shook off the image. Thought about offering his arm, then decided against it. Kelly was clearly on edge, and he didn’t want to make things any more difficult for her—or for himself—than they already were.
“Relax,” he said in a husky whisper. “This is business, remember?”
Her smile was on the wobbly side, but it was a smile, at least, and it was beautiful. “I guess I’m still a bit jumpy after the other night. Sorry.”
They were moving by then, approaching the restaurant. “You’re feeling okay, though?” he asked. “Nothing hurts?”
She shook her head. Her honey-colored hair was done up in a fashionably sloppy bun, exposing her long, elegant neck, and Mace suppressed a powerful urge to take her shoulders in his hands, trace the length of that silken flesh with his mouth.
“I’m in great shape,” she said.
You can say that again, Mace thought wryly. But all he said was, “Good.”
They reached the podium in front of Stefano’s, and Kelly took charge, giving her name to the hostess on duty and saying she had a lunch reservation for twelve o’clock.
Cindy Henderson, the kid sister of one of Mace’s closest friends, beamed a smile at Kelly and nodded, taking two menus from the shelf under the podium. “Yes, Ms. Wright. Your table is ready.” Cindy turned twinkling eyes on Mace. “Hey, Mace,” she added. “It’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
“Same as usual,” Mace replied easily. “You?”
“I landed that full-ride scholarship I was after,” Cindy answered proudly, looking over one shoulder as she led the way to a window-side table. “I’m majoring in agriculture.” A pause. “Maybe you’ll give me a job at Mountain Winery after I graduate?”
Mace chuckled. “Maybe,” he said. “Depends on your grades.”
Kelly, he noted, was taking in the exchange with amused interest as she walked beside him, though she said nothing.
“My grades?” Cindy asked. “Mace Carson, you know darn well I’ve had a 4.0 average for the last four years.”
“That was high school,” Mace teased. “College is harder.”
Cindy was cheerfully scornful. “I can handle college,” she said, keeping her voice down as they wove between tables, each one occupied by locals or resort guests or some combination of the two. “And I’m serious about working at the winery after I get my degree.”
“Fine and dandy,” Mace said. “But graduation is a ways off, isn’t it? A lot of things could happen between now and then. You might decide working at a winery isn’t for you, once you’ve seen how many other options there are. And you’ll meet plenty of guys, too—a lot more than you have here in the old hometown. Suppose you run into Mr. Right, and he has plans that don’t mesh with yours?”
“No way that’s going to happen,” Cindy said with the unshakable optimism of a sheltered kid raised in a small town. “I’m coming back here after college and marrying Jimmy Trent.”
Jimmy Trent was Cindy’s high-school boyfriend; he was a couple of years older than she was, and he’d joined the air force on his eighteenth birthday. Last Mace had heard, he was in flight school. Once his enlistment was up, he hoped to work for one of the major airlines and, after he’d racked up enough hours, open a small charter operation.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mace saw Kelly smile again, although she still kept whatever she was thinking to herself. She didn’t know Jimmy was in the service and might be deployed to a war zone as soon as he finished his training.
“All I’m saying,” Mace persisted mildly, “is that things can change.”
Not surprisingly, Cindy wasn’t convinced. “Not for Jimmy and me,” she said. “We have goals and we know how to reach them. Plus, we’re meant to be.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mace said. And he meant it.
He should’ve realized his friend’s kid sister thought she and Jimmy had their future locked in; she was too young and, after her solid upbringing, too innocent to understand how tricky life could be.
Cindy rolled her eyes, smiling that sweet smile of hers. “You sound just like Mom and Dad and Mike,” she said. Mike was her brother, more than a dozen years her senior. Mike worked for Fish and Wildlife, and he and Mace went way back.
“Yes,” Mace agreed, sitting down. “And maybe you ought to listen to our advice.”
Fat chance. He’d been Cindy’s age once and, back then, he’d known everything there was to know, and then some.
Cindy handed Kelly a menu and gave one to Mace. “Next, you’re going to say Jimmy and I ought to let things unfold,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm, “instead of mapping out our whole lives in advance, because we’re both going to have a lot of new experiences and meet a lot of new people.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Mace said with a grin and a shake of his head. Might as well change the subject, since he was getting nowhere with this kid. “What’s the special today?”
“Mushroom risotto with baked chicken breast,” Cindy answered, waiting. “Aren’t you going to warn me about fast-talking college boys with only one thing on their minds?”
Kelly’s eyes sparkled as she watched him over the top of her menu, and he could see she was trying not to laugh.
“Would it do any good?”
“It would be a waste of breath,” Cindy responded briskly. “I’m not interested in any guy but Jimmy.”
“Right,” Mace said with, he hoped, the appropriate note of cheerful skepticism.
Cindy’s smile didn’t falter, but then it rarely did. “You dated the same person all through college,” she said. “Her name was Sarah, wasn’t it? She came back to Mustang Creek with you a couple of times, during Christmas break.”
Mace stole a glance at Kelly and saw that she was leaning forward slightly, a tiny smile curving her mouth, one eyebrow raised.
“And look how well that turned out,” he said.
“Oh.” For once, Cindy was taken aback.
“Yes,” Mace said matter-of-factly. “Oh. Any chance of getting something to eat in the near future?”
Cindy had the grace to look embarrassed, but although her smile wobbled a little, it held. “Would you like a drink while you’re looking at the menu?” she asked, finally remembering, evidently, that she had a job to do.
Mace met Kelly’s gaze and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“We’ll definitely want wine,” Kelly said, speaking for the first time since they’d stepped up to the podium at the restaurant’s entrance. “Something with the Mountain Winery label, of course. In the meantime, I’ll have a glass of unsweetened iced tea, please, with lemon and lots of ice. Later, when we know what we’re having to eat, we’ll decide on the wine.”
