He took the seat she indicated and poured them each a glass of wine. She added the halibut to their plates before climbing onto the bar stool kitty-corner from him. She’d changed the place settings a half-dozen times while he’d been grilling the fish on the little portable grill the previous tenant had left behind. Finally she’d aimed for the safest seating arrangement, one that would give her the most distance physically. There was enough awareness sizzling between them to send her into sensory overload. Sitting directly beside him where their thighs could brush, their knees lightly touch, or their feet tangle would be like flicking a lit match onto a bale of dried straw.
She cleared her throat, then offered him the plain glass bowl filled with glazed carrots. “So where are you from, Yankee?” He took the dish from her, his thick tanned fingers brushing against hers. She should’ve expected it, but the tingles rippling through her and landing right in the tips of her breasts still surprised, and annoyed her. Why now? Why did her well-trained and dormant hormones have to choose this time, this place, this man to become unruly and zing to life? Why, when she would be leaving the adorably quaint southern coastal town for a new life, did she finally find herself responding to the opposite sex?
Her feminine senses went haywire when he was around. They didn’t even fully function when he wasn’t around, either, and that was a very big problem. Especially when she took into consideration how she’d allowed herself to become distracted by his very kissable-looking mouth, imagining his kisses twice as intoxicating as his eyes when he looked at her that way. Like the way that said he knew every nuance, every curve, every aspect of her body as intimately as his own.
Impossible, but she couldn’t stop the wayward thoughts any more than she could stop the sun from shining.
There were times, she concluded, reaching for the dish of pilaf, when life just wasn’t fair.
“Ohio originally,” he said, drawing her attention back to his uniquely handsome face. His slightly crooked nose had been broken at least once in his life. But his eyes. Oh, a girl could really get lost in such an interesting shade of blue. That deep lilac color combined with the way he looked at her were just way too sexy. Factor in those long, dark lashes a tube of the highest quality mascara could never hope to duplicate on any woman, and her previously controlled hormones were history.
His mouth wasn’t so bad, either, she thought, absently cutting her fish with the edge of her fork. His lips, with the lower slightly fuller, could only be called sensual. Definitely sensual, she thought as she stared, watching them move as he spoke.
“Doc?”
His voice was sharp enough to snap her right back into reality. She forced her gaze from his lips back to his eyes. “Did you say something?” Well, of course he said something. His lips had been moving and she’d been staring at them like a love-struck schoolgirl for crying out loud.
He grinned while she struggled to regain her usual cool, calm composure. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”
“I asked where you were from,” he said.
She pushed her fork through her rice. She’d learned to mix the truth with the lies, but she’d always told the same story. She no longer had a family. At least none she could openly discuss. As far as anyone knew, she was Dee Romine, the only living surviving child of the late David and Ellen Romine. Her decision on exactly what to say when asked by anyone was based in fact, for the most part. Never the superstitious type, she still wouldn’t dare to tweak fate’s nose by saying that her brother had died as well, afraid if she did, she might be predisposing Jared’s fate. The lies weren’t something she cared for, so she simply never mentioned her brother.
“Washington state,” she said after a moment.
He reached for his wineglass. “That’s a long way from family.”
“I don’t have family.” The practiced lie slipped easily from her lips. Too easily. “What about you?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to him. “The Carolina coastline isn’t exactly a good stretch of the legs from Ohio, you know.”
He lifted the wineglass to his lips and drank slowly. “My folks are both retired,” he finally said, almost as if he was deciding how much to tell her, which was silly. She just had a guilty conscience is all.
He took another sip of wine before setting his glass aside. “My old man taught history and government at the local high school, and mom was the Home Ec teacher.”
“Is that why you went into teaching? Following in your parents’ footsteps?”
“Something like that I guess. Speaking of teaching, Johnson said I should contact you.”
She stopped with her fork poised in midair. “Principal Johnson? Contact me? Why?”
He pushed his near empty plate aside and rested his tanned forearms on the counter. “He’s punishing the coaching staff, and I got caught in the middle of the battle between him and the head coach,” he said with a wry grin. “I guess it could be worse, but I doubt it. I’ve been assigned one of those half-semester senior-seminar classes.”
“Let me guess. He’s taking it out on the coaches because he’d rather put money into academia than the sports programs right?”
“That about sums it up.”
“It’s been a long-standing battle around these parts,” she told him. “Don’t take it personally.” She polished off the last of her halibut before asking, “But what does it have to do with me?”
He let out a sigh and reached again for his wineglass. “Senior Sex.”
He had to be kidding. She’d assisted Ellen Billings with the curriculum when the older woman had been assigned the class two years ago. Dee had gone to speak to the students about the varying types of birth control available, stressing abstinence was the most acceptable form. Teens being teens, no matter what she told them, she knew peer pressure would often lead to sexual experimentation regardless of the dangers to their emotional and physical health. At least after her presentation the students were more than prepared, and had gone away with more than just a basic understanding of the concept of safe sex.
She set her fork on the plate. “You’re joking, right?” she asked, hopeful that he was in fact teasing her. The thought of showing the senior class the appropriate method of applying a condom, in front of the one man who’d managed to awaken her libido wasn’t exactly the most appealing.
“No joke, Doc,” he said, his voice tinged with humor. “So would you be willing to show the class how to put a condom on a banana?”
She reached for her glass, pausing before taking a long and much needed drink. “I use a cucumber actually,” she quipped. “It’s easier for the students. Contrasting colors and all that.”
He chuckled, the sound a low, sexy rumble. “Isn’t that just a little ambitious?”
“You were a teenage boy once. Wouldn’t you rather the girls saw you as a cucumber than a banana?”
His spontaneous burst of laughter brought a smile to her lips. It was no use, she suddenly realized. Fighting the sexual awareness buzzing between them was an effort in futility. Unless of course she was willing to pack up and move tomorrow to either Boston or New York, which she wasn’t. Besides, she knew he felt it as well. It was there, in his smile, in the sound of his laughter, but mostly in his
