Lone Star Santa by Heather MacAllister Page B

hung his arm across her shoulders in the universal she’s-with-me signal.
    As soon as they were seated in their booth, Kristen slipped out of the jacket, but wrapped the arms around her waist. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and noticed Mitch glaring at her. “What? I’m covered in leather from the waist down.”
    “I know.” He briefly squeezed his eyes shut. “Try to look unapproachable. No eye contact with anyone but me.”
    “You mean like this?” She sent a smoldering look across the table.
    And he sent a smoldering look right back. In fact, his smoldering look was better than her smoldering look and she’d been practicing.
    Kristen was so surprised that he had a look like that in him that she blinked. She was pretty sure Mitch didn’t. She was also pretty sure he saw her blink because one side of his mouth moved ever so slightly upward.

    He had perfected the look of the confident, sexy male on the prowl.
    Wait a minute. She was supposed to be the hottie here and he was supposed to be the befuddled nice guy. He was not supposed to be letting his smoking hot gaze drift from the top of her head all the way down her torso and back up again in a way that felt as though he was touching her.
    And he definitely shouldn’t have be able to add that slow, knowing smile.
    Just then, their waiter thrust a red plastic basket of tortilla chips and a small bowl of salsa on the table, his arm right in the middle of their line of sight. It was excellent timing because Kristen didn’t have a smoldering-look exit strategy. She’d never needed one before.
    “Hello, my friends. What can I get you to drink this evening?”
    “Two frozen margaritas with salt. She likes salt,” Mitch said to the waiter.
    He smiled as he scribbled their order. “And she is the type of woman a man wants to please, eh?”
    Avoiding eye contact as instructed, Kristen bit into a chip as Mitch and the waiter exchanged a silent man-to-man thing before he left.
    “I saw that,” she said.
    “What?”
    “That way-to-go-amigo look he gave you.”
    Mitch looked pleased with himself. “Yeah, I liked that. It doesn’t happen too often.”
    “Because I’m better looking than your usual dates?” Kristen preened a little.
    Mitch dunked a chip in the salsa. “Because my usual dates wear more clothes.”

    “Oh, Mitch.” Kristen shook her head in mock sympathy. “It’s not the clothes. It’s how they’re worn.”
    “I see that now.” He ate the chip and reached for another one. “Coverage and accessibility are very important. Low coverage, high accessibility. So noted.”
    Kristen should have been satisfied with the smoldering look.
    As it happened, Mitch didn’t have to fight off any men and Kristen nearly forgot the whole purpose of the evening. Okay, she didn’t forget, she stalled. She stalled because she was enjoying herself more than she’d expected.
    Mitch didn’t resort to a canned patter or a schedule of date moves. Honestly, was there some book for men about dating that was making the rounds? First there was the head tilt with the enigmatic smile designed to prompt a “What?” or “Why are you looking at me like that?” The response would be a quiet compliment, followed by what Kristen liked to call a “rescue the puppy” story which was supposed to make the guy look good and the woman turn all gooey inside. Next came the touch—on the arm or leg, maybe even a heartfelt hand squeeze. After that came a series of maneuvers designed to create a romantic intimacy. Talking, listening, smiling, mirroring body positions and always at some point a faux shyness that somehow—and Kristen was never certain exactly ho w—led to a kiss. And other things. Why did the limpid look always work when she saw it coming a mile off?
    There was no limpidness with Mitch. Neither did he respond to her date maneuvers, which, of course, she had and which, of course, she tried out—just to see what would happen. What happened, of course, was