The Bachelor's Northbridge Bride. Victoria Pade
can tag along.”
“Not gracious, but I’ll take it,” he said.
After another few minutes of silence that she let lapse to make it clear she didn’t appreciate being coerced into something she didn’t want to do, Kate used the damp towel while it was still warm to rub the oil off his back, hating that it gave her a tiny thrill to do it and to hear his sighs of satisfaction when she did.
And now her time with him wasn’t going to end here, she thought, knowing that it was also not a good sign that that excitement she’d been trying to dress up as dread in anticipation of his massage had returned with the prospect of taking him with her to Hector Tyson’s house.
But the massage and taking him to Hector’s house were one-time and one-time-only occurrences, she told herself. After this, there wouldn’t be any reason for her to even see Ry Grayson, let alone spend time with him. Or touch him.
If she could just get through the next hour or so, this would all be over with and she could go back to her single-minded husband-hunting.
That meant going home to her apartment to check the two Internet dating services she’d joined, and looking through the catalog of men she’d received in the mail today from Partner-Finders—the matchmaking firm she’d signed up with in Billings.
Stubborn determination—that’s what she had. Stubborn determination to find herself a mate.
And she wasn’t going to let Ry Grayson get in the way of it.
Even if the feel of every taut tendon and hard muscle of his back seemed burned indelibly into her brain.
Chapter Three
“I told you people before and I’ll tell you again,” Hector Tyson shouted, “these are nothing but the ramblings of a crazy woman and no, there was no baby, let alone one that I took away from her! And I don’t need to talk to anybody who’s threatening to sue me and trying to put me out of business on top of it!”
The old man redirected his venom from Ry to Kate. “First your brother Noah brought that Grayson woman he just married and now you bring this Grayson. If you Perrys don’t quit bringing them to my house, you’re not going to be welcome here, either! Now both of you get out!”
“I’m sorry we upset you, Hector,” Kate said, “but—”
“But nothing! Just get out!”
Kate wasn’t fond of Hector Tyson but she also didn’t like having been a part of aggravating him. And since the man was eighty-four years old and his face was now the color of beet juice with a vein throbbing in his temple, she was worried he might have a stroke or a heart attack.
“Let’s go,” she urged Ry, who was glaring at the cantankerous old man.
“I’ll leave,” he told Hector, “but don’t think this is over by any means. I believe there was a baby and I’m going to find out what happened to it, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“That’s not making it better,” Kate pointed out. “Let’s just go.”
Ry apparently felt the need to give Hector the hard stare for another moment. The hard stare that Hector was returning unwaveringly from squinted eyes.
But after that additional moment, Ry turned on his heels and went with Kate from the living room, across the entrance hall and through the front door of the Tyson home.
“Well, that was pleasant,” she said facetiously once they were outside in the fresh evening air again.
Ry laughed. “Ah, come on, you can’t tell me anything to do with that guy is ever pleasant. You said yourself that he’s cranky.”
Kate was surprised by how quickly Ry could switch gears. He’d been arguing heatedly with Hector for the last twenty minutes, but now he was once again as calm and relaxed as he’d been before meeting the surly elderly man.
“Was that all an act in there?” she asked as they walked to her car. Ry had ridden his motorcycle to his massage so Kate had driven them to Hector Tyson’s house.
“An act?” he parroted.
“I thought you were as mad as Hector was and now you’re happy as a clam again.”
“Ooh, clams sound good,” he said as he opened the driver’s side door for her and waited for her to get in. “I’d like to wring that old coot’s scrawny neck, but I’m not mad at you, so why would I take it out on you? Or let it ruin the rest of this warm summer night?”
That was reasonable. And levelheaded. “I’m glad you didn’t take it out on me. I’m just surprised that you can shake it off so easily.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t expect this to be amiable. It went about the way I thought it would. No sense stewing or brooding over it.”
Or throwing a tantrum, which was what she’d come to expect from men in her past and had thought she might be in line for again now. But Ry merely closed her door and went around the front end of her small sedan.
As he did, her eyes went with him, drinking in the view of him in jeans and a plain white crew-neck T-shirt that fitted him like a second skin and seemed to throw into relief not only that back she’d had her hands on such a short while ago, but also a chest and a set of flat, to-die-for washboard abs. And he didn’t brood, stew or throw tantrums. Kate appreciated that.
He got into the passenger seat then and once again said, “Clams—let’s have some. I don’t suppose there’s a seafood restaurant around here.”
“Sorry,” she said, wondering if he was just assuming they were going to go to dinner now.
“How about pizza, then?” he suggested enthusiastically. “Sometimes I can get clams on pizza and if I can’t have ’em fresh, that’ll do.”
“There is a pizza place, but I’ve never noticed if clams are one of the toppings they offer.”
“Let me guess—because you only eat cheese pizza.”
“I eat more on my pizza than just cheese, but I’ve never eaten clams at all, let alone that way.”
“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. What do you say—shall we go see if we can get a pizza with clams? You can broaden your horizons.”
“Dinner wasn’t part of this errand tonight,” she pointed out. “And what makes you think that I don’t have other plans?”
“Do you?”
“I have things to do at home.” There was that catalog of men waiting for her.
“One of the things you have to do at home is eat, though, right?”
“Yes.”
“So eat with me and then go home and do your things. I’ll buy you dinner as payment for taking me to meet Tyson.”
Besides the sandals on her fancy feet, she was dressed in navy blue scrubs—the clothes she worked in because the hospital preferred that anyone providing any kind of health services wear them. And while she had paid special attention to her makeup today and wound her hair into a loose knot at her crown that left wisps of curls around her face, it was the scrubs she was thinking of when she said, “I’m not dressed to go out to eat.”
“Come on, you can’t tell me that there’s a dress code to eat pizza in Northbridge,” he cajoled as Kate started the engine and backed out of Hector Tyson’s driveway.
She knew she shouldn’t agree to have dinner with him. But there were only leftovers for her at home. And she did love pizza….
“It’s just having a friendly meal together—surely we can do that?” he said as if he knew she was considering it.
“Friendly?” she repeated.
“Nothing