him?”
She eyed Stefan, considering him. They were strangers sharing a quiet moment on a lovely, peaceful evening. The wine was relaxing her after a hard week of work. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you, everyone else knows. Waterville’s quiet country life will bore you soon enough and you’ll be back to the city’s society set soon. That was Larry. We were engaged for a time. He rented a motel room away from Waterville for our first—” She raised her wineglass, toasting the moment when neither could become aroused enough to make love. “Happening. It didn’t happen. End of story. He and Mary Lou are expecting their first baby. Everything turned out fine.”
Stefan’s dark eyes cruised the body she had just spread full-length upon his blanket. He lay down, sharing the blanket, the food between them. He propped his head in one hand and placed a bit of cheese into her mouth with the other. His eyes darkened as she ate. He asked, “Why didn’t it happen?”
“I laughed when I saw him naked for the first time. And my bony mystique seemed pretty funny to him, too. Our batteries just weren’t charged. We decided we were better suited to be friends than lovers. We used to come here, my friends and I, when we were young. We used to tell ghost stories and—I don’t know why, but the attraction just wasn’t there, not enough to…to do it, or to marry. Then there was Mike. He hadn’t been in town very long when we started dating. He was a super pitcher on the team. He was a good mechanic—could fix anything. We got engaged and then one night, I caught him tuning someone else’s engine and he left town soon after…. I’m sorry about your wife. Your mother said you loved her deeply.”
“I still do. Claire will always be a part of my life. She lives in my daughter. She had the same straight black hair.”
Rose studied Stefan’s broad, blunt cheekbones, that square chin, and wondered about his wife. What kind of woman could take his heart? A gentle woman? Feminine and pretty? A quiet woman, who understood? A fascinating woman, full of life? A corporate wife, all glossy and perfect? Or was she a woman like Rose’s mother—who loved and captivated every man and left them mourning her as she moved on? “Estelle will have to make up her own mind, you know. You can’t protect her from life forever.”
“Who protects you?” he asked softly and ran a finger slowly down her cheek.
Her skin heated at the touch and she shifted away, uneasy with a man who seemed too intimate, too soon, too foreign, too unique, too exciting—and just “too.” She looked at the clouds floating gently across the sky, just as her life seemed to be doing. “I’m way, way past that age.”
“So old.” Humor hovered in Stefan’s deep voice.
“Well, let’s just say I’ve settled in for the long run. No surprises, no problems—”
She stared up at the man leaning over her, looking deeply, intimately into her eyes. “What? Is something wrong?”
“You have given up on life as an appealing, vital woman. You are preparing for your rocking chair and shawl. Are you not aware of how enticing you are?”
She sucked in air when she realized she’d stopped breathing. Men usually thought of her as a good friend. Stefan’s sultry gaze seemed to devour her mouth as if he wanted to kiss her. The quiver passing through her body, the raised hairs on the back of her neck, startled her.
“Are you making a pass at me, bud?” she asked carefully, because men never flirted with her. She’d added the “bud” to keep him at a distance.
His smile was slow and warming and mind-blowing. It was definitely not a good-buddy smile. “So blunt. I will have to adjust to your frank style of conversation. It has been a while, and perhaps I am out of practice at making my intentions known.”
Then he placed his hands on either side of her head, studied the shape of her mouth beneath his and lowered his head. The kiss was that of a man who knew what he wanted and was confident he could obtain it. The kiss felt like a possession, a tantalizing gift and a choice. His lips were firm, yet light against hers, seeking more than demanding, exploring the shape and taste of her as if he had all the time in the world. Rose mentally rummaged for her resistance and failed. She felt herself drift away in the summer evening, tethered only by the temptation of his mouth. The dock shook…or was it her?
When he lifted his head, his eyes were dark and warm and yet tender. Rose slowly pushed away the sensation that she could melt into his arms and forget everything but the steamy pulsing of their bodies— She breathed carefully, studying Stefan’s dark, sultry gaze. “If…if you’re looking to start something, don’t.”
He stroked a strand of her hair, studying the reddish shades in the dying light. “Why not?”
She couldn’t afford to give herself again. While she had explained her love life to him as though it hadn’t affected her, the pain had been terrible. Though the decisions to break the engagements were shared, she’d been left with the sense that others moved on—like her mother—while she was left alone. She did not want to open herself again for a security that wasn’t there. Stefan was only passing through her life, testing her and playing his games. “I’ve never been a one-night stand and I don’t intend to be.”
That warm, intimate look cooled and sizzled with anger. “You think that is what I offer you?”
Rose pushed herself to her feet, gathered her backpack and tackle box and stood looking down at him. Stefan’s arms were behind his head. He took up too much space on the dock, and too much of Rose’s air—she was suddenly finding breathing difficult. She forced her gaze away from that wide chest and flat stomach up to his dark, sultry eyes, locking with them as he said, “You are afraid. You like to be in control of the men you take, and yourself. You fear giving away too much.”
“I do not,” she said harshly. How could he possibly know how she had to be in control, to survive, to take care of her father and herself and the business that supported them? How could he know how much she had loved a mother, who had deserted her?
He slanted her a disbelieving look. “You responded. You are a woman. You are alive.”
“Oh, I hate it when you shoot out those machine-gun sentences, summing up everything to your reasoning. If you need relief, I’m not your girl.” With that she hurried away to safety, to her home. Her hands shook as she shifted her pickup, and the gears protested her careless handling.
Her father continued to sleep and Rose settled in for a restless night. She tossed upon her single bed, the rosebud sheets tangling between her legs. Stefan did not kiss like other men in her experience. He kissed her as if he was imprinting her taste upon his mind, as if he needed the taste of her to carry with him. He spoke very softly, his accent curling intimately around her. She sensed an awakening within herself that wouldn’t be quelled. It was a long time before she slept, the taste of Stefan’s kiss—firm, sensual, tempting, hungry—dancing through her dreams.
She tried to snuggle down in her bed, and into the safety she had created in her life. But dreams of Stefan, stretched out on the dock and looking sexy, wrapped around her.
On the one morning she could sleep in, Rose smelled coffee. If her father—if Maury was tipsy and cooking, the situation could be dangerous. She pushed herself out of bed, and dressed only in briefs and the T-shirt she used for a nightgown, slowly made her way down the stairs. At the kitchen doorway, she yawned and rubbed her eyes and longed to curl up back in bed, regaining the sleep Stefan Donatien had robbed from her. “Dad? Are you okay?”
Sunlight shafted
