6 #2
A flash of the X5's taillights indicated Rhys unlocked the doors.
Before Rhett could reach for the handle on the passenger side, Rhys was there, opening the door for her and, still holding her hand, assisting her into the seat.
Her mother used to tell her that there were two things a lady should never touch on a date, her wallet and the door.
As she stepped into the car, she went a little weak at the knees. Rhys was treating her like a lady.
The minute she sat down, Rhett noticed her dress had ridden up her thighs almost to the point of indecency. Well, that whole "lady" thing ended quickly, didn't it? She grabbed a hank of silk in each hand and tugged it down to a more respectable level.
"Smokin' hot."
Startled, Rhett looked up to find the devilish grin was back on his face. "Really, Rhett. You are." He closed the door and tapped a knuckle on the window before he disappeared to walk behind the car.
Dazed, and happier than a woman who'd just experienced the worst date of her life had any right to be, Rhett pulled the seatbelt across her body and buckled it just as Rhys slid into the driver's seat.
"You look surprisingly happy for someone who had an awful date," he observed with a smile.
"I'm happy because the awful date was cut short," Rhett replied. Though she wanted to tell him the majority of her happiness came from him and the things he said, there was no way she'd be able to overcome her shyness to do it. "And thank you for making that happen."
"Glad to be of service." His smile changed just a bit, and though Rhett was unable to put her finger on exactly what was different, it sent a flash of heat charging through her. "Just yell whenever you need me."
"So where are we headed?" Rhett hoped like hell he wasn't taking her someplace fancy.
After all, her experience that evening at Le Beaujolais left her with a bad taste in her mouth, and it wasn't from the one glass of wine she all but bolted down.
The cabernet, which was excellent, was the only part of the date she didn't hate.
Rhys wasn't exactly dressed for fine dining, though.
In addition to the T-shirt, he wore dark khaki cargo pants and beige canvas Toms. Of course, dress codes were different for men, especially men who looked like Rhys.
He could probably show up at any fancy restaurant in town dressed in flannel pajamas and bunny slippers and be admitted.
"I'd had it in mind to go to Taco Bell, but we could—”
"No," she interrupted. "I'd love Taco Bell."
He shot her a skeptical look out of the corner of his eye.
"Really," she insisted. "In fact, a couple of crunchy tacos with sour cream sounds like the best idea I've heard all day. Oh, and can I get some of those potatoes with the cheese all over them, too?"
Rhys laughed under his breath as he turned out of the parking garage onto McKinney Avenue. "You can have whatever you like. It's just that you're dressed a little nice to make a run for the border."
"Pfft." Rhett waved her hand in dismissal. "If those Oscar winners can go to In-And-Out Burger in their fancy gowns carrying their Academy Awards, I can wear a silk dress to get a taco."
"You have a point. Now tell me what happened on this date of yours."
"Oh." Rhett blew out a small, irritated breath.
"The thing is, I decided to take your advice.
You know, to have fun tonight. So, I got to the restaurant, and Carl—that's his name, by the way—Carl was waiting for me outside.
And I thought how nice that was, that we could introduce ourselves out there, and not do that awkward meeting at the table with all the other diners looking on, you know? "
She glanced over at him in time to catch his nod. "Mm-hm."
"So I start toward him, and I could see from the way he straightened up that he recognized me.
I look a lot like my sister, and he already knows her, and...
Anyway." She waved that away. "But instead of saying something like, 'Hello, Rhett, I'm Carl.
Nice to meet you,' he looked me up and down like I was on an auction block or something, and said, 'Girl, are you a beaver? 'Cause daaaaaammm.'"
"I...He..." Rhys closed his mouth, shook his head and raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. "I have no words."
"Take that and magnify it by about seven thousand, and you'll know how I felt. Let's just say everything went south from there and leave it at that."
"You're well rid of the son of a bitch, then." He made a sound of disbelief. "He really said that to you? Wanker. If I'd known that I'd have called you before you even got to the restaurant."
His indignation did much to erase the insult she'd felt from Carl, and she relaxed her shoulders against the butter-soft leather of the seat.
As he drove, Rhys hummed under his breath. The tune was familiar, but it wasn't until they turned onto Lemmon Avenue that Rhett placed the song.
"I haven't heard 'She's A Rainbow' in forever."
"Neither have I," Rhys said. "Funny. It just popped into my head. It must be your blue dress that brought it to mind."
Rhett pressed her hand to her chest in a parody of delight. "Oh, you're so poetic."
A mischievous grin lit his face. "That's how I roll."
Before she could stop herself, Rhett burst into laughter. A couple of amused glances from Rhys made her attempt to get it under control, but errant giggles still escaped no matter how she tried to stifle them.
"I'm sorry, really. It's just that I never expected you to use a phrase like that."
A rueful smile curved his mouth. "It's my kids' fault. I pick up all sorts of things like that from them, and they creep into my vocabulary before I realize it."
Recalling how she used Lilith's term "digits" earlier that day, Rhett nodded in understanding. "Believe me, I know what you mean. How old are your kids anyway?"
"Dax is eighteen. He'll be nineteen in the fall and heading off to university. Sienna's just turned seventeen. She'll be a senior this year. They live in Chicago with their mother." He turned into the Taco Bell parking lot. "And here we are. You're sure this is okay?"
"More than okay," she assured him. "Let's go eat."
Once they were seated at a table with their food, Rhys held up a red packet of sauce. "Hot sauce?"
"No, thanks." Rhett indicated the orange packets on the table in front of her. "I have mild."
"Mild?" Rhys pushed the hot sauce across the table with his forefinger. "C'mon, Rhett. Be adventurous."
Using her own forefinger, Rhett pushed the red packet back. "I used up my daily allotment of adventurous when I went on that blind date."
"What?" Rhys spread his hands wide and tried to look hurt. Tried, because his eyes were sparkling with mischief. "You don't think coming out with me is an adventure?"
After regarding him with amusement for a moment, Rhett devoted her attention to mixing the sour cream and cheese sauce into her potatoes. "No, not an adventure. It's fun." She couldn't resist a glance to see how he took that pronouncement.
A pleased smile lit his face before he attempted that hurt look again. "That's all I get? Fun?"
"Well, let's see." Rhett unwrapped one of her tacos. "My awful, horrible, disastrous blind date was adventurous. You really want to be lumped into that category?"
The mock hurt vanished, and his smile reappeared. "I'll take fun over that any day." He took a huge bite of his burrito and swallowed before speaking again. "Have you found a place to live yet? You said the other day you were just staying with your sister for a bit."
"I haven't started looking, to be honest. I'm waiting for my house in Claiborne to sell first. Claiborne's where I've lived all my life," she added to answer the question she saw in his eyes. "And I mean all my life. I was born there."
"Hm." Rhys wiped the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. "If you've lived there all your life, why are you moving to Dallas?"
Rhett couldn't stop the humorless laugh that escaped.
"Because I hated it all my life. Then after my husband died last year and I found out he was—” No, she wasn't going there and skipped right past it.
"My daughter is married and lives in Fort Worth, so there wasn't anything to keep me in Claiborne.
I realized I didn't have to stay there anymore.
And here I am. So how about you? How long are you in town? "
"Permanently." Although he answered her easily, his eyes narrowed at her, and she knew he hadn't missed what she didn't say about Todd.
Instead of bringing it up, though, he continued satisfying her curiosity.
"Every time Illicit played Dallas, I liked it.
I always wished I had more time to spend here, so with Dax off to Stanford in a couple of months and Sienna busy with her senior year, I decided now was the time to move here. "
There was no way to stop the excited stutter of her heart at the news that he was staying in Dallas.
Because now that she'd actually met him and knew him a little as a real person instead of a face on a poster or a voice on the radio, she wanted to get down and dirty with him even more than before.
Of course, given his history of dating much younger women, she probably didn't have a chance in hell, but she still relished the fact that it was now a better possibility than it had been.
"Well, I think it's a great place to live. Obviously," she added. "The first time I saw you, though, I just thought you were probably in town for some business type of thing."
Rhys made a sound of amusement. "What gave you that idea? The broken water pump or the inoperable mobile phone?"
"What? Oh! No, that wasn't the first time I saw you.
" She frowned a little, trying to remember just when it was.
"I guess it was the first of last month, because that's when I quit this horrible job I had.
Lilith—that's my daughter—decided we needed to celebrate, so she and Mel took me to this club. You were there that night."