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“According to the computer,” Cassidy pointed out before addressing Willie again. “I don’t suppose your machine made any additional matches?”
“Nope. Looks like you’re still stuck with my grandson.” She lifted her glass and winked. “Better the devil you know, Ialways say.”
“Hey! Whose side are you on?” Ty protested.
No question about that. Clearly, Miss Willie approved the match as much as Ty and Hutch. Which left her standing all alone and defenseless, not to mention tempted beyond endurance to buckle beneath their not-so-subtle pressure.“What would you have done if there’d been other matches?” Cassidy asked.
A lazy grin crept across his mouth as he started to leave the dining room. She gave chase, curious to hear his answer. “I’d have invited them up to the ranch,” he explained as he headed down a long hallway. “That way, Icould have checked them out before they dated you.”
Yeah, right. “Don’t you mean scared them off?”
He shoved open the bedroom door next to hers. “That, too.”
“I don’t get it. Why are you so certain we’d make a good match?” She turned down the bed and stepped out of the way so Ty could lower her son to the crisp cotton sheets. “I mean, it can’t really be because the computer said so.”
He tugged off Hutch’s sneakers and jeans and then removed his glasses, gently setting the wire rims on the nightstand. “It isn’t.”
She moistened her lips, steeling herself to ask the question that had been plaguing her since yesterday. “It’s that kiss, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” With infinite care—more care than she’d ever seen Lonnie display—Ty pulled the sheet over Hutch and tucked it around the boy’s sleeping form. “Didn’t you feel it, too?”
She preceded him across the room and switched out the lights. “That’s just a physical response,” she replied in an undertone. “Hardly enough to base a serious relationship on.” She should know. She’d fallen into that trap once before.
He pulled Hutch’s door closed, pausing in the hallway. “It’s a start.”
She shied away from the eventual outcome that predicted. Why couldn’t she convince him she wasn’t interested in a long-term affair? Heck. She wasn’t even interested in a short-term one. “But there’s more, isn’t there? More than just a kiss.”
He hesitated in the darkened hallway. “I guess you’d call it a family tradition.”
“Kissing?” she asked in disbelief.
A broad smile slid across his bronzed face. “That’s right.”
“Interesting tradition.”
“Oh, it gets even more interesting.” He propped his shoulder against the wall and captured her hand, drawing her to a halt. “You see, according to legend, the Merricks always know their soul mates when they finally meet.”
Not safe!In a replay of their first meeting, the words shrieked in her head, threatening to deafen her. But she remained helpless to resist his comment or the inexorable pull on her hand. “How do you know?” she demanded.
“The same way you knew. It only took one kiss.”
Panic darkened her eyes to slate. “No. Don’t say that.”
“It’s only fair I tell you the truth.”
Fair? What was fair about any of this? Not her response to his kisses. Not Hutch’s desperation to have a father. But least fair of all was her uncontrollable reaction to Ty, areaction that echoed his and grew more intense with each hour in his company. “You don’t understand. I’m not interested in dating.”
“You got that part across loud and clear. The question that remains is...why?” He tilted his head to one side. “I’ve heard Hutch’s opinion on the matter. What I haven’t heard is yours.”He paused a beat. “But not tonight, Idon’t think. You look exhausted.”
He’d let her off the hook and ironically enough he did it at the very moment she was tempted to crawl into his arms and tell him everything. She really must be exhausted. “I think I should turn in now.”Ask me tostay.
He feathered a hand along her cheek. “Anytime you want to talk, I’ll be here for you.”
“Thanks. Please say good-night to your grandmother for me.” She took a deep breath, almost drowning in the scent of him. Using every scrap of strength she possessed, she turned away. After all, her independence was more important than anything.
Right?
Cassidy glancedaround the room Ty had assigned her and released a sigh wavering between beatific and sorrowful. Her entire apartment could fit in this one bedroom, and that didn’t even include the attached bathroom. The tub alone could hold the navy’s Pacific fleet with room to spare for a yacht ortwo.
