Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #5)(39)

She hoped he didn't mean what she thought he meant, but the evidence below his belt buckle seemed to indicate he did.

"Now I'm not talking about anything that would make you uncomfortable," he said. "Just the two of us spending some time together." 

She deliberately tripped over his foot. "Oops. I need to sit down. I picked up a couple of blisters today."

Spence didn't have any choice but to follow her back to the table. "She can't keep up with me," he grumbled.

"Not many people can, I'll bet," Mayor Suck-up said.

Spence pulled his chair closer and draped his arm around her shoulders. "I got a great idea, Miss Meg. Let's fly to Vegas tonight. You, too, Ted. Ring up a girlfriend and come with us. I'll call my pilot."

He was so certain of their compliance that he reached for his cell, and since not one of the men at the table did anything to dissuade him, she realized she was on her own. "Sorry, Spence. I have to work tomorrow."

He winked at Ted. "That's not much of a country club you work for, and I'll bet Ted could talk your boss into giving you a couple of days off. What do you think, Ted?"

"If he can't, I can," Dallie said, tossing her to the wolves.

Kenny piled on. "Let me do it. I'll be happy to make a call."

Ted gazed at her over the top of his longneck, saying nothing. She stared right back, so angry her skin burned. She'd put up with a lot lately, but she wouldn't put up with this. "The thing is . . ." She bit off the syllables. "I'm not exactly free. Emotionally."

"How's that?" Spence asked.

"It's . . . complicated." She was starting to feel nauseated. Why couldn't life come with a pause button? More than anything, that's what she needed right now, because without a chance to think this through, she was going to say the first thing that sprang into her mind, the stupidest thing, but again, no pause button. "Ted and me."

Ted's beer bottle clinked against his teeth. Kenny perked up. Spence looked confused. "This morning you said the two of you weren't a couple."

She pinched her mouth into a smile. "We're not," she said. "Yet. But I have hopes." The word caught in her throat like a bone. She had just validated everything people believed about her motivation for stopping the wedding.

But Kenny kicked back in his chair, more amused than accusatory. "Ted does this to women all the time. None of us can figure out how."

"I sure can't." Ted's father slanted her a peculiar look. "Homeliest kid you ever saw."

Ted ground his words around the edges of a lazy smile. "It's not going to happen, Meg."

"Time will tell." Now that she saw how much she'd aggravated him, she warmed to the topic, despite its larger implications. "I have a bad history of falling for the worst men." She let that settle in for a moment. "Not that Ted isn't perfect. A little too perfect, obviously, but . . . attraction isn't always logical."

Spence's heavy dark brows met in the middle. "Wasn't it last month he was all ready to marry the president's daughter?"

"The end of May," she said. "And Lucy is my best friend. It was a total debacle, as I'm sure you know from all the press." Ted watched her, his easy smile fixed in place, a microscopic nerve jumping at the corner of his eye. She began to enjoy herself. "But Lucy was never the right woman for him. Thanks to me, he knows that now, and frankly, his gratitude would be embarrassing if I weren't so head over heels."

"Gratitude?" Ted's voice was tempered steel.

To hell with it. She waved an airy hand and began to embellish with all the skill of her actor-playwright father. "I could play coy and pretend I haven't fallen totally-and I mean totally -in love with him, but I've never been the kind of woman to play games. I throw my cards right on the table. It's better in the long run."



       
         
       
        

"Honesty's an admirable quality," Kenny said, openly enjoying himself.

"I know what you're all thinking. That I couldn't possibly have fallen for him so quickly because, no matter what anybody says, I did not break up that wedding. But . . ." She shot Ted an adoring look. "This time it's different for me. So different." She couldn't resist fanning the flames. "And . . . Judging from Ted's late-night visit yesterday . . ."

"You two had a late-night visit?" his father said.

"Pretty romantic, right?" She manufactured a dreamy smile. "At midnight. In the choir-"