The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess (19 page)

The bag rustled as he pulled a bottle of wine from it. “I didn’t know she could get that mad,” Wally said, awed. “She didn’t
even have to say anything… just the look on her face…”

But she had said plenty, too. Theresa’s lips curved at the memory of the angry words spilling unchecked from Millie. Then
she glanced up and found Wally’s gaze intent on her. She hadn’t seen him look so thoughtful in a long time.

“You don’t have to say anything either,” he told her. “I know when you’re unhappy.”

“So am I?” she asked, calling him on his claim. Since she wasn’t a western or the sports page, she doubted he paid enough
attention to know anything about her, but because of the class he’d been spending less time watching TV and reading the paper.

He didn’t hesitate before nodding. “I think so.”

She didn’t fight the amused smile from lifting her lips. “It’s ironic that you think I’m unhappy. You’re the one who’s been
depressed.”

“It’s been a struggle to adjust to retirement,” Wally admitted with a ragged sigh. “Selling the business totally changed my
life.”

“Mine, too,” Theresa replied vehemently.

“Does my being home all the time cramp your style?” he asked with a teasing lilt to his voice. But his gray eyes were serious,
watchful.

Theresa wasn’t sure how honest she was prepared to be. He didn’t seem as depressed as he’d been. But if he was getting better,
she didn’t want to cause a setback. “I wouldn’t call it that…”

“What would you call it, Theresa?”

“Like I said, you’ve been depressed.” She swallowed, then added, “You’re no longer the man I married.”

He nodded. “Of course not. That was a long time ago. I’ve grown up.”

“Grown up or grown old?” she asked quietly.

“Older,” Wally conceded. “Maybe wiser. We all grow older, Theresa, even you.”

She nodded in ready agreement. “Yes, we all grow
older.” She wasn’t fighting age. She was accepting it gracefully and wearing it the same way: today with a blue silk, sleeveless
blouse and linen capris.

“But you’re still as beautiful as the day I met you,” he said, walking over to join her at the table in the breakfast nook.
He settled into the chair across from her and reached across the glass top, brushing her hand with his, as if he wanted to
take it into his but didn’t dare. He added, “Maybe even more beautiful.”

She tipped her lips up into a smile, touched by the brief resurgence of the old charm that gave her a glimpse of the man he
used to be. “I can’t argue with you about that,” she said, patting her hair in mock arrogance.

He chuckled. “But you want to argue with me about something else?”

“We don’t
all
grow wiser,” she maintained.

“So now I haven’t just been depressed but stupid, too?” he asked, no trace of humor in his deep voice now, as his gray eyes
darkened with anger. He drew his hand away and leaned back in his chair.

She was as touched by his anger as his charm. Lately he hadn’t cared enough about anything to get angry. But then she’d struck
him where his retirement had done the most damage, his pride. Shame washed over her; she hadn’t meant to hurt him. “You’re
not stupid, Wally. You’re such a smart man. That’s why it’s so sad…”

“What’s so sad?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

She didn’t want to hurt him, but he was listening to her for the first time in a long time, so she had to take advantage of
the opportunity to reach him. After clearing
the thickness of emotion from her throat, she answered him softly, “What’s so sad is what you’ve become.”

He sighed raggedly. “I don’t like it either, Theresa. I can’t look in the mirror because I don’t know the old man staring
back at me. Defeated.”

Tears burned Theresa’s eyes. He saw it, too. “Defeated? So you’ve given up?”

“I don’t know…”

“The old Wally would know. You fixed all those dying businesses. You can fix yourself.”

“Is that why you really want me in the class?” Wally asked. “To fix me?”

She borrowed his phrase. “I don’t know.” Then she added, “I don’t know how to
fix
you.” She wasn’t sure that what was broken could be fixed. Could a man repair his pride once it had been shattered?

“Then what’s the point of my learning all this stuff?” he asked, his voice unsteady with emotion. “Am I going to be a bachelor
again? Are you so unhappy that you want to leave me, Theresa?”

“I don’t want to leave the man I used to know, that I used to love,” she said, swiping at the tears that ran unchecked down
her face.

“You don’t love me?” he asked, tears welling in his gray eyes.

“I don’t know you.”

F
ootfalls pounded hard on the asphalt behind Kim. She quickened her pace, her lungs burning as she struggled for breath. Pain
traveled up the arches of her
feet, radiating in her shins as she exerted more speed, desperate to outdistance her pursuer.

Excitement, not fear, had her heart pumping hard and fast. If she were afraid, she’d stop and confront the man following her,
whirling on him with the canister of pepper spray clipped at the waist of her blue running shorts. But she wasn’t afraid,
not as much as she should be.

If she had any sense…

Where had it gone?

She’d been so careful to avoid temptation, shutting off her lights long before his shift ended, stumbling over the cat in
the dark so that he didn’t have an excuse to come to her door… or window again.

But now temptation was chasing her down. And as she’d suspected before, she might not be able to outrun him. Yes, she was
far safer flirting with Mr. Lindstrom!

Kim had a bruise on her upper thigh from the old man. Since he didn’t drive, she’d played his chauffeur for the trip to and
from the grocery store. Despite his age, he’d managed to reach across the console between them and squeeze her leg a few times,
nearly making her veer into a ditch. He might be old, but the man was still strong. Too strong.

A giggle tickled her throat from the memory of fending off Mr. Lindstrom’s clumsy advances as well as this ongoing chase.
She could hear him breathing in loud pants. Then she could feel him, as his breath blew across the back of her neck.

“Gotcha,” he gasped, as his fingers closed around her arm, drawing her up short.

Off balance from the momentum of her run, she spun
around and fell into his arms. Hating the weak gesture and how strong and hard his chest felt against hers, she mock-threatened,
“I’m a cop’s daughter. He taught me self-defense moves that could put you in the hospital.”

His face so close to hers, George chuckled. “I believe you. But since you haven’t pepper sprayed me already or used Harry
to shoot me, I think I’m safe.”

She could argue with that. He was everything but safe. Just being close to him made her feel reckless and out of control.
She hated that feeling. “Never underestimate me,” she warned him as she pulled away.

“After how hard I had to run to catch you, I would never make that mistake,” he promised, his breath still coming fast and
hard.

A smile teased her lips, and she found herself flirting with him. “You only caught me because I slowed down.”

He laughed; it rumbled deep in his chest. He wore a dark blue tank top that showed off his muscular arms, while sweatpants
cut off just above the knee showed off his strong calves. “I’m not going to disagree with you,” he said.

“You’re not?”

He shook his head, sending sweat trickling from his graying temples down his chiseled cheekbones. The man was hot. “Nope,”
he said, “you might challenge me to a race.”

“Scared of me?” she teased.

“Oh, yeah,” he admitted, his grin fading and his dark eyes burning in intensity as he stared at her.

She didn’t think he was afraid of her athleticism but something else. Maybe how she made him feel? If it was
half as confused as he made her, she could understand his fear. And she could almost admit to feeling some herself.

Almost.

“Don’t be,” she told him. “I might let you win.”

“You would do that?” he asked, dark eyes widening in surprise.

She solemnly nodded. “I understand how fragile the male ego is.”

“Is that why you let me catch you?”

She wasn’t sure why she’d done that. But she knew that she had. She could run faster. She shrugged, unable to answer either
of them.

“You must have some peripheral vision,” he commented, “to have known it was me. You never looked back.”

She hadn’t had to look back and not because she’d seen him out of the corner of her eyes. She’d known it was him just by the
way her pulse quickened. Yeah, she’d been smart to avoid him. He was trouble.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she lied. “I thought it was Mr. Lindstrom.”

“Mr. Lindstrom? Is that the old guy that walks past your condo a couple times a day?”

She hadn’t known he did that. “A short guy, usually wears a dark, pinstriped suit?”

He nodded.

“Then, yes, I guess that is him.” No wonder he stayed in such great shape for his age; he participated in her exercise class
and walked.

“You have a stalker,” George surmised.

“Some cop you are,” she scoffed. “You haven’t run him off yet.”

“He seems harmless enough.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, stroking her hip. “He bruised me today.”

“He hurt you?” The brown eyes darkened with concern and something far more primitive, something possessive.

Despite the excitement quickening her pulse again, she managed a dismissive shrug. “It was an accident.” Except for the grab
in the car. “He got me with a shopping cart during a field trip for the class today.”

“How’s that going?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely interested, unlike her ex-fiancés who’d only been interested in talking
about themselves.

She didn’t like remembering how young and stupid she’d been during those engagements. At least she’d come to her senses in
time. She only hoped she could do the same with George.

“Are you having problems with the class?” he asked when she didn’t immediately answer.

She groaned. “Next subject.”

“That bad?” he asked, voice deep with sympathy. Not only was he interested in someone’s life besides his own, he cared.

She answered with a nod.

“So you’ve been busy with the class?” he asked as he settled his hands onto her shoulders.

She nodded again, only half listening as she considered pulling away from his loose embrace. But it felt too good to have
someone hold her, even if just her shoulders, after the day she’d had.

Poor Millie, hers had been infinitely worse.

“So you haven’t been avoiding me?”

She shook her head. “Why would I do that?” she asked, not to stall but because she needed time to remember her reason for
avoiding him.

He helped her by admitting, “Maybe I come on a little strong.” Suddenly his loose embrace wasn’t quite so loose. His hands
slid from her shoulders to her back, pulling her closer.

“You?” she scoffed.

“And maybe I freaked you out a little when you found me on your patio.”

“I already have one stalker,” she said, as if she had a quota that had already been filled.

“Yeah, I don’t want to have to write up a report on myself.”

“Might be kind of hard to have a restraining order against you when we live just a wall apart.” She’d thought that was close…
until now… when he had her wrapped up tight in his arms.

“Yeah, that whole stay-so-many-yards-away rule would be a little difficult.”

Kim tried to summon her strength, which was usually considerable, and pull away from him again. But he was staring at her,
his eyes so intense. Her knees weakened, making her legs shaky. She’d like to blame it on the intensity of the run. But she
knew it was his fault.

A car slowly passed them where they stood on the side of one of Hilltop’s streets and a horn beeped, reminding Kim of where
they were. She glanced toward
the retreating car, where it moved uphill at a snail’s pace. “Mrs. Ryers,” she groaned, recognizing the red Cadillac.

“Not a friend of yours?”

“Hilltop’s grapevine,” she informed him, finally dragging herself out of his arms. She should have done that earlier, before
Mrs. Ryers got an eyeful and more ammunition, as if the patio story hadn’t been juicy enough for the old gossip to spread.

“So she’ll be talking about us,” George said, his voice deepening on the last word.

Us?

“Yes,” Kim said with a sigh. “She’ll be scorching the phone lines tonight.”

Kim didn’t want to think about her morning aerobics class. Mrs. Ryers didn’t come for the exercise as much as the opportunity
to gossip. Her mouth would definitely get a better workout than her body tomorrow.

“You care what people say about you?” George’s graying brows arched above his eyes in surprise.

She shrugged. “I don’t care about gossip. I’d rather have her talking about me than my friends.”

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but the new class isn’t going well?”

Kim sighed again. “That’s an understatement. We cut today’s class short.” That was why she’d found time for a run. How had
he? Probably a day off after another long shift. “Tomorrow we’re supposed to have another cooking lesson.”

“But?”

“I’m not sure if we’re even going to keep the course going.” Not after Millie had all but dragged Mitchell and
Steven from the grocery store, as if she’d been dragging misbehaving boys home from a field trip.

“So it is going bad,” George said.

“Really bad.”

“Let me make you dinner, and you can tell me all about it,” he offered.

She glanced at the sun, setting behind the hill for which the complex was named. “It’s kind of late for dinner.”

“How about dessert then?” he offered, stepping close again.

She had a feeling he wasn’t talking about food. What he was hinting at, with the sparkle in his dark eyes and his wicked grin,
was far more dangerous than empty calories. Unlike her friend Millie, Kim wasn’t addicted to sweets, but she could get addicted
to George.