The Pride of Jared MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 2)

"Worked a strip joint in Abilene. There." She chuckled and plucked the thin cigar he'd just taken out of his pocket from his fingers. "That's got you thinking."

Determined not to goggle, he struck a match, held it to the tip of the cigar when she leaned over. "You were a stripper."

"Erotic dancer." She blew out smoke and grinned. "You are shocked."

"I'm... intrigued."

"Mm-hmm... To pop the fantasy a bit, I never got down to the bare essentials. You'd see women on the beach wearing about as much as I shook down to— only I got paid for it. Not terribly well." Casually she handed him back the cigar. "I made more money designing and sewing costumes for the other girls than I did peeling out of them. So I retired from the stage."

"You're leaving out chunks, Savannah."

"That's right." They were her business. "Let's say I didn't like the hours. I worked a dog and pony show for awhile."

"A dog and pony show."

"A poor man's circus. Took a breather in New Orleans selling paintings of bayous and street scenes, and doing charcoal sketches of tourists. I liked it. Great food, great music."

"But you didn't stay," he pointed out.

"I never stayed long in one place. Habit. Just about the time I was getting restless, I got lucky. One of the tourists who sat for me was a writer. Kids' books. She'd just ditched her illustrator. Creative differences, she said. She liked my work and offered me a deal. I'd read her manuscript and do a few illustrations. If her publisher went for it, I'd have a job. If not, she'd pay me a hundred for my time. How could I lose?"

"You got the job."

"I got a life," she told him. "The kind where I didn't have to leave Bryan with sitters, worry about how I was going to pay the rent that month, or if the social workers were going to come knocking to check me out and decide if I was a fit mother. The kind where cops don't roust you to see if you're selling paintings or yourself. After a while, I had enough put together that I could buy my son a yard, a nice school, Little League games. A community." She tipped back her glass again. "And here we are."

"And here we are," he repeated. "Where do you suppose we're going?"

"That's a question I'll have to ask you. Why are we having dinner and conversation instead of sex?"

To his credit, he didn't choke, but blew out smoke smoothly. "That's blunt."

"Lawyers like to use twenty words when one will do," she countered. "I don't."

"Then let's just say you expected sex. I don't like being predictable." Behind the haze of smoke, his eyes flashed on hers with a power that jarred. "When we get around to sex, Savannah, it won't be predictable. You'll know exactly who you're with, and you'll remember it."

In that moment, she didn't have the slightest doubt. Perhaps that was what worried her. "All your moves, Lawyer MacKade? Your time and place?"

"That's right." His eyes changed, lightened with a humor that was hard to resist. "I'm a traditional kind of guy."

Chapter Five

A traditional kind of guy, Savannah mused. One day after her impromptu dinner with Jared, and she was standing in her kitchen, her hands on her hips, staring at the florist's box.

He'd sent her roses. A dozen long-stemmed red beauties.

Traditional, certainly. Even predictable, in their way, she supposed. Unless you factored in that no one in her life had ever sent her a long, glossy white box filled with red roses.

She was certain he knew it.

Then there was the card.

Until your garden blooms

How did he know flowers were one of her biggest weaknesses, that she had pined for bright, fragrant blooms in those years when she was living in tiny, cramped rooms in noisy, crowded cities? That she'd promised herself that one day she would have a garden of her own, planted and tended by her own hands?

Because he saw too much, she decided, and circled the flowers as warily as a dog circling a stranger. She was so intent on them, she actually jumped when the phone rang. Cursing herself she yanked up the receiver.

"Yes. Hello."