Home-Grown Husband. Sharon Swan

Not that he’d been expecting to ask his gardening teacher to go anywhere with him that night. His sole intention, as he’d climbed her porch steps, was to see her again.

      The truth was, he hadn’t been able to convince himself to stay away any longer, not after keeping a sharp eye out for male visitors over the past several evenings and failing to see any calling on Tess Cameron. The field was clear, he’d presumed, an assumption just confirmed by her friend’s obvious effort to throw them together. She would know far better than he if another man were in the picture.

      Plainly, the answer was no.

      On one hand, he was glad—probably more than he should be—that his neighbor was free to consider his suggestion. On the other, he couldn’t help noting that she wasn’t jumping at the chance to take him up on it.

      Jordan glanced around a kitchen as homey as the one he currently called his own. Here, rainbow shades predominated and flowers ruled, covering the chair cushions and topping the windows. More flowers were strung out in a high border at the edge of the ceiling and a short glass vase holding an assortment of the real variety stood on the counter near the refrigerator.

      And there, he noticed, a new and entirely different element had won out. Displayed on the front of the tall refrigerator, held up by a bright mix of small magnets, were several crayon drawings, all of trains.

      “An artist in the family?” he asked with a nod at the pictures.

      Tess’s expression softened as a quick, fond smile appeared. “My daughter has her heart set on becoming a railroad engineer.”

      “Hmm. Interesting.” Women did most everything these days, Jordan thought, including rocketing off into space. By the time eight-year-olds grew up, who knew what they’d be into?

      “And I think she means business,” Tess added, sounding like a proud mother. “One of the first words she learned to say was choo-choo. Ali was always more delighted with the toy train chugging around our Christmas tree than the ornaments on it.”

      Jordan waited, but she didn’t go on. Finally he set his mug down with a soft clunk, deciding there was no use beating around the bush. “If you’d rather go alone tonight,” he said, “I’ll certainly understand.”

      Whatever he might have expected, it wasn’t the reply he got.

      “If you’d rather go alone, I’ll be the one to understand,” she said bluntly. “You were shanghaied into making that offer, and I intend to see that Sally gets what’s coming to her.”

      One corner of his mouth kicked up at her abruptly dire tone. “What’s the plan?”

      “Boiling her in oil sounds great at the moment.” Tess blew out a breath. “Or I could be downright cruel and break one of her fingernails. They’re her pride and joy.”

      “That’ll teach her.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and the dog at his feet yawned as if the movement had interrupted a nap. Thankfully, the cat was nowhere in sight. Jordan still wasn’t sure that Jones had learned his lesson. Right now, he’d rather not put it to the test.

      He had other things on his mind—mainly the answer he’d yet to get.

      Reaching down, he brushed a hand over a furry head, then sat back and returned his gaze to the woman seated beside him. “Regardless of how it came about, I don’t want to take back what I said earlier. Will you go with me?”

      Another silent second passed before he finally got that reply. “All right, if you’d really like me to.”

      “I would,” he said, and meant it.

      Trouble was, he was beginning to think he liked it too much.

      “THIS IS NO BIG DEAL,” Tess reminded her reflection as she viewed it in a wide dresser mirror under the watchful light eyes of the cat stretched out in full glory on her cherry-wood queen-size bed. “It’s not a real date, not even close. We just happen to be invited to the same party, so we’re going together.”

      With that thought already firmly in mind when she’d dressed for the evening, she now wore what she’d planned to wear before Jordan Trask had arrived on the scene that morning. Her sleeveless white blouse edged with lace around a notched collar was comfortably suited to the warm weather, yet fancy enough for a casual party. Likewise her short coral-colored wraparound skirt and white mid-heeled sandals. Neighbors who had known her for years, even seen her grow up, would think she looked much the same as on a score of past occasions.

      Which was as it should be, she reflected, because there was nothing all that exceptional about tonight. And if she repeated that to herself a dozen more times, maybe the swarm of butterflies flitting around in her stomach would calm down.

      She could only hope.

      Tess was still hoping, without great success, when the doorbell rang. “No big deal,” she muttered under her breath as she headed down the stairs leading to the front entryway. Then she opened the door and the butterflies furiously flapped their way to new heights.

      It was, she had to admit, a big, big deal.

      Oh, not to the man who calmly gazed back at her, hazel eyes deepened to gleaming green by the jade polo shirt he wore with tan pants. Certainly not to him. But, for her, the bald truth was that this was a far-from-ordinary occasion—something, she decided, she would try mightily to keep as her secret.

      To that end, she smiled a small smile and aimed for the lightest of tones. “You’re right on time.”

      He returned her smile with his own crooked version. “All set to go?”

      She nodded, switched on the porch light and pulled a house key from a side pocket of her skirt. “This is all I need.”

      Jordan watched as Tess secured the sturdy dead bolt on the door. That she had one at all surprised him a little. The house he’d rented sported only a standard lock on the knob and he hadn’t given it another thought, not in a place like Harmony. The crime rate was probably close to zero. Hardened criminals could well be an endangered species here, a far cry from many of the places he’d known in the past.

      But he didn’t want to think about the past. That was behind him.

      He’d rather consider the evening to come, although he realized it would hold some challenges. Keeping his eyes off Tess Cameron’s legs was the first and foremost. It wouldn’t do his temperature any good to start imagining how that creamy skin would feel under his palms. No damn good at all.

      Jordan crossed his arms over his chest as they reached the bottom of the porch steps and started down a quiet street, side by side. He was her escort for the evening, he reminded himself, nothing more. He would take her to the party. He would see her home afterward. And he would try like blazes not to think about that dream.

      No garden. No fragrant breezes. No welcoming woman waiting for him, wearing nothing but a—

      “Tonight seems a little warmer than usual,” Tess said.

      Definitely warmer, he reflected with an inner grimace. “Maybe it will cool off later,” he told her.

      He could only hope.

      THANKFULLY IT DID COOL OFF, the temperature dropping fairly rapidly once stars began to blink their way into the clear sky overhead.

      And Jordan managed to cool off, as well.

      Then again, he hadn’t had much time during the past hour to look at Tess’s legs, he had to admit. Ever since Ben Mendoza, a raven-haired, dark-eyed, big-boned man with a smile as wide as his native Texas, had pressed a cold beer bottle into Jordan’s hand and hauled him away for a lively game of horseshoes, the woman he’d escorted had only been glimpsed in the chatty crowd milling around the spacious backyard.

      Now he had another beer in one hand and a pair of long steel tongs in the other, turning ribs on one of four sizzling charcoal grills set at one side of the yard near a high stone fence and trying to look like he’d been doing