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“I was just about to ask you the same thing.I’mhere to visit the prettiest cheese monger in Chicagoland.” He thumbed over his shoulder and Jules got an eyeful of impish, red curls framing a heart-shaped face above a spitfire body. Bree—her name was actually Bree—hawked cheeses from a farm in Michigan and Tad had always had a crush on her. He refused to take it further, claiming he didn’t want to cross state lines to get his jollies.
“So what’s your excuse for being in this neck of the woods?” he asked. “I don’t need an excuse to—”
“Go five miles out of your way to buy herbs you could get at Wicker Park Market?”
“Maybe I like what I see here better.”
Tad gave a dismissive glance at the herbs that managed to take in Farmer Joe. Her fantasy boyfriend held up the bunches she’d already chosen.
“I’ll take some chervil too,” she said with her brightest smile at Farmer Joe, who still looked grumpy. No heart-shaped beets for her today. She paid up and moved into the path of walkers.
“So what’s on our minds this morning?” Tad asked, mockery in his voice.
“I’m thinking of running away to the country with Farmer Joe.”
He released a bored sigh. “So, my suit has not found favor then?”
Back to sarcastic, jokey Tad. He had realized what an idiot he had been the night before and had decided to downplay what happened. She tried to convince her heart that disappointment and relief existed side by side on the spectrum.
“Lili says it’s a fault of all Italian men. Chest-thumping and amateur dramatics when they see a woman in their immediate circle take charge of her own sexuality. Across the pond, we call that willy waving.”
He stopped, evidently expecting her to stop with him and acknowledge his dramatic halt in his tracks. She kept going. His nonsense was not going to sway her.
A few quick steps, and he’d caught up with her. “Are you saying I’m threatened by your sexuality?”
“All men are threatened by a woman’s sexuality. They don’t like it when she makes clear her needs.”
“I offered to take care of your needs,” he said loudly.
A couple of people looked at them strangely. Jules hovered at the Jenkins Farmstand and picked up a vine-ripened tomato, eager to feel the heft of something solid. The thud of her heart was so loud she imagined everyone could hear it.
“Yes, but why? Want to know what I think?”
“I’ve no doubt you’re going to tell me.”
“I think it’s because you’re worried about upsetting the status quo. Your Italian insularity can’t bear the thought of strangers infiltrating the group and upsetting the fine ecological balance. Lili’s with Jack, Cara’s with Shane, and according to conventional wisdom, you and I are supposed to be paired off, right?”
He looked at her as if she were mad. Subtle contortions worked over his mouth and a few beats passed before he spoke.
“We are?” Strain underlined his words.
“No, but everyone seems to think so. Frankie, Aunt Sylvia, the rest,” she said, enjoying his discomfort much more than she should have. She didn’t really believe a word of what she was saying but it was interesting to see what Tad thought about her cockamamie theory. “We do tend to be drawn together at the parties and the family gatherings”—she smiled serenely—“and the farmers’ markets. There’s a certain comfort in knowing that I’ll have someone to chat with when everyone else is so sickeningly in lurve.”
“I suppose so,” he said slowly, “but we’re friends and that’s what friends do.”
“A pound of the tomatoes,” she said to the farmer in front of her. She waited until he had counted back her singles in change, potently aware of Tad exuding enough tension to split the ground under their feet. It also gave her the time she needed to get her thoughts in order.
“Yes, we’re mates, Tad. Really good mates. And I know you think you were being a mate last night when you made your offer, but I’d like to know that after I’ve had my heart broken by some accountant whose mother hates me or an unemployed stockbroker who’s living out of his car and needed to borrow money, that I could still sit with you at Sunday lunch at Casa DeLuca, and that we could still talk about whoever screwed us over last week. Though in your case, it would be whoever you screwed over. I went a little nuts last year, and you put me straight when you told me it was a bad idea. You were right.”
He blasted her with a dark look. “I was?”
“Enjoy it, because that might be the only time I ever tell you that.”
She had been trying to tease him about his macho need to protect her, but it had turned into something else about halfway through. It wasn’t just that she wanted to keep him as a friend; it was thathewould be the one breaking her heart. He wouldn’t do it purposefully—he was too good-natured and guileless to do that—but he would do it all the same.
“Sounds like you have it all worked out,” he said, a touch morosely. Men hated when women were the logical ones.
“I do,” she said in as chirpy a tone as she could manage. “Bloody hell, protection sex, Tad? That’s just crazy.”
