The Fireman's Christmas. Meg Lacey
His hand was warm and calloused. His eyes twinkled with suppressed humor. A tingling awareness raced up Tessa’s arm, halting only when it reached the pit of her stomach. Good Lord, he was attractive! With that wavy dark hair and perfect tan, all he needed was an eye patch and cutlass and he’d be right at home on the set of a classic swashbuckling pirate movie.
“Rhonda didn’t tell me a thing.” Tessa withdrew her hand, shaking her head reluctantly. “She knows better.”
Her cryptic comment didn’t seem to faze him at all. He nodded and grinned. “She didn’t actually tell me much more than the bare bones of your situation. Only that you’re just about as desperate as me.”
Desperate? Tessa tried not to let her hackles rise. She was perfectly content with singledom. Only her interfering friends thought otherwise. “Look, Mr. Santini—”
“Santori, but I prefer Danny. I thought Rhonda was supposed to meet us here, but I guess she figured we’d work out the details on our own.”
“And what details might those be?”
He tipped his head sideways. One black lock fell over his brow. Tessa had the unsettling urge to push it back. For a moment she wondered if she might be a little hasty to let this one go.
His grin widened. “You know…details like when and where, your house or mine. I’ve definitely got more bedrooms, but if you’re not comfortable with that, we can always try your place.”
At that, Tessa’s mouth dropped open again. “What—what…” she spluttered. She stopped and pulled herself together. “Mr. Santori…”
“Danny.”
“Danny, I’m afraid Rhonda may have given you the wrong idea. I’m not really looking for anyone now.”
“You’re not?”
“Definitely not. And I have to tell you, I find this conversation moving a bit too fast for me.” She grabbed her water and took a quick gulp.
“I have a time crunch. I thought you did, too. I thought we could get business over with and then…”
At his statement, Tessa choked on her water. She started coughing.
“Hey, take it easy. You okay?”
Tessa waved him away. His face clouded over, though instead of diminishing his appeal, it gave him the dark, brooding look of a hero straight off the cover of a novel. Tessa wondered how any man so gorgeous could be desperate enough to agree to a blind date. Probably because his arrogant assumptions turned off every woman he met.
“Just dandy,” she gurgled around another cough.
His smile returned, not quite as bright as before but just as lethal. “So it isn’t a total waste, at least we can have some dinner and talk. The manicotti here is excellent.” He raised a finger to beckon a waiter. He winked at Tessa. “Who knows, maybe I’ll change your mind.”
Mindful of the other patrons, Tessa placed both palms on the red-checked tablecloth and leaned forward, saying in her most determined yet whispering voice, “Look here, pal, perhaps you didn’t hear me. I have enough to handle with two kids and a business. I don’t have time for a relationship or…whatever other kind of business you think we’re going to do.”
His eyebrows almost disappeared into the curls on his forehead. “A relationship?”
“That’s right.”
“Who the hell said anything about a relationship?”
“You just propositioned me.”
“The hell I did.”
Tessa wasn’t buying it. She crossed her arms and gave him her big bad mom stare. “Then what was all that bedroom stuff?”
Danny clenched his jaw, flushing to the roots of his hair, but whether it was embarrassment or anger, Tessa couldn’t tell. “I don’t need to proposition strangers to get them into bed. I need a babysitter.”
“Then why did you…What did you say?”
Danny overenunciated his words. “I…need…a…baby…sitter. Clear enough?”
Tessa’s chin almost hit the table for the third time before she recovered enough to snap her jaw shut. She wrinkled her nose in confusion. “I need a babysitter, too.”
“I know. That’s what Rhonda told me.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, isn’t that what she told you?”
Tessa shook her head. “Rhonda didn’t tell me anything except that she had the answer to my problem. She’s always trying to fix me up, so I thought she meant—”
“A date? With you?”
“Well, you don’t have to say it like that,” Tessa said, looking around to see if anyone was staring.
“I never accept blind dates. Too risky.” A sharp shake of Danny’s head emphasized his point.
Tessa crossed her arms over her chest, trying to seem secure and well in command of the situation, but positive she’d just made a complete fool of herself. “I agree,” she snapped. Just then the waiter appeared carrying a tray laden with a bottle of Chianti, two glasses, an antipasto plate and a basket of bread sticks. With a flourish he placed them on the table, then leaned over to uncork the wine. “How ya doin’, Danny? Put out any fires lately?”
Danny took a deep breath as he slid Tessa a look from under his lashes. “More all the time, Jorgi. How’s school going?”
The young waiter rolled his eyes. “Okay, I guess. Already I’m working on Mama’s books. But me, I’d rather be a fireman like you, so I can be a hero and have dates with beautiful women.”
Danny’s deep, resonant chuckle curled Tessa’s toes. “Trust me, Jorgi. There are plenty of days when I wish I were an accountant. And this isn’t a date.”
Jorgi flashed a brilliant smile that showed exactly what he thought of that. “It should be, man. What’s the matter with you?”
Danny gave him a stare that had Jorgi hurriedly asking, “You want the usual?”
“Maybe we should ask what the lady wants so we don’t have any more confusion. Tessa?”
Trying to regain some dignity, Tessa reached for her purse on the chair next to her. “I’m not very hungry, thank you. I’m just going to—” She started to rise, but her stomach chose that moment to let out a roar worthy of the MGM lion.
Danny sat back in his chair and lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Not hungry, huh?”
Tessa sat down, placed her purse on the table and busied herself with her napkin to hide her mortification. “Maybe a few bites of something.”
“A few bites?” The dimple in Danny’s cheek deepened as he smiled. “Bring the manicotti, Jorgi. We’d better feed the woman.” The young waiter all but saluted as he sped away. “I hope that’s okay with you, or should I call him back?”
Tessa tried to give him a relaxed smile. “Sounds delicious.”
“It is and it’s Mama’s specialty,” Danny said. “Look, Tessa, we got started wrong. Let’s try again. We can sort this all out while we’re waiting. In the meantime,” he continued, “have a bread stick.”
Tessa threw up her hands. “I have no idea what’s going on here, Mr. San…uh, Danny. I thought I was supposed to meet Rhonda for dinner, and instead you show up talking about how many bedrooms you have. Then you say this isn’t a fix-up, which is probably good since the only thing we seem to have in common so far is we both have kids—”
“And we both hate blind dates,” Danny added solemnly.
“So