I’m just surprised. That’s all.” Rafe paused. “What else?”
“Well, honestly, Rafe, I don’t know.” As restless as could be, Kelsey shot out of her chair and paced his office, slapping the brim of her hat against her thigh as she moved. “I haven’t even had a date in a while, not since the guys in town stopped asking me out.”
“Well, yeah—” Rafe was quick to jump to the other men’s defense “—none of them thought they had a chance.” He stopped and made a face when he saw he had offended her again. “Sorry. Listen, would you do me a favor? Would you have a secret date with me?”
Kelsey sighed and sat down in her chair again. “Why does it have to be secret?”
“Because I don’t want Patricia to think I’m interested in any woman but her when I do ask her out. Besides, what I want you to do is sort of give me a dating lesson. Let’s just go somewhere where nobody knows us, and we’ll pretend we’re on a date, and I’ll do all the things I intend to do for Patricia, you know, like holding the door and having dinner table conversation and maybe even asking her to dance if you think that’s a good thing. You can critique me. And that’ll give me a chance to get all my ducks in a row and build up my confidence before I actually do ask her out. I really, really don’t want to blow this, Kelsey. I think Patricia’s the woman for me, and I haven’t felt that way about a woman since my wife died.”
Rafe seemed so sure about what he wanted. Kelsey could only admire him for that. Besides, she figured she owed him. He had steered a lot of kids who wanted riding lessons her way. “I would be happy to help you with that, Rafe,” she said.
“How about tomorrow night then?” Rafe asked.
Kelsey hesitated. “Tomorrow’s pretty busy. Brady and I are going on a buying trip and I’m not sure how long it will take, or when we’ll be back, but Wednesday evening is definitely free.”
“Wednesday evening is good for me, too.” Rafe smiled. “Meet me at the Gilded Lily, around seven.”
Kelsey frowned at the mention of the restaurant he had selected. “There are a couple of waiters over there who are known to be a little snooty, Rafe.” In Kelsey’s opinion, it was not the place to be if you were as nervous as Rafe was likely to be on his first date with Patricia Weatherby.
“It’s also the only true five-star restaurant in the area and I want to impress Patricia and show her a really memorable time.”
Kelsey could see he had his mind made up. Far be it for her to try to change it. “All right, then. The Gilded Lily it is. Oh, and Rafe?” Kelsey paused as she headed out the door. “I probably should mention one more thing. As of this afternoon—I’m married. So your idea about keeping this little dating lesson of ours a secret? It’s a good one.”
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Brady demanded the moment Kelsey sauntered in the front door. He was dressed in his usual dusty brown cowboy boots and jeans, but he had changed into a clean blue denim work shirt that brought out the blue of his eyes. Trying not to think what it might be like to go on a date with Brady, Kelsey walked right past him, into the kitchen.
Even though she knew she owed him an apology, she didn’t want to think or talk about what had happened between them earlier. She still felt pretty embarrassed at the way she had lured him into her bed and then chickened out at the very last minute, before anything really momentous could happen. But she figured he did not need to know that.
“And hello to you, too, husband dear.” Adopting her most carefree air, Kelsey put the bag containing a take-out beef barbecue dinner down on the table. “I hope you’re hungry. I bought this especially for you.”
His scowl faded as the aroma of tender, mesquite-flavored beef and spicy barbecue sauce filled the air. “If you’d have asked me, I’d have gone with you.”
Kelsey brought out containers of vinegar-based slaw, potato salad and beans, and snapped the lids off those, too. She held his gaze for a moment, before she went to get the plates and silverware. “I thought we both needed some cooling off time.”
“You can say that again.” Brady brought two cold drinks and a stack of paper napkins to the table and held out a chair for her before he sat himself. As casually as if they ate dinner as a couple every day. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d been talking to Rafe about the things she really wanted from a man. One thing was for sure. Brady’d never held a door or chair for her before, not even when they got married this afternoon. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to steer physically clear of her.
Kelsey waited until they had both filled their plates with a generous amount of food, then said, “Listen. About what happened earlier, I’m sorry.”
Brady sighed in a way that let her know he had as many regrets as she did. He reached across the table and took both her hands in his. “I’m sorry, too.” He looked at her deliberately. “I scared you and I sure didn’t mean to do that. If you’d just told me you were a beginner…” His voice trailed off.
Despite her desire to remain in peace-making mode, Kelsey couldn’t help the rise of temper insider her belly. He made her sound so inept. She tugged her hands out of his. “A beginner?”
“A beginner in bed,” Brady corrected himself hastily. “Okay?”
Kelsey frowned. She hated the fact he looked so at ease when she was still tied up in knots. “Well, if I am, it’s not for lack of trying this afternoon.”
“If I had known how inexperienced you were,” Brady huffed in an irritated tone of voice Kelsey was beginning to know all too well, “I would have said no.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Kelsey sassed right back, determined not to let him get the better of her in this or any other way.
“But had I agreed,” Brady added as if she hadn’t spoken, continuing to look at her in a very sexy, very determined way, “I would have indoctrinated you slowly. I wouldn’t have rushed you into it. I would have—”
“Seduced me?” Kelsey guessed hopefully as the two of them began to eat.
“Yes.” Brady nodded.
Abruptly, Kelsey’s mind was filled with images of the two of them in bed. All night. “Well, we could still do that,” Kelsey murmured offhandedly, her curiosity mounting as her innate recklessness took over once again and pushed her to explore this life to its limits. What would it have been like, she wondered, if she hadn’t panicked, but instead had regained her courage and let Brady’s hand move lower, more intimately still? Would he have made love to her, the way he had wanted to make love to her? Would they still be in her bed now? Despite her fear, she tingled just thinking about the possibility of losing her virginity with Brady. Here. Now. Tonight. After all, he was her husband….
Brady, who was still watching her intently, guessed at the nature of her thoughts and made a rude, guffawing sound in the back of his throat. “Oh, no, Kelse. Not on your life are we trying that again.”
Kelsey’s brows knitted together in consternation. The disaster this afternoon aside, she had never been one to give up on anything she really wanted, and neither, she sensed, had Brady.
“Why not?” she asked. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you fell off a horse, so to speak? Get back on?
Brady
