell, Wade, and Ainslee.”

“Aren’t you too short to play basketball?”

“Aa-shrew.” Jamie faked a sneeze to call her a name.

“You owe me this one.” She spun her office chair around slowly. She really should be diving right back in to work, but talking to Jamie had just improved her day tenfold.

“Okay. Yes, if I were to try to play professionally, I’d probably be cut for being too short. But Darrell’s a good four or five inches shorter than me. So we put him on Ainslee’s team because she needs the handicap.”

“She’s the one who played pro a season or two, right?”

“Yeah. They can’t wait to meet you.”

She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “I’m looking forward to meeting all your friends.” Someone knocked on the door. “I’ve got to go. Real life beckons.”

“I wish we could get together before Tuesday.”

“I know. Me, too. If only you weren’t leaving for Louisville tomorrow afternoon.”

“If only. I’ll e-mail you later.” A pause. Then, “Flan?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

She held her breath a moment. To see it written in an e-mail was one thing. But to hear it in his mellow voice made it all the more real. So why did she still feel like something was missing? “I love you, too.”

Chapter 27

J
amie let the drapes fall back in place as soon as the little, dark-gray four-door pulled into his driveway. The last four days, though busy with travel and the book fair, had been the longest of his life—stretching for an eternity before he could see Flannery again. He dashed upstairs, not wanting Flannery to know he’d been standing in the front window for the past twenty minutes waiting for her to arrive.

But when the doorbell didn’t ring after several long moments, he jogged back downstairs and peeked out the window again.

Flannery stood near the tail end of her car, looking up toward the back part of the complex, hand shading her eyes.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the stoop. “Something interesting?”

“I was just looking at the grade of the road.” She turned and pointed toward the hill. “You run that every day?”

“Yeah—sometimes up to eighteen or twenty laps a day.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black pants and stepped down onto the narrow sidewalk that connected the stoop to the driveway. “You should come run with me sometime. Get you off that treadmill and let your feet pound the pavement. Then we’ll see about you and your ten or twelve miles a day.”

She rolled her eyes and met him on the sidewalk.

He stood still, trying to look relaxed but wanting to grab her and kiss her.

Her gaze stroked his face—and then her hands followed, her warm palms and fingers running along his cheeks and jaw. “You shaved. So I guess that means you’ve come to a decision.”

He hadn’t realized how sensitive the skin would be to even the lightest variations in temperature or physical contact after weeks covered with a beard. He shuddered and grabbed her wrists, unable to bear the intensity of her touch. He kissed her palms even as he drew her hands away. “I not only made a decision, but I’ve already taken some steps toward it.”

Taking one of her hands in his, he led her up the steps into the house.

“Are you going to tell me?”

In the middle of the living room, he turned to face her. “I’ve decided to move to Utah and work for Don.”

The expression on her face was priceless—and just what he’d hoped for. Dismay mixed with a slight tinge of devastation. “O–oh. That’s not…I thought you were leaning in another direction.”

He couldn’t torture her any longer. “Kidding. I’m staying here. I was accepted to Aquinas College’s nursing program. Last week I registered for my first semester and made my first tuition payment.”

Flannery yanked her hand from his and started slapping—none too softly—at his arms. “That’s not funny!”

“You should have seen the look on your face.” He grabbed her in a hug—effectively trapping her arms—lifted her from the floor, and spun in a circle. “I’m going back to school.”

Flannery finally joined him in his laughter. “You are such a pain.”

He set her down on the floor and loosened his embrace. She maneuvered so that she could put her arms around his waist.

“You’re just like a little boy on the playground who picks unmercifully on the little girl he secretly likes.” She shook her head, and her thick curls bounced and swung, tickling his arms.

“Except it’s no secret that I like you.” Seizing the moment, he pulled her close and kissed her. But she didn’t respond the way he expected. He backed up enough to focus on her expression.

She frowned.

Frowned? When he’d kissed her? “What’s wrong?”

She grimaced. “I don’t know. I’ve gotten so used to kissing you with the beard that it’s weird kissing you without it. I don’t know if I like it or not.” She looked away and then looked back at him, concern filling her eyes. “This could be problematic.”

“Why?”

Contorting in his arms so she could raise her hand between them, she lightly pressed her finger to the dimple in his chin. “Because I like being able to see your whole face like this. But when I’m kissing you, I have my eyes closed. It’s such a dilemma. I don’t know how I’ll ever get used to kissing you like this.”

Words of protest jumbled in the back of his throat—until she looked at him again with a twinkle in her hazel eyes. Oh, so that’s how she wanted to play this?

Instead of giving in to her subtle goading to kiss her again, he released her and shrugged. “You’re right. It is a dilemma. But since I’m never going to grow another beard, I guess if you ever want to kiss me again, you’ll have to figure something out.”

She gasped and planted her fists on her hips. He turned and headed back toward the kitchen so she wouldn’t see his smile.

“Did you remember to pick up the basket for me?”

“After three text messages and four e-mails?” He returned to the living room with the gift basket she’d ordered from a small boutique in Brentwood.

“Thank you. I never even got a lunch break today, so there’s no way I’d have been able to get it before they closed at five.” Plucking her keys from her purse, she turned toward the door but then stopped and looked at him again. “Are we taking my car or yours?”

“I know where we’re going, but I can guide you there just as well as drive. And you are parked behind me.”

She flung the strap of the large, square, black leather bag over her shoulder. “I guess I’ll drive, then.”

He shrugged into his blazer and then followed her out to the car and around to her side to put the basket on the backseat, right where she wanted it.

With one hand on the car roof for balance, she bent over and pulled one of her pumps off, replacing it with a plain, flat, black shoe. The hem of her wide-leg, gray pinstripe pants pooled on the pavement.

“What are you doing?” He’d been around professional women long enough to know that there were very few things that would make them take off their high heels before going somewhere people would see them, especially people they didn’t know.

“Changing shoes.” She didn’t look up at him as she exchanged the shoe on her other foot.

“Why?”

“Because …” She pushed her hair back over her shoulders.

“If it’s for any reason other than your feet are killing you and you can’t stand the idea of staying in those shoes for the rest of the night, we’re not going.” Closing the car’s back door, he crossed his arms.

“My feet hurt.” She still couldn’t look at him.

“Liar. Those are your favorite shoes.” Wild guess, but he’d seen her wear this pair of shiny black shoes, with a good three-inch heel and an extra-thick sole in the front, several times.

“Not my
favorites
, but …” She tossed her hands up in a frustrated gesture. “Ugh. You make me so mad. I’m changing shoes so that I won’t be taller than you in front of your friends. Is that what you want to hear?” Finally, she made eye contact with him.

“If that’s the truth, then yes, that’s what I want to hear. Are you embarrassed to be seen with someone who’s shorter than you?”

“You’re not shorter than me—only when I wear heels.”

“Are you embarrassed by that?”

“No!”

“Then why are you changing your shoes?”

“Because I don’t want
you
to be embarrassed because I’m taller than you when I wear heels.” She blushed so intensely, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair had turned red, too.

Jamie reached out and settled his hands on her waist, looking her directly in the eye. “Put the heels back on, please. You like wearing them, and they look good on you. Besides, I kinda like the idea of being seen with a gorgeous, statuesque woman on my arm. Every man looks at me and has to wonder what I did to deserve you.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

Wonder filled her eyes. “And what did you do to deserve me?”

The moment of wonder was nice while it lasted.

“Well …” He waited to go around to the passenger side of the car until she changed shoes again. “I called you Fanny, twice. I suggested Dracula would want to bite you. I freaked you out by telling you I read fantasy fan fiction. I forced you to tell me your biggest secret….”

Flannery rolled her eyes and got into the car.

He climbed in beside her and leaned over the console. “And I’m so charming and handsome, you couldn’t resist me.”

Speculative scorn filled Flannery’s expression. “It’s because you’re handsome and charming that I didn’t want to have anything to do with you.”

Stunned, he straightened. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She put her seat belt on and started the engine.

He took his time buckling his own seat belt. “You treated me like I was pond scum for months because I’m handsome and charming?”

“Yep.” Flannery slid on a pair of sunglasses and backed out of the driveway. “I learned a long time ago not to trust good-looking guys. Remember the dirtbag boyfriend from high school? Handsome and charming.”

“So…what was it that did make you fall for me?”

The car rolled to a stop at the gate, and she turned to look at him, leaning on the console. “Because when I sat down to talk to you at the airport, you were hurting. You were vulnerable. You stuttered. And you were a complete dork. And I told God a long time ago that I didn’t want to marry a good-looking guy; I wanted to marry a nerd, geek, or dork.”

Jamie wouldn’t need to lean far to be nose to nose with her. His heart pounded at her use of the M-word, not once but twice. Could she really be there mentally and emotionally? Ready to make a lifelong commitment to him? “And God did you one better and sent you a handsome dork.”

They both jumped at the sound of a car horn behind them. Flannery straightened and pulled out onto the road.

“Of course you know what this means,” he said after directing her to turn right onto Old Hickory Boulevard and head east.

“What?”

“That you think I’m handsome and charming.”

The car jerked a little as she shifted from second to third. “Whatever.”

“I’ve already told you tonight that you’re gorgeous and statuesque. Would it help you admit my assets if I told you I also think you’re talented and gifted?”

Pink crawled up into her cheeks in a very becoming way. He hated that the thick arm of her sunglasses kept him from seeing her eyes.

“It might…if I didn’t worry that any compliment I give you would be the pin that explodes your already-overinflated ego.”

With a laugh, he settled in for the forty-five-minute drive—or longer, depending on how bad traffic on the interstate would be this evening—and continued picking on the girl he not-so-secretly liked.

By the time Flannery pulled up to the refurbished bungalow on Cherry Lane in Murfreesboro, she’d pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head due to the growing shadows—and she’d heard the entire story of Jamie’s heart surgery.

“Mom came out to be with me, but I was so horrible to her she went home after only two days. That’s why Don and Cookie devised their plan to intervene and force us to talk to each other a couple of years later, because I’d pretty much decided to cut off all contact.” He bounced his head back against the headrest. “I was such an idiot.”