Wyoming Winter. Diana Palmer
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“I guess,” she replied with a smile.
He settled down. He’d never asked Rod how old his baby sister was. He knew there were a few years between them, but not how many. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to get serious. He just wanted someone cute and responsive to spend time with. She didn’t seem the sort of woman who’d cling, and that suited him very well.
* * *
THE FISH PLACE was crowded, but J.C. found them a table that was just being vacated and captured it before another young couple. They laughed as he grinned at them.
“Wow,” Colie mused, letting him seat her. “That was a nice takeover.”
“Thanks. I can do it with enemy positions, too,” he chuckled.
She cocked her head and laughed. “You really do have a flair for it.”
“I’m hungry and the place is crowded. What do you see that you like?”
She wanted to say “you” but she was far too shy to flirt overtly. She settled down with the menu and made her choices.
* * *
THEY ATE IN a comfortable silence.
“Do you fish?” he asked.
She paused with her fork in midair. “Well, yes,” she said. “I used to go with Daddy. We’d sit on the dock for hours waiting for something to bite. Not much ever did.”
“Come spring, I’ll take you fishing.”
Her heart jumped. That was a long-term invitation. She was touched. “I’d love that,” she said, with her heart in the eyes that slid over his face like exploring hands.
“Me, too,” he said softly.
He held her gaze for so long that her heart ran wild and her fingers trembled. She dropped the fork into her plate with a clatter that stunned her. She dived for it, flushing.
He chuckled. Her headlong reaction to him was delicious. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman had appealed to him so much in ways beyond the purely physical. He hated the memory of the call girl who’d shattered his pride and his ego. But that was in the days before he became experienced and sophisticated. That was before he learned to turn the tables, to make women beg for him and then walk away from them.
His pale gray eyes narrowed on Colie’s face. Could he do that to her? Make her beg, make her do anything he liked, and then just walk away? The thought of giving her up was troubling, even at this very early stage in their relationship. Better not to dwell on it. Live for the moment.
He smiled at her. “How’s the fish?” he asked, to relax the tension.
“It’s great,” she said. “I love the French fries, too. They make them fresh. No frozen stuff here.”
“I noticed. I’m partial to a good French fry.”
“I make them for Daddy sometimes. He likes fish and chips.”
“Your father doesn’t like me.”
“It’s not that.” She struggled for words. “He’s protective of me. He always has been. I go to Sunday school and church, I sing in the choir, I teach primary classes in Sunday school.” She gnawed her lower lip. “I guess that sounds painfully conservative to someone like you, who’s traveled and is sophisticated. But around here, it’s pretty much the normal thing. Not everyone is conservative,” she confided. “We have people in our congregation who live together and aren’t married, we have people who do drugs, we have people who have babies out of wedlock, stuff like that. Daddy never judges, he just tries to help.”
His eyes fell to his plate. He wasn’t in the market for a wife. Did she know?
“I know you’re not the settling-down kind, J.C.,” she said out of the blue. “But I like going around with you.”
His eyes lifted. He laughed shortly. “You really do read minds, don’t you?”
She grinned, green eyes twinkling. “I tell fortunes, too, but not where Daddy can hear me,” she whispered. “He thinks it’s witchcraft!”
He grinned back. “My father’s mother could see far,” he said. “She had visions. I suppose a doctor might say she had aura from migraines and was hallucinating, but her visions were pretty accurate. She saw the future.”
“Did she ever tell yours?”
He nodded. He scowled as he finished his meal and lifted the coffee cup with cooling black coffee to chiseled, sensuous lips. “Yes, but it made no real sense.”
“What did she say?”
He put the cup down. “She said that one day I’d want something out of my reach, that I’d make bad decisions and cause a tragedy that would hurt me as much as it hurt the other person. She said that a third person would suffer the most for it.” He paused and then laughed at her puzzled expression. “Sometimes she was vague. I was very young at the time, too. She said that I was too young to understand what she was telling me.” His face hardened. “I lost her at the same time I lost my mother. I lost touch with my grandfather. By the time I was old enough to search for him, he was long dead.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how it feels to lose people you love. At least, I still have Daddy and Rod.”
He understood what she wasn’t saying. She was saying that J.C. had nobody. She was right.
His big hand reached for hers and closed over it. “You have a knack for pulling painful memories out of me,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I like it.”
She felt her heart soaring at the touch of his hand on hers. It was like tiny electric shocks running through her. She loved the way it felt to hold hands. “You don’t let people get close. I’m that way,” she confessed hesitantly. “But we’re different, because I trust people and you don’t. I’m shy, so I keep to myself.”
His thumb smoothed over her soft, damp palm. He studied her quietly. “I enjoy my own company.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
“But I enjoy yours, as well.”
She smiled. She beamed. “Really?”
“Really.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll have to do this again.”
“That would be nice.”
“Dessert?”
“I don’t really like sweets,” she confessed.
He chuckled. “Something else in common. Okay. Movie next.” He picked up the check, pulled out her chair and they left.
* * *
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