Love and Other Surprises (13 page)

“Uh, good to see you, too, Mayor,” Matt said.

“Why don’t you pull up a chair and join us, Matt?” Ali asked.

“No.” The word came out fast and harsh. Matt tried to modulate his voice. “I mean, I have another appointment and I’m running late.” He curled his lips and hoped it would pass for a smile. “Nice to meet all of you. Have a good meeting.”

Matt ducked out the door before anyone could protest and rapidly strode down the hall to his office. He grabbed his jacket from a hanger on the back of the door and stopped by Hattie’s desk.

“I’m going to the job site,” he told her.

Hattie looked up in surprise. “Is something the matter there?”

“No,” Matt said. “Why?”

“Because you’re a creature of habit, and you never visit the job site at his time of day.”

The comment sent a ripple of surprise through Matt. His life was orderly, yes, but was he really so predictable? His mouth tightened into a frown. He didn’t like that “creature of habit” label. It made him sound staid and stuffy and stuck in a rut—like an old man.

Hattie was giving him a searching look. “Will you be gone long?”

Matt jerked his head toward the conference room. “Depends. How long do you think Ali’s little tea party in there is likely to last?”

“So that’s it.” Hattie gave an amused grin. “They’ll probably break up in less than half an hour. The Hawthorne sisters never miss a meal and it’s getting close to lunchtime.”

Matt drummed his fingers thoughtfully on Hattie’s desk. He needed to approach Ali carefully. He’d learned the hard way that simply demanding she do things his way didn’t work. Maybe he should try to catch this fly with honey. “Do you happen to know if Ali has any plans for lunch?”

“I know she put a carton of yogurt and half a sandwich in the refrigerator this morning,” Hattie replied.

Matt straightened and buttoned his jacket. “When her meeting breaks up, would you please ask her to join me at the Mexicali Cafe?”

“For lunch?”

Matt scowled. “Why else would I invite her there?”

Hattie raised her eyebrows till they were visible over the rim of her glasses. “I don’t know. Judging from the look on your face, it might be to bite her head off. Besides, it’s not like you to make a lunch date on the spur of the moment.”

Matt shoved his hands into his pockets and deepened his frown. “Just because I like to plan things out doesn’t mean I’m not capable of an occasional spontaneous gesture.”

Hattie gave him a complacent smile. “Tm glad to hear it. I’m sure Ali will be, too.”

Matt eyed her warily. “Just give her the message, will you please?” he said tersely, marching toward the exit.

Boy, he missed Robert! He was surrounded by people who seemed to prefer reckless change and pandemonium to an orderly existence. Robert had liked a well-ordered life nearly as much as he did, and Matt missed having an ally.

How had a rational, logical person like Robert ended up with such an unruly creature for a sister? Matt wished he knew how Robert had dealt with her. Probably the same way he’d handled architectural problems, Matt thought—with creative solutions. If one way didn’t work, he’d try something different.

Matt unlocked his car door and slid behind the steering wheel. Well, that was exactly what he intended to do—approach Ali from a new angle. He’d buy her lunch, pay her a few compliments, and try to convince her that all of her future actions on behalf of Cimarron Homebuilders needed to be cleared through him.

How hard could that be?

Ali squinted as she followed the hostess to Matt’s table, her eyes trying to adjust to the dim restaurant lighting after the brilliance of the noonday sunshine.

“Hello,” Matt said, rising to pull out her chair. “Glad you could join me.”

Her vision cleared enough to see his eyes scan her legs as she seated herself. Her heart picked up speed as a surge of attraction rushed through her, the same attraction she felt every time she saw him. Aware that he was still eyeing her legs, she tugged at her pencil skirt. “Thanks for inviting me,” she said.

She busied herself unfolding her napkin, trying to figure out what Matt was up to. Inviting her to lunch in a dimly lit restaurant in the middle of a workday was certainly out of character. Especially since she was certain he’d been deliberately avoiding her. He’d taken to keeping the door to his office closed and he was always in a hurry when she passed him in the hall.

All of which was fine with her, she reminded herself. She didn’t need the distraction of a physical attraction in the workplace—an attraction that even now was making her palms grow damp.

“What’s the occasion?” Ali asked.

Matt rested his forearms on the table. “Does there have to be a special occasion for me to invite you to lunch?”

“I suppose not. But it’s not in keeping with your regular schedule.”

Matt knit his brows together. It was the second time today the topic of his regular schedule had come up. Was he really such a creature of habit? “What do you know about my regular schedule?” he asked.

Ali answered by glancing at her watch. “It’s now twelve-thirty—precisely the time of day you head out the door for the Cattlemen’s Cafe, where you order the blue plate special. Since this is Friday, that would be fried catfish with hushpuppies.”

Matt stared at her. “And just how would you happen to know a thing like that?”

“I had lunch there earlier in the week and got into a conversation with the waitress. She asked where I worked and I told her.” Ali grinned at him. “She told me you were her best customer.”

Matt scowled. He didn’t like the idea that his habits were suddenly a topic of conversation everywhere he turned.

“I was with Lauren,” Ali continued. “She and Justin are back from their honeymoon. They had a wonderful time.”

“Glad to hear it.” His thoughts were stuck on the earlier topic. Was he really such a fuddy-duddy? Ali made him sound as stuffy as a taxidermist’s parlor. Was that how she saw him?

Ali picked up a tortilla chip and dipped it into a bowl of salsa. “Lauren looks terrific. Marriage really seems to agree with her.” Ali took a bite and cast an inquisitive glance at Matt. “How long were you married, Matt?”

The question caught him off guard, and he answered it without thinking. “Less than a year. That was seven years ago.”

“What happened?”

Matt shrugged in a display of nonchalance, still smarting from her uncannily accurate account of his noontime schedule. It wouldn’t hurt to let her know that parts of his life weren’t so staid and predictable. “We didn’t want the same things out of life—so she left me for someone who could keep her in the style to which she wanted to become accustomed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ali murmured. “I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”

Matt was surprised at the depth of concern reflected in her soft eyes. “It’s not painful. Not anymore. It’s nothing but a mistake in my past I don’t intend to repeat.” He eyed her speculatively. “How about you? Why aren’t you married?”

Ali toyed with the corner of her cloth napkin. “I came close a couple of years ago—until he started trying to make me over. He didn’t like my car or my clothes or the way I wear my hair.”

“I like your clothes and your hair just fine.” The words surprised Matt as much as Ali. He watched a rush of color flood her face, and felt a corresponding rush of pleasure at having caused it. “I don’t know about your car.”

Ali plucked a piece of lint off the tablecloth, a smile playing on her lips. “Trust me, you wouldn’t like it, either. But those things weren’t really the issue. They just made me realize that he wasn’t looking for an equal partner. I saw that sort of lopsided relationship up close in my parents’ marriage, and it’s not for me.”

Matt looked at her in surprise. “But Robert always talked about your dad like he hung the moon.”

“Robert thought he did. He patterned himself after him.” Ali propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “Don’t get me wrong—Dad was a great guy. But he was nearly twenty years older than Mom and he kept her in the dark about a lot of things. Mom didn’t even know how to write a check. He doled out an allowance to her. When he died, there were a lot of debts Mom didn’t know about, and we ended up losing our home.”

“Robert told me about that. It must have been rough.”

Ali nodded. “I was nine and Robert was fourteen. Thank goodness Mom was a fast learner. She was able to pick up the pieces and build a new life, but it wasn’t easy. She started babysitting children in our apartment and eventually opened her own day-care center. But we were on food stamps for a while there. I determined then and there that I would never again take charity, and I swore I’d never be dependent on anyone like my mother was.”

Ali toyed with her flatware, carefully lining up the knife and spoon with the edge of her plate. Matt watched her thoughtfully, realigning his perception of her.

She’d been serious when she’d told him earlier that she didn’t want to take half the proceeds from the development without doing half the work, he realized. She hated the idea of taking something she hadn’t earned or being dependent on someone else. Hell, even the changes she’d made at the office were probably the result of her need to feel like a contributing partner.

The realization put all of her efforts into a different perspective. It made her seem likeable, understandable, rational.

And more appealing than ever. There was a whole other side to Ali that he hadn’t known about.

He was still trying to process this new information when Ali looked up to meet his gaze. “What about you?” she asked. “What was your childhood like?”

“Well, I was an only child,” he found himself saying. “Dad had a sales job that kept him on the road a lot, and Mom was a teacher.”

“Were you close to your folks?”

“I was close to Mom, but Dad wasn’t around much.”

“I bet he hated being away from you.”

“Nah. When he was home, he was more interested in drinking with his buddies than spending time with Mom or me.” A bitter taste filled his mouth. “He was always making promises he didn’t keep.”

“What kind of promises?”

“That he’d come home early and play catch with me, or make it to my Little League games, or help me build a model car.” Matt took a long drink of water. That model car kit had still been in its box when he’d gone away to college. “One of my earliest memories is waiting for him to come home and take me to the circus. When he was late, Mom said we should go without him, but I insisted on waiting. I stood by the door, looking out the window, from noon until bedtime.”

“Oh, Matt.” Her hand was warm as it landed on his, her eyes warmer still. He should feel embarrassed at having revealed so much; he never talked about his childhood—never!— and yet, oddly, he just felt comfortable and warm and understood.

“That had to be so disappointing,” she murmured.

“Yeah, but Mom had it a lot worse. Dad left her for another woman when I was sixteen. We got word a year later he’d died of a heart attack.” Matt exhaled a hard breath. “It was the first word we’d had of him since he’d left.”

“Where’s your mother now?” Ali asked.

“In Florida. She met a terrific guy and remarried when I was in college. They just retired and moved to the beach a couple of years ago.”

“So she’s happy?”

“Yeah. Fred is the exact opposite of my dad.”

Ali regarded him pensively. “And so are you.”

“I sure hope so. That’s always been my intention.” Ali’s hand still rested on top of his. He turned his hand over and grasped her palm, feeling a connectedness that ran deeper than the skin-to-skin contact. He squeezed her hand and gave a wry smile. “And you’re the opposite of your mother. What a pair we make.”

Did Matt really think of them as a pair?
Ali’s heart skipped at the thought. He probably hadn’t meant the remark romantically, she reasoned— and yet, something had just shifted between them. Talking about their childhoods had forged an intimate connection that hadn’t been there before.

His need to stay in control, his affinity for order, his desire to plan things out and follow the plan—they all sprang from the broken heart of that disappointed little boy. The realization made him more understandable, more emotionally available, more… desirable.

She was suddenly aware that she was sitting in a dimly lit restaurant in the middle of the day, holding hands with a virile, attractive man— a man who made her stomach flutter and her pulse race.

A waitress approached the table, and Ali felt a sense of both loss and relief when Matt withdrew his hand.

“Do you need some time to look at the menu?” Matt asked.

Ali shook her head. “I’ll take the enchilada plate and an iced tea. And if you have any hotter salsa, I’d like some, please.”

“I’ll have the same thing,” Matt said.

“Two enchilada platters and a bowl of Diablo salsa coming up,” the waitress replied as she took the menus from them.

Matt took a sip of water and glanced at Ali. This outing was not going at all as he’d planned. He’d intended to address the changes she was making at the company, and instead, the conversation had taken a distinctly personal turn. He’d just told her things he hadn’t even told her brother. The exchange somehow put their relationship on a different footing.

Maybe he should just drop the whole topic of the changes she’d made at the office. Now that he thought about it, they really weren’t such a big deal. Besides, he didn’t like the fact that she evidently shared Hattie’s perception of him as rigid and inflexible.

“What do you think about the changes I’ve made at the office?” Ali asked.

The woman had radar for trouble. Matt shifted uneasily in his chair.

“There, uh, have been a few,” he said noncommittally.

Ali nodded. “I probably should have consulted you, but you seemed so busy I hated to disturb you. I saw a few little things that I thought would make the office environment a little more pleasant, so I just went ahead and did them. You don’t mind, do you?”

Matt had been studying her face distractedly as she talked, taking in her delicate cheekbones, her pert nose, her large, beautiful, sincere gray eyes. He lowered his gaze to her mouth, to the full, ripe voluptuousness of her lips.