What Have I Done For Me Lately?. Isabel Sharpe

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      Dang, darn, hell and damnation. How was she going to get herself out of this one? It would be so nice when her time with Ryan no longer felt like a job interview.

      “Well.” She gave a laugh that, thank the lord, didn’t betray her dismay. “I was just going to say, now that I’ve lived here even this short while, I’ve been thinking I didn’t know myself all that well wanting to come here. But I thought I should give Manhattan a year at least, before I did anything I’d regret.”

      “Very sensible.” He nodded slowly, eyeing her speculatively over his glass. “Would you like to go back to a smaller town someday, to settle permanently?”

      “Oh, yes.” Sweet Jesus. Was she dreaming? “Definitely.”

      “Back to Georgia?” He seemed anxious about her response.

      “Oh, no. Not Georgia.” She beamed, her heart enjoying a Texas two-step. “I’d feel like I failed if I went back.”

      “I understand.” The tension left his face; he lifted his beer across the table, eyes warm. “Here’s to a new future for both of us.”

      “To a new future.” Together. She clinked her glass with his, wanting to shout a few rounds of her sister Iona’s favorite cheer: “Hey, go, go, go, hey, go. Charsville Chiefs…hey go!” Unless she was wrong, she, Teeny Bayer, was under consideration for the position of Mrs. Settle Down In Connecticut.

      Please don’t let me blow it.

      The waiter came to clear their plates and returned with the check, which he put on the table between them. Should Christine offer to pay? Some men were insulted—as if the woman thought he wasn’t capable of taking care of her. On the other hand, if she wanted to keep the “friends” pretense up, she should probably not assume Ryan had planned to take her out.

      She reached for her purse at the same time he slapped a credit card on top of the bill and shook his head at her. “My treat tonight.”

      Tonight? As if there would be others? She withdrew her hand from her purse and beamed at him. “Thank you, Ryan. The meal was delicious.”

      “My pleasure.”

      And there they were, smiling at each other across the table, and warm joy started flooding Christine’s body and her heart. His pleasure. Ohh, she’d love to show him pleasure of all kinds. Pleasure at the front door welcoming him home, pleasure in the kitchen eating the dinner she cooked and pleasure in the bedroom later that night.

      One step at a time, Christine.

      The waiter brought back Ryan’s receipt; Ryan thanked him and shoved it into his wallet. “Ready?”

      “Yes.” She got to her feet, hoping her yellow linen sheath didn’t have too many horizontal wrinkles across her lap, and picked up her purse, even more pleased when he waited for her to precede him out of the restaurant. The last guy she dated had been in such a New York hurry all the time, he’d rush off without even glancing to see if she’d followed. The day she met Ryan, she’d ended that relationship, which was going nowhere in that same New York hurry.

      Out on the sidewalk, they strolled along 14^th Street. Christine forced her feet, which wanted to skip, to keep a slow, even pace. Strolling meant Ryan intended to prolong the evening. He hadn’t hustled her into a taxi, or fled down the sidewalk so she could barely keep up. Strolling was another good sign in an evening that had already been full of them.

      They passed a street musician playing a saxophone, and stores with bins of perfect produce laid out on the sidewalk stands. She loved New York, especially at night. The energy, the lights, the natives out enjoying their city. She loved feeling part of something so huge and so important and so vital to the world. If she and Ryan worked out, she hoped Ryan would want to come into the city often after they left.

      “I’m curious about something.”

      “Mmm?” She imbued her voice with a touch of sensuality and was rewarded out of the corner of her eye with the sight of him turning to look at her. She made sure she appeared calm and peaceful.

      “You grew up in Georgia. What happened to your accent?”

      “I lost it on the way here.” She did turn then, to smile at him. “Somewhere over Virginia.”

      Her accent had been disposed of deliberately, starting when she was a girl, imitating TV or movie personalities, practicing over and over in her favorite spot, a copse near a stream a short way from home. A place where she could escape two brothers and three sisters and two parents and the all-too-frequent visiting aunts, uncles and cousins, and have room and quiet to think her own thoughts and dream her own dreams. She’d even taught herself rudimentary French from books and tapes she’d gotten from the library, to be ready for the trip she’d someday take to Paris.

      She always knew she’d come north to live—New York or Boston or Chicago—because she didn’t belong in a small Southern town and never would. And she’d wanted to fit in here from the start, not be pegged as an outsider the second she opened her mouth.

      “Let me hear it.”

      “Hear what?”

      “Your accent.”

      Christine rolled her eyes. “Why sugah, whatevah for?”

      He laughed and swayed toward her so they bumped shoulders, which felt as intimate as a kiss on this crowded beautiful city street.

      Way too soon they got back to Bank Street and inside their building, to the familiar smell of wood and carpet and a faint whiff of cleaner. Way too soon the elevator ride was over, their walk down the hall finished in front of their two doors.

      “Good night, Ryan. Thank you for a really fun time.” Christine smiled warmly and took a step back toward her apartment so he wouldn’t think she was angling for a kiss, though frankly, she’d like nothing else right at that moment. His lips were as appealing and sexual as the rest of him. Sharply defined, slightly full, but not at all feminine. The kind of lips that would leave you no doubt whatsoever that you were being kissed.

      She looked forward to experiencing that, and how. But while men might say they liked a woman who took charge of the physical pace of a relationship, and maybe they did for a time, those weren’t the women they took home to meet Mom. Those weren’t the women they settled with in Connecticut. Deep down in the cave-man depths of their DNA, men wanted power and control firmly on their side.

      She could live with that. Even if it meant saying good-night tonight starved for more of him.

      “I enjoyed it, too.” He put his hands on his hips and studied her, appearing taller and broader in the low-ceilinged narrow hallway. “Are you free Wednesday next week? My oldest sister lives in the city and can’t use a pair of ballet tickets. Would you like to go? It’s Romeo and Juliet.”

      “Next Wednesday…” She frowned, trying not to show her delight. As if she would possibly say no. She’d postpone emergency surgery to spend time with him. “I think that would be fine. I’ll run in and check and call you in a few minutes. Is that okay?”

      “Sure.” He smiled and lifted a hand. “Talk to СКАЧАТЬ