Chapter Fifteen
“I learned something a long time ago: never laugh at what you don’t know.”
—MacGyver, “Silent World” Episode #31
The night before I’d been all gung-ho about launching Operation: Irresistible. The objective: Make Rio kiss me.
But I woke in the morning as groggy as usual. To achieve the mental sharpness I needed to pull this off, I had to have some coffee. Immediately.
I stumbled into the kitchen, eyes closed, and fumbled for my coffee fixings. The eyes-closed part was a real mistake, because I walked into a cabinet and stubbed my toe.
When Daphne jogged up the stairs a minute later, I was still hopping around on one foot, clutching the other and cussing a storm.
She looked at me, her delicate brow wrinkling. “Is that a new Jazzercise routine?”
I glared at her. Die, Daphne, die.
She shook her head and pushed me aside. “Go sit down. I’ll make your coffee.”
“You don’t know how to make coffee.”
“I’ve watched you.” And to prove it, she put the kettle on and got out the grinder.
“Lucky guess,” I mumbled.
“Go sit down.” She slanted me a devious look so unlike her, I wondered if I was in the right house with the right sister. “I won’t slip you any of my instant.”
Yikes! I hadn’t even considered that.
“Calm down, Mena. You get so worked up. Just go sit down.”
Fine. I ignored that she took down ajar of Taster’s Choice and went into the living room.
Eight minutes later (I timed her with the DVD clock) she came out with a steaming mug. “Here.”
I gave her a suspicious glare and took the cup. I sniffed it to make sure she hadn’t done anything weird to it and then took a tentative taste.
“Hey.” I perked up. “This is good.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
“I’m not.”
She leveled a look at me as she sat down.
“Okay, I am.” I shrugged. “Can you blame me? Have you ever made real coffee before?”
“Not for a snob.” She reclined and stretched her legs in front of her. In running shorts, her legs looked miles long.
I looked down at my legs and wondered what they looked like. Then I wondered what Rio thought they looked like.
“That’s new,” Daphne said, breaking into my thoughts.
“What?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I called you a snob and you didn’t jump down my throat.”
I frowned. “I don’t always jump down your throat.”
Her silence said more than any number of protests could have.
“I don’t.”
She raised her mug to her lips and sipped noisily.
I crossed my eyes at her and concentrated on my coffee.
One minute later (who knew the DVD clock would come in so handy?), she said, “Aren’t you up early? Do you know it’s Sunday?”
I nodded. “I have a date this morning.”
She practically fell out of the chair. “You agreed to a date in the
morning
?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
“Because you aren’t a morning person,” she went on, “so you must like this guy a lot. It’s Barry, isn’t it?”
Barry? I wrinkled my nose. “God, no.”
“No?” Her forehead creased. “But on Friday you looked like you got along really well.”
We did? He hung all over Cindy most of the time, but maybe Daphne was confused. Or in a trance, as it were.
“When you were dancing, it looked so sexy.”
Oh.
Oh
. Rio. Right. She thought Rio was Barry. “Right. Yeah, I’m going out with B-b—” I just couldn’t say it “—him again.”
Her eyes got dreamy. “He looked like he wanted to tear your clothes off and just take you.”
I frowned. “Take me where?”
“You’re impossible.” She shook her head. “Is that where you were all day yesterday?”
“You noticed I was gone.”
“Yes. There was less stomping up and down the house. I don’t know how your tenant lives with it.”
“I don’t stomp. I walk with purpose.” I decided to change the subject. “Hey, Matt’s coming over later for dinner and a movie, okay?”
Her expression didn’t change, not really, but somehow suddenly she looked very sad. “Sure. What time do you want me to leave?”
“Leave?” What kind of crack was she smoking? “Who said you had to leave? I’m just telling you so you don’t ruin your dinner.”
Her cup smacked onto the coffee table. “You’re inviting
me
?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Hope her medical plan covered hearing loss. I enunciated the next sentence to make sure she got it. “If you make sure you are home at six, you can go with me to get the movie.”
“Okay.” The way her face lit up was embarrassing. And made me feel bad for not including her in my plans more often.
I cleared my throat, murmured that I was going to take a shower, and escaped. I didn’t think I could handle messy emotions this morning. If I was going to make Rio sit up and beg, I had to get moving.
I refreshed my coffee on the way to the bathroom. Deciding to take a bath instead, I turned the faucet on and sat on the toilet, sipping my astonishingly good coffee, while the tub filled. I dumped some lavender bath salts in and eased myself into the hot water.
Heaven. The only way life could be better was if Rio were in the tub with me.
Of course, after soaking for twenty minutes, I had to turn the drain, wash my hair, and rinse. I washed my hair the day before, yes, but I thought I should wash it again. Just in case.
I paused mid-rinse. Maybe I should shave my legs too.
“Better safe than sorry,” I told myself, picking up the razor.
Half an hour later I was fresh, smooth, lubed, and ready to get dressed. Wrapped in my robe, I contemplated my wardrobe. I didn’t want to wear jeans again, and I wasn’t sure a skirt was appropriate for whatever we were doing.
I had a pair of red bell-bottom capris in my hand when Daphne walked in. “What are you doing on your date?”
“I don’t know,” I answered absentmindedly. If the capris, then which shoes?
“Why don’t you wear this dress?” She reached into the closet and pulled out a summer dress.
“What,
you’re
giving
me
fashion advice?” Still, it actually was a great dress—a white-and-black halter top with a billowy skirt that ended above my knee. Demure, yet not.
“You probably look great in it,” she said with a tinge of what I swore was jealousy.
“Yeah, but what if we do something active?”
She shrugged and leaned against the wall. “He should have told you what the appropriate dress was then.”
True. I studied the dress again. It
would
make an impression. “I bet he’d have a hard time keeping his mouth off me if I wore this.”
Daphne got a curdled look on her face. “Please spare me the details.”
“I’ll wear it,” I decided. And I’d wear a pair of white flip-flops with it, just in case we did a lot of walking. And I’d put my hair up. I read in some girly magazine once that men liked to see the long expanses of women’s necks.
I’d just finished getting ready when I heard the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” Daphne called from the living room.
“Oka—
no
.” That was all I needed, for her to chat with Rio and call him Barry. I rushed out of my room, barely passing her before she reached the lower landing. I placed my hand on the doorknob a fraction of a second before she got to it.
I looked up at her and smiled sweetly. “I got it.”
The doorbell rang again, and her forehead wrinkled. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Yeah.” Why was she rushing me? I twisted the knob.
Even though I knew it was Rio—I was expecting him, after all—I felt a hiccup of startled delight. I grinned, probably like a fool, and said, “Hi.”
“Hi.” He took in my appearance as if he were cataloguing every stretch of bare skin showing, right down to my toes.
I felt a nervous urge to smooth my dress down, which I restrained with great difficulty. “Is it okay? Tell me now so I can change. I wasn’t sure what we were doing—”
“It’s perfect.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, brushing my neck with the backs of his fingers. “You look ...”
He stalled, like he was searching for the right word. I wanted to supply him a couple that I thought fit the blank, but instead I waved my hand in encouragement.
“Kissable,” he said finally.
I smiled wide. Operation: Irresistible was a success.
Daphne cleared her throat. Loudly.
I crowded Rio out the door. As I closed it behind me, I called out, “See you later, Daph.”
A muffled “My name is Daphne” sounded behind the thick wood of the door. But I barely paid attention to her because I was with Rio. I didn’t even roll my eyes when she clicked the lock on the door.
I’d already decided I was going to play it cool and let him take me wherever it was he had planned. So about two seconds after Rio took my hand and started leading me down the porch steps, I asked, “What’s on the agenda for today?”
He grinned at me and squeezed my hand. “Eager, huh?”
So what if I was? “Just curious. Can I guess?”
“You won’t, but go ahead.”
Ah, a challenge. I stared at him thoughtfully and tapped my pursed lips. “Well, we did bumper cars yesterday. Paddle boats?”
“No.”
I waited until he got into the driver’s side to query him again. “Rollerblading?”
“No.” He turned the ignition.
I faced him and tried to discern clues from his face. Impossible. “You’re excellent at poker, aren’t you?”
He glanced at me as he pulled out into the street. “How did you know?”
“Lucky, I guess,” I mumbled. But I wasn’t going to be so easily defeated. “Sailing?”
“You already said that,” he pointed out.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You guessed paddle boats.”
I frowned. “That’s not sailing.”
“What is it, then?”
My frown deepened at the amusement in his voice. “Not sailing.”
He chuckled. “Any more guesses? Or are you going to give up?”
I shot him a narrow gaze. “Wineries?”
“No.”
“Skateboarding?”
“No.”
“Bungee jumping?”
He cocked a brow at me.
“Hmmph.” I sat back, arms crossed, and frowned at him.
“Are you giving up?” he asked, his lips quirking.
“Never,” I declared.
He laughed as he merged onto the highway. “I love that about you.”
“Don’t think you’re going to divert me with sweet compliments.”
“Never.” He took my hand, set it on his thigh, and covered it with his own. It was high on his thigh, and I had to fight the desire to walk my fingers up to the holy land.
I eyed him suspiciously but didn’t say anything because I was afraid I’d have to move my hand, and that thought was simply not pleasant. So we drove on in silence, Rio rubbing his thumb in the grooves between my knuckles and me trying not to hop up and straddle him while he was driving. Amazingly, it required all my concentration, and I didn’t realize we were downtown until we parked.
Frowning, I got out of the car and tried to think of what we could possibly do downtown on a Sunday. “Are we going shopping?”
“Would you like to go shopping?”
“No.” Frankly, I didn’t care as long as it was with him, but I didn’t want to give him a fat head. I waited for him to come around the car and slipped my hand in his.
He touched my lips with a finger. “You look cute when you pout.”
“I’m not pouting.”
He raised a brow.
“I’m not.” I resisted the urge to stamp a foot when he grinned.
“Come on.” He tugged my hand to cajole me into walking. He didn’t have to try very hard—I would have followed him anywhere to find out what he’d cooked up for today.
I quizzed him about our destination while we walked, but he wouldn’t even give me a clue, except that we were almost there. Then we stopped in front of a set of stairs up to a classic-looking building.
My jaw must have dropped all the way to the sidewalk, I was so shocked. “The Pioneer Art Museum?”