Chapter 3

Tiffany was almost certain she shouldn"t have done that, but it was very hard to feel bad about it.

Oliver probably hadn"t meant to brush up against her backside, but she had a whole lifetime of experience with men doing that. She had decided long, long ago that she would have fewer problems with it if she literally just threw them on the ground when they transgressed at all.

It generally worked. The ones who hadn"t done it on purpose but understood why a woman might overreact would lie there with the same blinking, befuddled expression that poor Oliver Campbell had right now. The ones who had done it on purpose were often furious, but usually learned their lesson.

Ollie didn"t look furious at all. It was faintly possible he looked star-struck, but that might have just been the wind getting knocked out of him. From down there on the ground, he said, "Sorry," with audible sincerity. "I"d closed my eyes and walked right into you. My bad. That was incredible. You"re half my size. How"d you do that?"

"Aikido." Tiff, feeling even less guilty than she had before, offered him a hand up. He took her hand, but didn"t actually come to his feet when she tugged. He just lay there holding her hand and gazing up at her in what appeared to be adoration.

That couldn"t be right. Men didn"t generally go moon-eyed over women who threw them on the ground. Still in that sincere, quiet voice, he said, "Aikido? Okay, but…I"m twice your size?"

"My center of gravity is way, way lower than yours." This was slightly surreal, Tiffany thought. Men she threw on the ground didn"t usually want a play by play of how she"d managed that. "Women"s centers of gravity are lower anyway, and I"m short?—"

"You are an absolutely perfect height."

Tiffany blinked slowly, in much the same way Ollie had when she"d thrown him on the ground. "Um. Thank you. In this case, "an absolutely perfect height" is "short." So my center of gravity is way below your hips, and your hand was coming over my shoulder, so you were already off balance. All I had to do was keep you moving the same direction you were already going." She gestured, although not very successfully, because he was still holding one of her hands. "Are you, ah, are you going to get up, or…?"

"Oh!" Ollie let go of her hand, somewhat to Tiffany"s regret, and scrambled to his feet, making an idle and futile attempt to brush grass stains off his shorts. "Yes, of course, sorry. Now, uh, lemonade?"

"You don"t really have to bring me for lemonade," Tiffany said, feeling as if she"d possibly lost control of the entire situation. "I just really need you—or the wedding party—to understand that I can"t lose the weekend of work to your party. I"m going to dig up the green, starting tomorrow morning, whether it"s ugly or not."

"But why?" Ollie"s pale green eyes were filled with woeful concern. "It"s such a beautiful space. Why is the city asking you to dig it up?"

"I think why they told you there could be a wedding is a much better question!"

"I"m not entirely sure they asked," Ollie admitted.

Tiffany hadn"t even been moving, and that stopped her in her tracks. "They didn"t ask? What is this place that you just decide to throw a wedding in a public space and decorate it ahead of time without asking?"

"It"s Virtue, New York," Ollie said earnestly. His accent was so deliciously distracting that Tiffany almost didn"t hear what he actually said for several seconds. "My cousin Steven moved here a couple years ago. He said the gazebo"s basically free for anybody to use whenever, unless there"s a major holiday coming up, in which case the city has things scheduled for it."

"But…" Tiffany waved a hand helplessly. "But what if there are conflicts? Like, somebody"s tearing up the green?"

"Why are you tearing up the green? Apparently it"s not a very busy town. People don"t come in from outside to rent the gazebo, although," Ollie turned to gaze at it, and Tiffany"s gaze followed his. "It"s a beaut, so I"m surprised it doesn"t get rented out. But there evidently aren"t enough people in Virtue who want to use it all at once for it to be a problem. Let"s get that, er, lemonade and then go talk to Steve and Charlee and the town council, if we have to."

His gentle voice was persuasive, and although Tiffany was increasingly sure there was nothing to talk about, not if his cousin didn"t even have permission, much less a contract, she found herself saying, "Lemonade would be nice."

Or maybe walking around with this long tall drink of Australian water would be nice, but she wasn"t terribly picky right then. "I really only have a few minutes, though. My crew is supposed to be here at three. Look." Tiffany scrubbed a hand through her hair. "I can get the crew to take lunch break during the wedding so we won"t be making all that noise, but if the reception"s here in the square I can"t do anything about that. And if you, they, want pretty wedding pictures in the gazebo, then I"d recommend everybody put their nice clothes on right now and come get them taken today, because otherwise you"re going to have safety fencing and heavy equipment in the background."

Ollie blinked down at her solemnly. "You know they can"t do that."

"I know I can"t hold my project for a whole weekend!"

"We"ll talk to the town council," he said again, with that quiet determination. "After lemonade."

"Are all Australians obsessed with lemonade?" She ended up walking with him, almost chasing after him for a few steps, as he struck out with those wonderfully long legs like a man with a purpose.

"I like to think of it more as obsessed with getting to know a beautiful woman as quickly as possible," he offered.

Tiffany, who had heard plenty of lines her in life, snorted at that one. "I"m sure that"s not generally a problem for you."

He looked genuinely crestfallen, like he"d hoped to score a point with charm, although the expression shifted to a faintly rueful smile. "I guess you"ve heard a lot of insincere lines from men."

"And the occasional woman, although they"re barking up the wrong tree. Look, Mr. Campbell?—"

"Oliver. Ollie."

"Mr. Campbell Oliver Ollie," Tiffany said under her breath, somewhere between being obliging and being a smartass. She wasn"t sure if "obliging smartass" was a thing, but if it was, she would consider embracing it. "I think I should be talking to your cousin, if it"s their wedding I"m disrupting."

"Oh." Ollie stopped again and looked down at her. "Right. Right, of course. I"m not the person you should be talking to."

"Oh, believe me, it"s not that I don"t want to talk to you. I want to do many, many things wi—" Tiffany nearly swallowed her own tongue and glanced around herself to see if there was some kind of obvious mind-control ray gun being aimed at her, or something. She did not just go around telling hot guys there were whole lists of things she could think of to do with them. Especially hot guys she"d met roughly three and a half minutes ago.

Oliver Campbell had the most readable expression known to man. He"d switched from crestfallen to elated inside a heartbeat. Tiffany said, "You"re really terrible at poker, aren"t you?"

Now he went from elated to surprised, and then to a warm, rich laugh that Tiffany wanted to coat herself in like it was chocolate. "I"m extremely good at poker, actually. Look, I"ll give Steve and Charlee a bell and have them come over."

"You"ll give them a bell?"

Ollie blinked, then chuckled. "I"ll ring them? What do Americans say?"

"I don"t know! What does ring them mean?"

"On the phone?"

Tiffany stared at him. "You mean you"ll call them?"

"Ah! Yes! I"ll call them, and we"ll get the wedding thing sorted out, but in the meantime, I"m parched, jet-lagged, and confused, and they"re making me decorate a gazebo. Have pity on me, Ms. Wright. Let"s have a lemonade."

The business part of her wanted to get the wedding conflict dealt with. The rest of her wanted to have lemonade, and then possibly sex, with Ollie. A lemonade was enough bonding to have sex over, right? Probably not when she was supposed to be working, though. "All right. Fifteen minutes." Even she couldn"t have lemonade and sex in fifteen minutes. Probably.

She was going to need a cold shower. Probably not one made of lemonade, though. In a desperate attempt to stop herself from thinking about sexy lemonade, she blurted, "It"s a long flight?"

Ollie drew a long, slow breath, and sighed it out. "About two and a half days. I told Steve I was staying in the States for six months to justify the length of that flight."

Tiffany laughed. "That seems reasonable, yeah."

"I thought so, and then he pointed out I could only stay three months without a visa, so I guess that put me in my place." Ollie jogged up the steps to the cafe and held the door for her, which Tiffany thought was a rather charming gesture.

The whole front of the block was one long covered porch, with individual sets of steps rising up to the doors of each establishment. Kate"s Cafe had a rather cheerful curlicue kind of font announcing the business"s name, and a surprisingly small number posted as their opening hours. For a place that was only open for lunch, though, it was hopping: the interior, filled with two-and-three seat tables with a couple of larger ones tucked to the sides, was nearly full, even with only half an hour or so to go before closing. A sandwich and dessert bar was more or less straight on from the door, a register next to it and a handwritten chalkboard sign proclaiming the daily specials on the wall behind the small work area.

A short line stretched away from the counter, although someone"s voice called, "Take a seat if you want, there are menus on the table," and someone else, carrying an armful of food-loaded trays, bustled out from behind a door leading into the unknown depths of the building. Ollie very, very lightly moved his hand to the small of Tiffany"s back, more warmth than pressure. Apparently he"d learned his lesson by being thrown on the ground, which was good, because Tiffany reckoned throwing him across the cafe would cause some real problems.

She glanced up at him, and he nodded toward a table by the window, eyebrows elevated in question.

"Sure, that"ll do." She went ahead of him, all too aware that the warmth of his hand had left her spine, and they sat for a quick glance over a menu that turned out to look incredibly good. Tiffany said, "Lemonade," dubiously. There were a lot of other things she suddenly wanted, too.

Things on the menu. She definitely meant things on the menu.

"You can have anything you want," Oliver promised in his soft voice.

Tiffany"s gaze jolted up to his. A small, small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, as if he"d heard her thoughts, and a wave of heat rushed over her.

This was absurd. He was just some guy! Some hot Australian guy determined to buy her lemonade, yes, but just some guy! And yet somehow, Tiffany couldn"t remember how to talk. Instead her jaw kind of flapped for a few seconds while Ollie"s smile grew wider, until he finally said, "The blueberry cheesecake, maybe? Blueberries go well with lemon."

The idea of the tart and sweet combination made the back of Tiffany"s jaw ache to the point that she actually rubbed her fingers beneath her ears, trying to make the tiny Eustachian tubes stop contracting. "I think I"d better stick with the lemonade. Blueberry cheesecake later."

"That"s a date," Oliver said happily, and a positive thrill went through Tiffany as she realized she"d walked right into that.