Reva said, sounding properly horrified.
“I was trying to help,” he explained passionately. “But she just didn’t want me to help. She wanted to tell the whole story wrong.”
“I stayed, too,” Terrance said in a soft voice that managed to cut through the tension. “So Cooper wouldn’t have to walk home alone.”
Dean was taken aback. That was putting it mildly. His reaction was physical, as well as emotional. His heart pounded too hard, his mouth went dry. He looked from Reva to her son, from Cooper to Terrance and then back to Cooper again.
First grade—that meant the kid was six years old. Blond hair, blue eyes, dimples. Fearless.
Cooper Macklin, Reva’s child, was Eddie Pinchon’s son.
Chapter 3
Reva closed her eyes and shook her head. “Cooper, how many times have I told you—”
“This is my new friend, Mr. Sinclair,” Cooper interrupted in an overly bright voice. Her son was a master at changing the subject, and had been since the age of three. “He doesn’t have any kids, so he’s probably lonely. We should ask him to have dinner with us. Tonight!”
Reva avoided looking directly at Dean Sinclair. There was nothing quite like being put on the spot, and she hadn’t yet decided how to respond to Cooper’s unfortunate suggestion.
“You’re always telling me to have good manners, Mom, and inviting Mr. Sinclair for dinner is good manners, right?” Cooper’s innocent blue eyes remained wide and hopeful.
“I’m sure Mr. Sinclair has plans for dinner,” Reva responded calmly.
“I bet he doesn’t,” Cooper said, turning his eyes up to their new neighbor. “Do you have plans?”
“Well…” Sinclair began.
“Pleeeze!” Cooper whined. “I want you to tell me about your niece and all those nephews, even if they’re not old enough to play T-ball.”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I don’t think I can eat another bite today.” Sinclair glanced at Reva. “I ate too much at lunch.”
“Dessert, then,” Cooper insisted. “You could come over and have dessert with us.”
“Don’t annoy Mr. Sinclair,” Reva said.
“I’m not annoyed,” Sinclair replied.
She made herself look at Dean Sinclair. He still wore the shirt and pants to his conservative suit, but the tie and jacket had been discarded. The top button of his shirt was undone, the sleeves of his shirt had been turned up and rolled away from his wrists. There was something about a man’s well-shaped neck that could be fascinating in the right circumstances. It was so different from a woman’s neck, so solid and strong. And a man’s nicely muscled forearms could be just as interesting. Just as tempting.
Reva mentally shook off her unexpected fascination. She’d spent seven years steering clear of men; why did this one stir something long-untouched in her? It was just chemistry, she supposed. That sort of thing did happen, or so she heard. What else could it be? She didn’t know Dean Sinclair, not at all. He was handsome, but he certainly wasn’t the only good-looking man she’d seen in the past seven years. Their eyes met, and for a moment it seemed that he was just as disconcerted as she was.
“The fudge pie was very good,” he said.
“Oh, we’re not having pie for dessert tonight,” she said. “Do you like strawberries?”
Was it her imagination or did the innocent question catch him off guard? Something in his eyes changed. Sparkled a little, perhaps, as if he was surprised.
“Strawberries,” he said softly. “Love ’em.”
“I’m making strawberry shortcake tonight.”
He nodded.
Reva glanced down at Cooper and his more tranquil friend. “Y’all run on home. Terrance, your mother is going to be worried about you. She made y’all an after-school snack half an hour ago.”
“We better go before she starts to get mad,” Terrance said, and then he and Cooper both ran for the restaurant, after a quick glance both ways on the quiet street.
“Terrance’s mother works for you?” Sinclair asked.
Reva nodded, turning her attention to him as soon as the children entered the house and slammed the door behind them. “Tewanda Hardy. I couldn’t run the place without her.” She took a deep breath. “Look, about dessert—”
“Don’t feel obligated,” Sinclair interrupted. “Kids seem to have a way of putting their folks between a rock and a hard place,” he added with a half smile.
It was her chance to walk away, to play it safe. To turn her back on the only man who had made her feel this way in years. Just as well. Nothing could come of her attraction to him. She didn’t need the complication of Dean Sinclair in her life. All she had to do was smile and walk across the street, and the danger, the awkwardness, would be over.
The chance came and went. “You’re welcome to come,” she said. “If you’d like.”
“Strawberry shortcake,” he said. “What red-blooded man could turn down an offer like that?”
“I really would like to talk to you about your plans,” Reva said. Why did the way this man said strawberry send a chill up her spine? “Goodness knows I could use a handyman around the house. If you do decide to locate your business here, I can throw a lot of work your way.”
“So, it’s actually a business meeting you’re suggesting.”
Sounded good to her. Safe. Distant. “Seven o’clock. You can bring your business partner along if you like.”
He shook his head. “He’s not very sociable.”
She turned on him and headed for home. In the middle of the street, she spun around to face him again. He hadn’t made a move toward his own home. He still watched her. “And Mr. Sinclair—”
“Dean,” he said quickly. “Call me Dean.”
“When you come to my house for dessert, Dean, please don’t wear a suit.”
Once again he was without his weapon. As Dean walked past the antebellum home that had been transformed into Miss Reva’s, he tried not to worry about the fact that he’d been disarmed. Reva had asked—no she’d ordered—that he not wear a suit tonight. And there was no way he could conceal his pistol while wearing jeans and a John Deere T-shirt that fit snugly across the chest. Even the ankle holster added a too-obvious bulge with every step. That, too, had been left behind.
Still, if Eddie arrived in the middle of strawberry shortcake, he’d be in a heap of trouble.
Somehow Dean didn’t believe that Eddie would arrive while he had dessert with Reva and Cooper Macklin and discussed his bogus business
