Sensual Winds. Carmen Green

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СКАЧАТЬ a sense of relief.”

      “No sadness, Lucas? I know I would feel a sense of loss or something.”

      Lucas started the car and pulled away from the curb. There was a sense of loss. He’d built a house for a woman he’d thought he’d share a life with. “I’d be an unfeeling bastard if I didn’t feel anything. But it’s not as if I didn’t see the writing on the wall.” He drove in silence for a while.

      “You seem so settled about everything yesterday. I thought you were going to take my head off.”

      “Doreen, I was wrong for that. Really wrong. It wasn’t your responsibility to field our personal calls and referee our discussions. That shouldn’t have ever happened. That won’t ever happen again.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Because the woman I get with will never get tired of talking to me.”

      Doreen’s fingers plowed through her hair and she tilted her head. He knew that move. She didn’t believe him. “And you know this how?” she asked.

      “Because I won’t get tired of talking to her. I’ve got to change, too. I realize that now. Our relationship is over and the love is gone, but maybe that wouldn’t have happened if I’d given her some alternatives. I’ll know for the next time. And there definitely will be a next time.”

      Chapter 4

      Where Doreen was emotional over personal decisions, Lucas was decisive. Maybe that was why relationships had been challenging for her in the past, Doreen thought. Lucas’s epiphany startled her, but she settled into the seat knowing that she wouldn’t have let distance keep her away from a good man like him.

      Letting the stress ease from her body, Doreen studied Lucas, comparing his features to what she’d seen on the webcam. The camera hadn’t done him justice. He was a handsome man, his face smooth and brown like dark sugar, his hair soft, curly and black. His baseball cap seemed to be as much a part of him as his T-shirt and sunglasses, which he wore attached to a thick string around his neck, even though there was no hint of sun in the sky.

      Like all handsome men, he had long dark eyelashes that fluttered when he smiled, and she found herself wanting to see that wide grin and feel his laugh run all over her skin.

      The one thing she’d adored on men were full lips, and Lucas’s mouth seemed to invite kisses. She sighed and when he looked at her, she looked away, not wanting to get caught staring. But she had been enjoying the view.

      He was more handsome than any photo could capture and she was only slightly ashamed that she’d imagined him sad about his breakup with Emma.

      Abandoning that line of thinking, she focused her attention on the scenery once again. A few minutes later Lucas pulled into the parking lot of a home-improvement store. “Why does everyone have so much wood?” she asked, noticing sheets of plywood on all the trucks.

      “We have a lot of windows to protect from the hurricane. I just need a few sheets. You game?”

      “Sure. What else do I have to do?”

      They got out, and her hair danced in the wind. A stray shopping cart, spurned on by the wind, headed for her. She caught it and pushed it toward the entrance without missing a beat.

      Emma would have had a fit.

      Lucas stopped that train of thought because Emma wouldn’t have even been at the hardware store with him.

      Doreen stopped just inside the door and he came up short, his hand landing on the small of her back.

      “This isn’t appropriate.” Doreen turned around and seemed ready to leave.

      He moved his hand although he didn’t want to. “What?”

      “We need one of those types of carts for the wood.” Her look said she was confused. “Where’s everybody getting those? Our buggy is wrong.”

      “Just leave this one,” he told her. The wood he needed seemed to be leaving the store quickly, which meant they were in danger of running out. “We’ll find one while we’re inside.”

      When they entered the store, Doreen veered off toward the wallpaper department.

      “You coming?” he asked.

      “No, you go ahead. I think I’ll look around. See what I can find.”

      Lucas hurried over to the lumber department, pulling on his gloves, just as another man reached the same section of wood. They split the remaining wood and Lucas loaded it onto a spare cart.

      He bypassed the cutting area in search of Doreen.

      There was no custom cutting on pre-storm days. Sheets were split in half, and that was it. If the line had been shorter, he’d have saved himself the trouble of opening his workshop and cutting the wood himself. But that would add an hour to his wait, and he didn’t want to waste the time.

      He grabbed a pack of blades and more gloves, and stopped himself from picking up more duct tape. Several rolls of it were somewhere at home. He just had to find it in the shamble of a workshop. Organization hadn’t been a priority. Not with everyone hurrying to get the house done in time for Emma’s arrival.

      And now she wasn’t ever going to come. The irony wasn’t lost on Lucas.

      Walking the top of each aisle, he looked for her and found Doreen a couple aisles down looking at flashlights, a basket on her arm.

      Doreen acknowledged him with a smile and came toward him. Men turned and followed her movement as if she were on a runway.

      Her clothing was completely wrong. The black short-waist jacket with the big metallic buttons hugged a chest that was curvaceous enough to make men glance first, then openly admire her. The fitted black pants complemented a figure that visited the gym and spinning class on a regular basis yet didn’t say she was a gym rat. He hated “I have zero percent body fat” type people anyway, and Doreen wasn’t one of them.

      She’d once confided how much she loved working out. It calmed her down when she got tired of working with frustrating people. He couldn’t help wondering what else helped calm her down.

      Lucas wondered as to the direction of his thoughts, given that he’d just broken up with Emma. How could he be thinking about Doreen when he’d just ended things with his fiancée?

      He slowed his cart as Doreen approached, and smiles fell off the faces of the men that she passed. When she stopped in front of him he almost expected lights to flash over his head like he’d won a jackpot.

      Lucas looked into her basket, filled with safety glasses, sturdy work gloves, flashlights, gum, and a men’s magazine on fitness that boasted an article on what men wanted. The top had an official seal on it and he regarded it closely. It was the word official that struck him.

      The relationship with Emma had been over for a long time. They’d just made it official today. Lucas sighed, having come to the sound conclusion he’d known in his heart for a long time.

      “You could have just asked,” he said to Doreen, referring to her magazine. СКАЧАТЬ