she and Slade weren’t suited at all? What if she’d simply been lured by the fact that he was so stubbornly unobtainable? What if it had only been about lust, rather than love? The chase, rather than forever?
After all, what did she really know about love? She’d witnessed the enduring passion between Laurie and Harlan Patrick. She’d seen the quieter love shining in Janet’s eyes whenever she spotted Harlan across a room. But in Val’s own family, there had been no such example. After her father’s death, her mother had never remarried, never even dated very much. Even so, Val had never sensed that it was because her grand passion had died.
No matter how hard she tried, Val couldn’t seem to quiet her doubts. What if, what if, what if...? The unanswerable questions tumbled through her head like errant ping-pong balls.
As usual, she’d jumped in feet first, tackling the project of getting Slade’s attention as systematically as she would the logistics for one of Laurie’s tours. Now it was time to put up or shut up, time to pay the piper, time to fish or cut bait. The clichés tripped through her brain at a dizzying clip.
She needed time for her emotions to switch directions, time to quiet all the nagging fears. She didn’t need a man on her doorstep with a handpicked bouquet of flowers and passion in his eyes. That was serious stuff. She’d just been playing a game, or so she’d tried to convince herself during the endless weeks of rejection. Hadn’t Laurie pegged that very thing? Hadn’t she been the one to suggest that Val had decided Slade wasn’t worth her time or effort?
Of course, if that were the case, she should have told him to take his flowers and stuff them, rather than stand there with her heart racing and a smile tugging at her lips. She should have refused to sit on the porch swing, thigh-to-thigh, her hand tucked in his, while he talked nonstop for the first time since she’d known him.
Thinking back on it, she sighed. It had felt so right being there with him. A curious kind of peace had stolen through her, even as her pulse had skipped to an erotic, when-will-he-kiss-me beat. She hadn’t thought there could be so much anticipation between a man and a woman who’d already made love, who’d already discovered the most intimate secrets of each other’s bodies. But it had been as if they were starting over fresh, as if they’d met for the first time that night, as if there were a million sensual fantasies still to explore.
And she’d agreed to see him again tonight, this time for a real date, just the two of them. They were going to Garden City for dinner and a movie, assuming they could agree on one, given his fondness for action and hers for comedy. She’d had every piece of clothing she’d brought to Texas spread out on her bed at one time or another since dawn, trying to choose the perfect first-date outfit. Half had made their way back into the closet, deemed unsuitable. Unsatisfied with the choices left, she was now reconsidering.
“Did I miss the tornado that blew through here?” Laurie asked, standing in the doorway, her expression quizzical.
“I’m trying to decide what to wear,” Val said, considering a simple silk blouse and raw silk slacks in a matching shade of teal. Too plain, she concluded, and tossed them atop the rest for the second time.
“Would I be nuts to point out that you’re already dressed?” Laurie inquired, coming in to perch on a chair well out of the path of clothes flying from closet to bed with barely a hesitation in between.
“For tonight,” Val replied succinctly, holding up a favorite dress in seduce-me red. “What do you think of this? Too much?”
“Are we talking Slade?”
Val nodded.
“You’ll have him cross-eyed and panting.”
“Perfect,” Val said, hanging the dress on a hook on the closet door so she could stand back and get the full effect. This dress had served her well in the past when she’d wanted to walk into a room and turn up the heat. That was precisely why she’d dismissed it earlier. She wasn’t sure heat was what tonight called for. In fact, she was pretty sure it called for caution and quiet reason. If Slade touched her, though, reason was likely to fly straight out the window. She’d missed those insidious caresses that could carry her to a whole other universe.