Claimed by the Rebel: The Playboy's Plain Jane / The Loner's Guarded Heart / Moonlight and Roses

“The Flower Girl.”

“Hey, Katie, my lady, Dylan.”

Silence.

Then, ever so politely, “Yes?”

“Would you—” What was he doing? Had he been on the verge of asking her out for dinner? Katie, the flower girl? He felt an uncharacteristic hesitation.

“Yes?”

“Uh, name three Steinbeck novels for me? I’m doing a questionnaire. I could win a prize. A year’s worth of free coffee from my favorite café.” He lied with such ease, another talent that Katie would disapprove of heartily.

“You don’t know the names of three of Steinbeck’s novels?” she asked, just a hint of pity in her cool voice.

“You know. Dumb jock.”

“Oh.” She said, as if she did know, as if it had completely slipped her mind—or it didn’t count—that he ran a multi-million-dollar business. “Which ones would you like? The most well-known ones? The first ones? Last ones?”

“Any old three.”

“Hmm. East of Eden. The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. Though, personally, I’d have to say I think his finest work was a short story called ‘The Chrysanthemums.’”

He laughed. “That figures. About flowers, right?”

“About an unhappy marriage.”

“Is there any other kind?” he asked, keeping his tone light. In actual fact, his parents had enjoyed an extraordinary union—until unexpectedly the “worse” part of the better-or-worse equation had hit and his father had turned into a man Dylan didn’t even know.

She was silent, and he realized he’d hit a little too close to home, a reminder of why he couldn’t ever ask her out. She was sensitive and sweet, and he was, well, not.

And then she said, softly, with admirable bravery given the fact she had presumably not had a good marriage, at all, “I like to hope.”

Oh-oh! A girl who liked to hope, despite the fact divorce was part of her history. Still, if she hoped you’d think she’d try just a little harder to attract.

“Not for myself personally,” she added, her voice suddenly strangled. “I mean, I just want to believe, somewhere, somehow, someone is happy. Together. With another someone.”

He snorted, a sound redolent with the cynicism he had been nurturing for the past year.

The word hope used in any conversation pertaining to marriage should be more than enough to scare any devoted bachelor near to death, but he’d always had trouble with risk assessment once he’d set a challenge for himself.

If anything, a jolt of fear sent him forward rather than back. That was why Dylan had skied every black diamond run at Whistler Blackcomb. He had bungee-jumped off the New River Gorge Bridge in Virginia on Bridge Day. He planned to sign up for a tour on the Space Shuttle the first year his company grossed five hundred million dollars. Dylan McKinnon prided himself in the fact he was afraid of nothing. He’d earned the nickname “Daredevil.”

He took chances. That’s why he was where he was today.

It was also the reason his baseball career had ended almost before it started, the voice of reason tried to remind him.

He overrode the voice of reason, took a deep breath, spat it out. “Would you like to go for dinner sometime?”

Silence.

“Katie? Are you there?”

“You haven’t even sent the fourth bouquet to Heather yet,” she said.

“The what?”

“The fourth one. The nice-to-know-you-I’m-such-a-great-guy-I’m-sending-flowers-but-I’m-moving-on one.”

He felt a shiver go up and down his spine. How was it that Katie knew him so well? He thought of the year he had known her, those intelligent eyes scrutinizing him, missing nothing. Assessing, mostly correctly, that he was a self-centered, selfish kind of guy.

“Okay,” he said. “Send it. Instead of the I’m-sorry one.”

“I already sent that one.”

Little Miss Efficient. “Okay, send the other one, too, then.”

“Do you want the message to read, ‘It’s been great knowing you. I wish you all the best’?”

He had become predictable. Hell. “Sure,” he said, “That’s fine.”

“Anything else?”

“You tell me. Am I available now that the fourth bouquet is being sent?”

“Of course you are,” she said sweetly.

Sweet had been one of the components his sister had used to define decent.

“Great. When would you like to go for dinner?”

“Never,” she said firmly.

He was stunned, but he realized there was only one reason little miss Katie Wholesome would have said no to him. And it wasn’t what his sister had said, either, that no decent girl would go out with him!

“You have a guy, huh?”

Pause. “Actually, I have a customer. If you’ll excuse me.” And then she hung up. Katie Pritchard hung up on him.

He set down the phone, stunned. And then he began to laugh. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. He’d wished for a surprise, and she had delivered him one. He’d just been rejected by Katie, the flower girl. He should have been fuming.

But for the first time in a long time he felt challenged. He could make her say yes.

Then what, he asked himself? A funny question for a man who absolutely prided himself in not asking questions about the future when it came to his dealings with the opposite sex.

Despite the rather racy divorcée title, Katie would be the kind of girl who didn’t go out with a guy without a chaperone, a written contract and a rule book. The perfect girl to invite to dinner at his sister’s house. That was the then what, and nothing beyond that.

So why did his mind ask, What would it be like to kiss her?