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But that would be wrong. This was a dream, and she knew it. So she smiled against his mouth and said no, he hadn’t hurt her, and then she sighed and put her head on his shoulder.
“Annie?”
“Mmm?”
“I’ve been thinking.” He kissed her, and she could feel the smile on his lips. “We ought to try out that tub.”
“Mmm,” she said again. She yawned lazily. “First thing in the morning...”
And she drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Sunlight woke them—sunlight, and the hornet buzz of the motorboat.
Annie jumped up in bed, heart pounding.
“What...?”
Chase was already pulling on his chinos and zipping up his fly.
“It’s okay, babe,” he said. “I’ll take care of things.” She nodded, put her hands to her face and pushed back her hair. Chase started for the door, hesitated, and came back.
“Annie,” he said, and when she looked up, he bent to her and kissed her. “It was a wonderful night,” he said softly.
She nodded. “Yes. It was.”
For a minute, she thought he was going to say something more but then he turned away and snagged his shirt from the chair just as a knock sounded at the front door.
“Okay, okay,” he yelled, “hold your horses. I’m coming.” He swung back one last time, just before he opened the door. “Wonderful,” he said. “And I’m never going to forget it.”
Annie smiled, even though she could feel tears stinging her eyes.
Chase’s message had been gallant, to the point and painfully clear.
It had been a wonderful night. But it was morning now, and what they’d shared was over.
CHAPTER TEN
ANNIE STARTED DOWN the steps of her sister’s apartment building just as the skies opened up.
It had been raining, on and off, for most of the sultry August afternoon but half an hour ago the sky had cleared and so the cloudburst took her by surprise. She gave a startled yelp and darted back into the vestibule of the converted brownstone.
Wonderful, she thought, as fat raindrops pounded the hot pavement. Just what she needed. A steamy day, and now a hard rain. By the time she got to the subway entrance, she’d be not only drenched but boiled.
Annie looked over her shoulder. Should she ring the intercom bell? She could ask Laurel to buzz her in, go back upstairs and keep her sister company a while longer.
No, she thought, and sighed. That wouldn’t be such a good idea. Laurel might have fallen asleep by now. She’d promised she was going to lie down and take a nap, right after Annie left. Heaven knew she looked as if she needed the rest.
Laurel was going through a bad time.
Hell. A bad time was putting it mildly.
Annie hadn’t wanted to leave her, not even when it began to get late and it looked as if she might miss the last train for Stratham.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she’d said to Laurel.
“I’m fine,” Laurel had replied.
The sisters both knew it was a lie.
Laurel was not fine. She was pregnant and alone and desperately in love with a husband who’d maybe two-timed her or maybe hadn’t, depending on whose story you believed. Either way, it broke Annie’s heart to see her little sister looking so beautiful and feeling so sad.
“Men,” Annie muttered with disgust.
Not a one of them was worth a penny. Well, her son-in-law was an exception. Annie’s features softened. Nick was a sweetheart. But the rest of the male species was impossible.
She blew her curls away from her forehead. The vestibule was turning into a sauna. She’d have to make a run for it soon, even though she could still hear the rain beating down as if the heavenly floodgates had opened and Noah was giving the last call for the Ark.
Boy, it was really coming down. People always said it rained hard in the Pacific northwest, but the night she’d been there, the rain had been as soft as a lover’s caress.
Annie frowned. What nonsense! She hadn’t wasted a minute thinking about that awful night, and now it had popped into her head, wrapped in a bit of purple prose that would make any levelheaded female retch.
It was the rain that had done it. And spending the day with Laurel. What was the matter with the two of them? Were the Bennett sisters doomed to go through life behaving like idiots?
No way. Laurel would pull herself together, the same as she’d always done. As for her... Annie straightened her shoulders. She was not going to think about that night, or Chase. Why would she? She wasn’t a masochist, and only a masochist would want to remember making a fool of herself, because that was what she’d done on that island.
Falling for her ex’s lying, sexy charm, tumbling into his arms, inviting him into her bed and making it embarrassingly clear that she’d enjoyed having him there...so clear that he’d figured she’d be only too happy to offer a repeat performance.
