Free McKnight in Shining Armor by Tami Hoag Page A

You?”
    “My father sold the farm and retired last year. He and Mother are living in New Mexico. I have a younger sister, Danielle, who is part-owner of a salvage shop in Chicago.”
    The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly enough. Kelsie had calmed down to the point where she could actually taste and appreciate the subtle flavors of the food. Alec ate because there was a plate in front of him. He was too wrapped up watching Kelsie and appreciating her subleties to care about the cuisine.
    She had totally captivated his interest. He was by nature a curious person, and Kelsie was like a very pretty puzzle to him. She had seemed so nervous at the start of the evening, one might have thought she’d never been on a date, yet she had been married and had two children. She had told him she didn’t date because she didn’t have time, but he had sensed there was more to it than that. She struck him as being intelligent and self-sufficient. She had a job that required her to get out and hustle for business, yet she could seem almost painfully shy.
    He was intrigued, which meant one thing at present: This wasn’t going to be their only date. He wanted to get to know Kelsie, wanted to be the one to rescue her from her self-imposed life of work and more work. She might not think she needed or wanted rescuing, but that wasn’t going to stop him.
    “What’s your fortune?” he asked. The waitress had left their cookies and gone off to retrieve Alec’s change from the bill.
    Kelsie cracked her cookie open, plucked out the slip of paper and read it, making a face.“Strength of character through virtue and hardship.”
    “They gave you the wrong cookie,” Alec said, teasing. “I told them to give you the one that said ‘A long and happy life through unbridled lust.’”
    Kelsie rolled her eyes and tossed her fortune at him. “What’s yours say?”
    Alec read the message to himself, a slow grin spreading over his face as if he was a poker player who had just laid down an unbeatable hand. “Good things are coming to you in due course. Perseverance rewards itself.”
       The night was clear and cool when they left the restaurant, with a moon well on its way to being full hanging in the sky. Kelsie huddled into her light coat and caught herself wishing Alec’s arm were around her as they crossed the parking lot to his car. The thought surprised her. Not because she was fantasizing about him again—she’d been doing that since they’d met—but because she wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable with him as she had been only a few hours before.
    Their dinner conversation had hardly been of the deep, soul-searching variety, and it had put her at ease. He was a nice man. He hadn’t loaded the conversation with leading remarks or come-ons. They had talked like two mature adults getting to know each other. It seemed a simple thing, but loomed large in Kelsie’s mind, considering how it had changed her attitude.
    Driving out of the parking lot, Alec went straight instead of turning in the direction of Eden Prairie and Kelsie’s house. She shot him a suspicious glance.
    “Where are you taking me, Mr. McKnight?” she asked in her mother’s don’t-give-me-any-bull tone of voice.
    “For a drive around the lake,” he answered innocently, fighting back a grin. “It’s a beautiful night, don’t you think?”
    “Lovely.”
    “It’s probably been a while since you went for a quiet moonlit drive around the lake.”
    “A while.” The last moonlit drive around a lake she’d taken had been when Jeffrey was a baby with a brand of insomnia that could only becured by taking him for a ride in the car. It had hardly been a romantic experience.
    “So I’m treating you to a moonlit drive around the lake.”
    “Fine, but don’t get any ideas, McKnight,” she warned.
    Alec chuckled. “Too late for that.”
    They drove around the night-silvered lake in companionable silence with light rock music playing softly on the car’s stereo.