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Cassidy escaped the car as though sprung from a trap, nearly hanging herself before she remembered to unclasp her seat belt. Ty exited, as well, only he did it without incident. He reached into the back seat of the extended cab and recovered the cell phone from his jacket.
“Why don’t we get this over with?” she suggested uncomfortably, as he dropped the phone into the pocket of his jeans. Anything to end their conversation.
“I assume you mean our first date.”
She had the grace to blush at his dry tone. “I’m sorry. Ididn’t...” Setting her jaw, she turned to confront him overthe width of the truck’s hood. “Actually, that’s precisely what I meant. Iapologize for being rude about it. But to be honest, I’m not interested in dating anyone.”
“You haven’t told Hutch you feel that way.”
She shrugged. “It hasn’t come up.”
“Hutch isn’t waiting for your ex to sweep back into your lives?”
“No.”
“Then I gather I won’t have to worry about that, either.” There was no mistaking his satisfaction.
Cassidy studied the taut planes and angles of Ty’s tanned face, wishing she could read his expression as easily as she used to read her ex-husband’s. Unfortunately, Ty was more self-contained, which unnerved her no end. The need to escape intensified, growing in direct proportion to the aggressive gleam in hiseyes.
She tumbled into speech. “You’re doing this for your grandmother’s sake, right? Iknow from what you said at the Yellow Rose that you weren’t supposed to be in the computer. It was all an...an accident. These dates, they’re just for show. Aren’t they?”
He circled the pickup, his movements slow and measured and deliberate. Even so simple an act spoke of tightly caged power. “Yes, Iagreed to date you for my grandmother’s sake. No, Iwasn’t supposed to be in the computer. As to whether or not it was all an accident, only my grandmother and Wanda know the answer to that.” He stopped directly in front of her. “And finally, if imagining our dates are for show makes you more comfortable, then go right ahead and believe it. As far as I’mconcerned, they’re to test whether or not a ninety-nine percent match is good enough.”
She forced herself to stand her ground, refusing to scurry from his approach. It was tough, especially considering how her feet itched to do some fast backpedaling. But she managed. “Good enough for what?”
“To go from dating to something more.”
That’s what she’d been afraid of. From the start, she’d run scared. Now it turned out she’d been justified. “Maybe we could give this one date a try and not worry about the rest. In fact, if it’s a really lousy date, you might not want another,” she suggested hopefully.
“I agree.” He swallowed her elbow with one huge hand and escorted her to the front door of hishome.
“You do?” Relief washed through her, as revitalizing as a cool spring shower.
“Yup. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I’ll take care of all that, particularly the worrying.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she began. Stepping across the threshold, she lost track of what she’d been saying.
“Oh, my.”
“Like it?”
“What’s not to like?”
Cassidy looked around with hungry eyes. Now here was a home, well loved and well-worn. In the entranceway, wide, pegged-oak planks gleamed like mellowed gold in the late-afternoon sunlight. The wood was slightly trenched in places, giving evidence of generations of traffic. In front of her extended a long hallway. Off to one side she glimpsed a parlor, while offthe other sprawled a spacious living room. Above her, attached to a heavy iron chain, hung a wagon-wheel chandelier.
Ty noticed the direction of her gaze. “It came off the wagon the first Merrick bride rode in on.”
“I’ll bet everything around here has a history.”
“Just about.”
“I don’t.”
Ty cocked his head to one side. “You don’t what?” Cassidy indicated the pioneer antiques that dotted the parts of the house she could see. “Have a history like this.”
“Everyone has a history. Some know it and some don’t.”
“Well, Idon’t.” She didn’t understand why she made such an issue ofit.
