What’s yours?”
“Lara,” she replied, and tossed him the plastic disc.
Lara Sigurdson? Daughter of Katrin? Discovering he wasn’t ready for the answer to that question, Luke watched the Frisbee whirl toward him in a graceful arc. His muscles seemed to have seized up. Awkwardly he grabbed for it, then with a wicked twist of his wrist threw it toward Katrin. For a split second she stood stock still, glaring at him.
“Get it!” the little boy shouted. He also was blond, about five, thin as whip.
The same age Luke had been when his mother had left.
Katrin leaped sideways, her arm upstretched, and caught the Frisbee. She tossed it to the boy. “Run, Tomas!”
Tomas ran the wrong way, doubled back and clutched the Frisbee to his shirtfront. When he threw it toward Lara, it smacked into the sand. Lara said gleefully, “Our point.”
She aimed it at Katrin, who then with the strength of fury whipped it through the air straight at Luke’s chest. He began to laugh, a helpless belly laugh, jumped to his right so it wouldn’t break his ribs, and snagged it from midair. His shoes weren’t intended for the beach; he skidded on the sand, saving himself at the last minute from falling to the ground. “Good shot,” he said appreciatively, and sent the Frisbee to Tomas with just enough spin to be a challenge, but not so much that the little boy couldn’t catch it. Tomas’s hand closed around it; this time his throw was to Luke, a wildly off-course throw that somehow Luke managed to land.
He was enjoying himself, Luke realized, laughing at the little boy. How long since he’d done something like this?
Not since he’d played with his friend Ramon’s children in the spring, back in San Francisco.
In quick succession Katrin scored two points on Luke, who then proceeded to gain them back; she was playing in deadly earnest, he could tell, and laughed at her openly as she missed an underhanded shot he’d flashed her way. Then Tomas snaked a shot at him that he hadn’t been expecting; his eyes glued to the white disc, he ran for it, his hand outstretched. Lara shouted a warning. And Luke ran smack into Katrin.
The two of them tumbled to the soft sand in a tangle of arms and legs. Somehow Luke ended up with his cheek jammed into her chest, one leg under her, his other thigh flung over her hip. She was breathing rapidly, her breasts enticingly soft. She smelled delicious, a dizzying combination of sunshine and that same delicate floral scent he remembered from the dining room.
His body hardened. He shifted hastily, not wanting her to know how instantly and fiercely he wanted her; and felt, as he moved against her, the tightening of her nipples. With all his self-control he fought against the urge to take her in his arms and find her mouth with his. Kiss her so he could taste the sunshine on her skin, the heat of her flesh.
Footsteps padded across the sand toward them. “Are you guys okay?” Tomas huffed. “You look kind of funny—all tangled up like an octopus.”
Swiftly Luke rolled over on his stomach, distancing himself from Katrin, who leaped to her feet and said breathlessly, “We’re fine. That was a great shot, Tomas.”
“It was our point,” Tomas said complacently. “Whose turn is it now?”
Luke hauled himself to his feet, grabbed the Frisbee and flung it with very little finesse at Lara. He felt as though he’d been hit with a ton of bricks. He felt punch-drunk, wired and lustful.
Just as well the kids were here, he thought with a crazy edge of laughter. Or he’d have rolled Katrin onto her back on the sand, fallen on top of her and kissed her until neither one of them could breathe; until making love with each other was the only possible option. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Frisbee coming at him; catching it, he whipped it toward Tomas.
He didn’t dare look at Katrin.
Five minutes later, the little boy plunked himself down on the sand. “Time out,” he puffed. “I’m too hot.”
“Me, too,” Lara echoed.
Katrin smiled at them. “Why don’t you both go up to the house and get yourselves ice-cream cones? You know where they are. Don’t forget to shut the freezer afterward.”
“Two scoops?” Lara said, her blue eyes calculating.
Katrin grinned. “Two scoops. But not three, you know what happened last time.”
“Splat,” said Tomas.
“Exactly,” Katrin said. “Off you go, and look both ways before you cross the road. I’ll be up in a minute.”
The two children, forgetting they were tired and hot, ran for the house, obediently stopping on the grass verge and checking for traffic. By the time they were out of earshot, Katrin had turned her back on them to face Luke. Her smile had vanished. “How dare you invade my private life?” she blazed. “You’ve got no right to be here, forcing yourself on my children like that.”
A cold fist squeezed his heart. “So they’re your children?”
“Who else’s would they be?” she retorted. “I don’t want you anywhere near here—I keep my work life and my personal life totally separate. Besides, I told you to leave me alone, remember?”
He said reluctantly, “They’re fine kids.”
“Yes, they are. And if you think I’m going to have some kind of a two-day fling with you and jeopardize my whole life, you’re crazy.”
Luke’s tongue felt thick, and his brain seemed to have stopped working altogether. Katrin was married, the mother of two children. What the hell was he doing here? He swallowed, clearing his throat. “Let’s keep something straight. I’ve not once suggested I wanted a fling with you.”
She flushed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “Don’t insult my intelligence—I can read the signals.”
“Then you’re quite intelligent enough to know that some very basic chemistry’s operating between us. It’s not just me.”
“It is just you!”
Her cheeks were now a bright pink. Luke drawled, “We could have one of those exchanges best suited to Tomas and Lara. It’s not. It is. It’s not. It is…is that what you want?”
“I want you gone from here. And I don’t want you to come back,” she said with deadly precision.
He had the same sinking feeling in his gut that had overcome him ten years ago when he’d been outwitted by a broker whose financial wizardry had been exceeded only by his lack of morals. Now, as then, there was no way to recoup. His only recourse was to get out as gracefully as he could and accept his losses. He said with a sudden raw honesty that took him by surprise, “Okay. I’ll leave and I won’t come back. But I won’t find it easy to forget you…don’t ask me to explain that, because I can’t. And don’t for one minute think I make a habit of hitting on women when I’m at a conference. Nothing could be further from the truth—and that holds whether they’re waitresses or CEOs.”
He’d run out of words. There was nothing else to say that could make any difference. Game over.
As
