Cara Colter
The Playboy’s Plain Jane

To my daughter-in-law, Crissy Martin,

A true original,

Funny, sensitive, spunky, beautiful

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

“…AND I THINK a few lilies,” Mrs. Johnson said sadly, “Gertrude did love lilies.”

Katie’s eyes slid to the clock. Nearly one o’clock. She couldn’t very well stop midorder—especially for something as sensitive as a funeral wreath—to go look out the window. But when Mrs. Johnson had come in a full ten minutes ago, she had indicated she was in a hurry. They should have been done by now!

Aware of a certain despicable powerlessness, Katie set down her pen. Well, she did own The Flower Girl, after all. She was the boss. If she wanted to go look out the window, she could do that!

“Excuse me for just a sec,” she said. “Something in the window, um, needs my immediate attention.”

Ignoring Mrs. Johnson’s bewildered glance toward a window that held an eye-catching display of nonattention-needing spring bouquets, Katie stepped out from behind the counter, walked swiftly to the window. She toyed with a vase of bright phlox that represented the new hopes and sweet dreams of the coming of spring.

Right on time, the man she despised more than any other rounded the corner of First Street, onto Davis. Dylan McKinnon was coming fast, a man who would have scorned the word jogging. He was running flat-out, arms and legs pumping, his dark hair wind ruffled.

She felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. Today he was wearing a hooded black jacket, with no sleeves, the absolutely perfect outfit for a man with muscles like that. His arms rippled with easy strength, the line of his triceps, hard cut and sweat beaded, did a funny thing to Katie’s breathing.

The jacket was designed to show off his attributes, obviously. As were the shorts, showing the perfect line of legs that were strong and hard with lean male muscle.

Pathetic, she chided herself, knowing darn well it was not Dylan McKinnon she despised, but her own weakness.

He was trouble with a million-dollar grin, but it just didn’t make him any less bewitching.

His hair, the rich dark color of espresso, was a touch too long. It made her think ridiculous thoughts of the long-ago Scottish warriors who, with a name like McKinnon, had been Dylan’s ancestors.

He had a strong nose, and a faintly clefted chin, high cheekbones that were whisker roughened today. And stamped across those perfect, breath-stealing features was an expression of fierce determination, an almost frightening singleness of focus.

His eyes, framed with a sinful abundance of black, soot-dipped lash, and bluer than the sky right before the sun faded from it, had that look of a man who was looking inward to his own strength, as well as outward at his world.

Katie hated how she loved to watch him run, but Dylan McKinnon wasn’t the most eligible bachelor in Hillsboro, Ontario, for no reason.

Don’t stop, she silently begged as he slowed near her window. She pulled back so that he wouldn’t see she had watched, darted for the counter as she read his intention to come into her store. He opened the door just as she managed to get behind the cash register and slam her glasses back on her face.

She peeked up over the rims of her spectacles at him, trying to hide the raggedness of her breathing from her unscheduled sprint behind the counter.

“I’m just taking an order,” she said, no-nonsense, professional. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

The grin erased some of the warrior from his face, but the lifted eyebrow reinforced it, said as clearly as though he had spoken, No mere woman has ever kept the great McKinnon waiting.

She pursed her lips to let him know others might be bowled over by his charms, but she was not. She did feel weakly compelled to watch his daily run, which he surely never had to know. He had to wait in line like everyone else.

Mrs. Johnson, however, wrecked Katie’s intention to humble him. Obvious recognition dawned in her face. “Oh, no,” she said breathlessly, forgetting her hurry, “You go first, Mr. McKinnon.”

“Dylan, please. Are you sure?” He smiled at Mrs. Johnson with chocolate-melting charm.

“Oh,” she stammered. “Of course, I’m sure.”

“Katie, my lady,” he said, stepping up to the counter, with his all-male swagger.

She steeled herself against that smile. “Mr. McKinnon.”

“What do you think of the new jacket?” he asked, just as if he hadn’t jumped the line, just as if he wasn’t taking another customer’s time.

She glanced at it, saw close-up the way it showed every line of muscle in his arm, and gulped. As she dragged her eyes back up to his face, she saw the distinctive red Daredevils emblem on his chest. When she met his eyes, she was pretty sure he was conceited enough to know exactly what she thought of his new jacket. Now she wouldn’t have given him the pleasure of telling him, even if there were goblins waiting in the back room to cut out her tongue if she uttered a lie.

“I would think, by definition, a jacket should have sleeves.”

He frowned at her. “It’s a running jacket. You want your arms free when you run. Plus, you don’t want to overheat. Our engineers designed it. It’s going into production next week.”

“It has a hood,” she pointed out.

“Uh, yeah?”

“So, your head might get cold, but your arms won’t?”

He scowled at her. “Part of the reason it’s designed without sleeves is the sweat issue.”

“Sweat?” she echoed, hoping it didn’t sound as if she was saying a dirty word.

“It’s easier to clean an undershirt than the whole jacket.” He unzipped, as if he was actually considering demonstrating, and it seemed as if her life had reached a new low. She was discussing undershirts with Dylan McKinnon.

She held up her hand before he managed to get the jacket off, and he lifted his eyebrows at her, faintly mocking, as if he had guessed she was too long without a man and given to swooning.

“Well,” she said brightly, trying to hide her wild discomfort, “what can I do for you today?”

“Katie, my lady, I need you to just send a little something to, uh—”

“Heather,” she said stiffly.

He grinned. “Yeah, Heather. Thanks.”

“Message?” she asked.

“Uh—”

Katie rapidly calculated in her head. This was Heather’s third bouquet. “Something like, Sorry I forgot?” she prompted him.

If he was the least contrite that his fickle heart was so predictable, he did not show it. He nodded, grinned at her with approval. “Perfect. Oh, and maybe send a little something to Tara, too.”

Since his time with Heather was drawing to a close, she guessed cynically. Tara was always on the back burner. Poor Tara. Poor Heather.

He turned, gave Mrs. Johnson a friendly salute and went out the door. The flower shop, which had seemed cheerful and cozy only moments before, seemed faded and gray, hopelessly dreary, as if he had swept every bit of color and energy out of the room with him.

“Was that really Daredevil Dylan McKinnon of the Toronto Blue Jays?” Mrs. Johnson asked, wide-eyed.

Dylan McKinnon had not thrown a baseball in more than five years. In fact, in Katie’s opinion, he had managed to parlay the shortest career in professional baseball in history into quite a bit more celebrity than he deserved.

“None other,” she said reluctantly.

“My,” Mrs. Johnson said. “My.”

Young. Old. Whatever. Dylan McKinnon simply had that indefinable thing that made him irresistible to the opposite sex.

Pheromones, Katie told herself. He was emitting them with his sweat, a primitive, silent mating call that commanded a woman to choose the biggest, the strongest, the toughest. When he was that handsome, as well, the average woman had very little chance against him. For one with at least a modicum of brains, however, there was no excuse. Though there was no telling what would have happened if he had managed to get the jacket off!

Weakling, she berated herself silently. Outwardly she said “Now about Gertrude’s wreath. What kind of lilies—”

“Does he live around here?” Mrs. Johnson asked eagerly. “My granddaughter is a great fan.”

If you love your granddaughter, keep her away from that man. “I don’t think he lives around here,” Katie offered stiffly. In fact, the head office for his wildly successful sporting goods line was located behind a discreet bronze plaque that read McKinnon two doors down, but Katie saw no reason she should offer that. She’d never be able to find a parking spot if the location of the daredevil’s office and empire became public knowledge to his rabid fans.

“Gertrude’s flowers?” she prompted.

“Oh, yes.”

“Since she liked lilies, what would you think of lily of the valley?” Katie asked. “They signify a return to happiness.”

“Oh, my dear, that is so lovely. Thank you. One of the reasons I shop here is because you know these things.”

In Victorian times, people had always associated meanings with flowers. Katie, as the flower girl, knew those meanings and loved working them into her arrangements.

“It will be a beautiful wreath,” she promised. Already she could see the lilies woven together with babies’ breath.

But she could also see Heather Richards’s bouquet. Perhaps a few snapdragons scattered among yellow roses. A warning of deception and a decrease in love—not that a woman like Heather was ever going to get the meaning.

Like most of the women Dylan McKinnon showed interest in, if they hadn’t had celebrity status before they showed up on his arm, they certainly did after. Heather, however, had held minor celebrity status before, as Miss Hillsboro Bikini. Katie would send some azaleas to Tara: take care of yourself.

“Dylan seemed to know you,” Mrs. Johnson said, almost as if her mind had drifted right along with Katie’s. And right back to him. “He did call you Katie, my lady.”

“Mr. McKinnon is a very good customer.”

“I think it’s very sweet that he has a pet name for you.”

“Well, Mr. McKinnon is a man who has being sweet to women down to a fine art.” And she should know. She had been handling his flower orders since she had opened her shop two doors down from him, just over a year ago.

She didn’t want to be mean-spirited about it, because Dylan McKinnon had always been nothing but charming to her. He had charm down to a science: when she was in the room with him it was hard not to give in to the heady sense that she was the only girl in his world, that he truly cared about her, that he genuinely found her interesting.

But, of course, that was precisely why he could get any woman he batted those amazing lashes at. Besides, he was one of her best customers, and he didn’t just give her a great deal of business, but also spin-off business. Almost all his old girlfriends enjoyed the quality and imaginativeness of her flower arrangements so much that they became her customers.

But she was sure Mrs. Johnson wouldn’t look quite so smitten—ready to deliver her granddaughter in gift wrap and a bow—if she knew the truth.

Despite the appearance of kindness, the truth could be told in the way a man ordered his flowers.

These ones for Heather for example. It was the third time he’d ordered flowers for her. That would make this the make-up bouquet. He’d probably forgotten lunch or left her in the lurch at the opera. Perhaps a few asters, which signified an afterthought, mixed with the snapdragons and roses.

If he followed his pattern, and there was no reason to believe he would not, there would be one more delivery of flowers—the-nice-knowing-you-bouquet—and then Heather would be history, along with the dozen or so others that Dylan had romanced.

A dozen women in a year. That was one a month. It was disgraceful.

And then there were the girls who waited in the wings, who received the occasional bouquet when lust-of-the-month was cooling: Tara, Sarah, Janet, and Margot. Add to that there was a special someone he chose flowers for himself, every Friday without fail.

Sending his flowers was like having a rather embarrassing personal look at his little black book!

It was absolutely shameful, Katie thought, that she could see through that man so clearly, despise his devil-may-care attitude with women, and still run to the window every day to watch the pure poetry of him running, still feel herself blush when he smiled at her or teased her, still feel that disastrous sense of yearning that had always meant nothing but trouble in her well-ordered life.

Dylan McKinnon walked through his office doors, checked his watch. A mile in six and a half minutes. Not bad for a guy about to turn twenty-seven. Not bad at all. His pulse was already back to normal.

He glanced around the reception area with satisfaction. The decor was rich and sensuous, deep-brown leather sofas, a genuine Turkish rug, good art, low lighting. A pot of Katie’s flowers, peach-colored roses that seemed to glow with an inner light, was on the reception desk. All in all, he thought his office was not too bad for a guy who had not even finished college.

“Could you call Erin in design?” he said to the receptionist. “Just tell her I think we should consider making the hood on this jacket removable before it goes into production.” What about zip-on sleeves, since by definition a jacket had sleeves? “Actually, have her call me.”

“All right,” the receptionist said.

Margot was a gorgeous girl; married, thankfully. He did not date women who were married or who worked for him, clearly demonstrating what an ethical guy he was, something that would surprise the hell out of Katie, the flower girl.

Dylan shook off the little shiver of unexpected regret he felt. What did he care if Katie’s disapproval of him telegraphed through her ramrod-stiff spine every time he walked in her store? It was entertaining, he told himself sternly. He’d thought, once or twice, of asking her out—he knew from casual conversations over the year he’d known her, she was single, and something about her intrigued—but she was way more complicated than the kind of girl he liked.

The receptionist apologetically handed him a ream of pink message slips. “One from your dad, one from your sister,” she said. “The rest from Miss Richards.”

“Ah,” he said, and stuffed them in his pocket. He didn’t want to talk to his dad today. Probably not tomorrow, either. As for Heather, okay, so he’d missed her last night. She’d wanted him to go to a fashion show. Real men didn’t go to fashion shows. He’d implied he might attend to avoid sulking or arguments, but he’d never promised he would accompany her. Apparently he had only postponed the inevitable.

He’d gotten in from the sports pub that he was a part owner of to see his answering machine blinking in a frenzy. Each message from her; each one more screechy than the last.

Heather was beginning to give him a headache. Right on schedule. How come girls like Heather always acted like, well, Heather? Possessive, high maintenance, predictable.

Predictable.

That’s what he was to Katie, the flower lady. He didn’t really know whether to be annoyed or amused that she had his number so completely.

Still, how had she known what to write on that card for Heather?

The little minx was psychic. And darned smart. And hilariously transparent. He had thought she was going to faint when he’d nearly taken his jacket off in front of her. She had a quality of naïveté about her that was refreshing. Intriguing. She’d told him once, tight-lipped and reluctant to part with anything that might be construed as personal information, that she was divorced. Funny, for someone who had “forever girl” written all over her.

The fact that he was predictable to someone who was a little less than worldly, despite her divorce, was somewhat troubling.

Rather than be troubled, he picked the least of the three evils on his messages and called Tara.

“Hey, sis,” he said when she answered. “How are you?” He could hear his fourteen-month-old nephew, Jake, howling in the background.

Tara, never one for small talk, said, “Call Dad, for Pete’s sake. What is wrong with you?”

His sister was seven years older than him. He had long-ago accepted that she was never going to look at him as a world-class athlete or as Hillsboro’s most successful entrepreneur. She was just going to see her little brother, who needed to be bullied into doing what was right. What she perceived was right.

“And for heaven’s sake, Dylan, who is that woman you are being photographed with? A new low, even for you. Miss Hillsboro Mud Wrestler? Sheesh.”

“She is not Miss Hillsboro Mud Wrestler!” he protested. Only his sister would see a girl like Heather as a new low. The guys at Doofus’s Pub knew the truth. Heather was hot.

“Dylan, call Dad. And find a decent girl. Oh, never mind. I doubt if you could find a decent girl who would go out with you. Honestly, you are too old to be a captive of your hormones, and too young to be having a midlife crisis. Mom’s sick. She isn’t going to get any better, and you can’t change that by racing your motorcycle or dating every bimbo in Hillsboro. And beyond.”

“I’m not trying to change anything,” he said coolly indignant.

“Humph,” she said with disbelief.

Don’t ask her, he ordered himself, but he asked anyway, casually, as if he couldn’t care less. “How would you define decent?”

“Wholesome. Sweet. Smart would be a nice change. I have to go. Jake just ate an African violet. Do you think that’s poisonous?”

I’m sure it’s nothing compared to your tongue. He refrained from saying it. “Bye, sis.”

“Only someone who loves you as much as me would tell you the truth.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

Still, as he hung up, he reluctantly recognized the gift of her honesty. Too many people fawned over him, but refreshingly, his sister was not one of them.

And neither was Katie Pritchard, who, when he thought about it, was the only woman he knew who even remotely would fit his sister’s definition of decent.

He ordered a ton of flowers from her, even before someone told him she sent secret messages in with the blossoms. But so far not one person on the receiving end had said a single word about secret messages.

Still, despite the lack of secret messages, he liked going into her little shop. It was like an oasis in the middle of the city. Perversely, he liked it that while she could barely contain her disapproval of him she still nearly fainted when he threatened to do something perfectly normal, like remove his jacket.

He liked bugging her. He liked sparring with her. Okay, in the past year he had played with the fact most women found him, well, irresistible, but not nearly on the level he had Katie believing. He’d taken to going in there when he was bored and sending flowers to his sister. Also on the receiving end of bouquets were his PR manager, Sarah, and Sister Janet, the nun who ran the boys and girls club. Sometimes Dylan ordered flowers just to see Katie’s lips twitch with disapproval when he said, “Just put ‘From Dylan with love.’” Even the flowers on the reception desk right now had arrived with that card, addressed to Margot, which he’d quickly discarded.

And, of course, once a week, he went in and she let him go into the refrigerated back room and pick out his own bouquet from the buckets of blossoms there. She would never admit it, but he knew no one else was allowed into that back room. He never told her anything about that bouquet, or who it was for, and Katie did not ask, but probably assumed the worst of him.

Katie found him predictable. Katie, who looked as if she was trying out for librarian of the year.

Every time she saw him, she put those glasses on that made her look stern and formidable. And the dresses! Just because she was the flower girl, did that mean there was some kind of rule that she had to wear flowered dresses, the kind with lace collars, and that tied at the back? She had curves under there, but for some reason she had decided not to be attractive. She wore flat black shoes, as if she was ashamed of her height, which he thought was amazing. Didn’t she know models were tall and skinny, just like her? Okay, most of them had a little more in the chest department, but at least hers looked real.

It all added up to one thing. Decent.

He smiled evilly, wondering how the flower girl would feel if she knew he had covertly studied her chest and pronounced it authentic?

She’d probably throw a vase of flowers right at his head.

At the thought of little Miss Calm and Cool and Composed being riled enough to throw something, Dylan felt the oddest little shiver. Challenge? He’d always been a man who had a hard time backing down from a challenge.

His sister had said a decent girl wouldn’t go out with him. So much easier to focus on that than to think about the other things Tara had said, or about calling his father. Besides if a decent girl would go out with him that would make Tara wrong about everything.

Why not Katie? He’d always been reluctantly intrigued by her, even though she was no obvious beauty. She was cute, in that deliberately understated way of hers, and he realized he liked her hair: light brown, shiny, wisps of it falling out of her ponytail. Still, she could smile more often, wear a dusting of makeup to draw some attention to those amazing hazel eyes, but no, she chose to make herself look dowdy.

She did fit his sister’s definition of decent. Wholesome she was. And smart? He was willing to bet she knew the name of the current mayor of Hillsboro, and who the prime minister of Canada was, too. She would know how to balance her checkbook, where to get the best deal on toilet paper—though if you even mentioned toilet paper around her she would probably turn all snooty—and the titles of at least three Steinbeck novels.

He was just as willing to bet she wouldn’t know a basketball great from a hockey sensation. He liked how she seemed unsettled around him, but did her darnedest to hide it. He was pretty sure she watched him run every day.

So, Katie thought he was predictable? So, his Tara didn’t think a decent girl would go out with him?

If there was one thing Dylan McKinnon excelled at it was being unpredictable. It was doing the unexpected. It was taking people by surprise. That was what had made him a superb athlete and now an excellent businessman. He always kept his edge.

His phone rang. It was the receptionist.

“Heather on the line.”

“I’m not here.”

He’d talk to Heather after she got her flowers. That should calm her down enough to be reasonable. There had been a hockey game on TV last night. No one in their right mind would have expected him to go to a fashion show instead of watching hockey. It was nearly the end of the season!

Heather had promised him girls modeling underwear, but the truth was he didn’t care. He was growing weary of his own game.

Secretly, he didn’t care if he never saw one more woman strutting around in her underwear again. One more top that showed a belly button, or one more pair of figure-hugging jeans. He didn’t care if he never saw one more body piercing, one more head of excruciatingly blond hair, one more set of suspiciously inflated breasts.

He felt like a man trying to care about all the things the wealthy successful businessman ex-athlete was supposed to care about, but somehow his sister was right. He wasn’t outrunning anything. His heart wasn’t in it anymore. He wanted, no, yearned for something different. He wanted to be surprised for a change, instead of always being the one surprising others.

He thought of her again, of Katie, of those enormous hazel eyes, intelligent, wary, behind those glasses.

On an impulse he picked up the phone, rolled through his Rolodex, punched out her number.

“The Flower Girl.”

“Hey, Katie, my lady, Dylan.”

Silence.

Then, ever so politely, “Yes?”

“Would you—” What was he doing? Had he been on the verge of asking her out for dinner? Katie, the flower girl? He felt an uncharacteristic hesitation.

“Yes?”

“Uh, name three Steinbeck novels for me? I’m doing a questionnaire. I could win a prize. A year’s worth of free coffee from my favorite café.” He lied with such ease, another talent that Katie would disapprove of heartily.

“You don’t know the names of three of Steinbeck’s novels?” she asked, just a hint of pity in her cool voice.

“You know. Dumb jock.”

“Oh.” She said, as if she did know, as if it had completely slipped her mind—or it didn’t count—that he ran a multi-million-dollar business. “Which ones would you like? The most well-known ones? The first ones? Last ones?”

“Any old three.”

“Hmm. East of Eden. The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. Though, personally, I’d have to say I think his finest work was a short story called ‘The Chrysanthemums.’”

He laughed. “That figures. About flowers, right?”

“About an unhappy marriage.”

“Is there any other kind?” he asked, keeping his tone light. In actual fact, his parents had enjoyed an extraordinary union—until unexpectedly the “worse” part of the better-or-worse equation had hit and his father had turned into a man Dylan didn’t even know.

She was silent, and he realized he’d hit a little too close to home, a reminder of why he couldn’t ever ask her out. She was sensitive and sweet, and he was, well, not.

And then she said, softly, with admirable bravery given the fact she had presumably not had a good marriage, at all, “I like to hope.”

Oh-oh! A girl who liked to hope, despite the fact divorce was part of her history. Still, if she hoped you’d think she’d try just a little harder to attract.

“Not for myself personally,” she added, her voice suddenly strangled. “I mean, I just want to believe, somewhere, somehow, someone is happy. Together. With another someone.”

He snorted, a sound redolent with the cynicism he had been nurturing for the past year.

The word hope used in any conversation pertaining to marriage should be more than enough to scare any devoted bachelor near to death, but he’d always had trouble with risk assessment once he’d set a challenge for himself.

If anything, a jolt of fear sent him forward rather than back. That was why Dylan had skied every black diamond run at Whistler Blackcomb. He had bungee jumped off the New River Gorge Bridge in Virginia on Bridge Day. He planned to sign up for a tour on the Space Shuttle the first year his company grossed five hundred million dollars. Dylan McKinnon prided himself in the fact he was afraid of nothing. He’d earned the nickname “Daredevil.”

He took chances. That’s why he was where he was today.

It was also the reason his baseball career had ended almost before it started, the voice of reason tried to remind him.

He overrode the voice of reason, took a deep breath, spat it out. “Would you like to go for dinner sometime?”

Silence.

“Katie? Are you there?”

“You 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, her fingers were suddenly fumbling, and there he was looking over her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, taking the keys from her, turning the lock, handing them back, “I think we’re going to redesign the jacket.”

She was annoyed that she had to see him again so soon after declaring never, and even more annoyed that she shivered with awareness at that brief touch of his hand. Still, she could be relieved that he seemed to have already forgotten he had asked her out. That’s how much it had meant to him.

“Make the hood detachable, sleeves that zip on.”

He was too close to her; she liked the protection of her counter separating them. The cool scent of mountain breezes wafted from him, his eyes were intent on hers. She struggled to know what he was talking about, and then realized he was back to the jacket she had seen him running in. She didn’t care about his jacket. She wanted to get away from him. Desperately. How dare he look so glorious without half trying? How dare he make her so aware she was looking a little frumpy today? How dare he make her care, when she had managed to care about so little for so long?

“I don’t like clothes with zip-on parts,” she said, then instantly regretted offering her opinion, when it did not forward her goal of getting away.

He frowned at her. “Why not?”

“Because they’re confusing and hard to use,” she said.

He eyed her. “You’re not particularly coordinated. Remember the time you dropped the vase of roses? Slipped on the ice out there, and I had to help you up? Or how about the time you tripped over that piece of carpet and went flying?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. He was aging, just like everybody else. So, he was the one other man in the universe, besides Richard Gere, who could make eye crinkles look sexy.

“Thank you for bringing up all of my happier memories,” she said, annoyed. It was really unfair that he could make her feel as embarrassed as if that had happened yesterday. Of course, he never had to know it was him who brought about that self-conscious awkwardness!

“So, no offense, but you’re not exactly the person we’re designing for.”

“That’s too bad,” she said, coolly, “because I’m average, just like most of the people who buy your clothing are average. They’re going for a run around the block, or taking their dog out for a walk. They want to look athletic, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are. They aren’t getting ready for the Olympics or the Blue Jays training camp.”

He was glowering at her, which was so much better than the sexy eye-crinkle smile, so she continued.

“So, then it starts raining, and where are your sleeves and your hood if they’re detachable? Making nice lumps in your pockets? Or at home on the entryway table? Within three months I would have lost at least one of the sleeves, and probably the hood.”

He sighed. “We need you on the design team. Want a job?”

“No.”

“Okay, want to go grab a burger, then?”

She eyed him narrowly. Ridiculous to think he had given up on his dinner invitation. He had the innocent look down pat, but when he wanted something, she was willing to bet he had the tenacious predator spirit of a shark! “I already told you no to dinner.”

“Grabbing a burger is not exactly dinner,” he said.

“Market research. The smartest girl I know can help me with my jacket design.”

“I am not the smartest girl you know!” Oh boy, relegated to the position of the smart one. Almost as dreadful as being relegated to the position of a friend but never a girlfriend.

“Yup, you are.”

“Well then you don’t know very many girls.”

“We both know that’s a lie,” he said smoothly.

“Okay, you don’t know very many girls who hang out at the library instead of at Doofus’s Pub and Grill.”

“You don’t have to say that as if it’s a dirty word. I’m a part owner in Doofus’s.”

Which explained why a place with a name like Doofus’s could be so wildly successful. The man had the Midas touch—not that she wanted to weaken herself any further by contemplating his touch. She had to be strong.

Hard, with him gazing at her from under the silky tangle of his soot-dark eyelashes. “Do you hang out at the library?” he asked.

How could he say that in a tone that made her feel as if he’d asked something way too personal, like the color of her underwear. She could feel an uncomfortable blush starting. “You don’t have to say that as if it’s a dirty word. The library is beautiful. Have you ever been to the Hillsboro Library?”

“Have you ever been to Doofus’s?” he shot back.

“Oh, look,” she said, changing the subject deftly, “it’s starting to rain. And me without my zip-on sleeves. I’ve got to go, Dylan. See you at the library sometime.”

But his hand on her sleeve stopped her. It was not a momentous occasion, a casual touch, but it was the second one in as many minutes. But given she had not wanted to even think about his touch, it seemed impossibly cruel that she now was experiencing it again. He probably touched people—girl people—like that all the time. But the easy and unconscious strength in his touch, the sizzle of heat, made her heart pound right up into her throat, made her feel weak and vulnerable, made her ache with a treacherous longing.

“Tell me something about you,” he said. “One thing. Anything you want.”

“I just did. I like the library.” No wonder he had a woman a month! When he said that, his eyes fastened on her face so intently, it felt as if he really wanted to know! She knew it was a line, so she hated herself for feeling honored by his interest.

“Something else,” he said.

“I live with three males,” she said, no reason to tell him they were cats.

He laughed. “I bet they’re cats.”

The thing you had to remember about Dylan McKinnon was that underneath all that easygoing charm, he was razor sharp. She glanced down at herself to see if had completed her glamorous look today with cat hair, but didn’t, thankfully, see any.

“I’m divorced,” she reminded him, hoping that failure would be enough to scare him off, unless he enjoyed the horrible stereotype some men had of a divorced woman, a woman who had known the pleasures of the marital bed, and now did not: hungry.

“That is a surprise about you,” he said. “I would have never guessed divorced.”

Had she succeeded in making herself look so frumpy that he didn’t believe anyone would have married her? If that was true, what was his sudden interest in her?

“Why not?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. You seem like a decent girl.”

“Divorced women are indecent?” she asked, and then found herself blushing, looking furiously away from him.

“Sorry.” He touched her chin. He had to quit touching her! “I didn’t mean it like that. You just seem like the kind of woman who would say forever and mean it.”

“I did mean it!” she said, with far more feeling than she would have liked.

“So it was his fault.”

She was not going to have this way-too-intimate conversation with Dylan McKinnon on a chance meeting on a public street.

“Does it have to be somebody’s fault?” she asked woodenly. Who, after all, could predict how people would react to tragedy? She had miscarried the baby she wanted so badly. It had all unraveled from there.

Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep at night, she tormented herself by wondering if it had been unraveling already, and if she had hoped the baby would somehow glue it back together, give her someone to love in the face of a husband who was distant, from a life that was so far from the fairy tale she had dreamed for herself. This was exactly why she now dedicated her life to her business. Business was not painful. It did not cause introspection. It did not leave time for self-pity or self-analysis.

“Come grab a burger with me at Doofus’s,” he said, and laid a persuasive hand on her wrist.

She heard something gentle in his voice, knew she had not succeeded in keeping her pain out of her eyes.

“They make a mean burger.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Really?” he said skeptically.

“If I went there, would you come to the library after?” she said, sliding her arm out from under his touch as if she was making a sneak escape from a cobra. Maybe the best defense was an offense. He’d be about as likely to visit a library as she would be to visit a turkey shoot. Still, as he contemplated her, her heart was acting as if she was in a position of life-threatening danger, racing at about thirteen million beats per minute.

“Sure. I’ll come to the library. I like doing different things. Surprising myself.”

Right. He just had all the answers. He’d never go to the library, just say he was going to, and then send a bouquet of flowers when he didn’t show.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, folding her rescued limbs over her chest, protectively.

He sighed, looked away, ran a hand through the rich darkness of his hair. “I want a change,” he said, and she was pretty sure he surprised them both with his sincerity.

Still, to be asked out because he needed a change from his bevy of bimbos? It was insulting!

“And you’d like a new toy to play with,” she guessed, with a shake of her head.

He regarded her thoughtfully. “I bet your husband didn’t deserve you. He probably wasn’t worth the sadness I saw in your eyes when you mentioned your divorce.”

The comment was unexpected, his voice quiet and serious, a side of him she had never seen.

Dylan McKinnon’s charm was dangerous when he was all playful and boyish. But it turned downright lethal when he became serious, the cast of his face suddenly accentuating the firmness around his mouth, the strength in the cut of his cheekbones and chin.

“I have to go,” she said.

She whirled away from him. Her eyes were stinging.

“Hey, Katie,” he said, jogging up beside her now, blocking her attempt to escape from all his sympathy with some dignity, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Would you go away? Guys like you always hurt girls like me.”

He stopped. Stared at her. She saw her arrow had hit.

“Not every man is going to be like your ex-husband,” he said evenly.

“How do you know? You didn’t know him.” Or me.

The truth was it didn’t really matter if Dylan was like Marcus, if she was still like her. It was herself she didn’t trust after her whole life had fallen apart. She did not trust herself to make good choices, and certainly not to be able to survive that kind of pain ever again.

But it was true Dylan was nothing like Marcus had been. Dylan had his faults, but he didn’t try to hide any of them. If anything, he seemed to celebrate them. He didn’t seem to have any secrets, unless she counted that one bouquet that he picked himself every week and delivered himself.

Other than that her remark about guys like him hurting girls like her was really undeserved. He had been her most loyal customer. He’d always only been kind to her, funny and charming. He’d helped her pick up the glass that time she had broken the rose vase. He had a gift for making her feel oddly pretty—or at least interesting—even on her ugliest days. He was aggravatingly sure of himself, yes, but he never crossed that line into conceit.

“Come have a hamburger,” he said. “No strings attached. I promise I’ll make you laugh.”

“How can you promise that?” she said, aware suddenly that she ached to laugh. To feel light and unburdened. To forget that she had failed at marriage and miscarried a baby. In his eyes she thought she glimpsed something of herself she had lost, a woman who had been carefree and laughter filled. She longed, suddenly, to be that woman again, even if only for a little while.

The pull of being returned to a happier self was too strong to resist.

“Okay,” she said, “A hamburger. To reassure you that I’m not in any danger of turning into a tragic cat lady. And maybe to give you a few ideas for a jacket that people won’t lose the sleeves of. And then that’s the end of this. Am I clear?”

He nodded with patent insincerity.

She looked at her watch. She could make a quick trip to the mall before she met him. If sympathy had in any way motivated this invitation, there would be nothing like a new pair of jeans and a slinky top to convince him—and herself—that she was not in need of it.

“I’ll meet you. In an hour. At Doofus’s.”

“Perfect,” he said, and smiled that slow, sexy utterly sincere smile that had convinced a zillion women before her they were the only one that mattered to him.

It was once she was safe in her car, away from the mesmerizing magnetism of him, that she allowed herself to look hard at the terrible truth he did not know…or maybe he did.

She had a crush on him! That was why she watched him run every day! Look at how easily he had overcome her objections! She had vowed one moment she was never going out to dinner with him, and broken that vow within minutes of having made it.

“I can’t do this,” she realized.

Because what if—okay it was way out there—but what if they developed feelings for each other? What if she fell in love with him, and he with her? What if all her fairy-tale fantasies roared back to life?

And what if she lost again?

“I cannot survive another loss,” she whispered. So much safer to have an unrealistic crush on a man, to watch him run, to keep a safe enough distance that each of his faults remained crystal clear, not blurred by the beauty of his physique, his eyes, the totally unexpected firmness in his voice, when he’d said, “I bet he didn’t deserve you.”

No. Here was the thing she was going to have to realize with her and with men, whether it was Marcus Pritchard, who had seemed safe and stable, or Dylan McKinnon, who seemed dangerous, but who called to some part of her that wanted an adventure. Her judgment was just plain bad.

Some people had good instincts. They knew good people from bad, they knew which horse to bet on, they got a chill up and down their spine if the airplane they were about to board was going to crash.

Katie did not consider herself one of those people. Not anymore. The girl most likely to stay married forever was now divorced. Following her heart the first time had led her to heartbreak. But had it been her heart she had followed, or a desperate need to believe in family after her own had broken apart?

She wanted to impress Dylan that she could look great in hip-hugging jeans and tops that showed a little décolleté? She had to fight that impulse and do the exact opposite! She didn’t need to upgrade her wardrobe! She needed to downplay it even more than it was downplayed now.

So, instead of driving to the mall, she drove home. Her three cats, Motley, Crew, and Bartholomew greeted her at the door with enthusiasm that could have only been earned by a tragic cat person.

Though it was still early, she reached way into the back of her closet, found her ugliest, frumpiest and most comfortable flannel pajamas. She heated a frozen pizza in the microwave and finally looked up the number of Doofus’s.

“Is Dylan McKinnon there?”

“Who’s asking?”

The question said it all. It was asked warily, as if the bartender fielded dozens of these calls. Women, infatuated beyond pride, beyond reason, calling for Dylan, after hearing he hung out there.

“Um, I was supposed to meet him there in a few minutes. Could you tell him I can’t make it?”

“You’re standing up Dylan McKinnon? Who are you? Leticia Manning?”

The mention of the young and very gorgeous Canadian actress served as a reminder of the kind of woman Dylan really went out with, the status of the kind of women he really went out with. Katie Pritchard was a plain Jane. He was a playboy. She needed to remember that.

“Unless he’s expecting more than one woman to meet him tonight—” a possibility? “—he’ll know who I am!” she said, slammed down the phone, and took a bite of her pizza. It tasted exactly like cardboard. Bartholomew climbed on her lap and she broke off a piece and fed it to him. He purred and sighed and kneaded her with his paws.

Which begged the question—what was so wrong with being a crazy cat lady? She’d send Dylan a bouquet of flowers tomorrow by way of apology. After all, he did it all the time.

Dylan took a sip of his beer, put the nine ball in the side pocket and glanced at the door. The smug sense of self-congratulation that he had felt ever since he’d so easily changed her mind about coming here was dissipating. Was she coming or not? He was a little unsettled by how tense he felt now that it was getting later and she wasn’t here. Katie was not the “fashionably late” kind of gal. It was raining quite hard now. The streets would be slick. Did her lack of coordination extend to her driving? Had she—

“Hey, boss,” Cy called, “your lady friend ain’t coming. She just called.”

Rafe Miller looked up from the pool table, guffawed with great enjoyment. “Hey, Dill, you been stood up!”

Dylan liked coming to Doofus’s because it was just a local watering hole. It was staffed by people he’d known for a long time. Most of the clients were his buddies. No one here was the least impressed with his celebrity, which at the moment, for one of the first times in his memory, he was sorry for. Guys who really knew you had no respect; they didn’t know when to back off.

“Are you seeing Leticia Manning?” Cy asked.

More guffaws.

Dylan glared at him.

“Because she was snooty sounding, just like Leticia Manning.”

Well, that left absolutely no question about who had called.

“Want me to cancel your burger?” Cy said helpfully.

“Hell, no.” That would make it too much like he cared. And he didn’t. Though when he’d seen that pain flash through her eyes at the mention of her divorce, he had cared, for a second. He had sincerely wanted to make her laugh, not just prove to his sister—and himself—that a decent girl would so go out with him.

Then there was the possibility she was teaching him a little lesson. She’d been sending his flowers too long. She knew he stood people up sometimes. She knew he’d let down Heather last night. It would be just like Katie to want him to know how it felt.

And the truth was it didn’t feel very good.

Tonight he’d been the one who had learned something, whether she’d intended it or not. It didn’t feel too good to be the one left waiting. Dumped. Stood up. Imagine Katie Pritchard being the girl who taught him that!

But he doubted Katie was trying to teach him anything. She was terrified, plain and simple. Marriage had burned her.

He thought of his parents. Maybe marriage burned everyone, given enough time. Which was why, for the past year, he’d been intent on not getting serious, not committing, not caring. Katie needed to learn just that. You could still live, without risking your heart. He bet he could have made her laugh. He bet he could show her laughing again didn’t have to mean hurting again.

If he was so determined to tangle his life with hers a little more deeply it occurred to him it was going to require more of him than he had required of himself before. He would actually have to think a bit about her, not just about himself. He would have to be a better man.

Right there at Doofus’s, with the tang of beer in the air, and pool balls clacking, Dylan McKinnon had an epiphany.

This is what his sister had tried to tell him: that he could be more. That he had not expected enough of himself. That to get a decent girl to even have dinner with him he had to be a decent man, someone capable of putting another person’s interests ahead of his own, capable of venturing out of a place where he risked nothing.

His sister had seen a painful truth. Dylan McKinnon was known as being fearless. But in the area of caring about other people, he was not fearless at all.

He was not the man his mother would have wanted him to be.

So, it was a good thing Katie hadn’t shown. Because that type of total attitude shift was the type of thing a man wanted to think about long and hard before he committed to it. Dylan didn’t want to be a better man. He liked the man he was just fine. As far as erasing that flit of sorrow from the flower lady’s eyes, he was the wrong man for the job.

“Rack ’em, Rafe. Cy, bring everyone a drink.”

“What are we celebrating?” Cy asked, suspiciously.

“Freedom,” Dylan said, remembering he’d ordered the kiss-off bouquet for Heather today, too.

That announcement was followed by some serious whistling and whooping.

But for all that he tried, and hard, to catch the mood of his own celebration, in the back of his mind a single word worried him.

Terrified.

And he just wasn’t giving up on her that easily. Not even, damn it, if it did require that he be a better man.

The fact that a bright bouquet of flowers awaited him on his desk when he arrived the next morning only made him more determined. He flicked the card open.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it last night, Love K.”

Well, at least he’d taught her something in the year he’d known her!

He sat down and thought. Obviously, a burger at a sports bar had limited appeal to Katie. He’d always been able to count on his own appeal to convince women to take a leap out of their comfort zone, but Katie just wasn’t most women. He needed a Plan B.

What would be irresistible to her? It was humbling to realize for Katie it was not him! Dylan McKinnon had become accustomed to being irresistible to women!

Whether she knew it or not, Katie had thrown down the gauntlet.

He was going to help her get back in the swing of things whether she liked it or not! To prove to his sister he could be a decent guy. Or maybe to prove it to himself.

By midafternoon he had two tickets to the most sought after event in Canada—the NHL All-Star hockey game.

He went into her store. She glanced up, looked back down hurriedly. She was blushing. “Sorry I couldn’t make it last night. Something came up.”

“What?”

She glared at him, annoyed he was rude enough to push. “Sanity.”

He reminded himself, firmly, of his goal. One outing, or two, to make her feel attractive. Confident. Happy. To be who he guessed she once had been. He’d just help her get her feet wet again, so she didn’t end up a tragic cat lady.

He guessed she had never been gorgeous, but lovely in some way that transcended whatever the current trend or fad was. She’d always had a way of holding herself that had seemed proud, as if she was above caring what others thought.

He’d just be a knight, for once in his life, show her that she didn’t have to roll over and die since her marriage had failed.

Looking at her, he realized she seemed to have worked extra hard at not being attractive today. The dress was billowing around her like a tent city, and her hair was pulled back a little too tightly from her face. Not a scrap of makeup, though now that he’d noticed her lips he realized she didn’t really need it.

“Thanks for the flowers,” he said.

“You were supposed to think it was funny.”

“Ha-ha,” he said.

She glared at him again. That was more like it, the green suddenly dancing to life in those multicolored eyes, snapping with color.

“So what can I do for you today?” she said. “Heather has been history for a full twelve hours or so. Someone else on the radar?”

If he told her she was on the radar, she’d run. He wouldn’t catch her until Alaska, and then she’d probably throw herself into the Bering Sea and start swimming. It was an unusual experience for him to be having this kind of reaction from someone of the female persuasion.

“Um, no. I’m going to take a break for a while.”

She was punching flowers into some sort of foam thing, but she lifted her eyes, looked at him, squinted.

“Uh-huh,” she said, skeptical and not even trying to hide it.

“Here’s what I was thinking. Maybe while I took a break, you could do a few things with me. Like the All-Star Game next weekend in Toronto.”

Getting tickets to that game was like winning a lottery, and he waited for her face to light up. Maybe she’d even come around the counter and give him a hug!

He was a little surprised by how much he would like to be hugged by Katie.

But instead of her face lighting up, she stabbed herself in the pad of her thumb with a rose thorn, glared at it, distracted.

“The what?” She stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked. She really did not have to wear lipstick. Even watching her suck on that thumb was almost erotic. That was impossible! Look how the girl was dressed. He had just finished dating Miss Hillsboro Bikini, and never once felt the bottom falling out of his world like this.

Well, impossible or not, there was no denying how he was reacting.

“Haven’t you got a Band-Aid?” he suggested, just a bit too much snap in his voice.

“Oh, it’s just a little prick. They happen all the time. So, what kind of game is it you have tickets for?” she asked.

“Hockey,” he said. Obviously she was in a completely different world than him if she didn’t know that! “Canada’s national game,” he supplied when she looked blank. “Our passion, our pastime, our reason to be, during the long months of winter. You know the game?”

She took her thumb out of her mouth, thank goodness, went back to her flower arrangement. “Oh.”

She wouldn’t sound so unenthused if she knew what it took to get those tickets!

“The best players from the Western and Eastern Conferences get together and play each other. Every great player in the league on the ice at the same time.” He began to name names.

She looked as if what he was discussing was about as interesting as choosing between steel-cut and quick cook oats for breakfast.

“Everybody wants tickets to that game,” he snapped, feeling his patience begin to wane. He was being a knight, for goodness’ sake. Why was she having such difficulty recognizing that?

“Oh,” she said again, her vocabulary suddenly irritatingly limited.

“I could probably sell them on the Internet for a thousand bucks a pop.”

“Oh, well then,” she said, “don’t waste them on me.”

“It wouldn’t be a waste,” he sputtered. “You’d have fun. I guarantee it.”

“You can’t guarantee something like that!”

“Why is having a simple conversation with you like crossing a minefield?”

“Because I’m not blinking my eyelids at you with the devotion of a golden retriever?”

Well, there was that! “Katie, don’t be impossible. I’ve got these great tickets to this great event. I know in your heart you want to say yes. Just say yes.”

“You don’t know the first thing about my heart.”

Actually, he did. He’d seen a whole lot of things about her heart in one split second last night. That’s why he was standing here trying so damned hard to be a decent guy. Obviously it was a bad fit for him. “That’s what I mean about the minefield.”

“Look, Dylan,” she said with extravagant patience, as if he was a small child, “I know most girls would fall all over themselves to do just about anything you suggested, including dogsled naked in the Yukon in the dead of winter, but I don’t like hockey.”

“Well, how do you feel about dogsledding naked, then?”

Ah, there was that blush again.

“Would you stop it? I don’t want to go anywhere with you!”

“That hurts.”

Oh, he saw that slowed her down a little bit: that he was a living breathing human being with feelings, not just some cavalier playboy.

But it only slowed her down briefly. “Don’t even pretend my saying no would hurt you. Just go pick someone else out of your lineup of ten thousand hopefuls.”

“I told you I’m taking a break.”

“Well, I told you, not with me!”

“Give me one good reason!” he demanded.

“Okay. Going out with you is too public. I don’t want my picture on the front page of the Morning Globe, I don’t want the gossip columnist dissecting what I wear, and my hair.”

“Then we’ll go someplace private.”

“No! Dylan, I don’t want anything to change. I like the way my life is right now. You might think it looks dull and boring, but I like it.”

There, he thought, he’d given it his best shot. He had tried to rescue the maiden in distress and failed. She had no desire to be rescued, he could go back to being superficial and self-centered, content in the knowledge he had tried.

She’d almost convinced him, but then he looked more closely as she jabbed the last rose into the flower arrangement and managed to prick herself again.

She glanced at him, and looked quickly away.

And that’s when he knew she was lying. She didn’t prick herself all the time. She pricked herself when she was distracted.

She didn’t like her life the way it was now. She’d settled. Katie really wanted all kinds of things out of life: dazzling things, things that made her heart beat faster, made her wake up in the morning and want to dance with whatever life offered that day.

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