Authors: Jevenna Willow
Chapter
Seven
No matter what Sara had pulled out of
her closet to put on her body, she still would’ve been uncomfortable wearing
it—and for a damn good reason. Her choice of snowmobile suit, garbage bag, or
completely naked . . . they still would have stared.
Sara shifted on her seat, trying hard not
to make it so obvious that her short dress had gotten shorter from the moment
she sat down. At least she had on a dress. How much would they have stared if
she’d kept on her sweatshirt and jeans for such a fancy place?
Christian looked quite smart in his suit
and tie. He smelled good too. Damn him! He smelled spicy. Sara liked spicy—perhaps
a bit too much. While they’d been sitting inside his car, she’d nearly leaned
across the seat to take a better whiff of the man. She had what most would call
an inquisitive sense of smell. Whatever she liked, Sara had to find its source.
If this source meant a man’s neck, so be it.
Yet he would have likely pushed her back
and then asked why she dared think he was interested in a before dinner kiss,
than an after dinner all-out, no holds barred, make-out session.
Ah, Hell! Her night was looking to be a
very long dinner, and equally long date—without the cake. How so? Well, he’d
warned her he would make certain any cake was hidden if she agreed having dinner
with him.
Sara hurriedly maneuvered her sight from
such a tempting mouth connected to a very tempting man seated across from her.
She picked up her menu, scanned it, then set it back down, shifting on her seat
again.
Christian set his menu down, as well.
There was a smile on his face as he asked, “Have you decided?”
She shook her head and grabbed her menu
again.
Christian removed the gilded paper out
of her hands before any delectable items could be processed in her brain.
“I meant . . . have you decided if we should
stay?” he prompted.
“Stay?” she asked, puzzled by the word.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Sara,”
he quibbled.
“Do?” She looked him dead in the eye.
Good
God! How could he have known?
“Yes. Do,” he said. “You are trying to
pretend all the stares are not bothering you.”
Sara tried to swallow the lump in her
throat. Only thing, it was a huge lump and the bastard got stuck, causing her
to choke out, “Excuse me?”
Christian gave her another easy smile
that said he wouldn’t believe a single word of her as not knowing what he meant.
He quickly signaled for their waiter. The man came as fast as was humanly
possible.
“Yes Sir? Are you ready to order—now?”
He stared Christian down hard, hoping to get his point across.
Their waiter had come to their table
three times, and all three times he’d told the man he was to give them a few
more minutes. That was nearly a half hour ago.
“Um . . . no,” Christian said. “Just the
check, if you would.”
The waiter looked confused. His brow
furrowed, his tone sharp. “But Sir, you would need to actually place an order to
something for there even to be a check made.”
So far, all they had in front of them
were two glasses of water, an assortment of free breadsticks, and gilded menus
covered in dark rose vinyl. A single red rose stuffed in a crystal vase in the
center of all.
“Well, then, if we owe nothing . . . shall
we?” he asked Sara, ignoring the man at his side for one brief moment.
Her eyes trapped his. “Shall we what?”
She was as confused of Christian’s train of thought as their waiter was. She
was starving. If Christian asked for the check, that must have meant he no
longer wanted her order food.
“Leave?” he explained.
“Leave?” she rushed out.
“Yes, Sara. Leave, as in . . . we get up
from our chairs and get the heck out of here before I get really pissed.”
Sara could finally dislodge the lump out
of her throat by a forced swallow. “But. . .”
He pushed his chair back and held out
his hand. “I am as getting pretty darn sick of the stares, as much as I would
think you are. Let’s go, before someone who may be of better character on most other
occasions gets hurt.”
Sara placed her palm against his, rose,
and together they left the restaurant, with numerous eyes following their
unusual exit and a few undesirable comments left in the wake. Once out the door
and them walking toward his car still hand in hand, he asked, “Up for a frozen TV
dinner?”
With slight pressure to his fingers, Sara
tugged and got Christian to turn her way. He stalled his angry footsteps toward
his car. A hasty exit and equally quick command wouldn’t even begin to explain
his actions. Nor take away her piqued astonishment about those actions.
Hoping he would take them back inside,
have a nice meal, and forget about the vicious nature of others, she said, “I
would have been fine in there,”
Sara had felt the angry stares from the
moment he pulled out her chair and she sat down upon it, to the moment he took
her hand and escorted her to the exit. Those stares had stretched her patient
limits, to say the least. She even, at one particular moment, glared at a woman
who’d been enjoying her dinner but sat next to them. She then let that woman proceed
into reducing herself to an opinionated witch by way of clicking her tongue and
. . . Good God! She’d even sneered to make it sting.
Sara had settled for putting her nose
behind her laminated menu and checking her thoughts at the back door. There was
no sense in ruffling feathers when to do so would only create more trouble—for
her, and for Christian.
“I didn’t want you to be just fine,
Sara,” he snapped, checking any damaging attitude as best he could. “I wanted
you to have a nice dinner, in a nice restaurant, and a bunch of uptight
bastards wanted to make it completely miserable on the both of us.”
“They’re just curious, Christian.”
A sting of regret to the words caught Sara
by surprise. Curiosity got a cat in trouble, squashed under a back tire. Sara
Ruby was no cat, and she did not have nine lives to make it through without the
fur singed in case trouble came her way. But she’d been around that block a
time or two to know any regret had to be brushed away.
“They’re curious about things that are
none of their damn business!” The veins on his temple looked to be throbbing.
His lips pinched, his lower jawline was twitching.
Sara did not want to be the cause of
such a good man having a heart attack, simply because she was hungry, and he
made the foolish mistake of asking her to be his dinner date.
“Maybe so . . . ,” she started, using
what she could of a soothing tone to get the frazzled man to calm.
A cocked brow and the question, “Maybe?”
forced her to retract her thoughts to what actually happened inside the
restaurant.
“Okay, fine. I was uncomfortable in
there. But not because of the stares, or the snotty attitudes from pompous
jerks who should certainly know better.” The attitude from the waiter had been
the worst of the lot. He’d openly leered at her as if she were the newly
labeled Preacher’s Bend’s demi-whore. “But because . . . well, I, um . . .”
Oh, God! What the bloody hell was possessing
her to tell him?
Sara had to look away to hide her
thoughts and possible humiliation. A fool was a fool. A damned fool spoke aloud
what was inside the head.
“You what?” Christian prodded. His hand
quickly set to her chin to force her sight back.
Sara shook her head, denying him any right
to have his wish. There were times, more often than not, when what a woman was
thinking should not be said. This was one of those times.
Christian, however, was having none of
her evasive attitude.
“You what, Sara?” he produced sharply.
“You did not want to come here with me, too high and mighty to be seen with a
guy who reads the Bible for a living?”
These words went into her like the shot
from a gun, staggering her. “That is not what I meant!”
“No? What did you mean, then?”
The dark blue eyes that stared at her
dared her into speech. “I meant I was uncomfortable because I . . .”
“Say it,” he ordered.
Sara flinched and yanked her chin out of
his grasp. The mutiny she felt became unstoppable and truly intolerable. “I was
uncomfortable inside the restaurant because I am not wearing any underwear!
Happy?”
The second this slipped off her tongue, she
felt the urgent need to crawl in to a hole.
At first, the poor man looked too
startled to speak. However, the all-out chuckle following any temporary
muteness brought out her fury in a definite hurry.
“What the hell is so funny about it?” she
asked as the damaging heat crept into her cheeks.
Struggling to force the laughter out of
his eyes, Christian returned his gaze swiftly to hers’. “There is not one damn
thing funny about it, Ms. Ruby.”
“You’re laughing at me. And my . . . Well,
you do seem quite amused by my lack of, for a better way to describe it.”
The word shame barely fit the rolling
emotions inside of her. Good Lord! She just told this man she was nearly naked.
Not all. Nearly.
When she’d dressed for dinner and he’d shown
up at her door fifteen minutes early, Sara grabbed what she could, tossed a
dress over her head, and figured he would never know she’d been unable to find
a pair of clean underwear to save her soul. Surely he wouldn’t have discovered
this for himself. Yet the second she sat down on her chair inside the
restaurant she felt self-conscious; as if all eyes were looking at her, hoping
to catch a glimpse of parts she should not have been showing—especially, while
in public.
She bought the dress because she liked
the color and at the time could afford to splurge. Deep navy blue, the sale’s
lady told her the shade brought out the color of her eyes. Not once had she
tried to sit down while wearing it, until tonight. Huge mistake. The dress came
to barely the knees while standing. When seated, it rode up to almost half
thigh. The right angle, and anyone with a working pair of eyes would’ve been
able to catch glimpse the lack of material and the feminine assets for which
said material should’ve been covering.
Christian lowered his gaze to that
particular area of her person, as well. “No. I am sure it was not done on
purpose,” he reasoned—to a continuous groan coming from her.
As his sight drifted back up, Sara’s
fell into the trap of a very skillful man; a very dangerous trap in which to
drown in.
“So? Why did you?” he added.
Insolence wasn’t a Reverend’s forte.
Sara glared through her bewildered gaze,
checking his smile. “Would you believe me if I said I had none that were
washed?”
“Should I?” he chuckled.
Jeez! A little harder checking for any
unguarded reaction to an unwarranted admission might have been nice. Then
again, she really didn’t know much about this man.
“Yes. You should,” she determined.
It was the truth. Once the telephone
disconnected accidentally, Sara’s washing machine in the basement of her
apartment building went mysteriously out of order—the only night Sara ever did
her laundry, and the only night she would’ve had the laundry room all to
herself. She didn’t own much in the way of clothing, so what she did have was carefully
taken care of. She spent her money on antiques, not clothing or frivolous girlie
stuff.
A hasty nod, and another smile sent her
way, Christian muttered, “Okay. Then yes, I believe you.”
Sara waited. Regrettably, her conscience
had a mind of its own and forced out the word, “But?”
“But what?”
“There is always a but lingering in the
surrounding air with you,” she ruled. “So what is it?”
His dimples dug deep. With slight
pressure, he raised her hand to his mouth and gave a tender kiss to the back of
her knuckles, arching Sara’s brows. It was a kiss meant to reassure her he
truly did believe what she’d said.
Christian then added “But you’ll need to
prove it,” and she just about fell over.
“P—prove it?” Sara quite stunned by so
few words.
“Yes. Prove to me you are not wearing
anything under your dress and then I’ll believe you.”
Sara’s snort could not be contained even
if her life depended on it. “Are you serious? You want me to— “
Christian shook his head, yet his
response was quick and sure. “I want you to prove to me you are not wearing any
underwear. I don’t care how you go about doing it, but I do expect that it be
done before the end of this night.”
Her brows rose. Her smile firm and set
in place. Surely, this was only a jest by a man needing to find humor in his
night?
“Before or after the fine dining on
frozen dinners?” she teased back.
Christian, unfortunately, did not take her
challenge as such. His large shoulders handed her a massive shrug as he shoved
his hands deep into the pockets of his suit pants. “However, and whenever will
work for me.”