Read Online Tea and Destiny by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online

teased. “Or definitely not us?”
    “Us,” she said, barely getting the word past a throat gone suddenly dry.
    He tilted the chair forward and touched his lips to her forehead. “Coward,” he murmured softly.
    And then, with a wink that made her heart flip over, he was gone again. One of these days, when she had her wits about her, she was going to have to talk to him about walking out in the middle of a conversation. It was a really lousy way to have the last word.
    Super Bowl Sunday. Hank could hardly wait. He’d thought about going back to Miami to hang out with the guys, but by the time he’d finished working on Saturday it had been too damn late to tackle the drive. He considered going to a bar, which would be rowdy and filled with eager fans. But as beat as he was, nothing appealed to him more than settling down in front of the TV at home with a six-pack of beer, some chips and maybe a couple of hamburgers at halftime.
    He hadn’t stopped to consider that Ann would regard the entire plan as tantamount to treason.
    “You want to do what?” she said when he suggested they flip the channel on the TV away from some documentary on PBS.
    “Watch the game.” When she stared at him blankly, he added, “The Super Bowl. You know, the big end-of-the-season matchup. This is what it’s all about.”
    She looked appalled. And unyielding. “Only if you’re a cretin,” she said emphatically.
    He sighed heavily. “Oh, Annie, there were such sad gaps in your education.”
    “There were no gaps in my education. I have my B.A., my M.A. and my Ph.D.”
    “But you obviously missed cheerleading.”
    “Thank God.” She said it so fervently he had to hide a smile.
    “Now, Annie, how do you expect to identify with your average American male if you know nothing about the sport that consumes most of his Sunday afternoons from late summer through winter? You owe it to yourself and the future of your practice to watch the Super Bowl.”
    “I prefer to identify with his poor wife, who’s left to raise the children, mow the lawn and suffer in silence while the slob sits in front of a TV and stares at a bunch of grown men beating one another’s brains out.”
    “Obviously you’ve missed the finer points of the game,” he said dryly.
    “That’s okay by me.”
    This clearly wasn’t getting them anywhere. Ann’s beliefs seemed entrenched. With only ten minutes to go until game time, he didn’t have a lot of time to win her over. He gazed longingly at the comfortable sofa and the thirty-four-inch television screen. “Is there another TV in the house?”
    “Jason and Paul have an old tube TV in their room.”
    Hank felt his heartbeat screech to a halt. It would be a travesty to watch the Super Bowl on a tube TV. “I don’t suppose…”
    “Not on your life,” she said adamantly, turning the sound back up with a quick flick of the remote control.
    If he drove like hell, there was still time to get to a bar. Or he could suffer through the game on the smaller screen. Or, he decided with a certain amount of roguish delight, he could use his considerable charms to get Annie to change her mind about sharing. As skittish as she was, ten minutes ought to be just enough time for that. He dropped down on the sofa beside her, mere inches from her.
    “So what are you watching?”
    She regarded him warily. “It’s a report on herbal medicine in China.”
    “Any good?”
    “It’s fascinating.”
    “Good. Tell me what’s happened so far.”
    She gave him a sharp look. “Why?”
    “So I can catch up. If this is what we’re going to watch, I don’t want to feel left out.”
    “This isn’t a suspense thriller. You won’t be confused if you don’t know what’s already happened.”
    “But you said what you’d seen so far was fascinating. Fascinate me.”
    “I thought you wanted to watch the Super Bowl.”
    “I did, but I’d rather spend a quiet evening right here with you.” He allowed his hand to drift innocently