He glanced at her hand.His arm already tingled where he felt the light pressure of her fingers.He looked into her eyes.“Think that would work with you, too?”he asked in a low voice.“Because I’d sure love to try.”
She jerked her hand away and stepped back.
“If the concept works, it should work for anything,” he said, closing the gap between them.“Maybe if I kiss you enough, eventually I won’t get so aroused when I do it.”
Jo swallowed.“I don’t think...we have that much time.”
“I don’t think we’d ever have that much time,” he murmured.
“So,” Emmy Lou said from the doorway, “how did you two enjoy the movie?”
Quinn cleared his throat and glanced at Jo.“I broke it.”
“No, we broke it together.”Jo turned toward Emmy Lou.“We’re both to blame.”
Emmy Lou looked confused.“Broke it?”
“Yeah.”Quinn dumped the shovel of soot in the fireplace and put the tools back in the holder.“The tape snapped.Don’t worry.I’ll have my PA send a new copy right away.”
“How much did you get to see before it broke?”
Jo tapped her chin.“Let’s see.Was it before the train robbery?Or was it after that scene in the miner’s shack?”
Quinn didn’t dare look at her.“The miner’s shack scene, I think.Anyway, a new tape’s practically on the way.I’ll make a?—”
“Oh, don’t buy me a new one.”Emmy Lou blushed.“I know why it broke.”
“You do?”He wondered if she’d somehow figured out what had been going on.
“It’s all that pausing and rewinding.”
“How did you know about that?”Quinn asked before he could stop himself.
Emmy Lou’s eyes widened, and then she clapped a hand over her mouth.A smothered giggle slipped out anyway.
Jo’s cheeks grew pink.“You mean you paused and rewound the tape a lot at that spot.”
Emmy Lou nodded, her eyes bright.“Plus it was a rental tape I bought on sale at the video store.I’m sure it was already weak right there.I guess you two weakened it a little more.”
Quinn’s ego had suffered enough.First he was revealed as bugophobic, and now Emmy Lou thought he was some sort of voyeur who’d had to replay a nude scene over a hundred times to get his kicks.“It was by accident that we kept rewinding it,” he said.“The remote fell between the sofa cushions, and...”He realized the quagmire he’d stepped in about the same time he caught the dismay in Jo’s eyes.
“You know, that pot roast smells a little too good,” Jo said.“Maybe you should check on it, Emmy Lou.I think you might need to turn down the heat.”
Emmy Lou put her hands on her hips and glanced from Jo to Quinn and back to Jo again.“I believe I could say the same thing to you.”
“The thing is,” Quinn began, determined to find a way out of this, “I lost my balance and?—”
“Did I hear the dinner bell?”Fred asked, coming through the front door.
“We don’t have a dinner bell,” Emmy Lou said.
“Well, I didn’t think we had one, but then I was out in the yard and I heard all this clanging and banging that sure sounded like a dinner bell.So I figured I’d just wash up and come in to find out if it was time for lunch yet.”
“Why, as a matter of fact, it is,” Jo said.“I’m starving.How about you, Quinn?”
“Starving,” Quinn agreed.
Emmy Lou glanced at them both with a smile on her face.Then she picked up the remote, pointed it at the television and flicked off the power.“Then let’s eat.”
