He sighed. “Haha. ABBA jokes. Very creative.”
“Thank you. I accept that compliment with the same sincerity with which it was offered.” She shot him a half-hearted grin and walked toward the exit. “Have a good night, boys.”
Boys. Yeah. That was not a promising sign.
“Tess…” He trailed off, unsure whether having her confirm their date would instead give her an opening to cancel it. “You don’t have to go.”
“I really do,” she called over her shoulder.
It was a risk, but he needed to know. Needed that confirmation.
Just before she left the court, he spoke loudly enough to carry across the distance. “Half-past one, pigtails. The day after tomorrow. Don’t forget.”
Her brisk stride faltered, and he braced himself.
Then she began walking again, and her words floated through the shadows of the court. “Maybe I should. But I won’t.”
Five
Tess chose a discreet spot outside the chain-link fence surrounding the tennis courts, one partially shielded from the unforgiving island sun by swaying palm fronds. Close enough to watch and hear the tail end of Lucas’s pre-picnic lesson. Distant enough to evade his notice, especially given his preoccupation with his clients, a young couple in stylish tennis whites.
If she’d picked her spot wisely, she wouldn’t end up a victim of heat stroke before their date even began, and he’d never know she’d arrived thirty minutes early to spy on him.
Well, not spy on him. Observe him. Like she would one of her teachers.
Yes, that was what she was doing. Certainly there was no spying or—God forbid—ogling involved. Despite the sway of his very round, very firm ass when he bent over and prepared to return his clients’ serves, or the delicious bunching of his shoulder muscles beneath his thin, sweat-soaked t-shirt as he hit a two-handed backhand.
Nope. No ogling whatsoever.
Although, if ogling had occurred, it would have been well worth the effort.
In between periods of not-ogling, she watched him with the couple and discovered that his patient, well-informed guidance during her own lesson hadn’t been an aberration. The class had a logical, obvious structure, the clients knew what to expect, he paid close attention to both of them, and his advice was clear, practical, and stated with both knowledge and authority.
He was a good teacher, and she knew good teaching when she saw it.
He’d also left a dozen yellow tulips and a scrawled note wishing her a happy birthday at the front desk yesterday. Belle, delighted by the seeming success of her machinations, had literally squealed at the sight of the bouquet.
Tess had underestimated him.
Then again, he’d encouraged her to do so at their first meeting, and she still didn’t understand why. Why he hadn’t told her he worked at the resort and what he did there. Why he’d played the aimless flirt, when he was clearly more than that. Why, when he seemed interested in her, he’d chosen to hide so much of himself.
That lack of clarity—even apart from her other doubts, which were legion—had almost led her to call the clubhouse yesterday and leave him a message, canceling their lunch together. Even with those gorgeous, thoughtful tulips on her nightstand.
She’d picked up the phone in her room and dialed the relevant extension three or four times, but in the end, she’d always replaced the handset back on the cradle. And when Belle had left for a noontime rendezvous with Brian earlier that day, Tess hadn’t used her limited quiet, private time alone in their room to work. Instead, after waving goodbye to her friend, she’d spent way too long contemplating her limited wardrobe options and considering Lucas’s possible reactions to each before finally throwing on a simple, comfortable cotton maxi dress.
If that maxi dress showed an exuberant expanse of cleavage and its turquoise print suited her complexion, she’d told herself that was mere happenstance. But that had been a lie, and she’d known it even then.
Just as she knew an objective observer would deem her current behavior ogling.
When the lesson ended, the couple gathered their belongings. Lucas said his goodbyes and sprinted for the clubhouse, his large bag anchored to his side with one hand. With the other, he wrenched open the glass door to the little building, and then he disappeared inside.
They’d agreed to meet for lunch in ten minutes. He was hurrying. For her and to her.
That knowledge settled a few of her doubts, but not all of them, and not for long.
Taking her time, she followed his path to the clubhouse and stationed herself outside, trying not to think about the coworker who’d interrupted the end of her tennis lesson two days ago. More specifically, about how that coworker had appeared to be the same approximate age as her students. Twenty, max. Most likely around the same age as their friend Emma.
Lucas hung out with those people. Partied with them.
She was twice their age. Which was disconcerting, since forty suddenly didn’t feel much different from thirty-nine. Or twenty-nine, for that matter.
Not that she’d anticipated a sudden surfeit of middle-aged wisdom as the clock struck midnight on her birthday, or foreseen her body withering and crumpling into dust with the turning of a page in her planner. But maybe, despite all her protests about the unimportance of the transition, she’d expected more certainty with the advent of her fifth decade on this earth. Tranquility. Calm acceptance of her life as it was, both its joys and boundaries.
That hadn’t happened.
Instead, there she stood outside the tennis clubhouse, sweating in the midday heat, forty years and one day old, awash with sensations she hadn’t experienced in well over a decade. After all this time, who knew she could still feel so…fluttery? So electric with possibility and doubt and risk?
She’d dated after the end of her engagement. Had sex. Even called a man or two her boyfriend.
But she’d never once reacted this way to them. God help her, but Lucas somehow unbalanced her, dizzied her until her tongue came untethered and said things—angry things, honest things, foolishly flirty things—a diplomatic, practical principal-to-be would never, ever say.
Worse, her body rioted in his presence. Bloomed. Betrayed itself and undermined her slipping grasp on equanimity. And her too-hopeful heart…
Well, the less said about that, the better.
For a woman who was, above all else, pragmatic, it was all very disorienting.
As was his sudden arrival at her side, that familiar bag once again hanging from his shoulder, the clubhouse door swinging shut behind him. The sun glinted off the wet strands of his thick, dark hair, limning its edges with copper. He smelled like some sort of outdoorsy-scented soap, and he was wearing a different outfit. Still shorts and a tee, but both were dry and unwrinkled. Heat radiated from his large body, more intense than the sun searing her scalp and bare arms.
“Hey, Tess. Sorry I’m a couple minutes late.” He was smiling at her, his dimples deep, his olive-green eyes bright. “That’s a pretty dress.”
His forefinger skimmed her arm in a fleeting moment of contact, and her breath caught at the sudden bolt of sensation. She stared at him, aghast at her reaction to that simple touch.
Aghast and…well, terrified, actually.
He’d positioned himself close to her, his shoulder propped against the side of the building. Only a couple feet away, people walked past them, and he didn’t glance in their direction, not even when she heard his name spoken. His focus remained entirely on her. And the way his gaze caressed her features…