haven’t even sent the fourth bouquet to Heather yet,” she said.
“The what?”
“The fourth one. The nice-to-know-you-I’m-such-a-great-guy-I’m-sending-flowers-but-I’m-moving-on one.”
He felt a shiver go up and down his spine. How was it that Katie knew him so well? He thought of the year he had known her, those intelligent eyes scrutinizing him, missing nothing. Assessing, mostly correctly, that he was a self-centered, selfish kind of guy.
“Okay,” he said. “Send it. Instead of the I’m-sorry one.”
“I already sent that one.”
Little Miss Efficient. “Okay, send the other one, too, then.”
“Do you want the message to read, ‘It’s been great knowing you. I wish you all the best’?”
He had become predictable. Hell. “Sure,” he said, “That’s fine.”
“Anything else?”
“You tell me. Am I available now that the fourth bouquet is being sent?”
“Of course you are,” she said sweetly.
Sweet had been one of the components his sister had used to define decent.
“Great. When would you like to go for dinner?”
“Never,” she said firmly.
He was stunned, but he realized there was only one reason little miss Katie Wholesome would have said no to him. And it wasn’t what his sister had said, either, that no decent girl would go out with him!
“You have a guy, huh?”
Pause. “Actually, I have a customer. If you’ll excuse me.” And then she hung up. Katie Pritchard hung up on him.
He set down the phone, stunned. And then he began to laugh. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. He’d wished for a surprise, and she had delivered him one. He’d just been rejected by Katie, the flower girl. He should have been fuming.
But for the first time in a long time he felt challenged. He could make her say yes.
Then what, he asked himself? A funny question for a man who absolutely prided himself in not asking questions about the future when it came to his dealings with the opposite sex.
Despite the rather racy divorcée title, Katie would be the kind of girl who didn’t go out with a guy without a chaperone, a written contract and a rule book. The perfect girl to invite to dinner at his sister’s house. That was the then what, and nothing beyond that.
So why did his mind ask, What would it be like to kiss her?
“Buddy,” he told himself, “what are you playing with?”
For some reason, even though she was pretending to be the plainest girl in Hillsboro, he could picture her lips, exactly. They were wide and plump, and even without a hint of lipstick on them, they practically begged a man to taste them.
He tried to think what Heather’s lips looked like. All he could think of was red grease smeared on his shirt collar. He shuddered, even though Heather was not a girl who would normally make a man shudder.
“Playing with Katie is like toying with a saint,” he warned himself. But he was already aware that he felt purposeful. Katie intrigued him, and he wanted her to come out for dinner with him. He was also about to prove to his sister how wrong she could be. About everything.
Now, how was he going to convince Katie to go out with him? He bet it wouldn’t be hard at all. If he applied a little pressure to that initial resistance, she’d cave in to his charm like an old mine collapsing.
An old mine collapsing, he told himself happily. Take that, Steinbeck.
CHAPTER TWO
“NEVER!” Katie repeated, slamming down the phone and glaring at it.
What had that been all about, anyway? Whatever it was, she hadn’t liked it one little bit. Why was Dylan McKinnon asking her out?
To be completely honest, it was a moment she had fantasized about since she had moved in next door to him, but like most fantasies, when it actually happened, the collision with reality was not pretty. Going out with him would wreck everything.
Because he only went out with people temporarily.
And then it would be over. Really over. No more Dylan dropping by her shop to tease her, to order flowers, to ruffle her feathers, to remind her of the fickleness of men. Dylan, without her really knowing it, had helped take her mind off the death of her marriage.
The death of—she stopped herself. She was not thinking about that death.
Two years since she and Marcus had parted ways. In the past year, the flower shop had given her a sense of putting her life back together. Whether she liked it or not, Dylan had been part of that.
It occurred to her that if Dylan’s running by her window and unexpected drop-bys had become such a highlight in her life, she really had allowed herself to become pathetic.
As if to underscore that discovery, she suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—no makeup, hair drawn back in a careless ponytail, and that dress. It was truly hideous, and she knew it. But when she had opened The Flower Girl she had convinced herself to take on a persona, she had shopped for vintage dresses that would underscore the image she was trying to create: back-to-nature, wholesome, flower child.
But underneath she was aware of another motive. Fear. She didn’t want to be attractive anymore. She wanted to protect herself from all the things that being attractive to men meant.
It meant being asked out. Participating in the dance of life. It might mean a heart opening again, hope breathing back to life.
I like to hope, she had foolishly said to Dylan.
But the truth was the last thing she wanted was to hope. Ever since the breakup of her parents’ marriage when she was nine, she had dreamed of a little house and her own little family. Dreamed of a bassinet and a sweet-smelling baby—
Katie slammed the door on those thoughts. Dylan had asked her out for dinner, and already some renegade part of herself wanted to hope. She congratulated herself on having the strength to say no before it went one breath further.
As egotistical as he was, even Dylan McKinnon had to understand never.
She sighed. Dylan was a disruptive force in the universe. The female part of the universe. Specifically, her part of the universe.
She glanced at the clock. Close enough to quitting time to shut the doors. She closed up and made a decision to head to a movie. Distract herself with something like a political thriller that had nothing to do with romance, love, babies. All those things that could cut so deeply.
But, as she was leaving her business, so was he. Despite her effort to turn the lock more quickly, pretend she didn’t see him, escape,
