several minutes trying to gather his wits and calm his racing pulse.
By the time they found Tony, it was time to serve dinner. There was no time for a complete tour of the bedrooms. It was probably just as well, Nick told himself. The sight of Dana standing anywhere near his bed might have driven him to madness.
What caused this odd, insistent pull he felt toward her? Certainly it was more than her luxuriant hair and wide eyes, more than her long-limbed grace. Was it the vulnerability that lurked beneath the surface? Or was it as elusive as the sense that, for whatever reason, she was forbidden, out of reach? He’d been with her twice now, but he knew little more about her than the facts she’d put on her résumé. She talked, even joked, but revealed nothing. He wanted much more. He wanted to know what went on in her head, what made her laugh and why she cried. He wanted to discover everything there was to know about Dana Brantley.
Most infuriating of all to a man of his methodical, cautious ways, he didn’t know why.
During dinner, Tony chattered away, basking in Dana’s quiet attention, and Nick tried to puzzle out the attraction. Soon though, the talk and laughter drew him in and he left the answers for another day.
Saturday. Only five days and he would have another chance to discover the mysterious allure she held for him. Five days that, in his sudden impatience, yawned before him like an eternity.
Chapter 3
Dana spent the rest of the week thinking up excuses to get her out of Saturday night’s date. None was as irrefutable—or as factual—as simply telling Nick quite firmly: I don’t want to go. Unfortunately, each time she looked into Tony’s excited eyes, she couldn’t get those harsh words past her lips.
She searched for a word to describe the tumult she’d felt after her visit to Nick’s place. Disquieting. That was it. Nick had been a gentleman, the perfect host. On the surface their conversational banter had been light, but there had been sensual undercurrents so swift that at times she had felt she’d be caught up and swept away. Nick’s brand of gentle attentiveness spun a dangerous web that could hold the most unwilling woman captive until the seduction was complete.
Yet he’d never touched her, except for that one electrifying instant when she’d been accidentally trapped between him and the refrigerator. She’d anticipated something more when he walked her to her car, and her heart had thundered in her chest. But he’d simply held open the car door, then closed it gently behind her. Only his lazy, lingering gaze had seared her and made her blood run hot.
That heated examination was enough to get the message across with provocative clarity. Nick had more in mind for the two of them. He was only biding his time. The thought scared the daylights out of her. She’d been so sure she had built an impenetrable wall around her emotions, but in Nick’s presence that wall was tumbling down. She didn’t know quite how she’d ever build it up again.
On Friday she sat on her front porch rocking until long past midnight. Usually listening to the silence and counting the stars scattered across the velvet blanket of darkness soothed her. Every night since she’d come to River Glen, the flower-scented breeze had caressed her so gently that her muscles relaxed and she felt tension ease away. But tonight there was no magic. Cars filled with rowdy teenagers split the silence and clouds covered the stars. The humid night air was as still as death and, in her distraught, churning state of mind, just as ominous.
As a result, she was as nervous and tense when she went in to bed as she had been when she’d first settled into the rocker seeking comfort and an escape from her troubling thoughts. She tried reading, but the words swam before her exhausted eyes. When she turned out the light, she lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, first counting sheep, then going over the titles of her favorite books, then counting sheep again.
Although she waged an intense battle to keep the prospect of tomorrow’s date out of her mind, it was always there, lurking about the fringes of her thoughts.
It’s only one evening, she reminded herself. Tony will be there. So will half the town, for that matter.
But even one evening in the company of a man with a surprising power to unnerve her was too much. It loomed before her as an endless ordeal to be gotten through, even though it would drain whatever supreme courage she could still muster from her worn-down defenses. Nick was constantly at the center of her thoughts, and in these thoughts his casual touches branded her in a way that awed and frightened her at the same time.
In reality, he was doing nothing but flirting with her. But how long would it be before those touches became intense, demanding? How long before the pressure would start and the torment would curl inside her like a vicious serpent waiting to strike?
Finally exhaustion claimed her and she fell into a restless, uneasy slumber. Considering her state of mind, it wasn’t surprising that she awoke in the middle of the night screaming, her throat hoarse, her whole body trembling and covered with sweat. She sat up in bed shaking, clutching the covers around her, staring blindly into the darkness for the threat that had seemed so real, so familiar. At last, still shivering but convinced it had been only a dream, she reached for the light by her bed to banish the last of the shadows. Her hand was shaking and tears streamed down her face unchecked.
Oh, God, please, when will it end? When will I be free of the memories?
Tonight was the first time in months the nightmare had returned. In her relief, she had even deluded herself that her bad dreams were a thing of the past, that they’d been left behind in a Manhattan skyscraper. She should have known that horror didn’t die so easily. Perhaps it was simply because for the first time in months, she had failed to leave a night-light burning, something to keep away the ghosts that haunted her. She vowed never to make that mistake again.
It was hours before she slept again and noon before she woke. Six hours before Nick and Tony were due. Six hours to be gotten through with nerves stretched taut, her mind restless. More than once she reached for the phone to call Nick and cancel, but each time she hung it back up, labeling herself a coward.
It was her first date since Sam, and first times were always the hardest. After tonight, she hoped the jitters would go away, although with Nick Verone, it was quite possible—likely, in fact—that they’d only become worse.
“I can’t do it,” she muttered at last. “I can’t go, if I’m going to jump like a frightened, inexperienced schoolgirl every time the man gets within an inch of me.”
This time when she picked up the phone, her hand was steady, her determination intact. The resonant sound of Nick’s voice seemed to set off distantly remembered echoes along her spine, but she managed to sound calm and relatively sure of herself when she greeted him.
“Nick, there’s a problem.” She hesitated, then hurried on. “I really don’t think I’ll be able to go with you tonight after all.”
“Why?”
“I’m not feeling very well.” That, at least, was no lie, but she discovered she was holding her breath as she awaited his reply.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she could hear the genuine regret, the stirring of compassion. He didn’t for a single instant suspect her of lying. “Is it the flu? Do you need something from the pharmacy? I could run by the grocery store and pick up some soup or something if you need it.”
His unquestioning concern immediately filled her with shame. She swallowed the guilty lump in her throat. “No,
