she’d left the kitchen earlier. She’d changed out of the green shirt and jeans she’d worn into a pink softer-than-soft-looking jogging suit with a zippered jacket and drawstring bottoms. The potential ease of removal for both items was enough to run his mouth dry. To make matters worse, instead of being confined in a ponytail that kept the long strands away from her face, her hair now tumbled in voluptuous waves over her shoulders.
“What do I think about what?”
“What do you think we should name them?”
“I think that’s up to you.”
“But you delivered them. You were here when she needed you.”
Her voice was soft as she gazed at him, and he had a hard time remembering she was talking about the dog. The warmth and gratitude in her gaze made Nick feel like puffing up his chest with pride. He didn’t think he’d moved from his crouched position, but he would have sworn she was suddenly closer. Close enough for him to see her eyelashes were surprisingly, and naturally, darker than her hair. Close enough to see the faintest spray of freckles across her nose. Close enough for him to watch every movement of her tongue sliding across her pale pink lips.
The low rumble of thunder sounded from outside, and Nick jerked his attention away from Darcy’s mouth and back to the request she’d made. “Stormy,” he blurted out. “For one of the girls.”
“Oh, how fitting. You said the girls were the little black ones?” At Nick’s nod, Darcy said, “Then how about Cloud for the one of the gray boys?”
He suggested Rain for the other girl. “Which leaves one boy left.”
Darcy’s smile was full of mischievous laughter simply waiting to be unleashed, and Nick paused with an almost helpless feeling of anticipation to hear whatever she’d come up with.
“Bo,” she announced suddenly.
He shook his head as if the word hadn’t quite penetrated his brain. “Stormy, Rain, Cloud and … Bo?”
This time he had no doubt Darcy had leaned closer as she lowered her voice to share a secret. “It’s short for Rainbow, but don’t tell the other kids. They might make fun of him.”
Rainbow. It was as silly and ridiculous as Nick had feared, still he couldn’t help but give into laughter. Darcy’s joined his, the masculine and feminine sound combining until, at once, all other sounds faded away. So, too, did the lighthearted energy in the tiny room, replaced by a growing awareness of how close they were, how isolated, with only the dogs inside and the lingering storm out.
“I should go.” The statement, if not the words, were firm and decisive and utterly meaningless as Nick still didn’t move.
Darcy swallowed. “You don’t have to. It’s still raining outside. I could fix some coffee.”
But it wasn’t coffee he was craving. Her scent called to him again, and this time Nick thought he recognized the summery mix of coconut and pineapple. He wondered if her skin would taste like piña colada if he kissed her.
He heard the faint catch in her breathing and the quicker rhythm that followed. He was less than a sigh away from claiming her lips with his own when the overhead bulb flickered. The light wasn’t out for more than a split second, but when it came back on, the glare was like a flash of clarity illuminating the huge mistake he was about to make.
He didn’t know if it was the storm, faulty wiring or fate stepping in to save him, but he jerked abruptly to his feet. The unexpected movement almost knocked Darcy back on her heels. He bent halfway—the gentleman his mother had taught him to be insisting he give her a hand, battling the survivor Carol had forced him to be warning him to stay far, far away. In the end he did nothing as Darcy pushed herself to her feet.
“I have to—This can’t—” His mind formed the words, but his tongue tripped over them in his haste to say the exact opposite of what his body was feeling. “Look, I’m not interested in a fling or an affair or—”
Darcy’s eyes widened, at first in shock, then in a growing realization and finally anger. “I offered you a cup of coffee, Dr. Pirelli, not a roll in the hay. You might be right and I don’t know much about small towns, but where I come from coffee means coffee. If I was offering you sex, I would have said sex.” The chill in her voice and fire in her eyes told him sex was nowhere near in the offering. “You can let yourself out when you’re done here.”
She brushed by him on her way through the kitchen and moments later, he heard a door slam somewhere from the back of the house. Nick exhaled a humiliated sigh of regret. Yes, he was definitely done here.
Nick stood in the middle of Darcy’s kitchen feeling like he’d dodged a bullet, but guilty for winding up unscathed all the same. He was positive—almost positive—he hadn’t imagined the heat and invitation in Darcy’s gaze. She’d wanted him to kiss her, hadn’t she? Hell, he’d been out of the game so long, he wasn’t sure he still could read the signs. And damned if he didn’t know if maybe all he saw was his own desire reflected in her eyes. But no matter what he saw or thought he saw, that didn’t give him the right to hurt her with his clumsy rejection.
Yet what else could he have said? That she was a beautiful, sexy woman and he’d sleep with her in a heartbeat if he wasn’t already looking for an entirely different kind of woman for his wife? A different kind of mother for Maddie? Somehow he didn’t think that would have scored any points in her book either.
He thought briefly about apologizing, in a note left behind for her to find—because no way was he searching her out in her bedroom where he assumed she’d taken refuge—only to decide against it.
It was probably better to leave things as they were. If he’d ticked her off as much as he thought he had, then he wouldn’t have to worry about ending up on her radar again—except maybe for her to shoot some dirty looks in his direction on any rare occasion when their paths might cross.
He checked on the mama dog and her puppies one more time before he packed up his bag and left out the back door, the same way he’d come in. The slash of wind and rain pelting him the moment he stepped outside the warmth and comfort of Darcy’s house felt like punishment, but the sudden chill was just what he needed. He didn’t bother trying to outrun the storm on his way to his truck or duck for cover beneath the arms of the large tree in her front yard. Putting his head down, he methodically trudged along the gravel driveway.
A summer storm might not be what the term “cold shower” usually meant, but it would do.
The baseball game was likely over, but he couldn’t have used a beer more. After fishing his keys from his front pocket, Nick turned the ignition and—nothing. Not a click. Not a flicker of light from the dash. Nothing.
Rain pounded on the roof of his SUV in a constant, unrelenting pattern as he reached for his phone. Cell coverage was always spotty at best thanks to the surrounding mountains. Add in the storm, and Nick shouldn’t have been surprised when he got no reception. Dropping his wet head back on the padded headrest, he seriously debated sitting out the storm and the night in his truck. But what if Maddie needed him? His cell phone was as useless as his dead battery, and he needed to be at home in case she called.
It didn’t happen so often anymore, but there’d been a time when Maddie brought back more than souvenirs and gifts from her trips to see her mother. Her first few nights back home, she used to wake up crying, her nightmares filled with terrors of being
