14 Valentine Place (22 page)

“Now feel mine.” He moved her hand until it was against his chest.

She liked the pulsating rhythm beneath her fingertips.

“Ever since that night I walked into my mother’s living room and saw you standing there, I haven’t been
able to stop thinking about you, Maddie.” His eyes roved over her face, studying it as if it were an artist’s masterpiece. “Something happens when we’re together. You feel it, too, don’t you?”

She nodded. “It’s a little scary,” she admitted.

“For me, too. I didn’t expect to come home and find somebody who makes me feel this way.” He lifted her chin with his fingertips and stared into her eyes. “I only have a few weeks to be here. I’d like to spend them with you, but if you tell me that’s not what you want, I’ll respect that. I won’t send any more flowers. I’ll give you the Shania Twain tickets. I’ll stay away from you, Maddie.”

She could have told him she was in love with Jeffrey and had no interest in him.

But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t true. “I like being with you, Dylan,” she told him, causing his eyes to gleam in satisfaction. “And just for the record, I believe I told you a while back that I didn’t need a romance coach.”

“Does that mean…”

“I didn’t take your mom’s advice. I followed my own instincts. Before I went to the dance studio today, I stopped at Jeffrey’s and told him I thought we needed some time apart.”

“You’re not friends anymore?”

“I hope we’ll always be friends. He’s a good man,” she told him.

“Believe it or not, there have been occasions people have actually referred to me in those terms,” he told her, the corners of his mouth quirking into a grin. “I can be good, Maddie.”

It was said with such a devilish glint in his eye she couldn’t help but grin. He planted a quick kiss on her lips, then his face grew sober.

“Our being together isn’t going to make it awkward for you with my family, is it?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure and admitted it. “Your mom’s very fond of Jeffrey and he’s Garret’s friend, too.”

He pulled her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I’ll do whatever I can to make it easier for you.” Suddenly the lights dimmed. “I think that’s our signal to leave,” he said with a wry smile.

She looped her arm through his and they headed toward the exit. “Thanks for bringing me to the game. I like hockey.”

“Good, because I do, too.”

“So we have something in common.”

“Maddie, I think over the next few weeks you’re going to discover we have a lot more in common than you realize.” It sounded like a promise.

She hoped he was right.

CHAPTER TEN

Dear Leonie: I can’t explain it, but I’ve never felt such a strong connection to anyone before as I do to this guy I’ve been seeing. It scares me. I don’t want to fall in love with him, but I’m afraid that’s what’s happening. What should I do?

Signed: Not ready for love

Leonie says: Falling in love isn’t always a choice. Sometimes it finds you whether you’re ready or not.

“Y
OU’RE UP EARLY
,” Maddie remarked when Dylan entered the kitchen on Saturday morning. She had on her warm-up suit and her hair was in a ponytail, which he knew was an indication that she was going to the dance studio.

“I could say the same about you. What time do you start work on Saturdays?” he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

She stood at the sink washing up the few dishes she’d used for breakfast. “My first class is at eight.”

He moved closer until they were side-by-side, though he had his back against the counter while she faced it. He liked the way she looked in the morning, her face freshly scrubbed, the faint hint of strawberries in her hair.

“You haven’t been around the past couple of days,” he noted.

“I’ve been busy.” She kept her attention on the dishes she was washing.

Impatience pushed its way to the front of his thoughts. He was done with the small talk. He wanted to talk about them.

“I’ve missed seeing you.”

A light pink colored her cheeks, then she looked up at him with a flirtatious tilt to her head, “Would you like to see more of me?”

His body responded to the provocative gleam in her eyes. “You need to ask?”

“Just checking,” she said, looking smug as she lowered her eyelashes. “Are you free this evening?”

“Are you asking me out?”

She looked at him once more. “Yes.” She dried her hands on a dish towel, then reached into her pocket. “I thought maybe you might want to make use of these.” She held up two tickets. “They’re for the Wild game tonight. One of the guys at the co-op has season tickets. When he said he couldn’t go, I told him I might know someone I could take.” She slowly waved the tickets in midair.

He snatched them from her, his eyes widening as he read the small print. “The second row?”

She smiled impudently. “I guess he’s crazy about hockey.”

And Dylan discovered that he was quickly becoming crazy for Maddie. It was only because his mother chose that moment to enter the kitchen that he didn’t
pull her into his arms to show her the effect she had on him.

“Good morning.” His mother, as perceptive as usual, walked up to him and said, “You’ve got that look in your eye. Did you just find out that you have the winning numbers for last night’s lottery?”

“You’re close, Mom.”

Maddie took the tickets from his hand and said, “I have tickets for the Wild game tonight. My boss at the co-op gave them to me because he had other plans for this evening.”

His mother looked surprised. “And you’re going to go with Dylan?”

“He’s the only other person I could think of who might be interested in going. None of my friends are hockey fans.”

From the way his mother was looking at the two of them, Dylan suspected she wasn’t quite convinced that was the only reason Maddie had asked him to go with her. It wasn’t much later that he discovered he was right.

“I guess you won’t be around for dinner this evening, will you?” she remarked when Maddie had left for work.

“We’ll probably grab something to eat after the game,” he answered. She was looking at him as if he were a twelve-year-old in need of a warning to stay out of trouble.

He decided to take the offensive. “Does it bother you that I’m seeing Maddie?”

In a resigned tone she said, “I should have known
something like this would happen. I saw the way you were looking at her.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Maddie’s been looking at me the same way, Mom,” he said, aware of his mother’s unspoken accusation.

She looked at him with a look that only mothers knew how to give—the one that said you’d better listen to me because I’m your mother and I know best. “You’re not going to like what I have to say—”

“Then don’t say it,” he cut her off, ignoring that look.

“I have to say it or I’d be breaking a promise I made to Nancy Lamont,” she said, still holding his eyes.

“To do what? Protect Maddie?”

“You have been known to be a bit reckless when it comes to women’s feelings,” she chastised him gently.

He rolled his eyes. “So this isn’t about Maddie, it’s about me and my lifestyle. You don’t think I should show an interest in any woman unless I have plans to put a ring on her finger.”

He didn’t realize he’d raised his voice until she said, “I don’t want to argue with you, Dylan.”

And he didn’t want to make things more awkward than they already were. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue about this, either. And I don’t want to hurt Maddie. I just want to spend some time with her and she wants to spend some time with me.”

“That’s what has me worried.”

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, wishing that his desire to be with Maddie didn’t have to
cause tension between him and his mother. “Mom, I know you only want what’s best for Maddie. So do I.”

She arched one eyebrow. “You think that starting something up with her when you know you’re going to be leaving is what’s best?” “We have tickets for a hockey game. It’s not like I’m taking her away for the weekend.”

“And you think that because you both know the score, that nothing’s going to go wrong?”

“What could go wrong? We’re going to a hockey game.” He struggled to be patient. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but we’re two adults.”

“Yes, you are,” she agreed, looking as if she wanted to say more. To his relief she simply said, “Please promise me you’ll be careful. You are both very dear to me.”

He held up his hand, as if taking an oath. “I promise to be extremely careful.” Then he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Trust me.”

“I
SN’T THIS A GREAT GAME
?”

Maddie liked the feel of Dylan’s warm breath tickling her skin and was grateful for the enthusiastic hockey fans who made so much noise that it was necessary for him to speak the words close to her ear.

“It’s exciting,” she answered, bending closer to him and catching the aroma of his aftershave.

She knew the way to a man’s heart was supposed to be through his stomach, but with Dylan she was convinced that it was through the Excel ice arena.
Never would she have guessed a hockey game could be such a great date. It was fun, it was exciting and it was surprisingly intimate. It didn’t matter that there were thousands of people around them, they sat with their heads together, their arms entwined, and Maddie liked it.

It had been that way ever since they’d left the house and walked into the garage to get the car. Before he’d even opened the door for her, he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she’d ached with longing for him.

Then he’d said, “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since you waved those hockey tickets under my nose this morning.” He’d pulled her even closer to him and said, “But then every time I see you I want to take you in my arms. You’ve managed to captivate me like no one has ever been able to do, Maddie.”

They were heady words, ones she hadn’t expected to ever succumb to, but the truth was she felt the same way. Normally she wasn’t a demonstrative person, but with Dylan she discovered she liked his hand at her back, his arm around her shoulder and his fingers clutching hers. He made her feel cherished and she missed his touch when he went to the concession stands.

When he did slide back into the seat next to hers, he wore a Minnesota Wild sweatshirt.

“I thought we should look the part,” he told her as he handed her an identical sweatshirt. Maddie glanced around and saw that many of the fans around them wore clothing with the Wild insignia.

“You know I’ve never done this before,” she told
him as she pulled the dark green sweatshirt over her head.

“Worn a sweatshirt with a professional hockey team’s logo on it?”

“No, worn the same shirt as my date.”

He grinned. “Me, neither. They say there’s a first time for everything.” Then he signaled a vendor, purchased two beers and proposed a toast. He raised his paper cup to hers and said, “Here’s to all the firsts that wait for us, Maddie.”

She tipped her glass against his and added, “To new things.”

If she’d had any doubts that she’d made the right decision to ask him out, they were gone by the end of the game. She supposed the exhilaration she felt could have been due to the atmosphere inside the arena when the Wild beat their opponents in overtime, but she suspected it had more to do with being with Dylan. Whatever the reason, as they walked out into the cold night air, she felt as if it was as close to a perfect night as it could be.

Before reaching the parking lot, they saw a small diner with a large neon sign in the window that said, “Comfort Food Inside.”

“Appropriate for those times when the Wild lose,” Dylan had commented as he held the door open for her.

Since the Wild had won, they hadn’t needed comforting, but that hadn’t stopped Dylan from ordering meat loaf and mashed potatoes. “It’s been ages since I had this,” he’d told Maddie when the waitress had set their plates before them.

“The same for me,” she’d said, eyeing her plate piled high with a hot roast beef sandwich, mashed potatoes and gravy. Then she’d told him how her mother would cook a beef roast for dinner on Sunday, then on Monday pile the remaining leftovers onto slices of bread and smother it with gravy.

He’d mentioned that roast beef had often been on their Sunday dinner menu as well, but with four boys there were never any leftovers. That had led them to compare stories of what it had been like growing up in families where the siblings were, in his case, all boys and in hers, all girls. They’d had chocolate pie for dessert, then talked over coffee until they’d realized they were the last customers in the place.

“Another first for me. I’ve never had a waitress ask me to leave a restaurant because she wanted to go home to bed,” Maddie said when they were once more back in the car. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“You tired?”

She shook her head. “I know I should be, but I’m not.”

“Me, neither. Want to go for a drive?”

“Sure.”

He slipped another CD in the car stereo system. This time it wasn’t a country album, but the soft, soothing sounds of a jazz quartet. Maddie leaned back and closed her eyes, content to listen to the music.

When the car came to a stop, she discovered they were parked at the top of a hill with a spectacular view of the city. Millions of lights outlined the Saint Paul skyline, including the dome of the state capital.

When she sighed at the beautiful scene, he said, “I
love this view. This was one of my favorite spots when I was a kid. We’d park up here to watch the fireworks they have at the Taste of Minnesota festival every summer.” He paused, then added, “Saint Paul is a pretty good place to spend a childhood.”

“Don’t you ever miss it?”

“It’s not my home anymore, Maddie.”

“Is that a warning?”

“Maybe it should be.” He reached across and brushed her cheek with his fingers. “Work has always come first in my life and that work is in Saint Martin.”

“I know,” she said, wishing she could have more contact with him than just the touch of his fingers.