“So, I’ll go along with the fabrication, but I’ll tell everyone my husband had to work or something and couldn’t join me this weekend.”
“You’d never get away with it,” Evan predicted with a wry smile. “You said yourself, you’re a terrible liar.”
“How bad could it be if I accompany you?” Tate asked. “We’ll show up for the reunion, I’ll stand close to you and smile a lot, you introduce your grandmother to your daughter and then we’ll make an excuse to leave early. Your mother will owe you an enormous favor and you can hold it over her head forever to make sure she never drags you into a mess like this again.”
He made it all sound almost logical. Kim shook her head in bemusement, thinking insanity must be contagious. She didn’t know if Tate had caught it from her, who’d been infected by her mother—or if both she and Tate were being influenced by the three friends standing nearby and enjoying this spectacle. Easy enough for them, she thought with a frown.
“Tate’s bag is already in your car.” Lynette spoke as if that were the deciding factor, as if the bag couldn’t be removed quite easily. “You might as well go through with it now.”
“Apparently, she’d rather call the whole thing off than kiss Tate,” Evan commented, his eyes gleaming. “Not that I blame you for that,” he added with a half smile.
This situation seemed to have brought out a roguish side of Evan that Kim hadn’t seen much before. She’d always thought of him as the serious, disciplined partner.
“I’m thinking y’all made your bet with the wrong person,” Tate murmured, eyeing Kim with lifted eyebrows. “Kim seems to be the one who doesn’t believe she has the talent—or maybe the nerve—to go through with this. Actually, I’d be willing to make a fifty-dollar side bet that Kim’s the one who’ll blow our cover before I do.”
Even though she knew she shouldn’t let his mild taunt pique her ego, Kim still felt her hackles rise. The others watched her speculatively, and she wondered if they agreed with Tate that she was the weak link in this impromptu partnership.
She reminded herself that none of them had known her prior to her new life as a quiet-living, hardworking single mom. She’d started working at the rehab clinic after her maternity leave, and they hadn’t known her when she’d worked at another facility in a different, nearby Arkansas town, so they couldn’t be aware that this was exactly the kind of escapade she once would have thrown herself into with impish gusto. She wasn’t that person any longer—but it still irked that they so obviously doubted her.
She sighed gustily and let her youthful recklessness reassert itself—but only temporarily, she vowed. “I’ll take that bet.”
She reached out to grab Tate’s navy polo shirt and yank him toward her. Before he could finish his sputtered laugh, she pressed her mouth to his.
Chapter Two
Fireworks. Trumpets. Operatic voices bursting into song. Were there any clichés that did not spin through Kim’s mind when Tate wrapped his arms around her and responded enthusiastically to the spur-of-the-moment kiss?
She had always appreciated his lean but solid build, figuring the manual labor he did outdoors in his landscape design business built muscles and burned calories. Now she felt the strength in those tanned arms, the rock-hardness of chest and thighs.
She had always thought he had a sexy mouth with shallow indentions at the corners that could almost be called dimples. Now he demonstrated just how skillfully he used those warm, firm lips.
She wanted to believe she was the one who brought the kiss to an end, but she suspected Tate drew back first. She was too dazed to be certain. She blinked at him, wondering if she saw a similarly stunned look in his narrowed eyes before he masked any reaction behind his usual easy grin.
“Well?” he asked the others. “Did we pass?”
Lynette lifted an eyebrow as she studied Kim’s face. “Either you’re a better actor than you claimed, Kim, or Tate made that kiss work, because…wow.”
Kim’s chin lifted again in response to the implication that Tate had been in control of the kiss, regardless of whether it might just be true. Acting once more on the impulsiveness that had so often gotten her into trouble in the past, she turned to Evan. Catching the collar of his cotton shirt in both hands, she planted a kiss directly on his lips.
No fireworks this time, she noted with some dismay. No trumpets or other clichés. Evan was a good-looking, well-built guy and it was a nice kiss—but it didn’t shake her to her toenails the way kissing Tate had. Deciding she didn’t want to analyze the difference just then, she pushed Evan away and turned almost defiantly toward the others. “Any more comments about my acting abilities?”
Evan cleared his throat rather loudly. “So, maybe I should be the one to accompany you this weekend,” he said with a teasing leer, reaching for Kim again.
Emma and Lynette laughed as she dodged him, and Kim was satisfied that her unexpected move had derailed their sudden speculation about whether she was a little too attracted to Tate.
What might have been a slight frown on Tate’s face smoothed quickly into a grin. “Too late, pal. My bag’s already in the car. Speaking of which, shouldn’t we be on the road, Kim? And don’t the rest of you guys have to get back to work?”
Emma glanced at her watch. “We do, actually. Have fun, you two—and remember, we’re going to want to hear all the details.”
Lynette turned toward her brother. “Do you want to put the baby in her seat? It would be good practice for you.”
Tate held up both hands and backed off. “No. I said I’m not using Daryn to help me win this bet. You know babies scare me. If Kim needs my help with anything, she only has to ask, but Daryn isn’t a prop for me to rehearse with.”
Kim appreciated several things about Tate’s words, most especially the fact that he’d used Daryn’s name, rather than calling her “the kid,” as Evan was prone to do. She stepped forward to take her daughter from Lynette. Adorable in a red-and-white gingham-checked romper, with a red-and-white stretchy headband festooned with a white fabric daisy circling her fine, light brown hair, Daryn kicked and babbled, enjoying the attention. She gave Kim a slobbery, two-toothed grin and, as always, Kim’s heart melted. She’d made quite a few mistakes in her life, but she would never classify Daryn in that way. A surprise, yes, but never a mistake.
Kim fastened Daryn securely into her rear-facing car seat, then handed her the soft, stuffed monkey that accompanied the child everywhere. Settling in contentedly, Daryn kicked her feet and waved the toy enthusiastically to elicit jingly chimes from the bells inside. Kim was used to the sound, but she wasn’t sure how Tate would feel about listening to it for the next four-plus hours. Fortunately, Daryn tended to sleep during car rides, so the jingling would be sporadic.
“Would you like me to drive?” Tate offered, nodding toward the driver’s door of her car. “That would free you to take care of the baby.”