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“Well, no. I mean, that’s not terrible. I mean…” She giggled, then dissolved in laughter. “Sorry. I never thought about your ‘ever-ready male anatomy.’ I just thought about being desperate for coffee.”
“I’m desperate, too.” He lifted her face to his. “For a kiss.”
Joanna sighed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Their kiss was long and sweet. When it ended, David kept his arm looped around Joanna’s shoulders while he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“What do you want to do today?”
She smiled up at him. “You pick it.”
“If it’s left to me to choose,” he said, bending his head to hers and giving her another kiss, “we’ll go back to bed and spend the day there.”
She blushed again, in a way he’d all but forgotten women could.
“That doesn’t sound so terrible to me,” she whispered.
David put down his cup, took Joanna’s and put it beside his.
“I don’t want to tire you out, Jo,” he said softly. “I know, I know, you haven’t been ill. But you’ve been under a lot of stress.”
Joanna put her arms around his neck. “Making love with you could never tire me out. But I have to admit, I’d love to see more of the countryside. It’s so beautiful here.”
“Beautiful,” he agreed solemnly, and kissed her again. When the kiss ended, he knew he had to do something or he’d end up carrying her back to bed and keeping her there until neither of them had the strength to move. So he took a deep breath, unlinked her hands from around his neck, and took a step back. “OK,” he said briskly, “here’s the deal. I’ll shower, then we’ll go get some breakfast.”
“I can make breakfast. We’ve got those lovely eggs in the fridge, and that fresh butter and cream…”
“Lovely eggs, huh?” David grinned. “OK. Just give me ten minutes to shower… Come to think of it, that was another thing I’d planned.”
“What?”
“Well, first the pagan ritual to greet the day, then a shower together.” A wicked gleam lit his green eyes. “What the heck. I had to do without the pagan bit but there’s no reason to ditch both ideas.”
“David?” Joanna danced away as he reached for her. “David, no! I already took a shower. See? My hair is…David? David!” Laughing, she pounded on his shoulders as he caught her in his arms, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed for the stairs. “You’re crazy. You’re impossible. You’re…”
But by then, they were already in the shower, clothes and all, and she shrieked as he turned on the water and it cascaded over them. And somehow, in the process of stripping off each other’s soaked clothing, somehow, they ended up worshiping the sun and each other, after all.
* * *
“Tell me again,” Joanna said, wiping a ribbon of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, “we really used to do this?”
David nodded. They were standing in the midst of what looked like an automotive graveyard.
“All the time,” he said absently. “Hey, is that what I think it is?”
“Is what what you think it is?” Joanna followed after him as he wove his way through the rusting hulks of what had once been cars.
“It is,” he said triumphantly. He plucked something from the nearest pile of rubble and held it out. “Ta-da!”
“Ta-da, what?” She poked a finger at the thing. It looked like a metal box with pipes attached. “What is that?”
“A heat exchanger. If you knew how long I’ve been looking for one…”
Joanna laughed. “Yeah, well, to each his own, I guess. This place is amazing. To think anybody would save all this junk…”
“It’s not junk,” David said firmly, “it’s a collection of what may be the best used sports car parts in the northeast.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And this heat exchanger, woman, is the catch of the day.”
“Will it fit the Jag?”
“Of course.”
“Do you need it?”
David shot her a pitying look. “I don’t. But you thin-blooded types do. Come on, give me your hand and we’ll go pay the man for…” He turned toward her. “That’s just what you used to ask me,” he said softly.
“What?”
“Do you need it?” He lay his hand along the curve of her cheek. “We bought the Jaguar together. And we worked on it together. And we had a great time, but you used to tease me, you’d say that you didn’t know buying the car meant we’d have to poke through—”
“—through every junkyard in the lower forty-eight,” Joanna said, “with long-term plans for Hawaii and Alaska.” Her eyes flew to his. “That’s what I used to say, wasn’t it?”
David nodded. “Yes.”
“I can hear myself saying it.” Her throat worked dryly. “David? What if…what if my memory comes back and—and spoils things?”
Her fear mirrored his, but he’d be damned if he’d admit it.
“Why does it have to?” he said, almost angrily.
“I don’t…I don’t know. I just thought—”
“Then don’t think,” he said, and kissed her.
* * *
They stopped for lunch at a tiny diner tucked away on a narrow dirt road.
“No menus,” David said, waving away the typed pages the waitress offered. “We’ll have the chili. And two bottles of—”
“—Pete’s Wicked Ale,” Joanna said, and smiled. She waited until the woman had gone to the kitchen before she leaned toward David.
“Do I like chili?” she whispered.
He grinned. “Does the woman like chili? I used to say you must have been born south of the border to love chili as much as you did.”
“Is that why you call me Gypsy? Because you teased me about being born in Mexico?”
His grin faded. “Gypsies don’t come from Mexico. You’ve got your continents mixed.”
“I know. But every time I try to get you to tell me why you call me that name, you change the subject.” She rea
ched across the scarred tabletop and took hold of his hand. “So I figured I’d back into the topic.”
“Cagey broad,” David said, with a little laugh. He sighed and linked his fingers through hers. “There’s no mystery, Jo. It just…” It hurts me to remember, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. “It just happened, that’s all.”
“How?”
“Because that’s how I thought of you.” He looked at her and smiled. “As my wild, wonderful Gypsy.”
“Was I wild?”
“Not in the usual sense. You just had a love for life that…”
“Ale,” the waitress said, putting two frosted bottles in front of them. When she’d left, David leaned forward.
“You were nothing like the women I knew,” he said softly. “You didn’t given a damn for convention or for the rules.”
“Me?” Joanna said, her voice rising in a disbelieving squeak as she thought of her conventionally furnished town house, her chauffeured car, her clothing, her life as it was mirrored in her appointment book.
“The first time I saw you, you were wearing hiking boots, wool socks, a long wool skirt and a lace blouse with big, puffy sleeves that narrowed at your wrists.”
“Leg-o’-mutton,” she said, frowning. “Where was I? At a costume party?”
He laughed. “You were sitting at the reception desk at Adams Investments.”
Joanna’s eyes rounded. “I was what?”
“Our regular receptionist had called in sick. She said she had the flu and she’d be out for the week. So Morgana phoned a temp agency and they sent you over.”
“Morgana,” Joanna said, frowning.
“Yeah.” David chuckled. “She didn’t want to hire you, she said you didn’t fit our image.”
He paused as the waitress served their chili.
“And I agreed with her,” he continued, after they were alone again. “But we were desperate. There were six people in the waiting room, the telephones were ringing off the walls, and who else could we have come up with on such short notice?”
Joanna smiled. “It’s so lovely to be hired because you’re wanted,” she said sweetly. “Thank you, David.” She spooned some chili into her mouth and rolled her eyes in appreciation.
“Good?”
“Wonderful. So, go on. I looked like a refugee from a thrift shop but you hired me anyway, and—”
