Southern Comfort (13 page)

“We could go to Corinth, you know,” she said, hoping he got the hint.

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t bother to look at her as he put the car into motion once again. Pass the Billups Fill-ups, past the post office, past the police station, only to stop in front of the hardware store.

She looked at him. “You sure know how to treat a girl.”

“Just relax, Natalie. And enjoy yourself. You might find that you like it.”

Once again, he placed that big hand at the small of her back and escorted her into the general store. Well, into the grocery part of the store. It was an odd setup, she knew, but small towns couldn’t support so many different stores. This one had emerged out of necessity.

“Why are we here?” Surely this wasn’t their date.

Newland nudged her toward the left, and Natalie followed his direction, unable to do much else. Maybe it was better this way. Gerald wouldn’t expect them to be at the general store on a date.

Yes, that was the best thing. They could walk up and down the aisles to their heart’s content and no one would be the wiser that she had gone out with the handsome reporter from Chicago. It was perfect. He led her through the groceries and into the section that had at one time been the Rexall drugstore. But then a major chain had come in and the pharmacy had shut down. The soda fountain had remained open, and for that everyone in Turtle Creek was grateful.

“We’re eating ice cream?” She tried not to sound horrified. She watched every bite she ate. Ice cream was definitely not on the list of approved sustenance.

“I told you last night you don’t even take time for yourself. So tonight, that’s what you need to do. And eat ice cream.”

She shook her head. “Oh no, I’m not.” She had a reputation to maintain, a figure to maintain, a diet to maintain. She didn’t just go around willy-nilly eating ice cream with strange Yankee men. It wasn’t proper.

“Come on,” Newland said, leading her toward one of the small wrought iron tables with sweetheart backed chairs. The whole place looked something like an outdoor patio, without the outdoors. Oddly enough, there was barely a window in the place. And that one was in the front and up so high no one could see in.

Yes, this wasn’t a bad idea. Aside from having to eat a billion calories and fat grams in a scoop of ice cream that was probably incredibly delicious.

“Do you know what you want?”

Natalie shook her head. “Just a Diet Coke for me.”

“Oh, no,” Newland said. “We came to eat ice cream, and ice cream we’re going to eat.”

“You can have ice cream, I’m having a Diet Coke.”

She expected him to argue, but instead he pinned her with a look as his mouth twisted into a serious slant. He didn’t respond, just turned back to the counter and placed their order. “Are you really so uptight that you can’t sit here with me and eat an ice cream?” he asked as he returned to their table.

Heat filled Natalie’s cheeks and she knew that her current shade clashed terribly with the teal in her dress. “I am not uptight.”

“You are so uptight you squeak when you walk.”

She gasped. “I. Do. Not.”

“Maybe not, but you are the most uptight person I know.”

She scoffed. “Like that’s saying much.”

“Are appearances that important to you?” he asked.

Natalie didn’t have time to answer; the young girl behind the counter came out bearing a tray containing two chocolate ice cream hot fudge sundaes.

Oh! She hadn’t had chocolate in so long. And it looked so good.

Just one bite, she told herself. One surely wouldn’t do harm. She would have one bite, then stir the rest of it around as it melted. He could eat all he wanted, then they would go home. It was a perfect plan.

She took her time scooping up a bite, making sure it had just the right ratio of chocolate ice cream to chocolate syrup to nuts and whipped cream. If she was going to eat just one bite of this beautiful concoction, then it was going to be a good one.

Newland didn’t have such criteria. He scooped up a big bite and shoveled it in, then pointed his spoon at her. “You never did answer me.”

“What’s the question again?” she asked. She was still working on getting that bite to be the best bite of ice cream in the history of dairy products.

“You know full well what the question is.”

“Oh, appearances. Right.” She pretended to think about it a second. She wasn’t really thinking about the answer as much as she was thinking about the beautiful dessert in front of her. “I take it appearances aren’t that important in your world.” She tried to shoot a scathing look at today’s concert t-shirt underneath his standard corduroy blazer. My Chemical Romance. She wondered if her brother knew their music. She had no idea.

He took another big bite and Natalie watched him eat, hoping the jealousy wasn’t plastered all over her face for him to see. “You can clean me up and put me to the task, but I’m still a pencil jockey. And everyone knows it. I can dress up when I need to. I just don’t have to dress up all the time.” He shot her another pointed look.

“I enjoy dressing this way.”

“I bet you sleep in matching pajamas, don’t you?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“And your underwear probably matches.” Before she could protest he continued. “And not only the other underwear pieces. I bet your panties and bra match your whole outfit.” He looked at her again, as if analyzing what was underneath her dress. “What color do you have on right now? Baby blue, I bet. That would be pretty with that green dress.”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to slap him or bust out laughing. “First of all, my dress is teal. And second of all, the color of my underwear is none of your business.” Never mind that he’d hit too close to home. Yes, her underwear always matched, and yes, it usually matched her outfit as well. What was the point in having nice things, if she didn’t do it tastefully?

“Oh, right.” He nodded. “They’re probably boring tan colored like your shoes.” His eyes held a mischievous twinkle as he devoured yet another mound of ice cream. But what she really hated was the self-satisfied smirk that rose to his lips as she blushed.

“Bingo!” he sing-songed.

“You,” Natalie sputtered.

“Am I right?” He grinned at her. Natalie wanted to ask what was so wrong with wearing nice clothes, having nice things, and matching. But the questions and answers sounded incriminating, so she let the subject matter drop and didn’t respond at all.

“Are you going to eat that?” He nodded toward her quickly melting ice cream.

She tried not to drool as she looked down at the sticky, gooey mess that had once been a chocolate-chocolate sundae. “It’s not exactly on my diet.”

Newland shook his head, then wiped the chocolate from his chin with a napkin. “See? That’s the problem with you Type As. You can’t enjoy yourself. Not even a little bit. Because it might ruin whatever—the balance of the universe—so even ice cream is off limits because you might gain a pound or two. It’ll be fine. I promise.”

“You don’t know anything about Type As considering you’re not one.” She hated the harshness of her words. But it seemed like he had been doing nothing but picking at her since she’d shut the car door behind her half an hour ago. A girl could only take so much criticism before she fought back.

“I know enough about Type As to know that I don’t want to be one. I like ice cream too much.” He scooped up another bite and shoveled it into his mouth. Natalie had a hard time not licking her lips in response. What would one bite of ice cream hurt? That’s what she had said she would allow herself, one bite. But then they started talking and she rethought her decision. After all one bite can lead to eating the whole sundae. Like she needed those calories.

“You don’t think I know how to have a good time, do you?” She hadn’t meant to ask; the question slipped out all on its own. And now that it was out there, there was no calling it back.

He sat back in his heart-shaped wrought iron seat and leveled that brown gaze upon her. “No. I don’t. And you’ve done nothing to make me think any differently.”

His words dropped between them like a challenge. She knew how to have a good time. So she hadn’t been voted Most Likely to Paint the Town Red in high school. She knew how to do it up when the time was right. Though it looked like tonight that she needed to show Newland Tran just how good she was at having a good time.

She picked up her spoon and scooped up a glop of the ice cream, not even bothering to make sure that the ratio between chocolate syrup, ice cream, whipped cream, and nuts was a good balance. Instead she shoveled it in, her gaze never leaving his.

She almost moaned her pleasure out loud. She closed her eyes, savoring the bite even as she knew it had to be the only one she took.

She’d taken one bite of ice cream. She had done something for herself. She had gone out with Newland Tran, and he couldn’t say that she didn’t know how to let loose.

Her eyes fluttered back open, and it was then she realized that she had shut them in her pleasure. The ice cream was melting and had become a runny sticky mess, but it tasted amazing.

He crossed his arms and eyed her dubiously. “One bite of ice cream does not a good time make.”

She scooped up another bite and shoveled it in. The challenge had been uttered. The second bite was even better than the first.

Still he watched her, each blink of his eye a gauntlet.

She took another bite, and another, then another until a searing pain shot through her head behind the one eye. “Yeow!” she cried, gently rubbing the area, careful not to destroy any of her carefully applied makeup.

Newland chuckled. “Brain freeze,” he said. “Just proof that you need to eat ice cream more often. Then you wouldn’t be so desperate to eat it that you make yourself sick.”

Desperate?
“Did you just call me desperate?”

He handed her a napkin across the table. “Yeah, desperate. I see it when you eat ice cream. I can feel it in your kiss.”

“That. Is. Absurd.” She had never heard a bigger bunch of bunk in her whole life. Who was he to come waltzing in here after two days, telling her what she needed to do?

He shook his head, a self-satisfied smirk on his lips. “Sure. Sure.”

Natalie wanted to crawl across the table and kiss him silly, show him exactly what she—no, she wanted to slap him. Yeah, that was right. She wanted to smack him. Not kiss him.

“So tell me, Natty Nat, have Mr. Almost Fiancé and you … you know?” He raised his eyebrows as if to define the blank space in his speech.

“Are you asking … ?” Of all the nerve! “I hardly think that’s any of your business.” She shook her head and crossed her arms. That was telling him.

“Yeah … I didn’t think so.”

Natalie fumed. “I’ll have you know that Gerald and I have a mature and mutual relationship.” She stopped as he started to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

Newland wiped his eyes free of the tears of mirth. “A mutual relationship? What the hell is that?”

“It’s a relationship built on mutual trust and caring.”

“And no sex.” It wasn’t a question.

“Again, a complete inventory of my intimate doings with Gerald isn’t any of your concern.”

Newland shook his head. “But it seems like somebody needs to talk some sense into you.”

• • •

And that someone might as well be him.

Newland got to his feet and reached out a hand to Natalie. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded, and stood, but refused to take his hand.

He shrugged again. It was no skin off his nose if she didn’t want to touch him. And he surely didn’t care that she would rather touch a stuffed shirt like Gerald Davenport instead of him, a flesh and blood man. A man who didn’t kid himself about things like the importance of his own existence. But who was he to say?

Maybe bringing her here was a mistake. He’d thought he would show her how to relax a little, but it seemed like he just made the two of them more uptight.

He followed her out to the car, and they got in, each seemingly waiting on the other to say what was next.

“So?” she asked.

Newland shook his head, then put the key in the ignition. “I think this is a wash.”

She buckled her seatbelt with more force than necessary, then pinned him with that sky blue gaze. “So you think I’m a lost cause?”

“I didn’t say that at all.”

“You might as well have. You’ve already said that I don’t know how to have a good time. And that I’ve denied myself too many pleasures in life and I’m too bossy with everybody. Of course a date with me would be a complete waste of time. Why would you expect anything else?”

Newland backed the car out of the space and kept his eyes on the road instead of on her. “I think it’s best if we just call it a night. Cut our losses, embrace our differences. Life goes on.”

“You’re not getting off that easy. You promised me a good time tonight. And I haven’t had a good time yet.”

He remembered the way she had eaten the ice cream, like she was starving. She seemed to have a good enough time then, he thought, remembering how she licked the spoon. He shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable in his own jeans.

“Forget I said that.”

“Oh, no, you’re not going to say that now. You don’t think I know how to have a good time. I’ll show you.”

“Natalie, I don’t think that’s a good—”

He broke off as she reached up and grabbed the wheel, wrenching it to the right. “Turn here,” she said.

He had no choice but to comply.

“Now left,” she said.

He held up a hand as she made a move to grab the steering wheel once again. “I got it this time.” He executed the left and found himself driving down a tree-lined residential street. “Would you like to tell me where we’re going?”

“Up there. Second house on the right.”

“Whose house?” he asked as he pulled his car into the drive. On second glance he realized that it wasn’t a house, but a duplex, one building with two entrances to separate apartments.

“Mine.”

“What are we doing at your house?” He asked the question, but she was already getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her. “How about I follow you in?” he mumbled to no one in particular. He turned off the engine and pocketed the keys. “Are you going to tell me why we’re here?”