flitted across her face. “He’s here on Tuesdays and on Fridays, never for longer than an hour. He always orders mineral water with a twist of lime.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Funny you should use that word. He broke up with me because he said I was boring.” She crossed her arms over her midsection. “He may be right, too. I just proved it all over again with you.”
“Because you’re passing up that chance to have your way with me?” He made his eyebrows dance, coaxing the hint of a grin from her pretty bowed lips.
“Yes.” She cast another surreptitious glance at her ex-boyfriend, and the partial grin vanished. “No offense, but I’m calling it a night. Please don’t feel like you have to leave, too.”
“I can at least walk you out.” No way would he let her face her ex alone and vulnerable if he could help it. He pushed back from the table, then waited for her to precede him.
She put on her jacket and kept her eyes forward as they moved together toward the exit. The other man sat in a booth beside a window that afforded a view of the street. He stared at them intently, his gaze following them even after they were outside in the cool night air.
Ben stopped on the sidewalk and faced Sierra, careful to stay in her ex-boyfriend’s sight line. “I take it you met me tonight so your ex could see us together?”
She grimaced, her slightly crooked nose crinkling. “Partly. And partly to prove to myself I could be unpredictable.” She gazed heavenward, then down again. “Except neither of those worked out so well.”
“They could,” he said. “Your ex is awfully interested in what we’re doing out here.”
“We’re not doing anything,” she said.
“We will be.” He advanced a step and gathered her into his arms. Before she could stiffen, he whispered, “Relax or it won’t look realistic.”
She blinked up at him. “What won’t look realistic?”
“The show we’re going to give him.”
He half expected her to yank out of his arms, but she surprised him, relaxing her body so she appeared less tense than at any other time tonight. He could smell the light floral scent he now knew was her shampoo mixed with the warmth of her skin as her soft curves molded against him. A glint of mischievousness appeared in her eyes. “Do you think we can pull it off?”
“Oh, yeah.” He winked at her, then dipped his head.
Her lips molded to his in the sweetest of kisses, her arms twining around his neck to pull him close. He angled his body and gathered her intimately against him so her jerk of an ex-boyfriend could get an eyeful.
Their embrace confirmed what he already knew: Her ex was an idiot. Nothing was remotely boring about a woman who could kiss like this.
She might have been pretending, but it was a good act. She was tall for a woman, especially in her spiked heels, but felt delicate in his arms. He threaded his fingers through her luxurious long hair, which felt like silk against his skin. Her lips clung to his, her tongue darting out to stroke the tip of his. He accepted her invitation, letting his tongue slide inside her mouth.
He’d kissed a lot of women in his thirty-one years but never did he remember a first kiss like this. Their mouths melded, their bodies fit, their hearts seemed to beat in tandem. His arousal was instantaneous.
A rumble echoed in his ears, which he attributed to the blood roaring through his veins. A shrill staccato noise blared. A car horn. Belatedly, he remembered where he was and what he was doing. Correction. What he was attempting to convince Sierra he was doing.
Putting on a show. With a relative of the man who might have been involved in his mother’s death, no less.
He pulled back, his mouth reluctantly parting from hers. Her green eyes appeared huge as they stared back at his. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll say we fooled him.”
She nodded, appearing dazed. “Yeah.”
He disengaged from her, struggling to get his body under control, although she couldn’t miss the effect she’d had on him. He tried to make his voice sound natural. “Let me walk you to your car.”
“That’s not necessary.” Her voice sounded low and shaky. “I only live a few blocks away.”
“Then I’ll walk you home.”
She seemed about to protest further, then closed her mouth and nodded. They walked the next few blocks in silence, not touching, a half body length separating them. The street got quieter as businesses gradually gave way to a quaint row of town houses with stone facades.
“It’s this one.” She stopped in front of one of the more classy residences. A wrought-iron railing led to a redbrick door. A pot of colorful flowers adorned the ledge protruding from the front window. The entire home emanated grace and beauty, like its owner. She tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear, which struck him as sensual. Then again, at this point just about every move she made was sexy. “Thank you for what you did back there at the bar.”
He nearly laughed aloud. “Believe me, it was my pleasure.”
Her cheeks colored, charming him all over again. He lightly rubbed the back of his knuckles against the stain, then pulled his hand back. He knew better than to reach for her again.
“You know what I wish?” he asked softly.
She stared up at him with her big eyes, her head shaking back and forth so that silken hair of hers swayed.
“I wish you were the kind of woman who indulged in one-night stands,” he said.
She anchored her hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe and kissed him, so briefly it was just an electric brushing of lips.
“Me, too.” She spoke so close to his mouth he felt her warm breath and smelled the faintest trace of whiskey. “Goodbye, Ben Nash.”
She disappeared inside, leaving him staring at the closed door. Only then did he realize that neither of them had thought to check her ex-boyfriend’s reaction to their kiss.
Resigned to an early night, he headed in the direction of his downtown hotel. If he meant to preserve the fiction he and Sierra had just created, returning to the Blue Haven wasn’t an option.
The real world would intrude soon enough, because the two wishes he’d kept to himself had no better chance of coming true than the first.
That Sierra’s last name wasn’t Whitmore.
And that tomorrow morning he wouldn’t have to break the news to her that he was an investigative reporter.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SPINACH AND CHEESE omelet at Jimmy’s Diner was every bit as delicious as Sierra had always heard. So was the coffee: thick, rich and not bitter in the slightest.
“Can I get anything else for you, Doc?” Ellie Marson, the waitress who was as much a mainstay at Jimmy’s as the red vinyl booths,
