A Roll in the Hay, стр. 41
“I was just asking.” Tess held her hands up.
They kept doing this, the thrust and parry of argument leading to surrender. For a moment, Susannah’s shoulders slumped. She was so tired. Why was she out tonight, trying to start all over again?
“You’re quite a catch, you know,” Tess continued. “I’m surprised you made it through the bar without picking up a date.”
“That was some impressive flattery.” Susannah said it with a smile. It took a lot of work to look like this, especially into her forties. She was used to compliments, maybe even expected them in a lot of contexts, but Tess had a way of seeming like she really meant it. “Not that you have to stop.”
“Susannah, I—”
It was just a kiss. Susannah decided to do it in the same split second as actually pressing her lips to Tess’s. There was no plan, no premeditation at all beyond avoiding another tricky conversation. It could have been ridiculous, a mistimed gesture that had Tess backing away or laughing in her face. Instead, Susannah found herself being kissed back in that spine-tingling way when two instinctive kissers find themselves suddenly aligned.
There was a momentary clash of noses, a mutual adjustment of angles to line their mouths up right, but the soft, insistent pressure of each overlapping kiss was as constant as it was delicious.
“Wow.” Tess had her eyes closed when she finally leaned away. It took her a moment to open them. “Of all the things I expected tonight…”
“Maybe it was my turn to be surprising. You’re pretty good at that too. If you’re keeping any kind of score.”
“I really want to do that again.” Tess started to lean in.
Susannah was all for it, but just as she moved to repeat that very pleasant experience, she caught sight of someone on the path. It was no reason to stop; she knew that even as she froze.
The person—a man, and no one she recognised—was coming from the opposite direction to the pub. Common sense said carry on, but Tess had already pulled back, her expression thoroughly wounded and rejected.
“I, uh…” Susannah began.
“No, I get it,” Tess said with a sigh that seemed to come all the way from the lightly scuffed biker boots she was wearing. “Impulse decisions sometimes wear off. You can have that one as a free bad idea.”
Susannah could see the moment slipping away and knew on some level that she could claw back the beautiful moment if only she tried. “No, no, I didn’t change my mind. I’m just…catching my breath?”
“Wow, as excuses go that is…wow. Listen, I get it. Passing impulses happen to the best of us. Then you remembered people can actually see us out here and thought your fancy reputation might take a hit from snogging the lowly local vet. A female lowly vet at that.”
“Tess—”
“Honestly, it’s fine. I’m not offended.” For someone not offended, Tess could have appeared next to its definition in the dictionary. “Probably just the pressure of the whole dating night. You just forgot yourself for a moment, and I was in the right place at what turned out to be the wrong time.”
“Tess, no—” Susannah reached for Tess’s arm, but she was already in motion, moving away from their shared bench. “It’s really nothing personal,” she said, but it sounded half-hearted even to her own ears. “And I’m done hiding who I am now—that’s what coming somewhere like this was about in the first place—so it wasn’t a reaction to being caught. And it’s certainly nothing to do with you being a vet; I don’t know where you got that idea. I just…paused. That’s hardly a crime. Listen, maybe we could start this over. Why don’t I buy you a drink and then we can see—”
“Let’s not mess things up more than we almost did, yeah?” Tess held out her hand. “Wouldn’t mind my jacket back, actually. We can put it all down to the persuasive effects of a really cool jacket.”
“Oh, take the jacket!” Susannah’s temper spiked as she yanked it from her shoulders. Cool as the air around her was, she refused to shiver while Tess could see it. “But I really think you’re being too harsh, making this all about class. Or money, or whatever you’re implying. If I was such a stuck-up cow, I never would have had any such impulse in the first place. So you see—”
“Well, thank you for explaining the vagaries of the British class system to me. This has just served as a timely reminder why I don’t go in for all that bowing and scraping. I’d say your moment of reconsidering has probably saved us both a lot of time and embarrassment. This was clearly a terrible idea.” She waved a hand between them. Then Tess was on the move, striding back along the path towards the Kilted Coo.
The pub was full of eligible women, all of whom would probably have handled this situation much better than that. Yet for all Susannah’s shame and annoyance, she couldn’t help running her fingertip over her bottom lip. Still tingling. Still waiting for a repeat performance of that kiss. It was going to have to wait a long time, judging by that exit.
Susannah pulled out her phone to text Finn. Even with a considerable gap in her dating record, women hadn’t become any less maddening. Of all the unnecessary things to take umbrage over, really.
Tess was obviously fixated on their different social standings or she wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. It had been the farthest thing from Susannah’s mind. Of course the damned woman hadn’t been concerned about their respective tax brackets when she’d been kissing her back so enthusiastically. Pride. Bloody pride.
It stung even more that Tess had zeroed right in on