if I want to make a huge, glorious mistake by jumping into bed with you?”
“Then you’ll be disappointed,” he said firmly. “Because it isn’t going to happen, Val. Not tonight. Not ever.”
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, she seemed to find his declaration amusing. “Is that so?”
“You can count on it.”
“If you say so,” she agreed mildly.
“We have an understanding then?” he asked, feeling it was somehow vital to get that nailed down.
“Oh, yes,” she replied, with what could only be described as a silky purr.
Slade regarded her uneasily. She’d capitulated too easily. She’d said all the right things, all the things he wanted to hear. So why didn’t he believe a word of it?
Maybe it was because even as she’d said the words, her gaze had been locked on his lips as if she’d never seen a more fascinating, more desirable mouth. Naturally that avid speculation had made him want to kiss her all over again.
Well, hell, he thought, as he took a decisive step back. This was going to be a whole lot harder than he’d anticipated. And Val, he predicted, wasn’t going to do one single thing to make it any easier.
Seven
“The party was totally awesome,” Annie declared as she walked home with her father afterward. She gazed up at him slyly. “I saw you dancing with Val. You were holding her real close. You like her, don’t you?”
“She’s a very nice woman,” Slade said, hedging. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of—that Annie would start imagining a relationship where none existed.
Annie was having none of that. “Dad! You know what I mean. You really like her.”
He scowled and put it more plainly. “Annie, don’t go getting any ideas. Val and I are just friends, nothing more.”
“I think she likes you,” she added, as if he hadn’t spoken. “She gets this funny look on her face when she sees you, kinda like she’s got a fever or something.”
Slade wondered how Val would feel about that description. She’d probably welcome it, declare Annie to be a very bright, intuitive child. Which she was, of course, even if it was irksome.
“What makes you think this look she gets on her face has anything to do with me?” he asked, curious about a ten-year-old’s reasoning when it came to romance. Maybe if he understood it, he could nip these crazy ideas in the bud.
Annie regarded him as if he were dense. “Because she only looks that way when she sees you, silly.”
“And you think it’s because she likes me? Why?” he persisted.
“Because it’s the way Laurie looks at Harlan Patrick, and she loves him, right? So it must mean that Val at least likes you a little.”
Ah, Slade thought, that look. Laurie and Harlan Patrick did stare at each other like a couple of lovesick calves most of the time. To Slade’s surprise, not even marriage had wiped that expression off their faces. Maybe they were still in the honeymoon stage.
Come to think of it, though, most of the Adamses wore that look when they spotted their mates. Even Harlan and Janet, who’d been married for years, brightened when they saw each other. Slade hadn’t thought such infatuation could last past the marriage vows, but in this family it had. He still thought it was probably an anomaly, something all but impossible for an outsider to obtain.
“Look, kiddo, I meant what I said. Don’t go getting any ideas about me and Val, okay? I’m not looking to get married again.”
“What about a mom, though? I could really use one,” Annie declared in a wistful way guaranteed to snatch the rug out from under him.
“I’m sorry,” he said sympathetically. “I’m afraid it’s not in the cards. But I think Val would very much like to be your friend.”
Annie sighed heavily. “It’s not the same.”
Slade sighed, too. “I know, darlin’.” Even though he’d declared that to be his own goal earlier, having Val for a friend didn’t seem likely to measure up for him, either.
* * *
“You look pleased with yourself,” Laurie said, when she found Val sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea the next morning. “Basking in your success?”
“Which success would that be?”
“I was thinking of the party. What about you?”
Val gave her a grin. “I was thinking about the fact that I very nearly provoked Slade into forgetting all about those rigid principles of his. Of course, he dredged them up at the last second and spoiled things, but it was promising.”
Laurie poured herself a