Walking in, Mac stood for a moment in the darkening theater, getting his eyes accustomed to the dim lighting, attempting to make shapes out. Or not make them out as the case was. He was trying to scout out three unoccupied seats that were together.

Jolene beat him to it. It was amazing what weakening knees made you do. "There." She pointed to the area for emphasis.

He was still trying to focus. "Where? I don't see any empty seats."

Shaking her head, she took his arm and led the way up to the front of the theater. Part of her was convinced that he'd feigned not being able to see the seats for this exact reason.

The seats were three rows from the screen.

"Too close?" she asked.

He was surprised that she bothered asking him his preference. But as a doting uncle, he'd sat even closer than this.

"No, this is perfect for Amanda." He looked down for a confirmation from the little girl and got it. "No big heads in the way, right, princess?"

She nodded her head vigorously, her wispy curls bouncing again. "Right."

Mac led the way into the row. To Jolene's surprise, he looked perfectly content to have Amanda planted between them. Settling in, he held the popcorn container where it was easily accessible to the little girl.

It was a ninety-three minute movie...ninety-three minutes of nonstop color, antics and song.

Jolene'd spent most of those ninety-three minutes watching MacKenzie rather than her daughter or the movie. Convinced that this too-good-to-be-true act of MacKenzie's was just that, a ruse to get her into bed, she felt sure that once the lights were down and the movie was rolling, he'd begin to fidget restlessly. At the very least, she felt confident that he wouldn't bother watching the movie.

She hadn't expected him to watch the cartoon feature in its entirety, and certainly didn't expect him to laugh. But he did both, leaning over occasionally to explain something to Amanda. Amanda was eating it up.

Just like a little girl who missed male influence in her life. Who missed having a father.

Somewhere after the third song, a duet sung by Silly Sandy and a purple cricket named Oscar, Jolene felt as if she'd intruded on an exclusive club.

Watching MacKenzie and her daughter, she suddenly felt a lump rising in her throat. If Matt hadn't been such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d with an overeager s.e.x drive, this could have been his. Amanda could have been giggling with him over the duet instead of with a stranger.

No, that wasn't entirely right. Even if Matt had kept his zipper in its closed position and they'd remained a family, nothing in the world would have convinced him to go to the movies and spend an evening watching a cartoon dog spread cheer and sing. Matt just wasn't good with children. She'd known that when she married him. She'd hoped, of course, that when their own came along, he'd change. And he had.

Except that the change had been for the worse. He'd reverted back to his premarried state with a vengeance.

"What's the matter?"

MacKenzie'd whispered the question in her ear, his breath caressing her skin, causing a minor warm front to move in over her entire body. Startled, she jumped and looked at him. "What?"

"You look like you're a million miles away."

Amanda looked up at the two adults talking over her head and uttered an impatient, "Shhhh," the way her mother had countless times to her when she was being too noisy.

Mac almost laughed out loud.

"Sorry," he whispered to Amanda. "It won't happen again." To seal the deal, he crossed his heart and faced forward.

Jolene hadn't realized just how appealing his profile was, especially in such low lighting. Or how heart softening.

With effort, she tried to pick up the thread of the story and stop noticing the s.e.xy doctor less than two feet away from her.

She didn't have much luck.

Chapter Eight.

T he Safari Restaurant, nestled in the heart of the sprawling Bedford Mall, was an experience for the senses that was discernible long before Jolene walked into it. Built without two of its walls, it relied on scenery such as palms, strategically placed fish tanks and configurations of mechanical beasts to lend structure to the enclosed place.

Amanda's head seemed to spin like a top as the food server, dressed as an African safari guide, led them to their table. Jolene saw MacKenzie slip the young woman a twenty. In exchange for that, they were taken to a table that was in the very center of the restaurant. From there, they could see and hear everything.

The food server recited the specials of the day, complete with all the appropriate, cute names and waited to see if anything proved tempting. Mac ordered something called a Rhino Burger, suggesting that Amanda might enjoy a dish called Gibbon Food, which turned out to be home-styled potatoes and grilled, finger-size hot dogs.

Jolene went with the Mogambo Salad and was surprised when the women returned with a plate that took up half the tray and had everything on it but the proverbial kitchen sink. Given all the camouflaging lettuce, the latter could very well have been on the plate.

Jolene felt daunted before she even began. However, Amanda dived in as if she'd been starving for the last week instead of someone who had just consumed more than her share of popcorn at the movies.

Jolene had glimpsed the prices on the menu, which were longer than the names on the items. This was not an inexpensive date. In light of that, since he wasn't about to get anything else for his investment, she supposed she at least should make an attempt at some kind of conversation.

Raising her voice to be heard above the din, Jolene asked, "How did you find this place?"

Watching Amanda's reaction to the different animals tickled him. Mac raised his eyes to Jolene's. "I didn't. Karla and Ethan did."

She wasn't sure if she was supposed to know them, or if she'd even heard him correctly. A person could go deaf working here, she thought. "And they are?"

"My niece and nephew. They're ten and eight." He took out his wallet and found the photograph that had all three in it. He pa.s.sed it over to Jolene. "But Kirby's the one who really loves this place. He's five." He glanced at Amanda. "I wasn't too sure about a two-year-old, though."

Jolene handed his wallet back to him. A man who carried around a photograph of his niece and nephews couldn't be all bad, she thought, no matter how hard she struggled to keep the label affixed to him. "They're very sweet."

"Yes, they are," he agreed with pride, returning his wallet to his back pocket.

He needn't have worried about Amanda's reaction to the place. The little girl looked as if she'd finally found her rightful home.

Very simply, the restaurant was built on the principle of perpetual noise and perpetual motion. Decorated to look like a tropical rain forest, it saw no embarra.s.sing contradiction in having a full-size mechanical ape and a tiger, complete with cubs, periodically letting loose with their respective roars.

It was the perfect place to come in order to entertain a child and not talk to your date, Jolene thought. Not that MacKenzie was actually her date.

He was just the man she was allowing to pay for everything.

The irony of the situation hit her.

All right, so she had joined the fold. She was one of "Hunky Harrison's" dates. But only by the most technical stretch of the word's definition. They'd gone out together, shared a noisy movie and a noisier meal, but they were not going to be sharing anything else. Not if she had anything to say about it. She wasn't even going to shake his hand at the door if she could help it.

"What's wrong?"

Glancing up, she realized that he was saying something to her, but only because she saw that his lips were moving and he was looking at her with those piercing green eyes of his. His voice was completely drowned out by the sounds of a sudden thunder shower that was taking place not three feet behind her. The screech of a monkey heading for high ground was added in, making anything short of lip reading impossible.

Mac waited for the cycle to end and the volume around him to lower to a manageable roar.

"What's wrong?" he repeated, raising his voice and leaning toward her. "You looked pained." He indicated the salad in front of her. "Something wrong with your meal?"

She shook her head and regretted the motion immediately. There were seven little men with large pickaxes working over her temple. "I think I'm getting a headache."

Mac laughed. That had been Carrie's complaint when she'd come with them the last time.

"This place'll do that to you." He looked around, watching an incredibly lifelike monkey climb hand over hand between three vines, then return again to the beginning. "I think they've got it engineered that way so that they get a faster turnover with their customers. If you're over twelve, you can only stand this place for so long before it gets to you and you feel as if native drums are beating in your chest."

Maybe that was it. Maybe she was feeling the native drums beating in her chest. She was certainly feeling something unusual, sitting across from MacKenzie like this. She couldn't hear him half the time, but she could see him. See him interacting with her daughter, who seemed to have no trouble hearing him and gleefully laughing at nearly everything he said.

There was no doubt about it, the man knew how to exude charm just by breathing.

But there was more to him than that, she had to grudgingly admit. She'd seen him with that poor excuse for a human being, Tommy's stepfather, the other day. MacKenzie was a man who knew how to get his point across, how to champion an unpopular cause.

d.a.m.n, she was beginning to think like someone in his fan club, not like a woman who should know better. A woman who knew that charming men were predominantly all facade, like the make-believe fronts that were made out of cardboard and used in movies. If you looked at them from the side, there was nothing there.

Of course, when you looked at MacKenzie from the side, there was a lot there, a small voice inside her whispered. There was a chiseled profile, biceps that looked as if they wanted to bulge out of the sleeves of the shirt he'd rolled up. A chest that looked harder than granite...

Stop that! she ordered herself.

Because he didn't want to shout and add to her headache, Mac leaned over the table and asked, "In the mood for anything else?"

Yes.

Her own silent response left Jolene feeling more than a little sh.e.l.l-shocked because of what had motivated it. d.a.m.n it, for a minute she was beginning to let her mind wander, picturing him as Tarzan, wearing nothing more than a loincloth. A small one. And she was Jane. Waiting in their tree house.

Jolene ran her tongue over her lips before asking, "What?"

Mac leaned in even closer. "You haven't really touched your salad, I thought maybe you wanted something else."

It was an innocent enough statement, why was her mind coming up with loaded interpretations? Because she didn't trust this man, she told herself, no further than she could throw him.

"Popcorn," was all she said in her defense.

Though she'd been adamant about her resolve not to have any in the theater, Jolene would have been the first one to admit that she had a weakness for it. By the time the movie was over, she'd eaten more than half the container herself. But that was MacKenzie's fault. He had kept the tub right within her reach the entire ninety-three minutes.

Interpreting her single-word explanation, Mac accepted the blame gracefully. "Sorry about that. I should have bought a small."

She wasn't about to let him be gallant about this. That would have made him n.o.ble somehow and she needed him as tarnished as she could manage. "No, I should have resisted it."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Sometimes, you just can't resist, no matter how good you think your willpower is. It's a fact of life. Everyone's got some kind of weakness." His eyes teased hers, or maybe it was just the lighting. In either case, the b.u.t.terflies made a return appearance in her stomach. They were right at home, given the atmosphere. "I guess popcorn's yours."

She was having trouble breathing. There were decidedly too many people in the small area. Too many people, too many things and too much of him.

"I guess."

The smile in his eyes filtered down to his lips. She felt isolated, yet definitely not alone. "Any other weaknesses I should know about?"

With effort, Jolene rallied.

The look that came into her eyes told him to back away, reminding him that he dearly loved a challenge. "I like punctuality and people who know to leave when the party's over."

Jolene found the smile that teased his lips particularly unnerving. And for some reason, the noise around them seemed to reinforce his words rather than drown them out.

"I always do, Nurse DeLuca, I always do."

The h.e.l.l he did, or else he would have left them at the movies. Right after he'd made the entire theater fade away.

But what was important to her now was that he know that there was no way in h.e.l.l he was coming into her house tonight-or any other night.

"I guess then," she said evenly, picking at the salad, "that it's a matter of agreeing on the definition of just when the party's over."

"I guess so."

It wasn't until that moment that she realized he'd reached across the small table and had his hand over hers. Alarms went off in her head and she pulled her hand away as if she'd just been burned.

Surprised, Amanda looked at her. "Got an ow-ey, Mommy?"

"No, baby." Jolene looked at the man across from her defiantly as she said it.

And she didn't intend to get one, either.

"Don't wanna go to bed," Amanda protested as Jolene brought their car to a halt in the driveway right next to Mac's vehicle.

She knew this was going to happen. Bedtime was never an easy matter under normal circ.u.mstances and these were anything but normal. "It's getting late, Amanda."

With the inborn instincts of every child who had played one parent against another, Amanda looked toward Mac to rescue her. She strained in her car seat, trying to lean forward.

"P'ease, Man."

"Man" was as close as Amanda could manage any part of MacKenzie, or even Mac. He got a big kick out of hearing her call him that.

"I'm afraid you've gotta listen to your mom, Amanda." Jolene slanted him a look he couldn't read, but he could hazard a guess. The woman was waiting for him to say something to contradict what he'd just said. "Tell you what, would you go to bed if I read you a story?"

Amanda clapped her hands together, her eyes bright in antic.i.p.ation. "Stow-ee."

Leaning back, Mac ruffled Amanda's hair affectionately. "I guess that settles it."

"No, it doesn't," Jolene said firmly. Unbuckling her seat belt, she turned to look at him. "Reading a story means that you'd have to come in."

"Unless you want me to sit outside her window and do it."

She hated being patronized. "Her room's on the second floor. You'd have to sit in a tree."