Chapter 14 #3
“Do you often pretend that inanimate objects have emotional needs?”
“Only when it serves my purposes.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay, fine. I don’t want you to judge me when I fail, though. Based on that wolfish gleam in your eye I have a feeling that you’re very good at chess.”
“I’ll go easy on you, I promise.”
“Oh, don’t do that. If I’m going to lose, I want to lose without being pitied first.”
A curious expression flickered over Evan’s face, as if he was wondering why she cared so much about not being pitied. Then he grinned.
“Okay, you asked for it.”
He gave her a review of all of the rules of the game, and she listened intently, nodding after each point he made.
She had to admit to herself that he was extremely good at explaining things.
He used concise, clear language, and he had done a good job of anticipating what she might feel the most confused about, explaining those points in more detail.
I bet he’s really a great mayor, she thought. He’s clearly got the kind of brain that can look out for other people while he works. And he’s very smart.
They started the game, and Evan insisted that she go first.
“You don’t need to baby me, you go first,” she said.
He shook his head, grinning. “You have white. White always goes first.”
“Oh.” She laughed.
Evan beat her within three minutes, but she still found that she enjoyed the game immensely.
“There were so many things to think about,” she said eagerly. “That was really engaging.”
“You did very well,” he told her. “Honestly—for someone who hasn’t played in years? That was actually—well, you put up a good fight there.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, sure that he had been going to say, “That was actually challenging for me,” but she decided to let it slide.
He is somewhat arrogant, she thought, but he’s not mean. I think he’s just very honest—it’s not that he’s trying to be condescending.
She watched him as he replaced the chess pieces onto the board.
His energy was much more relaxed than it had been when she’d talked to him at his office.
Then, he’d been uptight, as if he was holding tension inside every bone in his body.
Now he seemed at ease. Her heart fluttered a little as she realized just how handsome she found him.
They reached the end of the tables and came across a game of darts.
“One more?” she said, feeling ready for a challenge that she would be better equipped to win. “I love darts.”
“Deal.” He nodded, then held out his hand for a quick shake. “May the best citizen of Coral Sands win.”
They began to play, and it was immediately clear that they were both excellent dart-throwers.
They laughed and whooped as they played, and after Evan hit a perfect bullseye, he turned to her with a joyful expression.
The sight of his smile was so attractive to her that she became flooded with a desire to kiss him.
Impulsively, she took his head in her hands and started to pull him toward her. Just before their lips touched, however, she stopped herself.
She hurriedly pulled her hands away and took a step back. Evan blinked at her. She flushed with embarrassment, wondering what to say.
“Why did you stop?” he asked quietly after another few moments.
Audrey looked up at the ceiling and sighed, wondering what to tell him. She hardly understood her own emotions. The question she was asking herself wasn’t why she had stopped, but why she had wanted to kiss him so much in the first place.
“You said in your office that you were surprised that someone as ambitious as me would end up in a small, slow-paced town like Coral Sands,” she said.
She sighed again. “I mean, that’s true. I’m used to living life at a faster pace, and I need to keep in mind that some decisions shouldn’t be made at lightning speed.
I think I should pump the breaks here. I mean—the disintegration of my marriage is still fresh.
Now isn’t the time for me to be impulsively kissing the mayor of my new town in an antique store basement. ”
He nodded, looking disappointed. “I understand,” he told her.
“Come on,” she said, her tone a little more brisk than she’d meant it to be. “We’ve got a game of darts to finish. What do you say?”
He smiled and picked up another dart. “I say that I’m going to win.”
“I say I’m going to win,” she retorted with a grin.
He turned back to the dart board, and she watched him, wondering if he’d been hurt by her sudden pull away.
Well, he’s definitely a gentleman, she thought. He’s not trying to pressure me into anything I’m not ready for. That’s a silver lining to our little awkward moment, that’s for sure.
Audrey picked up the last dart and threw it at the target. It landed directly next to Evan’s dart, exactly in the bullseye position.
She nearly blurted, “Well, our darts are kissing even if we aren’t,” but she stopped herself. Instead, she turned to him with a smile. “See? Ambitious and successful.”
Evan smiled, and there was a look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read, but she suspected it was a desire to get to know her better.