That hint of vulnerability was supposed to be hidden under the sophisticated veneer. Kay wanted him to see her as a woman he would be proud to have on his arm, a woman he could easily take to a business dinner. Popcorn and football games and fire towers were fine, but she was a long way from childhood and so was he.
“You look beautiful,” he told her.
She relaxed, a little. “This is better, isn’t it?” she asked, but the question was rhetorical.
“There was absolutely nothing wrong with the dress you had on,” he told her.
She flicked imaginary lint from his shoulder and inhaled the faint scent of his aftershave. “It wasn’t right. I could tell the minute you walked in the door.”
“Kay, there’s no need to worry about this dinner. If I’d thought you’d be nervous, I would have told you-”
“I’m not in the least nervous,” she assured him instantly.
“You’re in an argumentative mood,” he murmured dryly.
“I am not.”
Mitch chuckled, steering her out of the bedroom. “Have I really caused all this trouble simply by showing up at your door in a suit? Most men do own suits, you know.”
Most men owned suits, but they didn’t look as sexy as he did in them. On the way to the airport she was aware that Mitch was making an effort to relax her, and thought wryly that the shoe was definitely on the other foot tonight. Up till now, she was the one who had made massive efforts to help him feel comfortable.
Not being the nervous type, she wasn’t exactly sure why she was all but trembling with nerves. The well was deeper than she’d thought; that was part of it. Mitch was not a simple man. And his wealth and assurance suddenly stood out like neon lights in darkness; she wasn’t at all sure what was expected of her at this dinner.
It didn’t help when he suddenly reached behind him to the backseat and brought up a small white box. Dropping it in her lap, he took his eyes off the road only long enough to wink at her. “Present,” he said lightly.
Her fingers opened the white tissue paper, while Mitch reached up to switch on the car’s overhead light. Giving him a startled glance, she gently fingered the exquisite carving. It was a fig tree, five inches high, its leaves delicately sculpted in green glass. Even in that odd light, the tiny ornament had so much brilliance that the plant almost seemed alive.
“You can overwater that one to your heart’s content and it still won’t die on you,” he remarked. He glanced over at her. “Good Lord, Kay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
Tears trembled in her eyes. She reached over to give him a swift hug, but when she tried to move back, his arm tightened around her shoulder. She felt the brush of his lips in her hair. “Aren’t you silly?” he whispered.
“I don’t cry in a real crisis, you know. When the chips are down, I remain cool and levelheaded. I just have this problem, with weddings, and old movies-”
“And presents.”
“It’s ridiculous, and embarrassing.”
“It is not,” he denied.
She glanced up at him, her lips curving in a smile. “You’re in an argumentative mood, aren’t you?”
“I am not.”
They both chuckled, and ended up laughing the rest of the drive and afterward, even during the tedious hour they waited for the late plane, carrying paper cups of cold coffee as they wandered around the Spokane airport. “When are you going to tell me what kind of business dinner this is?” Kay asked wryly. “I mean, do you do this often? Pick up people at an airport, take them to dinner and then just send them back on a plane again?”
“Not often, exactly.” Mitch cleared his throat suddenly. “Hemerling,” he admitted, “is a character. Actually, he’s sort of a fly-by-night crook.”
“What?”
“A legal crook,” Mitch corrected himself promptly, and shot her a sidelong glance. “And if you don’t enjoy this dinner, I’m going to be disappointed. The first hour will be boring for you, Kay, but the rest…”
The loudspeaker announced the arrival of the flight they were waiting for. Kay watched the passengers deplane, expecting…what? Someone who looked like Mitch?
When the palm at her back urged her forward to greet Stan Hemerling, she nearly gaped at the man whose hand was stretched out to hers. Stan was short, with stiff gray hair and slits for eyes. His suit was rumpled, and he clutched a worn briefcase under his arm as if it held gold. His eyes shifted everywhere, lighting once with masculine appraisal on Kay-she stiffened furiously-before blinking at everyone else in sight. He resembled a gangster in a B movie.
This was the kind of man Mitch did business with?
Kay rearranged her coffee cup for the seventh time. When the handle on the cup was perfectly aligned with the spoon, she glanced up on the off chance that she would catch Mitch looking her way.
Their eyes didn’t meet, which was definitely good news for Mitch. Sooner or later he’d have to give in, and when he did, she was going to murder him. Nothing fancy, no thrown knives or judo chops. Lethal eye darts were all she had in mind.
“So, like I was telling you, Kay,” Stan said earnestly, “half the people live underground in sandy-clay houses. It’s the only way they can bear the heat. There isn’t a tree for hundreds of miles, and men have made fortunes selling drinking water-it’s that hard to come by.”
“Fascinating,” Kay murmured. “Southwestern Australia, you said?”
“Coober Pedy,” Stan clarified.
The waitress stopped to refill their coffee cups, which would have been the ideal time for Kay to catch Mitch’s attention. If Stan hadn’t been beaming at her.
“A dust storm’ll howl for days in that part of the world, it will,” he told her. “Dust’ll rise up to fifteen thousand feet. You can’t see sky nor anything in front of you. When it’s all over, the whole town looks like it’s covered in ash.” Stan leaned back, rubbing his slightly protuberant belly as he picked up his coffee cup again. Kay had long since erased the gangster image. Stan’s rather sleazy appearance was only the result of living on a plane for three days. That he liked to clutch his briefcase-well, to each his own. And as for the slitted eyes-it wasn’t his fault he was born looking shifty. “And the temperatures-Lord, the temperatures at the height of the season’ll reach a hundred and thirty, day after day, and a man’ll work for months in that sun for nothing more than a promise of potch.”
“Potch?” Kay questioned.
Stan glanced at her with surprise. “The common stuff. No fire.”
“Ah.” She nodded. It would be nice if she had the least idea what he was talking about.
Stan hadn’t said so much as two words until Kay had asked him where he was from. He hadn’t shut up since.
Mitch had greeted the man with a firm handshake and introduced him to Kay. From then on, aside from ordering dinner from wine through dessert, Mitch had said very little. Twice she’d caught an amused half smile on his face, but there was no smile in his eyes for his colleague-or whatever Stan Hemerling was.
And while Stan had more moves than a nervous cat, Mitch remained totally laid back and relaxed.
Kay was as strung up as barbed wire. What was his business? What was going on here?
“We’ve been working together going on five years now, I’d say, right, Mitch?”
“Around that.”
“Really-” Stan turned again to Kay with another of his off-center smiles “-we’ve been more friends than business partners. His father brought me home one time to…uh…liven up Mitch’s life, and I sure enough did that. Took him for a ride on one flawed stone, but after that I taught him everything I knew and then some. Mitch took a while to forget that feathered culet, though, didn’t you, Mitch?”