The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) by Marie Ferrarella

keychain, he unlocked the car doors, then nodded toward the passenger side. “Get in.”
    Kara opened the car door and looked inside. There was still the faint new-car smell. The interior was utterly pristine. No junk, no crumbs, not a single thing to testify that anyone had even ridden in the car. Her own car looked as if she were living out of it. She was glad he hadn’t seen it. It would only give him added ammunition to make fun of her.
    Getting in and buckling her seat belt, she said, “You just had this detailed, didn’t you?”
    “Detailed?” he repeated as he did the same, his eyebrows drawing together over a nose that would make sculptors and plastic surgeons alike weak with envy. “What do you mean by ‘detailed’?”
    He watched as a smile unfurled on her lips. If it hadn’t been at his expense, he would have enjoyed the sight.
    “I forgot. You’re not a car person.”
    “I think the word you’re looking for is fanatic. Car fanatic, ” he said pointedly.
    She knew he was just saying that because he felt lacking in that department—and embarrassed about it. She doubted if the E.R. doctor knew very much beyond where the key went and where he put the gas. Still, she couldn’t help bristling at the put-down.
    “There’s nothing fanatical about knowing how a car works or where the dipstick goes,” she informed him haughtily.
    “I have a suggestion where to put the dipstick,” he muttered under his breath. “And if you really want to convince anyone that I’d actually voluntarily spend time with you, I suggest you stop being so damn antagonistic and taking apart everything I say.”
    Instantly, Kara felt her back go up. “I don’t—”
    She got no further. Inserting the key into the ignition, Dave gave her a look that said, “Yes, you do.” The awful part was that she knew she really couldn’t argue with him. She was being antagonistic, but only because she felt he was being condescending.
    The reason didn’t matter, she told herself. She had to work on her attitude, work on her delivery. Neither of their mothers were going to be taken in by this charade if they saw her with her hands wrapped around Dave’s throat, choking the life out of him.
    She paused to pull herself together before saying anything. Two deep breaths later, she finally murmured, “Sorry.” Another fortifying deep breath came and went before she added, “I’ll try to act like I think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
    “Don’t go overboard,” he cautioned. “Neither of our mothers is going to buy into that. If you ask me, they’re not even going to buy that we’re dating.”
    He was wrong there and she really wanted to say it that way, but she settled for a more diplomatic delivery. “They’ll buy into it because that’s what they were hoping for by sending me to you bearing a video game, remember?” She thought for a moment, searching for a plausible excuse as to why they initially got together. “We can tell them, if they ask why we’re seeing each other, that we’re catching up on the years since we last saw each other. Since that covers about eighteen years, it should take us a bit.”
    “Sounds reasonable enough, I guess,” he conceded. “But to make that work, you realize we’re actually going to have to exchange some information.”
    He sounded as if he was putting her on notice, she thought. She had nothing to hide. Her only problem was going to be staying awake to listen to eighteen years of his life.
    “I’m game,” she told him.
    Dave pressed down on the accelerator, making it through the light at the crosswalk just before it turned red.
    “Okay, what have you been doing these last eighteen years—in fifty words or less?” he qualified as she opened her mouth.
    This, Kara thought darkly, was definitely not going to be a walk in the park. Why in heaven’s name would her mother think she would ever want to become romantically involved with this man? Other than his