Only once had Wil ever let a woman spend more than a night at his place, and that had turned out to prove the old adage absolutely correct about fish and visitors stinking after three days. New Year’s Eve had been so hot it was a complete wonder they hadn’t melted a hole in the motel bed. And now Red was coming to his place for supper. She declared that she wouldn’t be staying the night, but that could change.
And that’s what bothered Wil that afternoon as he put the steaks in his special marinade sauce. Would she think that because he’d invited her to stay the night that she could take over his kitchen? Would she tell him how to grill the steaks or get all domestic and think she could make better bread than he could?
Everything was right where it needed to be by six o’clock, and he and Digger were watching out the living room window when the lights of the old Caddy came down the lane at six fifteen. She was punctual. The woman who’d tried before to take over his kitchen was perpetually late for everything, so maybe it was a good sign that Red was on time.
“I didn’t think any woman on the face of the earth could get me this excited,” he told Digger as he headed across the living room floor in his bare feet.
He slung open the door before she could knock and stepped aside. “Come on in. I hope you like steak. That’s what we’re having for supper.”
“Love steak. What can I do to help?” She wanted to walk right into his arms and have a steamy making-out session before supper, but he kept his distance so she did too. She hadn’t felt awkward when she woke up next to him naked as a jaybird but she did standing in the middle of the foyer in his house.
“Nice house,” she said.
“It’s part of the reason I bought the place. Fell in love with it first time the owner gave me a tour. That and the fact that I can see all the way to the Pacific Ocean out my front door and to the Atlantic out the back.”
She laughed. “That’s stretching the imagination.”
“Maybe, but I figure I can see to where the land stops and the sky begins, so that must be where the two oceans are. My father says I need to plant trees in the front and back yards, but it would block my beautiful sunrises and sunsets. There’s plenty of shade from those big pecan trees on the north and south ends, and I don’t care to look at Canada or the Gulf.” Wil helped her out of her coat and hung it on a rack beside the foyer table.
The touch of his big hands on her shoulders came close to giving her a dose of good old Southern vapors. She took a deep breath and willed them away. It wouldn’t do for her to pass out cold right there on his shiny hardwood floor.
The house reminded her of her aunt Kate’s in Savannah. She’d learned to drink mint juleps sitting in a rocking chair like the one drawn up to the fireplace. She was fifteen and Aunt Kate said that she’d had her first julep at fifteen and it hadn’t killed her so Pearl could have one. That had happened in the heat of the summer, not in a Texas winter with a cold north wind whistling through the limbs of ancient pecan trees.
She took a deep breath and got a heat-producing whiff of Wil’s aftershave that jacked her hormones up to the unbearable level. He wore soft worn jeans and a three-button red knit shirt with all the buttons undone. She had the urge to slip her hands up under that shirt and snuggle up to his broad chest. But he hadn’t made a move toward anything other than her being a guest. No “hello” kiss after a dozen phone calls that bordered on downright erotic. Had he changed his mind in the course of the last two hours?
She sniffed the air. “Is that homemade yeast bread cooking?”
He nodded. Dammit! He wanted to kiss her so bad that he ached from want, but something kept him back. It was that damned kitchen idea from earlier. If he greeted her with a passionate kiss like he wanted, then she’d think she could waltz right in and take over.
What is the matter with me? he thought. This woman makes me hotter than… He thought for a moment and the lyrics to a country song came to mind… Hotter’n hell in the middle of a Texas summer. Yep, just lookin’ at her shoots desire all the way through my body, and I’m acting like her brother instead of a lover.
“I love hot bread. Where’s the bathroom so I can wash up? I was pettin’ Delilah before I left.”
“I’ll show you. I’ve been meanin’ to put one in downstairs but haven’t gotten around to it. Especially since there are two upstairs. After you.” He motioned toward the staircase.
She started up, with him right behind her.
He couldn’t keep his eyes from her round rear end, which did nothing to help his semi-aroused state. She wore snug-fitting designer jeans with glittery rhinestones on the hip pockets and a tight-fitting dark-green sweater that stopped right above the shiny stones. Her high-heeled shoes were the same shade of green as the sweater, and her hair was pulled back with a band of green velvet. For a chance to undress her slowly and then make love to her all night, he’d forget all about the steaks and the bread in the oven.
She stopped on the landing and looked at five doors. Two on each side of the hall and one at the end. She pointed at the one at the end.
He shook his head. “That is the linen closet. There are two bedrooms on each side with a bathroom between them. If you’ll go through this bedroom”—he slung open a door—“then the bathroom is straight ahead. I wanted this ranch because it’s good grazing land, but I also love this old house. The man who sold it to me was eighty years old and had lost his wife. His kids wanted him to retire to Arizona where they both lived, so he did. I got the house intact with all the furniture.”
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
The dark maple four-poster bed was draped with sheer white fabric that matched the curtains on the window. They looked as if they’d billow in the springtime if the window was left open and the cool night breezes were allowed to flow through the room. A vanity against one wall and the tall chest of drawers matched the bed. A floral carpet covered most of the floor, but shiny hardwood peeked out around the edges.
She turned around to thank him and found his sultry eyes searching her face. He held out his arms; she walked into them and laid her head on his chest. He tipped her head up and bent to kiss her. It wasn’t hard and passionate or even hot and sexy but soft and sweet.
“You can do better than that. I’ve got proof,” she mumbled.
He chuckled and picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and the kiss lit up the whole bedroom. When he set her down, her legs felt like they had no bones in them. If he hadn’t reached down and taken both her hands in his, she would have melted right there on the floor.
“Wow!” she said.
“Yep, wow! I’ll see you in a few minutes for supper.” He squeezed her hands and shut the door behind him.
She washed her hands and applied a cold cloth to her neck in an attempt to put out some of the ramped fire inside her gut. She headed back across the room but the bed looked so inviting that she flopped down on it. It was every bit as soft as it looked. She wondered what it would be like to have Wil’s strong arms around her in a bed like that after a bout of sex like they’d had in the motel.
“Hey, Red, dinner is on the table. If you don’t shake a leg, you’ll be eating your T-bone cold,” Wil yelled up the steps.
She didn’t need a second invitation. She followed her nose to the dining room where Wil waited. Wil seated her to his right and then he sat down. She wished she’d taken time to dress up all fancy when she looked around at the table. Plates and flatware were arranged just right, cloth napkins matched the tablecloth, candles were flickering, and a bottle of red wine chilled in a thick glass bucket.
The smell outdid the table setting—grilled T-bones that covered half of each plate, potatoes in a covered casserole dish that looked like they’d been cooked in cheese sauce, a tossed salad in a crystal bowl, hot rolls, and steamed broccoli.
Pearl picked up her knife and cut a bite of steak, popped it in her mouth, and came close to swooning. “God, this is good. Have you got an indoor grill or something?”
“No, but I do have a grill on the back porch which is screened in to keep out the flies and mosquitoes in the summertime. It don’t do much to keep out the cold in the winter, but I like a good grilled steak so I brave it,” he answered as he passed the rest of the food to her.
“For a steak like this, I’ll do the cleanup,” she said.
“Oh, no! Women are not allowed in my kitchen.”
Pearl cut another chunk off and started toward her mouth with it, then stopped. “Why can’t I go in your kitchen?”
“The last time a woman was allowed in my kitchen, she thought she could move in here, rearrange it, and move me out of it.”
Pearl narrowed her green eyes into slits. “Well, darlin’, you don’t have a thing to worry about if that’s the problem. I don’t give a damn how your kitchen is arranged. I’m not one of those clingy little wifey critters.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Wil asked.
“It means I do not have a problem with you cooking. I can cook but I’m not one of those ‘This is my kitchen and I won’t ever let a man in it’ women,” she said.
“You ever think about getting married?” he asked.
“Every woman thinks about it, Wil. Some do more than think. Some don’t,” she said, evasively stepping around the question. She couldn’t tell him that she was a party girl who loved dating—all of it. The anticipation of the chase, the dressing up, sitting across from a good-looking man in a restaurant, holding his hand in the movies, kissing him at the door; every single bit of it. But lately she’d been yearning for more than what the dating scene had to offer. She’d been thinking about waking up in the morning to a man who’d love her when she wasn’t all dolled up and on her best behavior. One who’d think she was the greatest thing since ice cream on a stick when her red hair looked like a string mop that had dried all wrong or when she wore gray flannel pajamas to bed.
Whoa! Pull back on those reins, her conscience scolded.