Familiar Stranger. Sharon Sala
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David smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said smoothly. “I’m David Wilson. It’s a pleasure to meet one of Cara’s friends.”
“David, this is Debra Shay,” Cara said. “Ray worked with her husband, Roy.”
David nodded congenially while thinking that he felt like he was playing a part. Normal chit-chat, ordinary people, having lunch in a tearoom in Chiltingham, New York. It was a far cry from subterfuge and espionage. And then the hostess arrived and the moment ended.
“I’m sorry for the delay,” she said. “Please follow me.”
“Nice to meet you,” Debra gushed, giggling again as David and Cara were shown to their table.
David seated Cara, then took the chair beside her. As soon as the hostess left, he took Cara’s hand.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She made herself smile. “No.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but just waiting to come out?”
She sighed. “Because there is.”
“Then what?”
“This doesn’t feel real.”
He started to smile, which was the last thing Cara would have expected him to do.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I’d forgotten that we used to think alike.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just a few moments ago I was thinking the very same thing. I feel like I’m acting a part and any minute now someone is going to yell cut and I’m going to turn back into—”
He caught himself before he said the word Jonah and looked away, but the message was clear. Cara put her hands over his and gave them a squeeze.
“It’s all right, darling,” she said quietly. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can go home. I’ll make us some sandwiches and we can—”
“Hell, no. I’m not fragile, just out of practice,” he said, and then handed her a menu. “Now, tell me what’s good.”
The smile on her face was worth every uncomfortable moment he’d had thus far. When she bent her head to study the menu, he watched her changing expression as devoutly as he’d watched the sunrises over the Rockies. He didn’t know how this journey was going to end, but he would never be sorry he’d made it.
“How hungry are you?” Cara asked.
He blinked. Telling her the truth about what he really hungered for would probably embarrass her, but when she started to blush, he figured she’d just read his mind.
A small grin tilted the right side of his mouth, then as quickly disappeared.
He leaned across the table until their foreheads were almost touching. “I’m starving,” he said softly
Her blush heightened. “Just don’t lick the corner of my mouth again until there’s a really good reason.”
His eyes glittered warmly as he sat back in his chair. “You’re safe for now,” he promised. “Now, since you’re the expert here, why don’t you order for me?”
“Really?”
“I think I’m secure enough as a man to let a woman order for me without feeling threatened. Besides, I’m curious as to what you think might appeal to me.”
“What if you don’t like it?”
He thought of the times he’d eaten grubs and insects to survive and decided against mentioning it.
“I’ll still eat it.”
She beamed. “My kind of man.”
The teasing disappeared from his eyes. “Sweetheart, I was always your man.”
Unprepared for the gentleness in his voice, Cara’s eyes teared, but she blinked them away.
“Just for that, you’re going to get their famous dessert, too,” she said.
“What’s that?”
She grinned. “Cake. It’s called Better Than Sex.”
David thought she was putting him on until she pointed to the dessert portion of the menu.
“No way,” he muttered, wondering what else had changed in this world while he’d been hiding behind the generations of Jonahs who’d gone before him.
“Oh, yes, and when you’ve finished your meal, I’ll prove it,” Cara said.
At this point, David’s sense of justice got the best of him. He’d never had a bite of food in his life that was better than making love to Cara—not even when he’d been starving.
“You just do that,” he whispered. “And I’ll be a really good boy and eat everything on my plate, but when we get home, I’m going to prove to you that there isn’t anything better than sex, especially when it’s with the right person.”
“May I take your order?”
Startled, Cara looked up. The waitress was grinning—proof that she’d overheard, at the very least, the last thing David just said. Cara glared at David and then rolled her eyes. This would be all over the tearoom before they’d been served their first dish.
The waitress waited, her pen poised above her pad.
Refusing to look at David, Cara gave their order. As soon as the waitress was gone, Cara glanced up, but he seemed preoccupied with a couple across the room. She turned to look and then sighed. It was Ben and Katie Murphy and their new baby girl. Probably their first outing since the baby’s arrival last month. She looked at David again. The pain in his eyes was unmistakable. Despite the fact that everyone in the room would see and put their own interpretation on the action, she reached for his hand.
Startled by her touch, David blinked, then turned his focus to Cara.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
He sighed. So she’d read his mind again. So what else was new?
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said briefly.
“Don’t, David.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t deny your feelings…not to me.”
“Okay then. What do you want to hear first?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “That I envy that young couple the life ahead of them, or that I want things I know I can never have?”
“I can’t give you back your youth, but I can give you a daughter…and grandchildren.” She held her breath, afraid to say the rest of it—that she would be his wife if he wanted it.
David made himself smile, unaware that the action never reached his eyes.
“You’ve already done that,” he said. “And I can only hope that they will forgive me as quickly as you have.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Cara said, refusing to admit her disappointment that he had mentioned nothing about the future of their relationship. “When they get to know you, they will love you.”
Before David could answer, he saw a woman approaching their table. From the look on her face, the curiosity was eating her up. He gave Cara a nod and then braced himself, thankful he was sitting down. This one looked as if she wouldn’t settle for a simple pinch on the behind.
“Ooh, Cara, who’s this big hunk and where have you been keeping him?”
Cara flinched and David saw it, identifying the woman as someone other than a friend. Whoever she was, she’d just become his enemy, too.
“Macie,