Beguiled Again: A Romantic Comedy by Patricia Burroughs

doesn’t remember how to shut without slamming. I just don’t think Peter will...” Will what? Peter was not likely to hide his feelings for long. “I don’t think he’ll be quite so... blatant.” She smiled weakly. “At least not tonight.”
    Jeff cocked his head and smiled. “How far is it to the school?”
    “About four blocks,” she said. “But you’re not going.”
    “Of course I am. I am totally entranced by the prospects of salt maps, tissue paper bluebonnets and sugar cube Alamos.” His wry chuckle belied his words charmingly.
    “Why on earth do you want to go?”
    “I don’t. Not really.” He grinned, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away. “But if it means I can follow you around, watch your hips sway and fantasize about your raspberry underwear...”
    “What?” Cecilia stepped away from him, her heart thudding with the rhythm of a panic-stricken hare when the fox has just entered the back door. “You—you saw!”
    Jeff nudged her toward the door. “Lock up, Cecil. The kids are waiting.”  
    ~o0o~

    Two tense but exhilarating hours later, Cecilia sat beside Jeff on her front porch swing, eating ice cream, while the kids shared theirs with Vinny and Mikey and Ralph in the backyard. With his shirt-sleeves rolled back, exposing the dark hair on his forearms, his hair ruffled from the breeze, Jeff once again had changed before her eyes.
    “I really don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Jefferson Smith.”
    “Every time you 'Jefferson Smith’ me that way, I know I’m in for it.”
    “Saturday morning you told me in no uncertain terms that you thought I had problems, then when you picked up your car you acted as if I had a contagious disease.”
    “Is that the way you remember it?”
    “All right,” she said, relenting. “I wasn’t exactly cordial, I’ll admit. But doesn’t that show you we really don’t get along very well?”
    “You might say that,” he agreed, seemingly more interested in his double dip chocolate cone than her.
    “Don’t drip,” she commanded as the soft edge of his chocolate ice cream threatened to dribble onto his trousers.
    He caught the drip on his tongue, avoiding her eyes. “Did I mention that I promised Brad I’d photograph his soccer game this weekend?”
    “You’re going to his soccer game?” she repeated numbly.
    “I’d like to try some action shots on some new film I’m testing, and this seems as good an opportunity as I’ll get.”
    She angled herself toward him on the porch swing. “What exactly are you trying to prove? You just admitted that you and I don’t get along at all, so why don’t you leave well enough alone? Leave me alone?”
    “Do you honestly want me to leave you alone, Cecil?” Five days earlier, the answer would have been a desperate and resounding yes. Four days earlier, more desperate if less resounding, but still yes. But tonight, she was churning with emotions ranging from exasperation and frustration to a tingling awareness she couldn’t deny. The word “yes” wouldn’t form on her lips.
    What if he did walk away? Never called again. Never crossed her threshold again. Disappeared from her life as completely as the first time. Where was the sense of relief she ought to feel? Surely it was still there, somehow camouflaged by the emptiness that threatened to overwhelm her. She turned blindly to her ice-cream cone. She couldn’t answer him.
    Nervously she wiped a smudge of raspberry sherbet from the tip of her nose.
    “I wish I had gotten raspberry,” he said.
    “There’s plenty more,” she said, seizing any excuse to break the tension between them. “Do you want me to fix you one?”
    He shifted his weight and eased closer to her. His deep brown eyes darkened dreamily beneath half-closed lids. “Don’t get up,” he murmured. “I’ll just have a taste of yours.”
    She knew she should turn away from his lips, but she didn’t. She could have at least given him a moving target. But she