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Zane sighed, his breath ruffling her hair. “Why? So you can analyze our chances?”
“Last time we rushed things—ran on pure emotion. This time—if there is a this time—I want to make the right decision.”
For a second she thought he’d be angry. His face clouded, and he dropped his hands. “Okay,” he finally said, shoving a hand through his hair in frustration. “You have time to think it over, but don’t take too long, okay?” He strode back to the car and climbed inside. She followed and slid behind the wheel.
“Why don’t you take me to dinner?” he remarked as she checked her side-view mirror and tried to pull into traffic.
“I have a better idea—you take me.”
“Only if I can persuade you to marry me.”
She grinned inwardly. At least he wasn’t furious with her. Signaling, she eased the car into the right-hand lane and noticed that a silver car about a block behind her followed suit. She frowned as she realized the car was a Taurus, but so what? The city was crawling with them.
Zane placed a hand on her knee. “How about someplace elegant—French dining overlooking the bay.”
“How about pizza?” she countered, and he laughed.
“You’re the driver, Kaylie. You can take me anywhere you want.”
* * *
“You did what?” Margot nearly dropped her glass of Chablis as Kaylie finished her story about her relationship with Zane.
Margot had driven Kaylie to the house in Carmel so that she could turn in the rental and pick up her car. “I told Zane that I’d consider it. Then we went out for pizza and I took him back to his car.”
“Oh, boy, are you crazy.” Margot took a long sip of wine and shook her head. Seated at a round umbrella table on the back deck of Kaylie’s house in Carmel, she eyed her sister as if she had truly lost her mind. “Some women spend their entire lifetimes looking for a man like Zane Flannery. And you know what?”
“What?” Kaylie asked, not really interested in Margot’s big-sister wisdom, but knowing she was going to hear it one way or another.
“They never find him, that’s what! Men like Zane Flannery don’t exactly grow on trees, you know!”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Margot smiled. She was on a roll. “And you got lucky and found him twice! If I were you, I’d march right into the house and call him right now.”
“And say what?” Kaylie teased.
“That you’ve already found the preacher, for crying out loud!”
Kaylie twisted the stem of her wineglass. She’d thought the very same thing and had even made it as far as the telephone a couple of times, but in the end she’d backed down. “I don’t want to make the same mistake we did before.”
“You won’t. You’re older now. And, most importantly, the man loves you, with a capital L. So why are you fighting it?”
Kaylie let her gaze wander out to sea. Margot had a point, she admitted to herself.
“And you miss him, don’t you?”
Kaylie sighed and shrugged. “Yeah,” she admitted, trying to sound indifferent when deep inside she missed him every minute of every day. She hadn’t stopped thin
king about him, couldn’t sleep, plotted ways of bumping into him.
“Look, if it’s a matter of pride—”
“It’s more than that,” Kaylie admitted, remembering the way Zane kidnapped her—just hauled her into the woods without even asking her first. “I can’t accept a man who insists on dominating and pampering me.”
“You did once.”
“That was before.”
