“Lena mentioned that the American Cancer Society is having their annual ball and she’s on the committee,” she started off by saying. “So quite naturally she’s trying to get rid of as many tickets as she can. I told her I’d get a ticket to support the cause and then she tried talking me into getting two, knowing full well I wouldn’t have a date that night.”
“And?” he asked when she paused briefly.
That single, softly uttered word stirred an area of her body that it shouldn’t have. “And…Lena suggested that I invite you.”
“So that’s what you meant when you screamed in my ear.”
Color rushed into Kylie’s face again. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“I see. Don’t I have a say in the matter?”
“No. The only reason we met, Chance, is because of the kids,” she said, giving voice to her earlier thoughts. “If we had been at any function together you wouldn’t have noticed me. I’m not the type of woman you would have been drawn to enough to show any real interest in.”
“You think not?”
“Yes.”
“What if I said you’re wrong?”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
When he had no comeback, she said, “Besides, I don’t date. I mentioned that to you before.”
“Yes, you did mention it. Is that also the reason you won’t go camping, because you see that as a date?”
“No, that in itself is a whole other set of problems, Chance. I just think the two of us spending a weekend at a cabin isn’t a good idea, even with the kids there. Especially with the kids there.”
“Why?”
“I think you know the reason without me having to go into any great detail. For some reason, we’re like magnets—we attract.”
“And you see that as a bad thing?”
“Yes. Our focus should be on our kids. What would Marcus think if he thought you were attracted to me?”
Chance chuckled. “He would probably think the same thing I did when I finally got to meet Tiffany. That he has great taste. She’s a nice girl and so is her mother.”
Kylie couldn’t help but smile, pleased with his compliment, but still…“Can’t you see the problems it will cause if our kids think something is going on between us?”
“No.”
“Chance,” she said, moaning his name in frustration.
“Kylie. We’ve had this conversation before and my feelings on the matter haven’t changed. We’re adults and what we do is our business. In fact I think Marcus will find it strange if I’m not attracted to you. He thinks you’re beautiful, so quite naturally he’ll assume that I’ll think you’re beautiful, too. And I do. I also think you’re someone I’d like to get to know better. He would assume as much as well. But you’re right. The camping trip will be about Marcus and Tiffany and not about us. Our time will come later.”
She wondered what he meant by that.
“Will it make you feel better if I promise to be on my best behavior when we go camping?”
Kylie shrugged. How could she explain to him that his behavior really had nothing to do with it? It was her own behavior she was concerned about. He didn’t have to do anything in particular for her to get turned on. Her dilemma was the fact that just seeing him did that.
“If you don’t go, you know what might happen, don’t you?”
Chance’s question recaptured her attention. “No, what?”
“The kids are going to feel that they can’t depend on us to keep our end of the bargain. We did tell them that we would agree for them to take part in supervised activities.”
“But we never said anything about overnight activities, Chance.”
“Neither did we clarify they had to be only daytime activities. They won’t understand what the big deal is since we will be there as chaperones. They will only see it as a cop-out on our part. I don’t think it’s fair to cancel out a weekend of fun for them just because we can’t keep our hormones in check for forty-eight hours. It makes us sound pretty damn selfish, don’t you think?”
Kylie sighed deeply. It hadn’t before, but since he’d put it that way, yes, it did make them—her in particular—sound selfish. Tiffany had never gotten the chance to go camping. Kylie had been too overprotective to even let her go with the Girl Scouts that time when she was ten. And now all her daughter wanted was to experience her first camping trip and her selfish mother, who couldn’t keep her overactive hormones in line, was standing in her way.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll go.”