Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas #5)(80)

"Tough," she retorted. "Stop being so selfish. Think about your precious town, then picture the expression on Sunny's face if she found out the two of us-"

His cool faded. "The town and Sunny are my business, not yours."

"With that kind of self-centered attitude, Mr. Mayor, you'll never get reelected."

"I didn't want to be elected the first time!"

She finally agreed to a Tex-Mex restaurant in Fredericksburg, but once they got there, she maneuvered him into a chair that faced the wall so she could keep a lookout. That aggravated him so much he ordered for both of them without consulting her.

"You never get mad," she said when their server left the table. "Except at me."

"That's not true," he said tightly. "Torie can get me going."

"Torie doesn't count. You were obviously her mother in a previous life."

He retaliated by hogging the chip basket.

"I'd never have taken you for a sulker," she said after a long, heavy silence. "Yet look at you."

He shoved a chip into the hottest bowl of salsa. "I hate sneaking around, and I'm not doing it any longer. This affair is coming out of the closet." 

His mulish determination scared her. "Hold it right there. Spence is used to getting what he wants for Sunny and for himself. If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't have encouraged me to stay all palsy-walsy with him."

He snapped a chip in half. "That's going to stop, too. Right now."

"No, it's not. I'll handle Spence. You deal with Sunny. As for the two of us . . . I told you from the beginning how it was going to be."

"And I'm telling you . . ." He jabbed the broken chip in the general direction of her face. "I've never sneaked around in my life, and I'm not doing it now."

She couldn't believe he was saying this. "You can't jeopardize something so important for a few meaningless rolls in the hay. This is a temporary fling, Ted. Temporary. Any day now, I'll pull up stakes and head back to L.A. I'm surprised I haven't done it already."

If she'd hoped he'd insist their relationship wasn't meaningless, she'd set herself up for disappointment. He leaned across the table. "It doesn't have anything to do with what's temporary. It has to do with the kind of person I am."

"What about the kind of person I am? Somebody who's completely comfortable with sneaking around."

"You heard me."

She regarded him with dismay. This was the unwelcome consequence of having a lover with honor. Or at least what he saw as honor. What she saw was a looming choice between disaster and heartbreak.

Between trying not to think about falling in love with Ted and thinking too much about a possible reappearance by her mysterious home invader, Meg didn't sleep well. She used her wakeful nights to make jewelry. The pieces were becoming more complicated, as her small group of customers showed a distinct preference for jewelry that used genuine relics instead of copies. She researched Internet dealers who specialized in the kind of ancient artifacts she wanted to use and plowed an alarming chunk of her nest egg into an order with a Boston-area anthropology professor who had a reputation for honesty and who provided a detailed provenance for everything she sold.

As Meg unpacked some Middle Eastern coins, Roman cabochons, and three small, precious mosaic face beads from around the second century, she found herself wondering if making jewelry was her business or a distraction from figuring out what she should really be doing with her life?

A week after Ted left town, Torie called and ordered Meg to show up for work an hour early the next morning. When Meg asked why, Torie acted as if Meg had just failed an IQ test. "Because Dex will be home then to watch the girls. Jeez."

As soon as Meg got to the club the next morning, Torie dragged her to the practice range. "You can't live in Wynette without picking up a golf club. It's a city ordinance." She handed over her five-iron. "Take a swing."

"I won't be here much longer, so there's no point." Meg ignored the pang that tweaked at her heart. "Besides, I'm not rich enough to be a golfer."

"Just swing the damn thing."

Meg did and missed the ball. She tried again and missed again, but after a few more swings, she somehow sent the ball in a perfect arc to the middle of the practice range. She let out a whoop.

"A lucky shot," Torie said, "but that's exactly how golf sucks you in." She took the club back, gave Meg a few pointers, then told her to keep working.

For the next half hour, Meg followed Torie's instructions, and since she'd inherited her parents' natural athleticism, she began connecting with the ball.

"You could be good if you practiced," Torie said. "Employees play free on Mondays. Take advantage of your day off. I have a spare set of clubs in the bag room you can borrow."