a lot of work ahead.” More than anyone knew.
Willow didn’t want to talk about herself, and her dance partner wouldn’t talk about himself. So they danced in a highly charged silence, gliding across the floor in perfect harmony. The man’s hands were large, slightly rough from hard work and unusually warm. The one at her waist felt like it could burn a hole through her silk dress.
She avoided looking straight at him because something in his eyes made her want to squirm uncomfortably. It was almost as if he knew more about her than she knew herself, that he could see deep to her core and know her innermost secrets.
But how could that be? This man could not possibly be someone she knew well or she would have figured out his identity by now. Although his voice struck a slight chord of familiarity, she couldn’t place it. It was deep, a little bit hoarse and husky, as if he were just recovering from a cold or had been yelling too long and too loud at a baseball game.
The bouncy song came to a close, then immediately blended into a slow ballad, some dreamy old thing by Patsy Cline. Willow knew she should thank the man for the dance and sit down. A song like this was reserved for lovers, so they could hold each other close and murmur into each other’s ears and be intimate in a public place.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Instead she nestled into the warm embrace of her mysterious stranger, where she seemed to fit perfectly. There wasn’t even a moment of awkwardness. His strong arms slid around her waist, hers went around his neck and she laid her head lightly on his shoulder. She could smell traces of his aftershave, something old-fashioned like English Leather, or maybe just lime-scented shaving cream. She’d never been good at telling one smell apart from another, which was unfortunate, because smell was one of the main cues face-blind people used to distinguish friends…and lovers.
Mmm, she was sure she would remember this scent, though. Shampoo? Starch? Laundry detergent? Whatever it was, the blend was intoxicating.
Willow hoped no one was watching her. They might think it strange to see her so intimately wrapped up with—whom? Who could it be? Was she behaving inappropriately? Surely if the man was married he wouldn’t act like this in public. But men could certainly be cads.
Oh, shoot, she didn’t care. Anyway, the lights had been turned down so low, no one could see who was dancing with whom. An old-fashioned disco ball spun in the air above them, the tiny bits of mirrored glass casting glittering flecks of light over the dancers, creating a cocoon of surrealism.
Her partner had maneuvered her away from the main crowd on the floor, Willow realized. Spinning slowly through the song’s smoky tendrils, they’d angled toward some ivy-festooned, papier-mâché Roman columns, then into a shadowy alcove. And there, behind a screen of ivy leaves, he kissed her.
Chapter Two
It was an amazing kiss, Willow thought dazedly as she sank into it, her bones turning to mush. Amazing as the kiss was, it was even more astonishing that she let him kiss her. She didn’t offer even a token protest as his warm mouth closed over hers, tentatively at first, probably prepared for an objection. And when none came, his kiss became more sure as he took control of her mouth, as well as all her senses.
She’d never been kissed like this, as if the man were pouring his entire soul into one embrace. If his kiss was this intoxicating, what might it be like to actually—
She shut down that line of thought and dived headfirst into the kiss, living in the moment. That was something else she wasn’t very good at. She was always thinking forward, planning ahead, worrying about all contingencies. But for this moment, she didn’t worry. And it felt pretty darn good to just shed everything but the feel of the man’s arms around her, his hands in her hair, and his amazing mouth caressing hers with such strength and gentleness at the same time, playing her the way a master musician would play even a run-of-the-mill violin and make it sing.
His curious fingers found the stitched cut on the side of her head, which she’d artfully hidden by combing her hair just right. She took his hand and pulled it away from her injury, suddenly self-conscious about it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “You’re probably still tender there.”
“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to know all my secrets.” She rubbed her cheek against the slight roughness of his. “I worked hard to hide those stitches.”
He slid his hand under her heavy hair around to the nape of her neck. “I want to know all your secrets.”
Now she was getting embarrassed. She could feel her face flushing. This was all so…not like her. She didn’t kiss strange men in public places.
“All I could think about, all night long, was kissing you,” he tried again. “I know it’s probably too much, too fast, but—”
She took his face between her hands, stood on her toes and kissed him again. She didn’t want to talk yet. She didn’t want mere words to pull her back into the real world.
He groaned low in his throat, wrapped his arms around her, as if sheltering her from prying eyes, and deepened the kiss for a few precious seconds before abruptly ending it.
He was breathing hard. Seemingly with some effort, he set her away from him. “Damn, darlin’, that’s some potent kiss you got there.”
“Likewise.” Willow wasn’t a hundred percent in control of herself, even now when she wasn’t wrapped in his arms.
“If we weren’t here in the middle of the VFW hall—”
Willow covered her face. “Don’t say it.” Though it was true and she knew it. If they were in private, he wouldn’t stop at a kiss. And she wouldn’t want him to.
Her brain injury must have been more extensive than she thought. She was completely insane, certifiably!
“Sorry.” He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, tucked it behind her ear. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. It’s just that I’ve pictured this moment for such a long time—”
“You have?”
“I think about you a lot. Probably too much to be good for me.”
Willow would have loved to be able to tell him she’d thought about him, too, that she’d noticed him, that she’d hoped he would ask her out or that she might be brave enough to ask him out.
But she hadn’t thought about any guy in that way for a long time. Not since her sophomore year at University of Texas, when she’d finally been out from under her parents’ control for the first time ever—and away from curious, small-town eyes. She’d gone a little bit wild, dating a whole slew of guys in some misguided effort to wipe memories of Cal Chandler out of her mind.
She’d been intrigued with some of them, and she’d tried her best to transform mild interest into wild attraction. But she’d never wanted any of them enough to sleep with them. Cal was the only one she’d ever loved enough to risk sex with, and look what a disaster that had turned into.
Then her class work had become more demanding, and she’d given up on guys altogether—with some relief. She was glad to not have to worry about sex anymore.
“This isn’t how I wanted to start things with us, Willow.”
