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Or maybe we should take a drive to Jackson.” He quickly rejected that idea. “Nope. Drive’s too long. Getting through this meal is bad enough without adding another hour on the road.”
    “We could act like teenagers and park somewhere.”
    “Dealing with this problem makes me feel like a teenager, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to do it in a car or the back of a pickup. Keep eating. I’ll think of something.” The more he wrestled with the problem, the more he knew that his bedroom was their best bet.
    It was the nearest spot with a good innerspring, and he had a box of condoms up there. With luck his dad would be watching TV with the volume blasting, and if they came in through the back, his dad would never notice Trina quietly going upstairs while Hutch distracted him. There were advantages to having parents whose ears weren’t as sharp as they once were.
    Pushing back his plate, he reached for the wallet in his back pocket. He knew the prices by heart and didn’t need a bill to figure what he owed. “If you’re ready to leave, I have a plan.” And thinking about it had added considerably to his lust level.
    As she stood, she gave him a teasing glance. “Sure you don’t want to stay for dessert?”
    “The dessert I have in mind isn’t on the menu.” He took her hand, not caring if anyone noticed, and hurried her out the door.
    * * *
    “W HERE ARE WE going, exactly?” Trina was out of breath, both from the fast pace Hutch had set and the prospect of what would happen once they reached their destination. Because he was leading her through alleys and down unpaved side streets, she’d lost all sense of direction.
    “To my dad’s house using shortcuts.”
    “Won’t he still be up?”
    “Sure, but we can get around that if we go in through the kitchen. By now, Dad’s eating dinner in front of the TV in the living room. I’ll go make polite conversation while you walk quietly upstairs. My bedroom’s the first door on the right.”
    “Now I really feel like a teenager trying to put one over on the parents.”
    He glanced down at her. “Is that a bad thing?”
    “Actually, no. It’s the best of both worlds—teenage excitement without the teenage angst.” She’d never approached the Hutchinson house from the back, only stared dreamily at it from the street side, longing for her idol to appear.
    But once the house came in view, she recognized the neat white two-story that looked as if the siding and dark green shutters had recently been repainted. “Are you keeping up the house, or your dad?”
    “I am. And that’s fine. I could easily come home for a week in the summer and spruce up the place. The store is the big problem, and I don’t have the heart to talk him into selling. I don’t know what he’d do with himself without that store.”
    Trina suspected Ronald would get along just fine with the feed store if he had a businesswoman like her mother helping out, but once again, she didn’t say so. She needed to have another talk with her mom before she made any such statements to Hutch.
    When they reached the steps going up to the small porch outside the kitchen door, Hutch stopped. “Wait here while I scope things out. I suppose he could still be microwaving his dinner.”
    “Does he eat microwave dinners every night?”
    “Pretty much. My cooking skills are limited and he never learned. I’ll be right back.”
    As Hutch went through the kitchen door, Trina thought about her mother’s love of cooking, a passion that had no satisfactory outlet because she lived alone. Cooking meals for a man who existed on microwave dinners would hold a powerful appeal for her. No wonder romance was in the air.
    Hutch opened the kitchen door and beckoned to her. “I don’t know where he is, but he’s not in the house. Guess we lucked out.”
    Trina smiled but kept her suspicions to herself. “Guess so.”
    “I see that look. You think he’s with your mother, don’t you?”
    “I do.” She