Gunnar, always the quicker of the twins, raced to an empty chair near Liv and mimicked the grown-ups. Not to be outdone, Knut also grabbed the chair—the same chair, just as an unsuspecting Liv began to sit.
Hallie looked up and her expression turned to horror when, as if in slow motion, Gunnar and Knut both tugged the chair back at the same time. Like an anchor dropped at sea, Liv’s blond head disappeared from sight. The blue oilcloth that covered the table slid with her, sending the dishware clattering to the floor. Hallie and Dagny bolted out of their chairs, each grabbing a twin before Liv, sitting on the floor with murder in her eyes and a plate in each hand, could retaliate.
Holding Gunnar by his braces, Hallie hauled him into an empty chair. “Sit!” She pointed at Knut. “You too!”
Liv stood up, sending a lapful of silverware clinking to the floor.
“Apologize to your sister!”
“But it was a accident,” Gunner said.
“Apologize now!” Hallie hissed.
The boys mumbled an apology with shaky voices. Their huge brown eyes welled with a four-year-old’s tears of humiliation. Each pale little face was mottled with pink splotches, and they hung their heads in a child’s dramatic gesture of shame.
Although Hallie knew she had no reason to feel guilty, she did. When Dagny gave her a sweet smile of understanding, Hallie couldn’t take any more, and she stooped down to pick up the scattered place settings. If she looked at those two imps any longer, she’d be the one apologizing, and that wouldn’t teach them a thing.
So much for showing off your motherly control.
Here she was, crouched under the table where it was safe, picking up scattered dishes. And hiding.
What was Kit thinking?
She ducked under the cloth, shoved her petticoats and the braid-stiffened crinoline from underneath her knees, and crawled on all fours, her skirts billowing around her like the sails of a pink armada. Her hand grasped a fork and she caught a flash of movement on the other side of Liv’s empty chair. She looked up, table level, and spied a headless chest, encased in white linen and an all-too-familiar dark vest.
Oh no...
Kit squatted, barely two feet away, with a pile of dishes on his bent knees. The tight fabric of his trousers stretched taut over the muscles of his flexed thighs. Mesmerized, Hallie watched the dishes teeter a bit on those strong, bulging ridges.
The oilcloth suddenly lifted and his handsome face came into view.
When he caught her gape-mouthed stare, his dimples deepened into an infuriating grin.
I’m caught.
She averted her eyes. She needed to look busy so he wouldn’t see she was hiding down here, even though she was. Her salvation came in the form of a lone plate, sitting by the table leg. She reached for it, but so did he. Salvation changed to damnation. Their hands touched, each holding an edge of the plate, and her heart thumped so hard in her chest that reflex made her glance up to see if he’d heard it. His look changed.His grin faded. He was looking right at her, and the look was familiar. It was the same one she’d witnessed right before he’d kissed her.
A strange kind of thrill rippled in her bones, like melting marrow. The loud throb in her ears drowned out all the surrounding sounds. Her neck warmed and she held her breath, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
For infinite seconds Hallie and Kit were fixed, their faces locked across the space of an empty chair, their hands fused by a flat piece of glazed pottery that was acting like a conduit, channeling the flood of magnetism between them. The air pulsed around their stunned bodies, and their faces inched closer, lips parted and breath fettered in unchecked anticipation.
Then Liv suddenly sat down on the chair, forcing Hallie back. Her hand released the plate, and the normal world around her resumed.
But she didn’t stand up, although Kit had. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? She’d prayed for him to stop treating her like a child, but she had no idea that setting out to win a man’s heart could be so consuming. She felt devoured and weak. Like yesterday’s tea leaves, she was drained of her freshness and that naïve surety of youth that had colored her plans foolproof.
And she realized crawling around under a table was not exactly mature, womanly behavior. Hallie backed out from under the table, skirts and all, determined to act as if nothing unusual had happened.
She butted right into a hard column. She scooted forward to try to move back out at a different angle, but her skirt was caught. She wiggled her behind sideways in an effort to dislodge the fabric, but apparently it was still caught.
Aggravated, she turned around to better see the problem.
Her behind rested against a dark, leather boot. She stopped wiggling and made the mistake of looking up, way up, into Kit Howland’s laughing eyes.
Lee Prescott pushed his chair back and looked from Kit to Hallie. “What’s going on over there?”
Kit glanced at Lee and then looked pointedly at Hallie’s behind. Suppressed laughter threaded through his voice when he answered. “I think Hallie’s polishing my boots.”
She wanted to die, but only for a moment, because the sound of their laughter made her too doggone mad. “You’re right in my way!”
