style="font-size:15px;"> Whether she wanted to explain or not, apparently she was going to have to so Clair didn’t see any reason to fight it and merely gave in.
“That’s just not something I do—or have ever done— spending the night with someone like that,” she said haltingly because what she’d done was so foreign to her that she didn’t even know how to refer to her behavior. “I…” She had to clear her throat. “Before that I’d only…been…with Rob.”
“Rob?”
“Cabot. Rob Cabot? My husband—ex-husband?”
Ben shook his head and shrugged. “Am I supposed to know him?”
“We all went to high school together. He was there, at the reunion. With his new wife. He wasn’t supposed to be. He said he wasn’t going. It was the first time I’d seen him since our divorce, and the whole thing is still so strange to me and it just hit home and… Well, that’s why Cassie asked you to keep me company,” Clair said, looking for any kind of light to dawn in him.
But it never did. “All I know is that I was having a lousy time that night and never should have let my sister talk me into going. I was like a fish out of water that last semester of school and I was just as much a fish out of water that night. But when I told her I was leaving she said you were having a rotten time, too, and asked if I would sit with you until she could get back to you.”
Which Cassie hadn’t been able to do.
“So you didn’t know—” Clair cut herself off, not wanting to get into the subject of Rob and that night in the middle of the rest of this. “And it wasn’t just a pity—”
She couldn’t believe that train of thought had found voice. Her voice.
But it made him smile. A slow, lopsided, private-joke-kind of smile that somehow managed to instantly dissipate a lot of the tension in the room.
“You thought that whole night was a…out of pity?”
“I thought it was possible,” she confessed quietly.
Now he was trying to keep from grinning and in the struggle his eyebrows arched up over the bridge of his nose in a way that made him look innocent and devilish all at once. “I didn’t know anything was going on that I should pity you for,” he said.
“Good.”
“But I have to admit you have me curious now.”
“Too bad,” she said, her tone making it clear she had no intention of satisfying that curiosity.
For some reason that made him laugh. Which, in turn, helped even more of the tension evaporate.
“Okay,” he said, his stance relaxing, too, as he let his weight shift to one hip and stood up straighter to cross his arms over his chest. “So is that why you disappeared the next morning? Because you thought I’d only been there out of pity?”
“No, I was just… Well, I was crazy that next morning. I couldn’t believe I’d actually done what I’d done. I just…ran.”
He didn’t respond immediately. In fact he didn’t respond for so long that Clair hazarded a glance up at him.
He was watching her. Studying her. As if he were trying to decide whether or not to accept what she was telling him.
Finally he said, “I didn’t appreciate it.”
Nothing like being blunt.
But Clair knew she had it coming.
“I’m sorry. I know it was probably bad etiquette or something. I just didn’t know what to do or say or how to act or…anything. All I could think to do was to go home.”
That sounded lame. But it was the truth.
He either realized that or opted for letting her off the hook, though, because after another moment of studying her he said, “How about we forget the reunion ever happened and start over?”
She couldn’t completely forget it. But, for the time being, Clair thought it might be best to put it on a back burner.
“I’d like to start over,” she said, agreeing to at least that part of his suggestion.
“Then let’s do that.”
Those aqua eyes were warmer than they’d been since her arrival and that warmth made her feel much, much better.
“I can tell you’re worn-out from the drive, and since I want to get an early start tomorrow I told Cassie I’d fix the two of you breakfast at seven-thirty, if that’s all right with you?”
“Sure, seven-thirty is fine.”
“Okay, then, since you’ve had a long trip and we’re starting early tomorrow, how about if I walk you out to the cottage, let you unpack and get some rest? And we’ll consider tomorrow day one?”
“I’d like that.”
“Okay, it’s a deal.”
He held out his hand for her to shake and she took it without thinking that the feel of it might cause anything to erupt in her.
But it did. That perfectly innocent handshake that any two strangers might have shared made her extremely aware of the heat of his skin, the strength of his grip, the sensuality of his touch—things she didn’t want to be aware of at all.
And just the fact that she was, spurred her to say, “I don’t even think you should walk me to the cottage. I’ll just slip out as if I was never here, and we’ll be that much closer to putting the reunion behind us and starting over.”
“You’re sure?” he asked as she got down from the barstool in a hurry.
“Positive. You don’t know me. I’m not here,” she said on the way to the sliding door.
He followed her that far anyway, reaching around in front of her to open the door, keeping his hand high up on the edge of it and leaning against it as she went outside.
“Okay. See you around, stranger,” he said from behind her.
“Maybe. If you’re lucky,” she countered, stealing one more glance over her shoulder at him and finding him smiling that private-joke smile again.
It made her want to stay.
How did that happen? she asked herself as she gave him a little wave and turned away to head down the short brick path to the cottage.
But she didn’t have an answer. She only knew that somehow she’d gone from nearly hyperventilating at just the thought of seeing Ben Walker again, to actually being tempted to linger a while longer with him. And that the effect he had on her was like no other any man had ever had on her before.
Although maybe his having unusual effects on her shouldn’t have come as such a surprise under the circumstances.
Circumstances in which he’d managed
