Tall, Dark And Temporary. Susan Connell

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      Nick gave a sympathetic shake of his head. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, but that was probably the last thing she wanted from him after he’d just been teasing her about Andy.

      Shifting uneasily, he studied her profile, hoping to find a clue for what to do or say next. Her eyes were dry. Her chin wasn’t trembling. Her lips weren’t quivering. All in all, she was handling the tragedy remarkably well. Come to think of it, he wasn’t surprised. Even at the untested age of eighteen, she had impressed him with an unusual strength of character. That same strength was now seeing her through the brittle reality of death.

      Closing his hand over her shoulder, he managed, in the process, to tangle his fingers in her silky blond vanilla-scented hair. Those strands of hair might as well be made of steel cables and her shoulder a magnet holding him fast. He swallowed hard. Until that moment, he had no idea how strong his desire was to touch her. “Megan, is there anything I can do?”

      Keeping her head bowed, she smoothed the toe of her shoe along an imaginary line on the floor. “It happened a long time ago.”

      “I see,” he said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze while he tried and failed to ignore what her nearness was doing to him.

      Looking up at him, she let her gaze wander over his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time. Or memorizing it for the last time. Whatever the case, that glimmer of heated awareness he saw in her eyes was undeniable. So was that tugging sensation low in his belly. “How long ago, Megan?”

      She was staring at his mouth now. “This September will be six years.”

      “Six years,” he repeated as vague feelings of guilt scattered to make way for the relief rushing through him. Six years? The tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders began to uncoil. He wasn’t certain about the protocol on such things, but six years sounded like a long enough grieving period to him. By the look in Megan’s eyes, he thought it safe to assume that she did, too.

      He lifted a lock of her hair and moved it behind her shoulder. “Six years is a long time to be alone,” he said, one breath away from a kiss.

      Megan Sloan froze on his last words. That Nick Buchanan had walked in on her while she was in the middle of a wildly sexy fantasy about him was astonishing. That she hadn’t screamed, passed out, or worse, tried to start a conga line with him was a miracle. But he’d just sent her crashing to earth with his last remark. She stepped away from the table.

      She’d always known what to do with him in her fantasies, but dealing with him in real life wasn’t the same. And with everything else going on in her life right now, she did not need more impossible visions of Nick Buchanan crowding her thoughts. He’d taken a piece of her heart when he left town ten years ago. She wasn’t about to let that happen again.

      Pulling at the hem of her shirt, she made several unsuccessful attempts at covering her navel before she gave up and crossed her arms over it. “I haven’t exactly been alone for the last six years.”

      He leaned an elbow on the worktable and smiled. She remembered that smile so well. Part tease, part challenge, all bad boy and designed to make any woman who saw it melt. That damn smile. He could make curved lips and a riveting stare say more than mere spoken words ever could.

      “So what are you saying? Is there someone special?”

      “Very special.” The sooner Nick knew, the sooner he’d take the next predictable step...like every other man she’d met since Andy died. He’d leave. And she could start to forget that the gap between fantasy and reality had been bridged tonight. “Nick, I was pregnant when Andy died. I have a little girl.”

      “A little girl?” He blinked as he pushed up from the table. “And you’re raising her all by yourself?”

      “Aunt Sandra, my mother’s sister, watches her during the day, and for that matter, most anytime I need her to.”

      Megan walked over to the framed corkboard next to the refrigerator. “Her photo’s over here,” she said, pushing aside several colorful crayon drawings to reveal a department-store photo. The plastic puppy barrettes and infectious grin only added to the charm of her child’s button-nosed beauty.

      Nick walked up behind her, curved his hand over her shoulder and leaned to get a good look at the photo.

      My God, she thought, I wasn’t imagining it before. He’s wearing the same aftershave he used ten years ago. A peppery lime scent that smelled like citrus punch on other men and a private party waiting to happen on him.

      Megan held her breath as he reached past her. “What’s her name?” he asked as he worked out the plastic pushpin and lifted the photo.

      “Paige. She’ll be starting kindergarten soon.”

      “I have to get a better look,” he said, taking the photo from the shadowed corner of the kitchen to the bright light over the worktable.

      Megan watched him study the picture for a few strangely heart-thumping seconds.

      “She’s got your hair and that one dimple of yours,” he said, nodding as he touched his own cheek. “And she tilts her head like you do.”

      “Does she? Let me see.” She joined him by the table. “You’re right,” she said, looking up to find him staring at her and not the photo. “I never noticed that before.”

      His soft laughter made her ears tickle and her breath catch. “She’s beautiful, Megan. Are those boys in kindergarten ready for her?”

      “Well, I don’t know about them,” she said, halfway disarmed by the genuine tone of his comments, “but she’s ready. She’s had her clothes picked out for the first day for over a month. The shoes, she tells me, are another matter completely.”

      Resting his hands comfortably on his hips, he shifted his weight to lean against the table. “So what’s that about?” he asked, pretending mild confusion over the child’s whimsical concern.

      He appeared in no hurry to rush out the door. If anything, he looked as if he was enjoying their conversation and wanting more of it.

      Taking the photo from him, she tapped it lightly against her palm. A ripple of misgiving moved through her. Was she crazy? Nick couldn’t possibly be interested in the domestic details of her ordinary life. Turning away, she headed back to the corkboard.

      “She can’t make up her mind between her tap shoes and her new red ones. But enough about that,” she said, firmly securing the photo to the board with the pushpin before turning to face him again. “You’ve been away so long, Nick. What brings you back to Follett River now?”

      “Work,” he said, replacing his inquisitive expression with that impossible-to-read smile.

      Every time he looked at her or spoke, pangs of pleasure erupted low in her belly, then spiraled out slowly to her breasts and thighs. She attempted to ignore the last and most powerful sensations as she walked back to him, but the closer she got the more intense they became. By the time she reached him, it was all she could do to grab hold of the table and not him.

      “I was talking to your cousin at my class reunion last winter,” she said as she concentrated on her white-knuckle grip. “Rory said something СКАЧАТЬ