Single Dad. Jennifer Greene

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СКАЧАТЬ neither of them could seem to let go of.

      He’d wondered how that long hair would feel sifting through his hands. Now he knew. Dangerous. A man’s fingers could get lost in those long, shivery strands and never come out. Her hands clutched his jacket and then slid, softly and slowly, around his neck.

      Somewhere, he could smell blueberry muffins. Somewhere, he could hear a clock ticking. Somewhere, a coat hook was stabbing him directly between the shoulder blades, and it was extremely odd, but he didn’t give a damn. She was kissing him back as though she hadn’t met a man who mattered to her in the past four, five thousand years. His instincts pitched back to the caveman era, but even accounting for those primitive, prehistoric male emotions, he knew damn well he’d never kissed anyone like her. The crush of her plump breasts made him feel hot and violently protective at the same time. Her skin warmed under his touch—warmed and flushed. Her scent, her texture and touch, hit him like a seductive, erotic overload.

      He tried to gulp in oxygen.

      There wasn’t a lick of air in the whole room.

      She tried to gulp in air, too, then raised her eyes and smiled at him as if she were waking from some dream. “Josh?”

      He wasn’t sure what she was asking. Her voice was husky, low, shy. Hurtable, he recognized. Never mind her sensual feminine lair and her antimarriage rhetoric and the free spirit implied by her walking around in pajamas. She didn’t do this every day.

      Hell, neither did he.

      It took a second to untangle his hands from her hair, to smooth a strand away from her face, to brush his lips against her brow. The kiss was a gesture of comfort, not apology. He couldn’t apologize for something he wasn’t sorry for. But he also couldn’t talk about something he couldn’t explain.

      She seemed to understand, seemed in no mood for conversation, either, because she smiled at him just before he turned around and pulled open the door.

      Outside, a cool drizzling rain was still falling. He yanked up his collar and headed down the slick, wet metal steps. Smells drifted off the Connecticut River; a passing car swished water from a puddle, but that was the only sound. The whole town was dark and quiet. The white steeple of the Congregational Church and pointed rooftops were familiar landmarks, everything washed and clean this night. Rainbows haloed under the street lamps as he climbed into the cool, damp seat of the Bronco. He lifted up to filch the key from his jeans pocket and started the engine.

      And then he took a breath. It seemed the first lungful of real oxygen he’d had since being with her.

      For some crazy reason, that spellbound feeling didn’t want to go away. Josh had no patience or belief in fairy dust. He didn’t exactly mind a singular, temporary, short, one-shot excursion into insanity...surely any guy was entitled? Every male human being had fantasies from the day he reached puberty, but he never expected to actually experience one. Ariel. Hell. If all those looks and sensuality and sex appeal weren’t enough to knock a guy to his knees, her openness and giving nature, the way she listened as if he were the only man in the universe—and yeah, the way she kissed—were enough to rattle any man.

      Of course he was shook up.

      It was okay that he was shook up. No reason to panic. It was probably underlined and italicized in the guys’ rule book somewhere—any male exposed to Ariel Lindstrom who was not shook up should probably run, not walk, to a doctor for an immediate physical.

      It was just that nothing like that had ever happened to him before.

      He turned at the light, cruised Maple for a block, then traveled up the hill into his little burb. If it hadn’t been storming earlier, he’d have walked to her shop. The drive didn’t take five minutes.

      The kids had left the lights on. In fact—no surprise, with him gone—every window in the house was ablaze with lights. The month’s electric bill was gonna be a monster. He swiped a hand over his face as he locked the Bronco and loped to the back door. It was coming back. Sanity. Slowly, too slowly, but logic and common sense had never deserted Josh for long.

      A moment’s craziness was understandable, even acceptable. As long as a guy didn’t mistake it for reality.

      The reality was that he had three troubled kids, a work and life schedule that blitzed any free time, and a mess of a divorce behind him. What would she want with a ready-made household of trouble, dirty towels, dishes and a kleptomaniac squirt? No way, nohow, could he picture Ariel fitting in. No way could he picture any sane woman wanting to.

      He was in no position to ask any woman in his life.

      And that was that.

      * * *

      He’d call. Ariel was sure he’d call. The secret, heady, champagne-high feeling of anticipation lasted for three days.

      She never expected anything monumental. She never had—not from men or relationships. All her life she’d been an enthusiastic defender of magic, but that was never because she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. She had no faith in forevers, but a body could still seek—and reach for—those rare and real magical moments in life.

      The evening with Josh had been magical. Special. There was no doubt in her mind that he felt the same way. They’d talked as easily and naturally as kindred spirits. He’d looked so stiff and tired when he first walked in, but she’d slowly watched him unbend, unfold, relax. Other men had looked at her with desire, but she’d never sensed a predator-and-prey feeling with Josh. The excitement he’d inspired had been wicked and nerve tingling, but not really threatening. She’d never have gone in his arms if she were afraid of him. She never remembered experiencing a kiss quite like that. It was like skydiving off a star, free-falling in the darkness to a place where she felt dizzyingly protected and desired and cherished all at once.

      She’d kissed her share of men in the past decade. Never had a kiss or a man felt so right. And she wasn’t presuming to know Josh’s feelings, but positively he couldn’t have power-packed that kind of tenderness and raw emotion in an embrace if he hadn’t shared some of those feelings.

      Only he hadn’t called the next day.

      Or the next night.

      Or the next day.

      Three days had passed now, though, and that heady feeling of anticipation had fizzled out like too-long-uncorked champagne. Apparently she’d been wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. The only one doing any emotional skydiving must have been her, because it was hurtfully obvious that he wasn’t interested.

      The telephone rang, but she ignored it. New stock had just arrived; she was buried neck-deep in boxes, and Dot was out front and would surely catch the call. Seconds later, though, her partner’s head poked around the doorway. “It’s for you. Mason.”

      Grateful for the distraction, she wiped her dusty hands on a rag and hustled for the phone. Mason, an English professor in Boston, had been her one foray into trying out a forever. They’d lived together for three years. No different than any other relationship, that delightful spin of first love hadn’t lasted, but they’d managed to call it quits and still stay friends. Good friends.

      “I haven’t heard from you in two weeks, you piker. Whatcha been up to?”

      Mason was “up to” a deliriously happy love affair with a woman named Suzanna. He wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ