Familiar Stranger

“How hungry are you?” Cara asked.

He blinked. Telling her the truth about what he really hungered for would probably embarrass her, but when she started to blush, he figured she’d just read his mind.

A small grin tilted the right side of his mouth, then as quickly disappeared.

He leaned across the table until their foreheads were almost touching. “I’m starving,” he said softly

Her blush heightened. “Just don’t lick the corner of my mouth again until there’s a really good reason.”

His eyes glittered warmly as he sat back in his chair. “You’re safe for now,” he promised. “Now, since you’re the expert here, why don’t you order for me?”

“Really?”

“I think I’m secure enough as a man to let a woman order for me without feeling threatened. Besides, I’m curious as to what you think might appeal to me.”

“What if you don’t like it?”

He thought of the times he’d eaten grubs and insects to survive and decided against mentioning it.

“I’ll still eat it.”

She beamed. “My kind of man.”

The teasing disappeared from his eyes. “Sweetheart, I was always your man.”

Unprepared for the gentleness in his voice, Cara’s eyes teared, but she blinked them away.

“Just for that, you’re going to get their famous dessert, too,” she said.

“What’s that?”

She grinned. “Cake. It’s called Better Than Sex.”

David thought she was putting him on until she pointed to the dessert portion of the menu.

“No way,” he muttered, wondering what else had changed in this world while he’d been hiding behind the generations of Jonahs who’d gone before him.

“Oh, yes, and when you’ve finished your meal, I’ll prove it,” Cara said.

At this point, David’s sense of justice got the best of him. He’d never had a bite of food in his life that was better than making love to Cara—not even when he’d been starving.

“You just do that,” he whispered. “And I’ll be a really good boy and eat everything on my plate, but when we get home, I’m going to prove to you that there isn’t anything better than sex, especially when it’s with the right person.”

“May I take your order?”

Startled, Cara looked up. The waitress was grinning—proof that she’d overheard, at the very least, the last thing David just said. Cara glared at David and then rolled her eyes. This would be all over the tearoom before they’d been served their first dish.

The waitress waited, her pen poised above her pad.

Refusing to look at David, Cara gave their order. As soon as the waitress was gone, Cara glanced up, but he seemed preoccupied with a couple across the room. She turned to look and then sighed. It was Ben and Katie Murphy and their new baby girl. Probably their first outing since the baby’s arrival last month. She looked at David again. The pain in his eyes was unmistakable. Despite the fact that everyone in the room would see and put their own interpretation on the action, she reached for his hand.

Startled by her touch, David blinked, then turned his focus to Cara.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He sighed. So she’d read his mind again. So what else was new?

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said briefly.

“Don’t, David.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t deny your feelings…not to me.”

“Okay then. What do you want to hear first?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “That I envy that young couple the life ahead of them, or that I want things I know I can never have?”

“I can’t give you back your youth, but I can give you a daughter…and grandchildren.” She held her breath, afraid to say the rest of it—that she would be his wife if he wanted it.

David made himself smile, unaware that the action never reached his eyes.

“You’ve already done that,” he said. “And I can only hope that they will forgive me as quickly as you have.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Cara said, refusing to admit her disappointment that he had mentioned nothing about the future of their relationship. “When they get to know you, they will love you.”

Before David could answer, he saw a woman approaching their table. From the look on her face, the curiosity was eating her up. He gave Cara a nod and then braced himself, thankful he was sitting down. This one looked as if she wouldn’t settle for a simple pinch on the behind.

“Ooh, Cara, who’s this big hunk and where have you been keeping him?”

Cara flinched and David saw it, identifying the woman as someone other than a friend. Whoever she was, she’d just become his enemy, too.

“Macie, I thought you were in Reno.”

“I just got back, and look, I’m a free woman again.” She wiggled the empty fingers on her left hand as proof.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cara said.

“Don’t be! I don’t know what I was thinking when I married that Glen Harvey.”

“That he owned his daddy’s business?” Cara muttered, too low for anyone but David to hear.

“Well,” Macie said. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

It was the way Macie Harvey leaned over, displaying her more than ample charms in David’s face, that pushed Cara’s buttons. That plus the fact her husband, Ray, had confessed to having a brief affair with Macie between husbands three and four. Although she had finally forgiven Ray, she had never confronted the woman. Suddenly, now seemed like the perfect time to yank her chain.

She turned in her seat, giving Macie a beatific smile.

“Macie, this is David Wilson. He’s not only my childhood sweetheart, but also Bethany’s father. David, Macie Harvey. Elizabeth Taylor has nothing on our Macie for shedding husbands. I believe Glen was number seven…or was it eight?”