LITMIR.BIZ

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I need your help.” As usual, Rafe got straight to the point. “You know Patricia Weatherby?”

      Kelsey nodded. “She works at the chamber of commerce, has a little five-year-old girl named Molly.” As she recalled, they had stopped in Laramie en route to California when Molly had to have an appendectomy, and liked the town and the people so much they decided to settle here permanently.

      “Right. Well—” Rafe paused and drew a deep breath, as if already working up his nerve “—I want to ask her out.”

      Kelsey shrugged, not sure where she fit into all this. It wasn’t as if Rafe needed her permission. The two of them had been over for a long time. “So what’s stopping you?” she asked.

      “I’m afraid I’ll mess it up.” Rafe frowned, worry darkening his eyes. “I haven’t had a date since I got married and that was years and years ago. I’m afraid if I go out with her, without a little practice, I’ll mess it up and blow my chances with Patricia permanently.”

      Rafe could be a little physically clumsy at times, but Kelsey didn’t hold that against him and she couldn’t see a nice woman like Patricia Weatherby doing so, either. “You’re being a little hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

      He didn’t think so. He picked up a pencil and turned it end over end. “Do you know how many other guys have asked her out since she settled here? Fifteen. No one’s made it past a first date. She won’t go out with them after that—she says she’d like to be friends, but beyond that, she can tell it’s not going to work out. She’s real nice about it, from what I’ve heard, but she’s firm. Once she has decided you’re not the one for her, you’re not the one.”

      Ouch, Kelsey thought, taking off her cowgirl hat and laying it in her lap.

      “And since you sort of operate the same way… Well,” Rafe amended quickly when he saw he had offended her. He leaned forward urgently. “You know what I mean. You’ve dated a lot of guys, Kelsey, and turned ’em all down eventually, usually after just a date or two or three yourself, so…I figured maybe you could clue me in as to what it is exactly that turns women like you and Patricia off to men in the first place. Then I would know what not to do and I could just not do it.”

      Kelsey could see he was dead serious. “Well, it really isn’t any one specific thing, Rafe,” she said, being careful not to hurt his feelings, even though she did think he was worrying about this unnecessarily. Still, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to help him build up his self-confidence. She sat back in her chair and fingered the brim of her hat. “A lot of things turn a woman off to a guy.”

      “Such as…?” Rafe pressed.

      Kelsey shrugged and did her best to explain. “Sometimes it’s a chemistry thing. I get that kiss at the front door at the end of the night, and I know…we haven’t got a shot.” Unlike with Brady. When he had kissed her, she had known they not only had a shot…that it was damned likely they’d end up together at some point, for at least a certain length of time.

      “But it’s not always as simple as a lack of chemistry,” Rafe said.

      “No.” With effort, Kelsey forced her mind away from Brady and his kiss, and their near tumble, and back to the conversation at hand. “Sometimes it’s the way a guy forgets to open a door for me,” she said.

      Rafe looked stunned. “You want guys to open a door for you?”

      “Well, not always. Sometimes. Why?” Kelsey found herself getting defensive. “You got a problem with that?”

      “No. I’m just surprised. That’s all.” Rafe paused. “What else?”

      “Well, honestly, Rafe, I don’t know.” As restless as could be, Kelsey shot out of her chair and paced his office, slapping the brim of her hat against her thigh as she moved. “I haven’t even had a date in a while, not since the guys in town stopped asking me out.”

      “Well, yeah—” Rafe was quick to jump to the other men’s defense “—none of them thought they had a chance.” He stopped and made a face when he saw he had offended her again. “Sorry. Listen, would you do me a favor? Would you have a secret date with me?”

      Kelsey sighed and sat down in her chair again. “Why does it have to be secret?”

      “Because I don’t want Patricia to think I’m interested in any woman but her when I do ask her out. Besides, what I want you to do is sort of give me a dating lesson. Let’s just go somewhere where nobody knows us, and we’ll pretend we’re on a date, and I’ll do all the things I intend to do for Patricia, you know, like holding the door and having dinner table conversation and maybe even asking her to dance if you think that’s a good thing. You can critique me. And that’ll give me a chance to get all my ducks in a row and build up my confidence before I actually do ask her out. I really, really don’t want to blow this, Kelsey. I think Patricia’s the woman for me, and I haven’t felt that way about a woman since my wife died.”

      Rafe seemed so sure about what he wanted. Kelsey could only admire him for that. Besides, she figured she owed him. He had steered a lot of kids who wanted riding lessons her way. “I would be happy to help you with that, Rafe,” she said.

      “How about tomorrow night then?” Rafe asked.

      Kelsey hesitated. “Tomorrow’s pretty busy. Brady and I are going on a buying trip and I’m not sure how long it will take, or when we’ll be back, but Wednesday evening is definitely free.”

      “Wednesday evening is good for me, too.” Rafe smiled. “Meet me at the Gilded Lily, around seven.”

      Kelsey frowned at the mention of the restaurant he had selected. “There are a couple of waiters over there who are known to be a little snooty, Rafe.” In Kelsey’s opinion, it was not the place to be if you were as nervous as Rafe was likely to be on his first date with Patricia Weatherby.

      “It’s also the only true five-star restaurant in the area and I want to impress Patricia and show her a really memorable time.”

      Kelsey could see he had his mind made up. Far be it for her to try to change it. “All right, then. The Gilded Lily it is. Oh, and Rafe?” Kelsey paused as she headed out the door. “I probably should mention one more thing. As of this afternoon—I’m married. So your idea about keeping this little dating lesson of ours a secret? It’s a good one.”

      “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Brady demanded the moment Kelsey sauntered in the front door. He was dressed in his usual dusty brown cowboy boots and jeans, but he had changed into a clean blue denim work shirt that brought out the blue of his eyes. Trying not to think what it might be like to go on a date with Brady, Kelsey walked right past him, into the kitchen.

      Even though she knew she owed him an apology, she didn’t want to think or talk about what had happened between them earlier. She still felt pretty embarrassed at the way she had lured him into her bed and then chickened out at the very last minute, before anything really momentous could happen. But she figured he did not need to know that.

      “And hello to you, too, husband dear.” Adopting her most carefree air, Kelsey put the bag containing a take-out beef barbecue dinner down on the table. “I hope you’re hungry. I bought this especially for you.”

      His scowl faded as the aroma of tender, mesquite-flavored beef and spicy barbecue sauce filled the air. “If you’d have asked me, I’d have gone with you.”

      Kelsey brought out containers of vinegar-based slaw, potato salad and beans, and snapped the lids off those, too. She held his gaze for a moment, before she went to get the plates and silverware. “I thought we both needed some cooling off time.”

      “You can say that again.” Brady brought two cold drinks and a stack of paper napkins to the table and held out a chair for her before he sat himself. As casually as if they ate dinner as a couple every day. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d been talking to Rafe about the things she really wanted from a man. One thing was for

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