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“No thanks to you all. You nearly gave me a heart attack shaking the damn gatehouse. Go away until I get dressed.”
When he turned around to come back inside, he was grinning.
“If you’d like to play football, it would give me time to clean up before I meet everyone.” While she didn’t think the rowdy Murphy males would really raid the gatehouse to retrieve their brother, she’d also rather not take any chances.
“You sure?” He frowned. “I brought you here to spend time with you.”
A smile warmed her on the inside. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Your family hasn’t seen you in six months. I know they’re eager to hang out with you, too.”
He leaned close to drop a kiss on her cheek. “After tonight’s party, it’s all about you.”
Butterflies stirred in her belly at the thought, part anticipation and part nerves. While she wanted to be with him again and experience more of the mind-numbing, gorgeous release he could give her, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the new intensity that lurked in their relationship.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, as much for her sake as for his. Her personal space and autonomy had been hard won from her family the first time, and even more so after she’d come home from Iraq and they’d been twice as protective of her. She would be careful not to give Danny the idea that she needed a protector. “I’m looking forward to exploring the Cape while I’m here. I don’t want to steal too much time away from your family.”
He studied her thoughtfully, and in the brief silence, she could hear male voices calling to one another and laughing outside. She had the feeling they’d already started their game, never making good on their threat to drag Danny out of the gatehouse he’d said was less than a tenth of a mile away from his parents’ main property.
“Okay.” He gave a brief nod and pulled on an old concert T-shirt. If her effort to keep things light bothered him, he didn’t show it. “The game should be done by noon.”
She watched in silence as he grabbed a pair of sneakers out of his suitcase and went to join his brothers. Guilt pinched when she realized she’d put more distance between them. He’d been so very good to her when she’d needed him.
Had it been wrong of her to ask something so superficial of him as sex? Of course, at the time she’d initiated her request, she hadn’t known that their past meant so much to him. By staying with him now, was she only making their separation in a few weeks that much harder?
Her chest ached at the thought of hurting him. Maybe the time with his family would be a good thing, giving them some natural space from each other before the tender feelings inside her had a chance to take root. Her independence was a precious thing after the kidnapping, and she wasn’t ready to give it up for any man. Not even the most tempting guy she’d ever met.
* * *
DANNY DID HIS DAMNEDEST to walk the fine line between being a good host to Stephanie and still giving her some space. He hadn’t protested when the backyard football game went into overtime, dutifully marching his team back out onto the field after his brother Keith insisted on a coin toss to decide possession in the extra period.
He also didn’t protest when his brothers decided to throw him—their team captain—into the swimming pool after he’d led them to victory. They’d insisted a dunk in the water was the only way to celebrate since they lacked a Gatorade container to dump over his head.
Sopping wet and fully clothed, he climbed out of the heated infinity-edge pool his father had installed a few years ago, only to come face-to-face with soon-to-be-groom Jack.
His second-oldest brother tossed him a towel. Square-jawed and serious, Jack had the same brown hair and green eyes as all the biological Murphys. In temperament, Jack and he were the closest of the brothers, both tending to be quieter and more intense. Whereas Keith and Ryan had inherited their father’s business-mogul tendencies, and Kyle and Axel were content to dominate sports, Jack and Danny shared a rebellious streak that made it tough to find one clear career path. These days, Jack was debating getting into politics in the Maine community where he and his fiancée, Alicia, ran a bed-and-breakfast.
“I expected you to be a whole lot happier when I heard you were coming home with her,” Jack said without preamble.
No need to identify “her.” Stephanie had been an unspoken constant in Danny’s life for five years and Jack was probably the one who understood that best. He’d seen how hard Danny fell for her the night they met. Hell, Jack had ended up as Uncle Sam’s property for four years, as much because of Danny’s feelings for Stephanie as any personal call to duty.
