wanted things to be very, very simple.
She took his hand, felt its strength and warmth. Felt more than its strength and warmth.
‘Fran,’ she said. Her smile met his. Her eyes met his. Acknowledging something that needed to be acknowledged between them. The fact that, whatever was going on, from this moment she was no longer a hotel guest and he was not part of the security team, or whatever his role was.
That this was something between them—only between them.
‘Doc Fran,’ Nic murmured contemplatively, his eyes working over her. He nodded. ‘It suits you.’
He didn’t release her hand, only drew her upright as he climbed to his feet as well.
‘We need to head down before the light goes,’ he told her, and carefully they made their way back to the SUV. ‘Hungry?’ Nic asked. He kept his question studiedly casual. ‘Because if you don’t want to head back to the hotel yet I know a diner nearby...’
He let the suggestion hang, let her choose to answer it as she wanted.
She gave her flickering smile—the one that told him she was hovering between holding back and not holding back.
‘That sounds good,’ she answered. ‘A change from the hotel.’
He gunned the engine and they headed off, headlights cutting through the desert dusk that had turned to night by the time they drew up in the car park of a roadside diner.
It was a typical western diner, with a friendly, laid-back atmosphere and staff in the customary western outfits that went with the setting.
They ate at a table overlooking the desert, making themselves comfortable on the padded banquettes. Fran stuck to iced tea, but Nic had a beer, and they both ordered steak.
Hers was so massive she cut off a third, placing it on Nic’s plate. ‘You need to feed your muscles,’ she told him with a smile, refusing to let herself think that it was a strangely intimate gesture.
He laughed. ‘I’ll trade you my salad,’ he said, and pushed the bowl towards her.
‘Salad’s good for you!’ she protested, and pushed it back.
His hand was still on the bowl. Did her fingers brush against his hand? She didn’t know. Knew only that she pulled her hand away and that as she did so she felt it tingle, as though, maybe, she had made contact. Electrical contact...
She started to eat her steak. Made some remark about its tenderness. Any remark.
What am I doing?
The question framed itself. Rhetorical. Unnecessary. She knew what she was doing—knew perfectly well.
I’m on a date. Not official. Not announced. Not planned. But a date, all the same. We’ve watched the sun go down together, and now we’re eating together.
And what would they do next together?
She didn’t answer that one. Didn’t want to. Not yet. Not now.
Instead she asked a question—something about the desert. After all, he worked in this region—he must know more about it than she did. And, whatever Italian-American locality he came from originally, right now he was way more a native here than she was.
He answered the question readily, and all her other questions, but sometimes he shrugged and said he didn’t know. So they asked the diners at another table, obviously locals, who assumed they were tourists.
Fran did not enlighten them.
They also assumed they were a couple.
Fran did not enlighten them on that either.
Supposing we were.
The thought was in her head. Tantalising. Making her wonder. Speculate. Was that why she was sharing dinner with him now? Because she was accepting that she was willing to take things further between them?
But just how far?
She felt her mind thinking ahead. An affair? No, maybe not even that. A—a fling. That was more like it. Something out of the ordinary in her life...something that wouldn’t happen twice—because he was from a world different from her, as she was from him.
But that doesn’t matter.
Her eyes went to his face again, slid down over his strong, muscled body. The flicker of electricity came again—a kind of current flowing between them, strengthening, or so it seemed to her, with every circuit that it made. She didn’t know why...knew only that it was powerful and enticing.
Why not? Why not take this opportunity if it comes? I need to move on from Cesare. I need something...different. It would be good for me—mark a new chapter in my life.
Would Nic Rossi—so entirely different from any man she’d known before, so rawly, powerfully attractive to her—be it?
The question circled in her head. They’d finished eating—steaks demolished, side orders too—and now Nic was leaning back in his chair, letting his weight tilt it back, easing his broad shoulders. Relaxed, leonine, powerful.
Sexy as hell.
The phrase forced its way into her head. It was not one she’d ever used about a man. Not a phrase that had fitted any man she’d ever known. Not even Cesare. Her lips twisted. Cesare would have loathed any woman calling him that. Nic, she suspected, with another twist of her lips, but this time with humour in it, would simply take it as his due.
He knows he can pull. It’s in him, in every cell of his body. It’s part of him. It isn’t arrogance or conceit—it’s just... Well, it just is, that’s all. And he’d be glad I’m thinking it.
She didn’t need to spell it out. Didn’t need to think about it. Didn’t need to analyse it or wonder about it or speculate about it. All she needed to do right now was answer the question he was asking her as he picked up the menu, flicked it over to the dessert list.
‘Ice cream?’ he asked.
Fran smiled. That was one decision that was easy to make.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Definitely.’
* * *
They drove back to the hotel, the moon rising to the east, the night ablaze with stars. Nic had seen Fran glance upwards as they got back into the SUV and an idea had struck him. As they drove he gave voice to it.
‘Would you have any interest,’ he opened, glancing at her briefly, then back to the ink-dark road, ‘in maybe taking off to see the South-West Array tomorrow?’
She turned her head. ‘Could we do it in a day?’ she asked. Unconsciously, she had used the word ‘we’, and it registered a moment later. But she didn’t mind that she had. It seemed right that she had.
‘If we make an early start,’ Nic
