Page 21 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

Oh, Lord.

His new road sign should read: Beware of dreaminess, loss of self-control ahead.

“I want to hear you,” she said. She wanted to get lost in his voice. Forget for a moment she was using him to get to a painting.

“You want to hear me sing?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“Obviously.”

He freed a pocketed hand and loosened his tie. Rosiness ascended his neck. Without a word, he pressed his fingertips to her eyelids and slid them closed. “Keep them shut,” he murmured.

* * *

Jack hadn’t intended to sing for Clementine, or to learn such intimate details about her past. He’d wanted time with her, to understand this woman who also owned a bearded dragon and seemed torn between flirting with him and running away.

He’d gotten more than he’d bargained for.

A woman who emailed a deceased parent was as complex as they came. It hinted at a deep-seated loneliness and explained some of her hesitation with him, if only a fraction. He wanted more, but his want was more of a ravenous need to know all her secrets. The desire unnerved him.

For now he would sing. He’d closed her eyes, couldn’t breathe fully let alone sing with those reddish-brown beauties locked on him. Before he overthought this to death, he hummed the first note to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

Why that song, he couldn’t say. A way to communicate the stirrings Clementine inspired, to say things he’d never have the courage to admit aloud. Granted, what he felt for her wasn’t love. Not this early. But the storm behind his breastbone wouldn’t cease. It was a stronger desire than he’d experienced with Ava, and the few women before her.

He poured his uncertainty into the song, watched as her chest rose and fell faster, deeper, her lips parting as though to inhale his words.

This could be the beginnings of love, he hoped he conveyed.

Fools do rush in, his tone implored. I am a fool for you right now.

I can’t help it.

The last words drifted between them, seemed to wilt in the humid air. Strawberry-blonde hairs frizzed around Clementine’s face, and her slender shoulders shuddered slightly. Her nose had a slight bump in the center. An almost-invisible scar notched her chin. He was a detail-oriented person and her details were very consuming. They made his blue suede shoes feel too tight, his chest tighter.

She kept her eyes closed. He wanted to kiss her fiercely.

“I can’t take you on a date,” he said. A silly statement, considering she hadn’t asked him for a date. Or agreed to one. If anything, she’d turned him down flat.

She opened her eyes and mouthed what, the word barely audible.

“I want to take you out,” he tried again, “but I’ve been rehearsing for the festival all year. Winning is important to me…for several reasons. With you being a judge, it would be a conflict of interest.”

She pressed her hand over her heart and blinked rapidly. “Right. Yeah. I get it.”

“Does that mean you’d have said yes?”

“To what?” She seemed dazed, cheeks flushed, equilibrium sketchy.

He steadied her elbow. “Would you have agreed to a date?”

Her body snapped taut. Ready to bolt again? Just as quickly, she softened. “Yes. I’d have said yes.” A measure of stiffness returned to her joints. “Not that it matters, with the competition and all. Plus, I don’t exactly live close, so there’d be no point. And we’ve determined you’re an idiot.”

He laughed. “And that you’re annoying and secretive.” A mix of pleasure and disappointment winded him. “Too bad we didn’t meet under different circumstances.”

She reached for him and touched his jaw, feathering her fingers over his skin. The sensual move reminded him of her on that bland stretch of highway, flirty one minute, speeding away the next. She peeked up at him through her lashes. “What would you do under different circumstances?”