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Chapter 11
Trent was nervous to hear Liberty confess that they might, in fact, be on a date. He shot to his feet, yanking his plate up, and inadvertently sent his extra rice flying onto her shirt.
“Oh,” she said, tugging at her shirt to get the rice off.
“I can’t believe I did that.” He couldn’t just reach out and wipe rice off her chest … Ugh. He stepped back and tried to calm himself. Why did he feel like he was in the middle of a war zone or about to step on a terrorist tripwire?
“It’s fine.” She stood and finished sweeping the rice off her shirt. “I’m done if you are.”
“Sorry.” He gathered up all the food and carefully began to put it in the fridge.
“Let me help you,” she said, pushing her chair back and standing.
“No. I wanted to do this for you.”
But she was already grabbing dressings and her plate and glass and bringing them over. “No fair. If you cooked, then I should do dishes.”
He noted how amazing she looked in her silk blouse, the one that now had a slight stain on it. “I can’t believe I got your shirt dirty.”
She looked down at it as she was putting the dishes on the counter. “It’s fine. It’s just my teaching clothes. I guess I don’t need them anyway.”
A date. A date. A date.He was like a schoolboy asking the prettiest girl to prom. “Because you’re doing the Appalachian Trail.” He needed a distraction from how pretty this woman was and how anxious he was beginning to feel by her confession. He could focus on the hike. “Yeah, so have you gotten gear yet? Because the right gear is really important.” Safe topic. Yes, he could focus on gear.
“Not yet.” She took a wash towel out of the sink and ran water on it, then began wiping counters clean. “I have bought a book about what I need for the trail, though.”
“It seems like a pretty intense hike to do by yourself.” Until this moment, he hadn’t thought about actually going with her, but why not? It would depend on time off and all that, but …
“I need to do this by myself,” she said softly, as if already sensing what he was thinking.
“Okay.” He focused on rinsing and putting dishes into the dishwasher. “So no more art teacher ever?”
“Not for now.”
He nodded. “Do you still paint?”
“Not often.” She moved to the table and gathered more dishes.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She looked so slim. Of course, his mind flashed to the night before, when they’d shared the hot tub. Ahh … Attraction was not a problem between them. He’d been able to keep this chemistry at bay, but now that she’d admitted that this could be a date, well, he was reeling inside. Part of him wanted to run, flee, bolt. He wasn’t ready for a relationship, and he really wasn’t ready for a woman like Liberty.
Focus. “So what do you like to paint?” he asked.
She brought over the last of the dishes, standing close enough that he could inhale her lemony scent. “The truth is, I haven’t painted since Ian was born.” She stared at the bubbly water rising in the sink. “So I guess that would be almost two and a half years now.”
Her son. The thought of losing a child put a damper on all the dating excitement.
She stared up at him, then reached out and gently brushed her thumb along the side of his lip. “You had some residual steak marinade on your lip.”
Her touch had him holding his breath. He wanted to kiss her. All of his babe-slayer ways told him to lean in and kiss her. Yet he was frozen, and he could only stare at her lips.
“No kissing,” she said, pulling away from him. She moved to the table and began wiping it down. “It’s not that kind of a date.”
He focused back on the dishes. “I couldn't even imagine kissing you.” He tried not to notice the way her blond curls looked so shiny and bouncy and how he yearned to reach out and touch her hair. So much chemistry beneath the surface.
Her cheeks reddened and she glanced back at him. “I know, right? It’s just …” She wiped some crumbs into her hand. “I definitely shouldn’t have said this is a date.”
He could sense that she was just trying to deal with her own stuff. “Let’s just figure out where the conquistador’s gold is.”
“That would be great.” Again, she was close enough to kiss.
