That First Special Kiss

He grinned. “Okay, so we’ll start with a movie.” He pushed himself off the couch and headed for the door. “Tomorrow night at seven?”

She rose, wondering what on earth they were doing. “Fine.”

“I’ll look forward to it. But I won’t tell anyone,” he added, his blue eyes glinting now with his usual humor.

“Good.” She gave him what she hoped was a quelling look.

Shane left without another word. Kelly promptly collapsed onto the couch and hid her face in her hands. At least she knew she wouldn’t spend the night worrying about what to tell her father. She had more pressing problems to worry about.

A date with Shane? What had she been thinking?

Kelly felt like such a fool. Her bedroom looked like a tornado had swept through it, leaving piles of clothing in its wake. She must have donned and discarded half a dozen outfits, and she still wasn’t happy with what she was wearing.

She couldn’t believe she was acting this way over a simple movie date with Shane.

She was considering changing again when the phone rang. Maybe, she thought with a jolt of cowardly optimism, Shane had to cancel their plans for the evening. But the caller was Brynn. “Have you made a decision yet about your father?” she asked, having heard about the situation when she and Kelly had talked earlier that day.

“No, not yet.” She didn’t add, of course, that she’d hardly given her long-absent father any thought. She’d been much more preoccupied by worrying about her date with Shane.

“Would you like to have dinner with Joe and me this evening? We can talk about it, if you like.”

Keeping her tone very casual, Kelly replied, “Thanks, but Shane and I are going to a movie this evening.”

Brynn seemed to find nothing at all unusual about that. “Oh, that’s good. You need a night just to have fun, and you can always count on Shane for that.”

“That’s what he claims,” she said lightly.

“How did you do on your test today??

?

“It was easier than I expected.” Kelly was relieved that Brynn had changed the subject so easily. “How was yours?”

“I did pretty well, I think.”

“One more semester behind us.”

“Ain’t it great?” Brynn agreed.

Kelly eyed her reflection in the full-length mirror across the room. Her latest outfit choice was a snug-fitting, blue-and-tan striped sweater with khaki cargo pants and brown boots. Too casual? Was the scooped neckline of the sweater too low? Maybe she should put the black pantsuit back on, the one she had eliminated earlier as too dressy for a movie date.

“Kelly?” Brynn broke into her thoughts, sounding as if she had tried before to get her attention. “Are you still there?”

“Sorry,” she said with a wince. “Static on my end.” All between her own ears, of course.

“I’d better let you go. Shane will rib you if you aren’t ready when he picks you up.”

“Yeah. He’d be convinced I spent extra time on my appearance for him,” Kelly joked lamely.

Brynn laughed. “You’d never hear the end of it Have a good time, okay? You deserve a night out to relax.”

Though she couldn’t imagine this evening was going to be particularly relaxing, she said only, “Thanks. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She groaned as she hung up the phone. What was she doing? She had just deliberately misled her best friend. What made her think she and Shane could get away with this?

Her only hope was that tonight’s “date” would turn out to be a one-time experiment. She wanted to believe they would realize very quickly that what they felt for each other was nothing more than a deep, caring friendship and that the sexual overtones they’d battled recently were only a temporary aberration. By the time this evening ended, they could both quite likely be laughing at how foolish they had been to imagine a depth to their relationship that simply wasn’t there.

And then her doorbell rang and her pulse rate went crazy and her palms went damp, and she wondered if she really had lost her mind.