The Matchmaker's Sister. Karen Toller Whittenburg

Nate didn’t feel the need to point that out. Nor did his mother.

      Miranda hesitated, then turned to Nate. “I got some club soda,” she said, offering him the bottle. “For your shirt.”

      Nate took the bottle from her hand with no intent of touching her except in the most casual way. But she had a grip on the club soda, almost as if she was reluctant to let it go, and his fingers lingered for a moment on hers. The spark of recognition flared, instantaneous and erotic. And he pulled back from the exchange almost as quickly as she.

      “It’s so interesting that you should walk up just now, Miranda,” Charleigh was saying with a conversational smile. “Because Nate was just talking about you.”

      “He was?”

      A soft touch of color bloomed on her cheeks and despite every effort to stay unaffected, Nate was charmed to the core. She had felt it, too, that moment of awareness. It might have been a long time since he’d shared that first recognition of electric attraction, but it wasn’t the sort of thing a man forgot.

      “Was he explaining how I ruined his shirt? I still can’t believe that happened.”

      “Our tongs collided,” Nate informed his mother, pointing to the stain, which until that minute he’d forgotten was there. “It was fate.”

      Charleigh glanced at his shirtfront. “Fate?”

      “I was hungry. She was tossing salmon.”

      “How serendipitous.” Charleigh’s smile turned to Miranda. “No, actually he was wondering aloud if I thought you might dance with him. If he asked. I was just telling him I was sure you would when, suddenly, here you are.”

      Miranda looked surprised, but she didn’t seem appalled by the thought of dancing with him. Nate considered that a positive sign. Below the drape of the tablecloth, his mother’s foot nudged his. “Miranda,” he asked obediently, “would you like to dance?”

      “Um, sure,” she replied doubtfully, her gaze flickering to his chest, then back to his face. “Unless you’d rather get some club soda on that stain.”

      “Probably best to let the dry cleaners treat it,” Charleigh said, apparently believing he’d take any excuse to get out of dancing.

      But even mothers were wrong on occasion. And although he might be on the shady side of forty, he was a long way from passing up the opportunity to hold a beautiful woman in his arms. “The club soda will wait for me,” he said. “The music won’t.”

      He took her hand, seeking, and finding, that shiver of electric response, and led her to the dance floor, where he drew her into his arms. The song was as soft as the night air around them. And Nate felt like a young man at his first formal dance. Expectant. Excited. Uncertain.

      “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “It’s been quite a while since I was in this position.”

      She held herself rather stiffly, not exactly melting against him, but she looked up at that and smiled. And his heart skipped a beat. Maybe he was too old for this. “What position?” she asked. “Dancing?”

      “Having my mother kick me in the instep until I asked you to dance. She thinks I’m backward with women.”

      Miranda’s eyebrow arched prettily. “And are you?”

      “I don’t know. I never thought so before.”

      “Before she kicked you?”

      He grinned. “Sometime around then, yes.” Relaxing into the rhythm of the music, he tried to draw Miranda closer, but she resisted, one palm pressed rather solidly against his chest. He didn’t insist, of course, but wondered if maybe she hadn’t wanted to dance with him. Maybe Mark had been right and women like Miranda viewed men over forty with suspicion. Or distaste.

      But he knew he hadn’t imagined the attraction. Or the subtle blush still lingering in her cheeks. He felt the attraction now, was reasonably sure she was feeling it, too. And she didn’t seem the type to be nervous about dancing with a man, even if he wasn’t exactly the Prince Charming she might have had in mind.

      On the other hand…there was her palm maintaining a curious, if not completely unreasonable, distance between them.

      And then it hit him.

      The stain on his shirt bothered her. She either didn’t want to come into contact with it or she felt afraid of making it worse if she did. He had to restrain a ridiculous grin from eating up his entire face. Either reason was perfectly acceptable to him as utterly, unexpectedly charming. She was worried about the stupid stain and it was all she could do to be out here dancing, instead of inside, at one sink or another, scrubbing salmon juice out of his shirt.

      He stopped in midstep. “I’m sorry,” he said, taking her hand and turning toward the house. “But I can’t concentrate on anything except getting that club soda on this shirt.”

      Her relief was instant and companionable. “I was thinking the same thing. The longer it sets, the harder it will be to get out.”

      “My thoughts exactly,” he replied, intrigued by the warmth in her hand and completely captivated by the smile in her eyes.