bounded in her chest as if in a panic to escape her rib cage. She caught him off guard after her moment of stillness. He cursed—loudly this time—when she forced him off balance. They both went down on the beach, a surprised oomph escaping her throat at the impact of her hip hitting the sugar-soft sand.
“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.
“I…I…yes, I’m fine.” The abrupt fall seemed to have popped the anger right out of her, leaving her stunned and breathless.
She stared into his face. He sprawled over her body, his elbows in the sand. He felt large and hard, covering her with plenty to spare. She couldn’t comprehend how his eyes could be so dark and yet blaze so hot.
The moment stretched like a live wire drawn taut.
Colleen didn’t know how it happened—had he leaned down, or had she strained toward him?—but suddenly his mouth was on hers, his lips firm and demanding. Hungry.
Everything transformed in a split second. Need rose in her with the strength of a striking talon. She tangled her fingers in his hair and scraped his scalp with her fingernails. He groaned low in his throat and slanted his mouth at a different angle, his kiss somehow tender and ravishing at once. The tip of his tongue slid along the seam of her lips.
She parted her lips and slid her tongue against his, arching her back into him, this time of her own volition, compelled by sudden, driving desire. The hardness of his chest was such a welcome relief to the aching tips of her breasts. She pressed down on his back, desperate for more of the sensation of him. Heat seared her from the inside out, softening her, filling her…thawing her.
She gasped in dazed disapproval when the pressure of his mouth disappeared. Eyelids heavy, she met his gaze. He stared down at her, his facial muscles rigid, his nostrils slightly flared. He looked exactly like what he was: a virile male primed to stake his claim. Part of her longed for him to do just that.
The other part saw the question in his eyes. His bewilderment struck her like ice water splashing on her heated face.
She shoved him away. Reality must have hit him at the same moment, because she didn’t have to push very hard. He rolled off her. Colleen found herself panting softly and staring up at a lavender-blue sky.
For a full ten seconds, she just lay there, her body vibrating with shock and the remnants of blazing arousal.
It couldn’t have happened.
She touched her lips with her fingertips. They felt damp and slightly swollen. She sat up abruptly at the undeniable evidence that she hadn’t been under the influence of a bizarre hallucination.
Eric lay on his back in the sand, staring blankly up at the darkening sky. He looked like she felt—as if someone had just taken a swing at his head with a two-by-four. He didn’t move, but his gaze flickered over her. His eyes focused when they found her face. They softened.
Two thoughts soared into her brain, the first causing anguish, the second panic.
She hadn’t felt desire that powerful, that imperative, since Darin had died.
No. She’d never felt anything like that.
She scrambled up from the beach.
“Colleen!”
She grabbed her shorts and hurriedly stepped into them, nearly falling over again in the process. She refused to look at him, but out of the periphery of her vision she realized he’d sat up and was watching her.
“Colleen,” he repeated. “Don’t leave. Talk to me.”
Her heart felt enlarged, like it was pressing too tight against her breastbone. Unwanted tears blurred her vision. What was wrong with her? She’d just kissed Eric Reyes like her life depended on it. Now his deep, low voice coaxed her in the twilight.
“Just…just leave me alone,” she said haltingly—stupidly—before she yanked her T-shirt over her head.
He picked up her tote bag, holding it out to her like a peace offering. “I didn’t come out here to ask you to leave. I’ve watched you swim here the last few summers. I came out here tonight to tell you to continue.”
Her head swung around, and their gazes locked. She wished like hell she didn’t believe him. His kindness was too much to bear after that sudden upsurge of grief and anger followed by that inexplicable blaze of pure desire. A wild need to escape overwhelmed her.
Tears blurred her vision as she grabbed her tote bag and jogged across the sand, leaving the source of her turmoil behind.
Chapter One
The first thing Colleen Kavanaugh Sinclair saw when she walked into Dr. Fielding’s familiar examination room was her son, Brendan, slouching in a chair. The second thing was her arch-nemesis standing nonchalantly next to him. Once she took in Eric Reyes’s unexpected presence, pretty much everything faded from her awareness for two stunned seconds.
Of course, he wasn’t really her arch-nemesis. That was just stupid. An enemy would have to mean something to her, and Eric Reyes did not mean anything.
“Colleen, Dr. Reyes mentioned that you two know one another.” Dr. Fielding’s voice interrupted her dazed disbelief.
She blinked and forced her attention to Dr. Fielding. He looked especially short, round and amiable while standing next to the brooding, dark tower of maleness that was Eric Reyes. Dr. Fielding had moved to Harbor Town around twelve years ago, soon after Colleen herself had returned. He’d delivered Brendan and her daughter, Jenny. Because he hadn’t lived in Harbor Town at the time of the crash, he clearly didn’t get the history and thick emotion that ran like a humming electrical wire beneath his seemingly innocuous statement about her and Eric knowing one another.
“Did he?” Colleen returned, eyebrows arched.
“Yes, he’s told me you two work together at The Family Center. Wonderful place. I’ve heard Colleen speak twice now about the facility,” he said, turning to Eric. “Once for the Rotary Club and once for the Pediatric Society in Detroit. She’s a talented public educator and speaker, in addition to being a gifted clinician. But I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, Eric,” Dr. Fielding said.
His warm, friendly glance between Eric and Colleen melted when he noticed Eric’s wooden expression and Colleen’s averted gaze. She inhaled deeply for courage. If Eric could seem so calm, so could she.
“I work at The Family Center,” Colleen corrected. “Dr. Reyes is a volunteer. He comes in a few hours a week.” Blessing us with his supreme presence, Colleen finished silently. Eric’s mouth twitched, as if she’d spoken the words out loud. If she hadn’t been thrown so off balance by Eric’s unexpected presence at her son’s doctor’s appointment, she probably would have had to hide a grin at the knowledge that her arrow had hit its target.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him quietly instead.
Eric held up a chart. “Dr. Fielding consulted with me about Brendan’s case today. I examined Brendan. Even though your son hasn’t quite finished his course of penicillin, I recommended an X-ray and bone scan. We’ve received the results.”
“You
