“Tell me about your family,” she said. Under the cover of the long tablecloth, she slid her bare foot against his calf.

He stopped in midchew. Went perfectly still while she slowly rubbed her instep along his shin. For several seconds his hot gaze bored into hers. Then he chewed twice and swallowed. “Huh?”

“Your family. Any more at home like you…Elf?”

She had to fight to hide her smile when his face colored slightly. He groaned and shook his head. “Who told you?”

“Word gets around. I saw your picture, Mr. December. Very nice.”

“You mean, embarrassing. I’ll never live that down.”

“Believe me, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” Her foot snaked up to his knee.

He set his fork down so quickly it clanged against his salad plate. He shifted slightly, and she felt him stretch out his leg. “Thanks. Glad you approve.”

Her gaze flicked to his chest. “I liked your tat. Did it hurt when you got it?”

“Not a bit, thanks to an overindulgence of…” He sucked in a quick breath as her toes brushed against his hard thigh.

Several long seconds of silence passed during which he looked at her as if she were a glittering diamond and he was a jewel thief. Finally she prompted, “You were saying?”

“Saying?”

“About your tattoo.”

“Oh. Right.” He shook his head and gave a short laugh. “Sweetheart, if you want to make conversation and touch me, you’ll need to expect some lulls.”

She popped a bit of cucumber into her mouth. “Turnabout is fair play.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t complaining.” He picked up his fork and stabbed a bite of tomato. “Tequila,” he said to finish his sentence. “A well-documented tattoo-painkiller.”

“You mentioned a brother-is it just the two of you?”

He nodded, somewhat jerkily as she continued to stroke his leg with her foot. “Greg’s two years older and got married this past summer. Never seen a guy so happy.”

Toni sighed. “I wish my brothers would get married. Then maybe they’d concentrate on their own love lives rather than mine. I love them and they’re good guys, but ridiculously overprotective. They can’t seem to grasp that I’m not twelve years old any longer.”

“Is that why you put some miles between you?”

“Yes. I love my family, but we clash. I guess I’m something of a rebel and the black sheep. My mother literally took to her bed when I said I wanted to be a firefighter. You’d have thought I’d announced a plan to blow up a major city. I’m the first one not to work in the family business.”

“But you did for a while.”

She took a sip of wine, then said, “Yes. But I found it impossible to live my own life. Mom and my sister-who’s married-were always trying to fix me up, and Mom constantly poured on the guilt that I wasn’t married and giving her grandbabies. Yet she hated every guy I dated. And believe me, dating wasn’t easy with three overprotective brothers scowling at anything with a penis that came within ten feet of me.

“Then, last year, my Nana Rose moved in with Mom and Dad. She’s exactly the same as my mom, only feistier. I like peace. Quiet. But there’s practically this glowing ring of nitpicking tumult surrounding all of them. And when they form groups…” She shook her head. “Run for the hills. I truly do love them and I know they mean well, but I can only handle them in small doses. Sometimes I think even fifty miles isn’t enough distance between us. Five hundred might have been smarter.”

“What about your dad?”

“The calm eye in the storm. He just smiles and goes to work and enjoys his hobbies and lets all the chaos roll off him like water off a duck’s back. I think he’s the only one not hoping I’ll fail.”

“Fail at what?”

“My business. Even though they haven’t said so out loud, I strongly suspect the rest of the family secretly hopes Blooming Pails will go belly-up, thus making it necessary-in their minds-for me to move back home and work again at the family nursery.”

“Any chance that’ll happen?”

“The business going belly-up or me moving back home?”

“Both.”

“Absolutely not to moving back home. I’ve fought too hard for my independence. As for Blooming Pails not making it…a lot depends on what happens in the next three months.” She gave him a brief overview of her loan situation and the bank evaluation coming up at the end of the next quarter. “If my interest rate goes up, I’m afraid that will be the beginning of the end, so this is really make-it-or-break-it time for me. Which is why I’m devoting all my time and attention to work. Which is why I don’t date.” She didn’t bother to add especially not firefighters.

“No problem, since we’ve agreed this isn’t a date-it’s just one little dinner.”

“Right.” She skimmed her foot beneath his pant leg, brushing her toes over his sock until she encountered warm, firm skin. “Now that you know all about my crazy family, what about yours?”

The way his eyes smoldered made her feel as if she’d stepped into a furnace. “My folks are great. Very little nitpicking and tumult. Like you, I like peace. My job is stressful enough-I’m lucky I don’t have any extra because of my family.”

“Very lucky. Is your dad a firefighter?”

“Nope. Schoolteacher. So are my mom and brother. Right in Ocean Harbor Beach, where I was born and raised. I might have followed that path except the summer I was fourteen I worked on my uncle’s ranch in Wyoming.”

“Where you learned your cowboy wisdom.”

“Right. There was a drought that year and a brush fire broke out on some back acres. It quickly spread, and if not for the fast work of the firefighters, my uncle might have lost everything. Watching those guys work…the die was cast right then and there. Made me the rebel who broke with the tradition in my family.”

“Well, not completely-you’re still a teacher.”

“True. I guess it’s in the blood. Still…” He raised his wineglass. “Here’s to rebellion.”

She touched her glass to his. Then slipped her toes from beneath his pant leg to shimmy her foot along the top of his thigh. “Right. To doing things we probably shouldn’t.”

He briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them, the fire in their depths scorched her. There was no doubt he wanted her. And God help her, she wanted him. More than she’d expected to. Certainly more than she wanted to. But no way she was willing to stop now. She shifted her foot to slowly caress his inner thigh, stopping just short of touching him where she was most tempted to touch.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he said in a strained voice.

“Just like you did to me. Want me to stop?”

“Hell, no.”

“Good.” She enjoyed another taste of her salad, chewing slowly, still stroking him, watching him watch her. After she swallowed, she asked, “So what do you like to do when you’re not fighting fires or teaching classes?”

“Take beautiful florists to dinner.”

“Thank you. Besides that.”

“Surf. Swim. Hike. Kayak. Fish. Kick back and watch TV. Take beautiful florists to dinner.”

She shifted her foot a hair higher on his leg. “You said that last one already.”

“Did I? I’m afraid I’m…distracted. But at any rate, it bears repeating.” He cleared his throat and took another bite of his salad. “So, what else do you like to do besides arrange flowers and play a wicked game of footsie?”

She smiled. “Swim. Run. Hike. Read. Cook. Play tennis. Fix up old cars.”

“Fix up old cars? Seriously?”

She nodded. “Something I inherited from my dad who’s an automotive genius. I drive a ’64 Mustang convertible that I rebuilt. Took me six years to do it, but I love that car.”

He leaned forward. “That’s my dream car.”

She glided her foot a bit higher, until it just brushed his groin. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Maybe you’d like me to take you for a ride.”

With his eyes burning into hers, he set down his fork, reached beneath the table, and lightly clasped her foot. Then he shifted a little lower in his chair and pressed her instep against his erection. “There’s no maybe about it.”