A Man for All Seasons by Heather MacAllister

go-to little black dress would be a safe choice. But she hadn’t gone to her LBD in a while and the neckline gapped more than she remembered. Maybe it wasn’t so safe anymore because Ty’s expression told her he was struggling to find the right words.
    The right words were probably “change into jeans” or “Drive to the drugstore and buy a box of brown hair dye.”
    Well, she had no choice. The Flaming Pear was a nice restaurant, so it was either this dress or the red one.
    â€œForget it,” she told Ty. “I’m going to put on my shoes.”
    â€œYou look hot,” he said quietly.
    She fanned her face. “It’s all the running up and down the stairs.”
    â€œMarlie.” His lips curved slowly. “You look hot. In this dress, you look icy hot. In the red one, you look smokin’ hot.”
    â€œOh.” He thought she looked hot. Smokin’ hot. Nobody had ever told her she looked smokin’ hot before. She’d received compliments, sure, but hot hadn’t been one. She studied his face to make sure he was serious. “When you didn’t say anything, I thought—”
    â€œYeah.” He rubbed the back of his head. “What I wasthinking was ‘holy mother of God, where has she been hiding that body?’. But I didn’t want to scare you.”
    That, she believed. “You wouldn’t have scared me.”
    â€œI didn’t tell you everything I was thinking.” His expression was lightly amused, but his eyes told her he was still thinking those thoughts.
    He thought she was hot. He liked the way she looked.
    But there was no way he was going to get up from the sofa, kiss her senseless, and carry her up the stairs and ravish her.
    No matter how much she wanted him to. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy knowing he finally saw her as an attractive woman.
    â€œBy the way—the hair.” He gave her a double thumbs up. “It officially lands you in babe territory.”
    Marlie grinned, pleased. “I’ve never been a babe before.”
    â€œYou’ve always been a babe.” Ty tossed the remote onto the table, oblivious that his football game had started. “You just haven’t been operating in babe mode.”
    That was generous of him, Marlie thought.
    â€œWhich is why you should work up to the red dress,” he told her.
    Marlie laughed.
    â€œI’m serious,” Ty said. “That dress is a babe-in-a-crowd dress. It shouts, ‘Attention! Babe entering the room!’ That’s the dress you wear when you want men to acknowledge your babeness. It’s not the dress you wear to dinner on a first date with a stranger.”
    â€œHe’s not a stranger!”
    â€œHe’s a wino.”
    â€œTy!” Marlie laughed. “He’s a member of a wine club. He’s already selected the wines for each course tonight.”
    â€œWines plural? If either of you drinks more than two glasses, I want you to call me. I will come and get you.”
    â€œYes, Dad.” She paused. “Isn’t Axelle coming over tonight?”
    â€œNo,” he said. The doorbell rang, not giving Marlie a chance to ask why. “I’ll answer the door,” Ty said. “You will put on your shoes and make an entrance.”
    He was acting like a protective big brother, Marlie thought as she climbed the stairs.
    Too bad she couldn’t think of him that way.

6
    T Y TOOK SEVERAL DEEP breaths , just to clear his mind. And because his first impulse was to lock Marlie in her room until her bushy ponytail grew back. The world wasn’t ready for a blond Marlie and the dresses and the body. Maybe the frizzy ponytail and the body. Or baggy clothes and the hair. But all of it together?
    He heard a knock and headed downstairs. All right, let’s check this guy out, Ty thought as he opened the door. If he sensed one wonky vibe, the fireman was toast.
    A shorter,