“And the shopping,” he said, catching on immediately to what was going on.

“I can get something before we go,” she said. “Just give me an idea of what I might need.”

“Somewhere around here sells cocktail dresses?” Nolan asked, knowing that was not the case. She’d have to go to San Antonio at least.

“I can get something online.” Randi pulled her foot up onto her seat and wrapped her arms around her leg. “Will we be walking a lot that night? I’d love to do heels but not if there’s miles to go on foot.”

He wanted her to wear heels. High, sexy, strappy heels. And a short dress that would show off her legs. And he wanted her hair up so that after the party, back at the hotel room, he could slowly take it down and run his fingers through it.

And he knew all of that sounded domineering and like he knew far too much about heels and dresses. But he’d been to enough of these parties now to know what he liked, and he wanted to make Randi feel like a princess. Deep down, all women loved to be pampered, didn’t they? Even the ones who actually knew the difference between a lug nut and…other kinds of nuts.

“We’ll have a car that will drop us off right in front,” he told her. Even if he didn’t want her in heels—which he really did—it was cold in New York. He couldn’t make his Texas girl walk in Manhattan in February.

“A taxi?” she asked, almost looking excited.

“A limo.” He was going to do this right.

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed.

“You want to ride in a cab?”

“Well, it’s one of the things that you think of when you think of New York,” she said. “And I’ve never been in a cab.”

“Okay, then we’ll take a cab when we go shopping,” he said.

“And can we have a street hot dog?”

“Um, sure.” Cabs and hot dogs? She certainly wasn’t demanding.

“The Rangers are in town while we’re there,” she said.

The Rangers. That meant nothing to Nolan. “Football?”

“Hockey.”

Hockey. Something he knew even less about than football. But Randi loved her sports, and if he was going to get her dressed up and eating crab puffs, then he could watch guys skate around for a couple of hours he supposed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She gave him a bright smile, and Nolan realized that there was very little Randi couldn’t get from him with that look on her face.

“Do you know anything about hockey?” she asked.

“Is that the one with the black and white ball?” he asked, teasing.

She laughed. “Okay, so we’ll each need a tutorial before the trip. You need to know about hockey and I need to know what to expect at a party like this.”

“Guess we’ll have to see each other again before that.”

“Well, I hope so.”

They sat smiling at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Randi said, “You want to have dessert on the couch?”

He most definitely wanted to have dessert on the couch. Her. She was all the sweetness he needed. And he wanted to have her on the couch. Then on the floor. Then maybe against the wall.

Something must have shown in his face because she said softly, “I have brownies.”

“I love—”