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She crossed her arms over her middle and assumed the aggravated stance and expression that had burst innumerable masculine egos. “Not unless hell freezes over, Mr. Beaumont.”
He wasn’t the least put off. Indeed, he moved closer, so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “Then you don’t play fair. You should have just come right out and told me that, Sunny,” he said in a throbbing voice, “instead of getting all warm and fluid while we were dancing.”
Sunny stared up at him with mortification, not only because his words were so provocative, but because they were so accurate. “I...you...I didn’t get warm an... an...and fluid.”
He peered at her from beneath a shelf of unruly dark blond brows. “You’ve already got one lie to your credit, Sunny. I wouldn’t go pushing my luck if I were you.”
“I’m not lying!”
His eyes slid down her middle. “Want me to prove it?”
She spun on her heels, which wasn’t too easy to do in the loose gravel, and stormed toward her car. Ty, grinning from ear to ear, watched her get into an American sports car and drive away as though the devil were after her. In essence that was exactly who was after her, Ty thought with a lecherous grin.
“I warned you you’d strike out,” George said, joining him under the porte cochere.
“This is just the f
irst inning, George. Don’t start making space above the mantel for all the fishing trophies you’re going to catch with that new rod,” Ty said confidently. “A lot can happen in a week.”
George seemed equally confident of Ty’s failure. “A week isn’t much time.”
In her car, Sunny was speeding down the highway. “A week!” she exclaimed. It would seem like an eternity.
Two
She had forgotten how hot the sun could be out on the lake. Fran and she had spent hours lying on beach towels spread out on this very pier, basted in suntan oil so thick they could trace the initials of their latest beaux on their thighs, bellies, chests.
How they had giggled! How catty they’d been, speculating if this girl really did, as everyone said she did, wondering if this boy was as good a kisser as his smug girlfriend claimed, weighing Warren Beatty’s merits against those of Paul Newman.
Everything had been such fun then. Growing up in a small town hadn’t been so disagreeable. Maybe that was the problem; she had simply outgrown the town. She was no longer a small-town girl. Now she belonged in the city.
New Orleans was a laid-back city in comparison with many others, but even at that, it couldn’t offer this sublime serenity. She’d forgotten how quiet the country could be. The hustle and bustle and clamorous noise of the city seemed far away. For at least today, she had nothing to do but lie here in the sun and soak up the silence and the glorious heat.
For most people the heavy, humid heat would be stifling. Sunny loved it. She welcomed its blanketing embrace. The sun’s rays seeped into her skin like mystical healing powers, inducing a delicious torpor, a state of utter laziness.
There was very little breeze, but occasionally a breath of it would stir the tops of the cypress trees lining the shore. On the horizon enormous white thunder-clouds were building up. They were empty threats of evening showers that rarely materialized. The lake was still, its surface glassy. Sunny liked the sound of the water lapping at the piling beneath the dock. Insects droned around her. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the lake, sometimes rippling the water with their fragile, sheer wings.
Their buzzing sound, combined with the rhythmic, slapping sound of water against the piling, was hypnotic. She dozed.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
Sunny sat up, grabbing the top of her bikini in the process. Her heart was in her throat. Bright yellow dots exploded against a field of black in front of her eyes. She had sat up too fast and didn’t immediately regain her vision or her equilibrium. When she did, she muttered a curse.
Ty Beaumont was hauling himself onto her dock and securing his small fishing boat to one of the piles.
“You’re the one with a lot of nerve, Mr. Beaumont. You scared me half to death!”
“Sorry.” His grin said otherwise. “Were you asleep?”
“I must have dozed off.”
“Didn’t you hear my motor?”
“I thought it was a bug.”
“A bug?”
“A dragonfly.”
