Tyler actually flinched, the pain was that real and that immediate. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to stop her.”
“Me? You’re worried about her, you stop her. Jeez, Molly, this is really over the—”
“She wants you, Tyler. She’s totally fighting how she feels about you.”
His mouth dropped open. He became aware that he had turned around and was staring at Annika again, who had planted her white-haired, blue-running-suit-clad self firmly at the end of his driveway and was beckoning. He shook his head and pointed to the phone. “Could you repeat that please, Molly?”
“I think she’s really into you.”
He frowned. Annika beckoned harder. “You only think?”
“I know she is. And I’m scared she’s doing this second seduction out of some stupid fear she’ll fall in love with you and won’t be able to get away like she’s planned.”
Tyler couldn’t move. Fall in love? What the hell? Had Molly lost her mind? “Uh, can I talk to Bruce?”
“Why?”
“Just…can I, please?”
Molly sighed and said, “Okay,” in a tone that told him she thought he was exactly as insane as he thought she was.
Bruce came on with a cheerful, “What’s up?” Annika stopped beckoning and pointed frantically to something in his front yard. Tyler felt like roaring at her.
“Bruce, man, how much of this is your wife’s matchmaking fantasy and how much of it is real? My balls are on the line here.”
“She’s known Darcy since sixth grade, Tyler. I’ve never heard her say this about her before. Not with that boyfriend in high school, not with the old-guy one after. Molly knows people. She can tell you who’s calling just by the way the phone rings. She can tell when women are pregnant sometimes before they know. She knows when people are sick—she has that sense. So if she says Darcy’s in love with you, then she is.”
Tyler had to ward off the thrill his subconscious happily provided. He shook his head, unable to process any of this rationally. Annika immediately nodded hers and pointed again. Exasperated, Tyler began walking toward her as slowly as he could. “So why exactly is Molly telling me all this?”
“She wants you to intercept Darcy at this bar on Saturday, so she doesn’t make some stupid mistake with the wrong guy when she really wants you.”
“You’re buying this?”
“I know, I know. But that’s what she tells me, and I trust her judgment.”
“Tyler!” Annika’s wavery voice was indignant. Her faded blue eyes glared under bushy salt-and-pepper brows.
“Bruce, I’ll call you back.” He punched off the phone, grateful for the excuse to escape, but not about to let Annika think he enjoyed being interrupted. “What is so important that I had to interrupt my phone call, Annika?”
“That.” She pointed to his hedge. “What about that?”
Tyler turned and looked. A hedge. A house. He took a few steps closer to Annika and looked again. Still the hedge and the house. Nothing more noteworthy than that. “What?”
“Your hedge needs trimming.”
He worked his jaw. He really, really wanted to say several phrases that had grown popular in the decades since Annika’s childhood. “Okay, Annika. I’ll get right on that.”
“Good.” She turned away and started her familiar uneven trudge down the block, followed equally slowly by the equally ancient Scotty, who had once responded to a friendly gesture by nearly biting off Tyler’s fingers.
He barely kept himself from making a rude gesture after her. Instead he tried to think about how lonely she must be and how empty her life was if bitching about other people’s hedges filled her day.
Then without trying at all, he thought about Darcy dressed in a tiny skirt and tight cropped top, smiling at some megahunk in a crowded bar. He imagined the guy getting half-hard looking at her incredible body and her open smile and thinking he was going to get lucky in a big way.
Tyler stopped that image cold. So? If that was what Darcy wanted to do, fine. If she wanted to run away from any possible feelings for Tyler, that was her choice. She was a big girl, not a teenager. He wasn’t going to chase after her and become her caretaker on the basis of one night together.
The hunk in the bar reached around Darcy’s waist and pulled her close, leering. His hand slipped down to cup her ass. He leaned in and tasted the soft skin of her neck.
Stop that.
Tyler didn’t believe in love at first sight. Not for himself and not for anyone else, either. Nor did he believe that sex necessarily had to happen in the context of a relationship, committed or otherwise. Darcy had enjoyed herself. He’d enjoyed himself. Maybe they both wanted more, but for whatever reason that wasn’t going to happen and he was fine with that.
The megahunk’s hand on Darcy’s ass slipped lower; his fingers curled under her skirt and started up her thigh…
Tyler whipped out the phone and dialed. “Bruce.”
“Yeah, man.”
“The bar Darcy’s going to Saturday?”
“Yeah?”
Tyler ran his hand over his face, checking in with himself for another chance to be smart and stay sane and stay the hell out of it. To make sure he really wanted to do something this stupid and also completely nuts and also freaking insane.
Another flash—Darcy lying under Mr. Megahunk, her nails digging into his hugely muscled back.
Apparently he did.
“I need to know which bar and I need to know what time.”
5
DARCY CAREFULLY ADDED another layer of mascara to her already thickly coated eyelashes and blinked experimentally. She’d rimmed her eyes in black, making them look large and glamorous. Her lids felt heavy and the spiky tips of her lashes poked into the skin under her eyebrows, leaving inky slivers that then needed cautious wiping off. This dressing-up stuff was not for sissies.
However. Ahem. She looked—pretty amazing. In fact, stepping back to get a better perspective in the full-length mirror behind her bedroom door, she’d say she looked incredible enough to be someone else entirely. Which was, of course, exactly the point of the evening.
Wow. She put her hands over her mouth, careful not to smudge her Certainly Red lipstick by Revlon, which was…well, certainly red, and then she giggled.
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