He paused then, dark eyes meeting hers in a stare that made a shiver run down her back. “Because I don’t want to.”
What she possibly could have said in reply, she had no idea, but Tobias came in then carrying the big pot of the barbacoa meat, and Rachel followed with a bowl of rice and a bowl of beans, and by the time the other odds and ends had been set out — tortillas, cotija cheese for crumbling, a big glass bowl of Caesar salad — the opportunity to say anything at all was lost.
Conversation wasn’t as awkward as she thought it might be, either, as Rachel asked Lucas about Angela, and he said she was doing fine but was looking a little tired, as might be expected. The talk flowed about the impending arrival of the twins, and the upcoming preparations for Thanksgiving and all the holiday hubbub that would follow afterward. Lucas asked a question here and there, complimented Rachel on the food, said he hoped Margot hadn’t gotten too damp on the walk over here, and in general acted like a model dinner guest. She wasn’t quite that nonchalant, but she did manage to respond normally to most questions put to her, and even laughed at Lucas’ jokes without sounding as if she were pretending.
Through it all, though, it was difficult to keep herself from staring at him. She wanted to gaze at the long, strong fingers as they wrapped around the stem of his wine glass, the way his heavy dark hair waved back from his brow, the fine shape of his mouth…the mouth that seemed as if it had been created to match precisely with hers. At that thought, she felt a sudden heat burn through her, and she reached for her own wine glass and took an over-large gulp, then coughed.
“Are you all right, Margot?” Rachel asked.
“Fine,” Margot got out. “I must have swallowed something wrong.”
Rachel appeared unconvinced, but she let it drop, instead asking Tobias if he thought the rain was going to keep up all night, or whether it would blow by quickly. Margot had to hope for the latter, as she’d already gotten somewhat damp on the walk over and was only now drying out.
“The wind was pretty brisk, so I doubt the rain will hang around long. It usually doesn’t,” Tobias said.
Well, that was true enough. The storms in this part of the world were intense, but in general they did what they had to do in a brief period of time before moving on. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on outside, as Rachel had the curtains drawn, and there was still the third floor of the building above their heads, effectively blocking any sound of raindrops hitting the roof.
The conversation drifted to the coming winter, and whether there would be much snow, or whether the drought would continue to limit the number of storms passing through. Before she knew it, Tobias was clearing the dinner plates and Rachel was bringing out some of her homemade flan. Where she expected her dinner guests to put it, after everything else they’d consumed, Margot wasn’t sure.
She did manage to eat most of hers, just because it was too good not to, and then it was time to wrap things up, and do what she could to slide out of there gracefully before Lucas could see what she was doing. Not that her ploy worked, as he saw her struggling into her raincoat and came over to retrieve his own jacket from the coat rack.
“Can we talk outside for a minute?” he asked.
“The rain — ”
“If it’s raining, we can go to the Spirit Room and have a drink.”
That sounded even less appetizing than standing and talking to him in the pouring rain…or at least far more dangerous…but the only way to say no was to be downright rude, and he didn’t deserve that. “Okay,” she said reluctantly, and buttoned up her raincoat. Her dripping umbrella was still downstairs in the short tiled corridor that led to the back entrance, so she’d have to fetch it on her way out.
They said their goodbyes to Tobias and Rachel, then went down the stairs to the ground floor. As it turned out, Margot didn’t need her umbrella after all; when Lucas opened the door for her, the whole world was dark and dripping, but the rain had stopped falling. Above, a gibbous moon flickered in and out of the fast-racing clouds.
“I didn’t plan that, you know,” Lucas said, almost as soon as the door shut behind them.
“I know.” She tightened her grip around the umbrella, not looking at him. “That was Rachel’s doing. I guess she wanted to make sure we could get along like adults.”
“Which we did.”
“Yes.” They’d been walking down toward Hull Avenue, and she realized she was unconsciously heading back toward her place. That wouldn’t do at all. No way was she taking Lucas Wilcox to her house. She stopped on the corner and said, “Look, Lucas — ”