McKnight in Shining Armor Page 6

  She tossed her tissue into the trash and bent over to kiss her son’s cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t get out of this.”

  Liar, her conscience responded, you don’t want to get out of this.

  “What do you say to renting that Star Trek movie tomorrow night, and we’ll have a little party of our own?”

  He shrugged, still frowning. “Can we have pizza?”

  “You’re having pizza tonight.”

  “Can we have it again?”

  “We’ll see,” she said, returning to the mirror above the vanity to give her cheeks a quick dusting of blusher.

  As far as she was concerned, she looked like death and felt very near it. She was cold all over, shaking, and her stomach was in knots. Lord, how she hated the idea of dating. It was almost a phobia. No, it was a phobia. In any ordinary business or social situation she could meet a man, have a normal conversation, be reasonably charming, but label that situation with the word date and she was reduced to a quivering, babbling, pathetic shell of a person.

  “And they say war is hell,” she muttered to herself, fumbling with the thin black ribbon tie at the throat of her blouse.

  It probably had something to do with her upbringing. She’d grown up on a farm, with only her little sister Danielle for company. Their nearest neighbor had been a mile away and no one in the area had had children Kelsie’s age. She’d grown up terribly shy and a little insecure, making her sister and her pets her best friends. Boys had seemed alien to her. Somehow, the concept of dating brought all those old feelings back to her.

  “Can I get a tarantula?” Jeffrey asked, sensing this might be the time to get his mother to agree to what she might otherwise think were unreasonable demands. Before she could reply, the doorbell rang. He dashed off to answer it.

  He swung the door open and glowered up at Alec. “Who are you?” he demanded, hands on hips, barring the entrance to the house as best he could.

  Alec looked down at the boy, knowing instantly he had his work cut out to win over this little ruffian. He held out his hand, thinking the manly gesture might break the ice. “I’m Alec McKnight. I helped with the goats this morning.”

  “So?” Jeff said, ignoring the offered hand.

  Alec stuck his hand in his pocket, clearing his throat. He looked at his cousin Natalie and raised his brows. “This is Natalie. She’s going to stay with you while your mom and I go out.”

  Jeff glared at the pretty, dark-haired young woman. “I don’t need a sitter.”

  “Gee, I guess not; you’re a big guy,” Natalie said, unperturbed. “But I’m here, so would you mind if I just stayed? I’ve got a lot of studying to do. I’m a law student.”

  The boy looked her up and down, considering, obviously leaning toward saying no.

  “I brought fudge ripple ice cream.”

  “Okay.” Jeff nodded, motioning her in. “I’ll show you where to put it.” He headed for the kitchen with Natalie behind him.

  Cheeks pink, Kelsie emerged from the hall with a wry smile. “My son the pit bull. I’m sorry, Alec.”

  Alec shrugged it off. “You look great.”

  She had tamed her blond hair back into a ponytail and wore a snug black wool skirt and a roomy tan blouse with narrow black vertical stripes. A black ribbon was tied in a bow at her throat. Letting his eyes roam back down to her skirt, he noted she had great legs—long and shapely and breathtakingly sexy in dark, silky stockings. He wondered if she was also wearing any of those delicious little underthings she sold. He’d had the most erotic dream about her showing up at his office wearing nothing but the black waist cincher he’d found behind his couch.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, her eyes darting all around the room. She tried to get a look at him without making eye contact. That was the secret to saving herself. Eye contact was the key to his high-powered magnetism. She caught a glimpse of a black and gray print casual shirt, dark gray pleated trousers, a stylish pair of shoes, Cheevers getting ready to pounce—she scooped up the fat orange cat, holding him away from her body so he wouldn’t shed on her. “Sorry. He was about to leap on your shoe. He has a thing for feet. Jeffrey! Come and get Cheevers!” She paused, watching Alec sneeze repeatedly into a monogrammed handkerchief. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Fine.” He managed to smile as his eyes watered. Jeffrey gave him a derisive look as he slung the cat over his shoulder and retreated to the kitchen. “Just a little allergy. I can’t get within three feet of a cat.”

  Kelsie frowned. She abruptly ducked, calling, “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” With no sign of a cat forthcoming, she straightened and tried to smile at Alec’s bewildered look. “My other cat likes to hide under the library table. I didn’t want him to sneak up on you.”

  He was saved from having to comment when Natalie entered the room. After the introductions had been made, Kelsie started for the kitchen to show Natalie where key items were located, leaving her son and her date eyeing each other.

  “Jeff, why don’t you show Pirate to Mr. McKnight?” she called over her shoulder.

  Jeffrey made a disgusted face and motioned Alec to follow him to the dining room, where a macaw that had to be three feet long to the tip of its tail feathers perched inside an antique-looking cage in one corner of the room. The bird was cobalt blue with a strip of yellow under its jaw, and unblinking brown eyes.

  “That’s Pirate,” Jeffrey said flatly. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked as bored as was humanly possible.

  “Is he tame?” Alec asked, hoping to generate some sort of conversation that would last until Kelsie came back.

  “Sure,” Jeff said, glancing at the bird to hide the shrewd look that had come into his eyes. He reached into a drawer in the oak buffet that sat along the back wall of the room. “Here, you can feed him a palm nut…” he said, handing the nut to Alec.

  Alec held the palm nut between two fingers. He slipped them gingerly inside the cage. The parrot shrieked and bit him.

  “Ouch!” he yelled, biting his tongue on the string of curses that were ready to tumble out. He yanked his hand back from the cage and sucked on his wounded finger.

  “But he might bite you,” Jeffrey finished with an angelic look.

  “What in the world?” Kelsie said, coming into the room, wondering what all the commotion was about.

  “It’s nothing, really,” Alec said, giving Jeffrey a hard stare. “Your parrot doesn’t like me.”

  “He doesn’t like strangers,” she said. “Hyacinth macaws are like that. Jeffrey, you should have warned Mr. McKnight that Pirate doesn’t like strangers.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McKnight,” he said, gazing sincerely up at Alec.

  It was weird, Alec reflected as he and Kelsie sat at a corner table in a Chinese restaurant, what lengths he seemed willing to go to just for a date with this lady. His cleaning woman was going to be able to retire to the South of France on what she’d charged him for cleaning Kelsie’s house. His eyes were still itching from the close encounter with the cat. His finger had gone numb where the parrot had bitten him. Then there was the little incident with the male stripper, not to mention the goats. He should’ve known he was in for trouble after the monkey fiasco.

  None of that seemed to matter. He still wanted to take Kelsie Connors out—on a regular basis, if nothing worse happened to him. It wasn’t only because she was a lovely lady and he was a man with a healthy libido. He got the impression she didn’t give herself many opportunities to have fun as a woman—not as somebody’s mom or somebody’s agent or somebody’s lingerie lady, but as a woman—and it made him sad. She deserved more out of life than working herself into the ground. It was unaccountably important to him that she should get more out of life.

  She sat across from him, fidgeting and biting her lip. She looked as nervous as a teenager—a look that did funny things to his heart—and she had been rattling on nonstop about the most bizarre subjects ever since the waitress had taken their order and left
them alone.

  “… And, you see, it’s almost impossible to tell a female spotted hyena from a male, because they all have the same markings, so the females appear to be males.”

  Alec thought he deserved a medal for keeping a straight face. She sounded so serious. It had to have been nearly twenty years since he’d seen a girl so nervous on a date. “That must keep things interesting in the old hyena den,” he said. “Is that why they’re always laughing?”

  “What?” Kelsie asked blankly. She’d suddenly forgotten what she’d been babbling about. Alec had to think she was a world-class idiot by now.

  “Laughing. Laughing hyenas.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Why did she have to be such a dismal failure at this? She was an intelligent person. She was a competent mother and business person. Why did she have to act like all her brain cells had gone south now?

  “How’s the eye feeling?”

  “Better than it looks,” she said.

  “I really don’t think the dark glasses are necessary,” he suggested gently. “People are staring.”

  “Great,” she said. “They’ll really stare if I take them off. They’ll think you beat me up.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, taking a sip of tea. “Or maybe they’ll think you were in a car accident or that you got hit playing racquetball or—”

  “Or got popped by a male stripper.”

  “In an all-leather cowboy outfit.” He smiled warmly, coaxing an answering smile out of Kelsie. She slipped the sunglasses off and stuck them in her purse.

  “Why are you so nervous?” he asked point-blank, curiosity lighting his eyes.

  Kelsie considered denying it as she eyed the couple across from them, but figured it was so obvious there was no point. “I’m not very good at this,” she said shyly.

  “What? Going out to dinner?” he asked. “You don’t have to use the chopsticks, you know.”

  “Dating. I’m not very good at it.”

  “I have a feeling you don’t get enough practice. Why is that? You’re an attractive, appealing woman. Why don’t you give yourself a break once in a while, Kelsie?”

  His question stung. Probably because it poked too close to the truth—truths she knew about and some she wasn’t willing to examine. A surge of defensive anger vaporized her jitters. “Look, Alec, I’m not fishing for pity or anything here, but I think you need to understand things that aren’t that simple when you’re trying to raise two kids and keep a business from going under.”

  Alec stiffened a little. Watching for her reaction very carefully, he said, “Your business isn’t doing very well?”

  Kelsie played with her silverware, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “Things could be better.”

  A thread of tension tightened between them and tightened a little more when he said, “If, for instance, I reconsidered on the Van Bryant deal.”

  Kelsie’s head shot up, her eyes not avoiding his now. Her heart beat a little faster. She couldn’t have been that wrong about him, could she? “Is that one of the perks I get for going out with you, Alec?” she asked with deadly quiet.

  “Did you think it would be?” he returned.

  “For the record, no,” she said, seething inside. How dare he think that of her? He’d practically dragged her to this damned restaurant, and yet he had the utter gall… She pushed her chair back from the table and started to get up to leave. “Thanks for the lovely evening.”

  “Kelsie, wait.” Half out of his chair, Alec caught her wrist, thinking he more than deserved the glare she shot him. “I’m sorry. I think we both hit a nerve. Truce, okay?”

  Kelsie sat just as the waitress brought their dinners. After the woman had arranged the plates of steaming, wonderful-smelling food on the table, she left them alone.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelsie said, poking a fork at her almond chicken. “I told you, I’m not very good at this dating stuff.”

  “It’s simple,” he said, digging into his beef with broccoli. “We make small talk, have a nice dinner, we go back to my place, and you let me ravish you.”

  Kelsie almost choked. The look on her face was one of pale, wide-eyed panic.

  Alec had to laugh. “Honey, I’m teasing,” he assured her. Not that he didn’t want to take her back to his place and ravish her. His imagination had been going wild on that particular topic practically since the moment he’d met her.

  Kelsie sighed in relief and tried to ignore the tiny nip of disappointment inside her. It had been so long, she wasn’t sure she remembered how to be ravished, but there was little doubt in her mind that Alec could give her a top quality refresher course. She struggled to push the thought out of her mind and remember she was just having dinner with him, not a relationship.

  “Where’d you go to college?” he asked, effectively ending both their forays into fantasy.

  “I didn’t.”

  Alec’s brows bobbed up in surprise. “I figured you had to have a degree in zoology. Where did you learn so much about animals?”

  She grinned. “Wild Kingdom. I never missed an episode as a kid. National Geographic specials too.”

  “Why didn’t you pursue it?”

  Kelsie hesitated. She almost said fear, which would have been a large part of the truth. The idea of leaving her safe, closed environment for college had terrified her then. Instead, she gave her stock answer. “I got married. We started our family right away. I used to think about going to college, but I don’t anymore. I like what I’m doing. How about you? What’s your story, Alec?”

  “Pretty boring stuff.” He smiled. “Born and raised in Edina, a business degree from the University of Minnesota, went to work at Glendenning. I live in Minnetonka and like to run every morning.”

  “Aren’t you awfully young to be a vice-president?”

  “I’m ambitious, and determined—remember that.” He gave her a wink.

  “Do you have family in the area?” she asked, feeling remarkably relaxed now that her initial nervousness had passed. They were sharing a lovely meal and conversation; there was nothing scary about it.

  Alec nodded. “My dad still practices law downtown. Mom has a little needlecraft store. I have some aunts and uncles and assorted cousins scattered around. You?”

  “My father sold the farm and retired last year. He and Mother are living in New Mexico. I have a younger sister, Danielle, who is part-owner of a salvage shop in Chicago.”

  The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly enough. Kelsie had calmed down to the point where she could actually taste and appreciate the subtle flavors of the food. Alec ate because there was a plate in front of him. He was too wrapped up watching Kelsie and appreciating her subleties to care about the cuisine.

  She had totally captivated his interest. He was by nature a curious person, and Kelsie was like a very pretty puzzle to him. She had seemed so nervous at the start of the evening, one might have thought she’d never been on a date, yet she had been married and had two children. She had told him she didn’t date because she didn’t have time, but he had sensed there was more to it than that. She struck him as being intelligent and self-sufficient. She had a job that required her to get out and hustle for business, yet she could seem almost painfully shy.

  He was intrigued, which meant one thing at present: This wasn’t going to be their only date. He wanted to get to know Kelsie, wanted to be the one to rescue her from her self-imposed life of work and more work. She might not think she needed or wanted rescuing, but that wasn’t going to stop him.

  “What’s your fortune?” he asked. The waitress had left their cookies and gone off to retrieve Alec’s change from the bill.

  Kelsie cracked her cookie open, plucked out the slip of paper and read it, making a face. “Strength of character through virtue and hardship.”

  “They gave you the wrong cookie,” Alec said, teasing. “I told them to give you the one that said ‘A long and happy life through unbridled lust.’”

  Kelsie rolled her eyes and tossed her fo
rtune at him. “What’s yours say?”

  Alec read the message to himself, a slow grin spreading over his face as if he was a poker player who had just laid down an unbeatable hand. “Good things are coming to you in due course. Perseverance rewards itself.”

  The night was clear and cool when they left the restaurant, with a moon well on its way to being full hanging in the sky. Kelsie huddled into her light coat and caught herself wishing Alec’s arm were around her as they crossed the parking lot to his car. The thought surprised her. Not because she was fantasizing about him again—she’d been doing that since they’d met—but because she wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable with him as she had been only a few hours before.

  Their dinner conversation had hardly been of the deep, soul-searching variety, and it had put her at ease. He was a nice man. He hadn’t loaded the conversation with leading remarks or come-ons. They had talked like two mature adults getting to know each other. It seemed a simple thing, but loomed large in Kelsie’s mind, considering how it had changed her attitude.

  Driving out of the parking lot, Alec went straight instead of turning in the direction of Eden Prairie and Kelsie’s house. She shot him a suspicious glance.

  “Where are you taking me, Mr. McKnight?” she asked in her mother’s don’t-give-me-any-bull tone of voice.

  “For a drive around the lake,” he answered innocently, fighting back a grin. “It’s a beautiful night, don’t you think?”

  “Lovely.”

  “It’s probably been a while since you went for a quiet moonlit drive around the lake.”

  “A while.” The last moonlit drive around a lake she’d taken had been when Jeffrey was a baby with a brand of insomnia that could only be cured by taking him for a ride in the car. It had hardly been a romantic experience.

  “So I’m treating you to a moonlit drive around the lake.”

  “Fine, but don’t get any ideas, McKnight,” she warned.

  Alec chuckled. “Too late for that.”

  They drove around the night-silvered lake in companionable silence with light rock music playing softly on the car’s stereo. When they came to a parking lot near a strip of beach, Alec turned into it and killed the engine.