Autumn sighed. “Just make yourself at home,” she muttered.
He threw her a grin over his shoulder. “I’ll do that.”
Shaking her head in exasperation, she walked into her bedroom. She hadn’t closed the door yet when Webb appeared behind her. “I forgot to ask,” he said, “do you want one, too?”
“No, thanks,” she answered quickly, turning to hustle him out of the room.
Too late. He was standing in exaggerated open-mouthed astonishment, staring at the pile of clothing strewn across her bed. “If I didn’t know better, I would swear this is my sister’s room prior to a date with one of her college jocks,” he marveled. He looked at Autumn with a questioning frown. “Tell me that you haven’t been trying on everything in your wardrobe for the past half hour.”
She exhaled slowly. “So I’m having a little trouble deciding what to wear,” she admitted belligerently. “What of it?”
Webb leaned back against the doorjamb and laughed. Heartily. “This,” he said when he could speak, “from the woman who wore a baseball cap and sweatshirt to a wedding shower? Who considers herself really dressed up if her jeans have a name on the back pocket?”
Autumn glared at him. “Okay, so I’m not on the best-dressed list. Most of the time I wear jeans and shirts because I work at a blue-collar job and I like to be comfortable. I think women who spend a fortune on clothing and follow every fleeting dictate of fashion are in bad need of something productive to do. But I still want to look halfway decent on a date, and I don’t see anything to laugh about!”
Webb shook his brownish-blond head in amusement. “I’m not laughing because you want to look nice. To me, you always look nice. You dress casually, but you’ve got a style of your own. I was laughing because you look so harried and nervous. That’s not like you, Autumn. Don’t tell me that you’ve fallen for Jeff Bradford.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I hardly know him.”
“Mmm. So how come you’re blushing?”
“I am not blushing!” She threw her hands up to cover cheeks that felt suspiciously hot. “Oh, hell, I am blushing.”
Webb laughed again. “Kind of like the guy, huh?”
She sighed. “Yeah, I like him. But,” she added quickly, “that doesn’t mean there’s any big romance developing between us or anything like that.”
“Of course not,” Webb agreed gravely. “I know your policy about serious relationships—if there’s the slightest fragrance of orange blossoms or hint of wedding bells in the air, you head for the hills. Figuratively speaking, of course.”
“Isn’t that very similar to your own policy?” Autumn inquired crossly, knowing that Webb was every bit as antimarriage as she.
“Of course it is. That’s why you and I are such good friends. And why I’ve never tried to put the moves on you.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “The reason you’ve never tried to ‘put the moves’ on me is because I’m not your type. We’ve always been just friends.”
He shook his head, brown eyes dancing teasingly at her. “The reason I’ve kept us ‘just friends’ is that you’re marriage bait if I’ve ever seen it. You can talk all you want to about staying footloose and single, but when you fall in love, you’ll be heading down that aisle just like your two sisters did during the past year. I was just making sure that I wasn’t the guy waiting at the altar for you, lovely though you are.”
“You’re an arrogant, conceited creep, Brothers. I wouldn’t have seriously dated you if you’d asked,” she told him flatly, irritated at his accusation. “You’re the one who’s marriage bait!”
He looked startled. “You’re crazy!”
“Yeah? I don’t think you’d deny it so furiously if you didn’t think you were susceptible to the weakness. Every time you start to get close to a woman, you turn pale and run. How come, huh?”
“I like being single,” her thirty-one-year-old friend answered earnestly. “I like not answering to anyone, not worrying about mortgages and bills, not saving for college funds or second honeymoons. I like going out with a redhead one night, a blond the next and a brunette the night after that.”
“You can talk all you want about staying footloose and single, but when you fall in love, you’ll be heading down that aisle just like your brother did last month,” Autumn paraphrased primly, tossing her head so that her hair flew out, then settled in a thick, cinnamon curtain around her shoulders. “Now would you get out of here?” she demanded before he could voice the argument that she could see on his face. “I have to get dressed and I still don’t know what to wear.”
“Where are you going?”
“Dinner and dancing.”
“Wear that gold thing.”
Autumn looked doubtful. “You think so?”
“Trust me. I know so.”