“That’s not what you said an hour ago.”
She grinned like a Cheshire cat, and pushed the tart package closer to him. “Go ahead, Professor. Live on the wild side.”
He gave into her beguiling smile, lifting a tart to his mouth. “You know,” he told her before biting into the flakey pastry and the tangy sweet filling, “There’s this thing called Chaos Theory.”
She waited, green eyes wide with expectation.
He swallowed. “It reminds me of you.”
“This doesn’t sound good.”
Oh, it was good. It was intriguingly, amazingly good in this instance. “In part,” he continued, “it’s when the tiniest shift, over time, results in a massive change. And the seemingly chaotic reactions that follow are actually pre-ordained.”
“You lost me,” she admitted, but stretched across the table to snag another tart.
“When you climbed out of that parts delivery truck in Charlotte, despite the astronomical odds stacked against it, I believe I was pre-ordained to eat lemon tarts before dinner.”
A slow smiled grew on her face, and she bit sexily into the second tart. “Where I believe we were pre-ordained to end up in bed together. The tarts were entirely optional.”
Larry matched her grin. “I’ll give that one some thought.”
“Do that. In the meantime, this girl doesn’t survive on dessert alone.”
“You’re looking for a steak?” he guessed.
“I am. And some of that wine you keep bragging about.”
He rose from his chair and retrieved a fork to check on the potatoes baking on the grill.
A few seconds later, Crystal sidled up behind him, her arms went around his waist, and she laid her cheek against his back.
He covered her hands. “I seem to recall something about you doing the cooking,” he teased.
“Apparently,” she responded with a happy sigh, “I’m unreliable.”
“You think any self-respecting teacher would let you get away with that lame excuse?”
“You will,” she assured him. And then she paused. “Because I’m naked under your shirt.”
“That’ll do it,” he admitted.
She disentangled herself while he unwrapped the filet mignon. He seared them on the grill and added a combination of spices.
He thought he was the luckiest man on earth, as they dined al fresco at the glass table, while the sky turned to midnight purple and a quarter moon rose above the distant horizon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NEXT DAY AT THE RACE track at Dover, Larry was torn between puffing his chest out to strut and keeping a respectful distance between him and Crystal. As they crossed the walkover bridge to the infield area, she twined her arm around his, and there was no denying it felt good. She was a gorgeous woman, and more than a few male heads turned admiringly her way as they ambled toward the garage area.
She was wearing a pair of beige slacks and a simple, pale-yellow top. Her shoes were low, but her legs were long and shapely enough that she didn’t need the boost of heels. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail, then tugged it through the back of a tan baseball cap, anchoring the hat to her head. Her earrings were simple gold studs, her other jewelry nonexistent. But it didn’t matter. She still looked like that model who’d somehow wandered off that Paris runway.
Then he spotted his nephew Kent and crew chief Neil Sanchez coming the other way, their heads bent in an intense discussion. He smoothly and quickly disentangled his arm from Crystal and put some distance between them.
“Hey, Kent,” he said, nodding. “Good luck today.” Larry knew his son Steve wouldn’t be spotting for Kent at the Dover race because of the suspension last week. But, distracted by his reunion with his fiancée, Heidi, Steve was handling the disappointment very well. Larry had talked to Steve during the week, offering advice where he could. After a breakup over Kent’s sponsor and the NASCAR lifestyle, shortly after becoming engaged, Steve and Heidi were both so angry that it took all of the Grosso clan to help straighten it out. Larry was extremely happy that his son was back on track.
Kent glanced up and blinked Larry into focus.
“Oh. Hi, Larry.” Kent’s gaze slid briefly to Crystal, but he didn’t seem to recognize her.
“Hi, Larry,” Neil offered, but there was a tightness around his mouth as the two men kept walking.
“What are you doing?” Crystal asked Larry.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a man embarrassed to be seen with me before.”
“I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you.” The mere thought was ludicrous.
She gestured back to Kent and Neil. “Then what the hell was that all about?”
Larry pretended to misunderstand. “You think they were arguing?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“Seriously,” said Larry. “I think they were fighting about something.”
“You’re going to be fighting about something in a minute if you don’t smarten up.”
Larry tried to lighten the mood. “You’re telling a rocket scientist to smarten up?”
“I am when he’s behaving like a moron.”
He sighed, knowing full well she was talking about how he’d distanced himself from her when he saw familiar faces. “I was trying to be discreet. There’s no need to start gossip.”
“I don’t care about gossip.”
“Well, you should. NASCAR is a tight-knit community.”
“Is this an age thing?”
“This is an ‘I don’t want to announce our private business to the world’ thing.”
Her lips compressed. “You were perfectly fine until Kent came along.”
“We were an anonymous couple until Kent came along.”
“So, we’re going to have a secret affair. Is that it?”
No, that wasn’t it. Of course he didn’t want a secret affair. He didn’t want an affair at all. Trouble was, until he figured out exactly what was going on between him and Crystal, he didn’t know how to present it to the world-or his family.
“Because I can be discreet,” she told him, taking a backward step away from him. “I can be so discreet, you won’t even know I’m here.”
“Crystal.”
She took a second step, and said, in a voice low and intense, “You want to hide me out at some beach house at night then pretend not to know me during the day-”
“Stop!” He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. He took the two strides that separated them. “I want this to be dignified.”
“It is dignified. Or at least it was until two minutes ago.”
He lifted off his cap and dragged a hand through his hair. “You want to tell people we’re dating?”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“See?” he hissed. “We don’t even know what to call it.”
“Do we have to give it a label?”
“If we don’t, they will.”
“So, let them.”
“Are you serious?” Did she know what kind of speculation that would cause?
“Oh look,” she said, nodding over his shoulder. “There’s Dean and Patsy.”
Larry twisted his head around.
“Hi, Dean. Hi, Patsy,” Crystal called with a wave.
Then, before Larry could react, she snagged his arm, pulled herself up and gave him a nuzzling kiss in the crook of his neck.
His body clenched in horror.
“Speculate that,” she muttered under her breath.
“I don’t believe you did that,” he growled, shaking free as he turned to meet his brother and sister-in-law.
Dean’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Patsy’s were wide with surprise.
“Crystal,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you this far from Charlotte.”
“Larry invited me,” said Crystal, and Larry tensed, waiting to see what other information she was about to offer up.
“We’ve been discussing a writing project I’m working on,” she finished.
“What project is that?” asked Dean, eyeing Larry up and down.