Indulge Me

“Okay, Moll, if you’re so gung-ho worried about her and I’m doing it wrong, then you tell him.” Bruce’s booming voice came clearly over the line. Tyler rolled his eyes. Whatever Molly had to say about Darcy’s version of their night together, he wasn’t interested.

“Tyler, hi, it’s Molly.”

“Listen, what happened between Darcy and me is between Darcy and—”

“I know. It’s really tacky of me, and if I wasn’t so worried about her and sure she was about to make a big mistake, I’d stay way out of it, I promise.”

Tyler closed his eyes. Darcy was nothing to him. More to the point, he was nothing to Darcy. He owed her nothing at all. Not one thing. And if she was in trouble in some way and needed help, well, that was just too bad for her. She had the chance to…She could have…She…

Damn.

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“She got this crazy idea after…” She cleared her throat.

“After things went so, uh, well last night. With you.”

He rolled his eyes. Great. He got a good review. Call the New York Times and put it on the front page. “Yeah?”

“So she wants to do it again.”

Tyler stopped dead on the sidewalk in front of his house and realized he was staring at Annika, the cranky eighty-year-old woman who walked her Scottie—named Scotty—around the block four times a day every day at the exact same hours. If you made eye contact she’d haul you into conversation extremely tough to escape from. He whirled around and walked back down the driveway, still stunned by what Molly had said. Darcy wanted him again? “She has a damn strange way of showing it.”

“No, not with you.”

Tyler closed his eyes. God give him strength to face this humiliation. “Thanks.”

“I mean, she does want to be with you but she doesn’t think she does.”

He lifted his face to the sky. “Molly, you want to start this one over?”

“Yes. Sorry. Here it is. She’s coming off a rough few years and she has this crazy idea of fulfilling all her fantasies before she leaves town.”

“Leaves?” He couldn’t stop the thump in his chest. “You’re still ahead of me. Where is she going?”

“She’s moving. To Seattle. Then L.A. Then Miami. Then Boston.”

“For her job?” He didn’t even know where she worked. He knew next to nothing about her. Why did he care this much whether she stayed or went or whether he ever saw her again?

“For fun. She’s always wanted to live in the four corners of the country.”

“Okay…”

“So I’m worried about her.”

“She strikes me as someone who can take care of herself.” And how. He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone.

“She’s planning to walk into a bar dressed in some complete slut outfit and seduce whatever guy she comes across. On Saturday.”

Tyler actually flinched, the pain was that real and that immediate. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to stop her.”

“Me? You’re worried about her, you stop her. Jeez, Molly, this is really over the—”

“She wants you, Tyler. She’s totally fighting how she feels about you.”

His mouth dropped open. He became aware that he had turned around and was staring at Annika again, who had planted her white-haired, blue-running-suit-clad self firmly at the end of his driveway and was beckoning. He shook his head and pointed to the phone. “Could you repeat that please, Molly?”

“I think she’s really into you.”

He frowned. Annika beckoned harder. “You only think?”

“I know she is. And I’m scared she’s doing this second seduction out of some stupid fear she’ll fall in love with you and won’t be able to get away like she’s planned.”

Tyler couldn’t move. Fall in love? What the hell? Had Molly lost her mind? “Uh, can I talk to Bruce?”

“Why?”

“Just…can I, please?”

Molly sighed and said, “Okay,” in a tone that told him she thought he was exactly as insane as he thought she was.

Bruce came on with a cheerful, “What’s up?” Annika stopped beckoning and pointed frantically to something in his front yard. Tyler felt like roaring at her.

“Bruce, man, how much of this is your wife’s matchmaking fantasy and how much of it is real? My balls are on the line here.”

“She’s known Darcy since sixth grade, Tyler. I’ve never heard her say this about her before. Not with that boyfriend in high school, not with the old-guy one after. Molly knows people. She can tell you who’s calling just by the way the phone rings. She can tell when women are pregnant sometimes before they know. She knows when people are sick—she has that sense. So if she says Darcy’s in love with you, then she is.”

Tyler had to ward off the thrill his subconscious happily provided. He shook his head, unable to process any of this rationally. Annika immediately nodded hers and pointed again. Exasperated, Tyler began walking toward her as slowly as he could. “So why exactly is Molly telling me all this?”

“She wants you to intercept Darcy at this bar on Saturday, so she doesn’t make some stupid mistake with the wrong guy when she really wants you.”

“You’re buying this?”

“I know, I know. But that’s what she tells me, and I trust her judgment.”

“Tyler!” Annika’s wavery voice was indignant. Her faded blue eyes glared under bushy salt-and-pepper brows.

“Bruce, I’ll call you back.” He punched off the phone, grateful for the excuse to escape, but not about to let Annika think he enjoyed being interrupted. “What is so important that I had to interrupt my phone call, Annika?”

“That.” She pointed to his hedge. “What about that?”

Tyler turned and looked. A hedge. A house. He took a few steps closer to Annika and looked again. Still the hedge and the house. Nothing more noteworthy than that. “What?”

“Your hedge needs trimming.”

He worked his jaw. He really, really wanted to say several phrases that had grown popular in the decades since Annika’s childhood. “Okay, Annika. I’ll get right on that.”

“Good.” She turned away and started her familiar uneven trudge down the block, followed equally slowly by the equally ancient Scotty, who had once responded to a friendly gesture by nearly biting off Tyler’s fingers.

He barely kept himself from making a rude gesture after her. Instead he tried to think about how lonely she must be and how empty her life was if bitching about other people’s hedges filled her day.

Then without trying at all, he thought about Darcy dressed in a tiny skirt and tight cropped top, smiling at some megahunk in a crowded bar. He imagined the guy getting half-hard looking at her incredible body and her open smile and thinking he was going to get lucky in a big way.

Tyler stopped that image cold. So? If that was what Darcy wanted to do, fine. If she wanted to run away from any possible feelings for Tyler, that was her choice. She was a big girl, not a teenager. He wasn’t going to chase after her and become her caretaker on the basis of one night together.

The hunk in the bar reached around Darcy’s waist and pulled her close, leering. His hand slipped down to cup her ass. He leaned in and tasted the soft skin of her neck.

Stop that.

Tyler didn’t believe in love at first sight. Not for himself and not for anyone else, either. Nor did he believe that sex necessarily had to happen in the context of a relationship, committed or otherwise. Darcy had enjoyed herself. He’d enjoyed himself. Maybe they both wanted more, but for whatever reason that wasn’t going to happen and he was fine with that.

The megahunk’s hand on Darcy’s ass slipped lower; his fingers curled under her skirt and started up her thigh…

Tyler whipped out the phone and dialed. “Bruce.”

“Yeah, man.”

“The bar Darcy’s going to Saturday?”

“Yeah?”

Tyler ran his hand over his face, checking in with himself for another chance to be smart and stay sane and stay the hell out of it. To make sure he really wanted to do something this stupid and also completely nuts and also freaking insane.

Another flash—Darcy lying under Mr. Megahunk, her nails digging into his hugely muscled back.

Apparently he did.

“I need to know which bar and I need to know what time.”

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