Jude was gorgeous, but she was on the rebound. She was in a place where she needed to cut loose and do crazy things for once in her life, and he wasn’t going to be the one to take advantage of that vulnerability.
No, but Dirk might.
That thought had him gritting his teeth.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth, dummy!” His cousin Biff—Pru and Horace’s oldest son who ran a construction crew—came up behind him, swatted Tom’s arm with one hand, and gestured with a big chunk of Italian bread in the other. “Everyone will see how much you want her, and then they’ll start planning your wedding.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The happy day when you have to eat crow for all your footloose and fancy-free bachelor manifesto.” Biff guffawed like he’d told a hilarious joke.
“Haven’t you put on a few pounds?” Tom teased good-naturedly, attempting to change the subject. “Shouldn’t you be holed up somewhere making a baby with your new wife instead of chowing down with the relatives?”
“Deflection,” Biff announced. “Not gonna work with me.”
Tom looked around, realizing Biff backed him into the little alcove Horace—er, Bud—had built to display his first, and only, bowling trophy. Now it was a bower of shelves filled with glass baskets and his aunt’s collection of British royal family memorabilia, all lit by dazzling overhead lights.
“I’m only helping her out. Jude’s got self-esteem issues after her ex-fiancé dumped her at the altar.”
“So you’re like what? The rebound guy?”
“We’re not having sex.”
“Maybe not yet.” Biff waggled his eyebrows. “But it’s on the table. She was looking at you with as much sizzle as you were looking at her.”
Was she?
Tom felt proud…and worried. “I’d better go rescue Jude before Uncle Ray starts doing his ear-wiggling trick.”
Leaving his cousin behind, Tom practically sprinted to the kitchen where his aunts had absconded with Jude.
9
“My aunts are terrific cooks,” Tom whispered to Jude when they were seated side by side at the long dinner table. “Their menus can be a little strange—all three are uber-creative—but I promise everything tastes good.”
Jude didn’t mind. She found his boisterous family quite interesting, and she’d been enjoying their conversations where they talked over each other, interrupted often, and laughed with abandon. By comparison, her own family was much more placid.
Tom ladled some pickled beets and a big purple egg onto his plate beside the main dish of meatballs and spaghetti. Not a combo she would have served, but hey, she was open to new experiences.
He winked at her. Luckily, his family was deeply engaged in their reminiscing about past birthday celebrations that they didn’t notice what was going on at Tom and Jude’s end of the table.
Jude eyed Tom with a speculative smile. “Does your family have a lot of these kinds of celebrations?”
“Oh, yeah. At least once a month someone is having a birthday or getting promoted or having a baby or graduating. We keep the party supply store in business.”
“I think that’s sweet,” Jude said. “It’s nice having a big extended family close by. You’re lucky.”
“It can be annoying too,” he confessed. “When they decide to get all up in your business.”
“Oops,” Jude murmured. “I dropped my napkin.”
“I’ll get it,” he said, but playing Sir Galahad wasn’t as easy as he made it sound.
For one thing, Tom’s aunt had put extra leaves in her dining room table, and too many folding chairs were crowded around it, so he bumped into people as he maneuvered. For another thing, with a wall behind them, he could wiggle back only a couple of inches, and he had to bend his body at an odd angle to peek beneath the tablecloth for her errant napkin.
He ducked his head and reached down.
Jude felt fingers against her skin, and she jumped at his touch. Her pulse rate scooted upward, and she hissed softly, “That’s my shin.”
He rooted around, then came up for air, his face flushed and hair tousled. “Sorry. I couldn’t find it. You can have mine.”
“Let’s share. Your aunt’s napkins are as big as bedsheets.” Jude chuckled.
“Thank you for being so gracious and understanding,” he whispered close to her ear, although it was unlikely anyone could hear him. It took a top-of-the-lungs shout to be heard across the table in the din of several dozen people talking at once. “Would you like to leave as soon as we have cake and ice cream?”
“No, I’m having fun,” she said.
“Really?” Tom looked surprised.
Even as she said it, Jude realized it was true. Her family was smaller and widely scattered. Tom’s relatives talked too loudly, laughed a lot, and seemed genuinely fond of each other. They also made her, a stranger, feel welcome and liked.
But they kept talking about the happy marriages among their clan and eying Jude with curiosity. She could see their mental gears clicking—especially with Tom’s mother—wondering if Jude might be the one to tame him.
Ha! The last thing she wanted was a serious relationship. With Tom, all Jude wanted was fun, fun, fun, fun.
She liked him and enjoyed being around him, but that was the extent of it. She was glad she’d accepted Dirk’s invitation to go bowling tomorrow night, although she got the feeling Tom disapproved. She needed to play the field. Not that she was dating Tom or anything, but the more time she spent with him, the more she was getting attached to his quick smile and lively nature.
“A toast,” Uncle Horace/Bud proposed, lifting a precariously full goblet of red wine. “To my better half. I love you, Prudie!”
Horace was as verbose as he was jolly. He kept the toasts going, jumping in whenever there was a lull. Which granted, with this bunch, wasn’t often.
Jude nursed one glass of wine last through ten rounds of toasting and glass-clinking, but the bright lights from the chandelier and the close-packed bodies were making a steam room of the dining area.
When the meal was over and the birthday cake eaten, a few people drifted away from the table, and Tom was quick to lead her away from the dining room hullabaloo. Jude followed, squeezing behind the chairs hemming them in.
When he put his hand on her upper arm, she pulled away. They were surrounded by a hoard of his relatives, including his mother, and she was literally vibrating with—
Call it what it is, she chided.
Desire.
Somehow, they ended up in the kitchen alone. The counter was crowded with more small electrical kitchen aids than she’d ever seen outside of a store.
Tom read her mind. “Uncle Horace is big on mechanical gadgets. If Aunt Pru got anything else for Christmas or her birthday, she’d probably faint.”
Jude stared at the collection of dicers, slicers, cookers, toasters, beaters, heaters, and others with mysterious purposes.
“Why three microwaves?”
“In case two malfunction.” He grinned. “Aunt Pru is serious about cuisine.”
“No kidding.”
“Let’s see if we can find a quiet corner somewhere in the house.”