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She shuffled that thought away, too much, too dangerous, and focused on his kiss, the warm play of muscles under her hands. The roar in her ears swelled like ocean echoes in a conch shell. Somehow she knew that in years to come she would listen to a shell whisper reminders of passion.
Drinking in the taste of him tinged with beer and memories, Mary Elise clung to his broad shoulders and the moment. A moment so much hotter than her memories, and her memories of wrapping herself around Daniel Baker had been mighty hot. Keeping her awake and hungry and longing on more than one night.
And now after just one kiss from the adult Daniel, she feared she might never sleep again.
* * *
Daniel gathered a fistful of Mary Elise’s hair, anchoring her sweet mouth to his, and wondered how he was going to sleep through another night on that sofa.
What was wrong with him? He couldn’t control his shaking hands or the consuming drive to possess this woman. Now. Here. Who needed a wide inviting stretch of bed where a couple of nosy kids might spring in on them anyway?
Kids.
The boys. Responsibilities and life and a woman with problems she wasn’t sharing and plenty of his own she didn’t need to shoulder.
He tore his mouth from hers, a tougher proposition than slipping past enemy radar in a combat zone. Her foot glided down his leg back into the water, moonlight sparking fiery glints in her hair. His forehead fell to rest on hers and he inhaled the scent of her honeysuckle shampoo. Of her.
His arms draped over her shoulders, their hips still grazing a tantalizing dance against each other as his libido defied his reason. “What was that all about?”
“You didn’t want to kiss me?”
Oh, he wanted to and a lot more, but that didn’t make it any wiser. Not that he could lie to her. This was his doing as much as hers.
He pressed her fingers to his neck where his pulse double-timed. “What do you think?”
Femininity and more desire flared in her bottle-green eyes searing through half the slipping threads of his self-control. He cupped her shoulders to keep from sliding his arms around her back again. “But I don’t understand why you initiated this when you say you’re leaving.”
She traced the line of his jaw, square, stubborn and the one thing he’d inherited from his father. He suspected he might need every ounce of that stubborn will to make it through this conversation.
“Chalk it up to a weak moment brought on by moonlight and old memories.” She cupped his cheek, her finger tracking up to trace the small scar from that long ago bike accident. “We did make some wonderful memories together, and right now Isodon’t want to think about the bad ones, if you don’t mind. We can get to those another time.”
Waiting, he searched for the tiniest chink in her defenses, but this woman was tougher to read than the open Mary Elise from before.
Finally her fingers fell to rest on his chest, branding his skin, except she was pushing him away.
“Danny, as wonderful as that was, I really can’t stay.” He looked, studied. She wasn’t lying.
“Why not? I don’t expect you to move in with me or take on responsibility for the boys. They’re mine now. But it would be nice for them to know you’re close. There are schools and newspapers here where you could work, and it’s not like you want to go back to Savannah. Heard and understood on that point. But you haven’t come up with a place you do want to be since Rubistan is out.”
“What happens when you’re transferred? Am I supposed to follow you forever because the boys need my help? You’re not making sense, Danny, and that’s not like you.”
Sure, he wasn’t making sense. Nothing tumbling around inside him made sense right now and that made him mad. His whole world was flipping, first his father dying, then the boys moving in. Now Mary Elise was back in his life. Once he’d depended on her to be his voice of reason, and now he didn’t want to grant her any more importance in his life, power over his thoughts.
But he couldn’t let her walk away again with things so unresolved. He couldn’t live the rest of his life chasing redheaded women who weren’t her. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? The real reason I don’t want you to go.”
Panic flared in her eyes. She backed away. “No. Forget it. I’m not trying to do anything except convince you to—”
He clapped a hand over her mouth. “Iwant you to stay.” Her eyes closed as if that would distance her from him.
Forget the evasive garbage. He might not be Captain Happily Ever After, but he wasn’t a coward. He would find some closure for both of them. Even if it meant—he shuddered—talking about feelings.
“The first year without you was the strangest year of my life. I kept looking for you. Picking up the phone to tell you something. Sometimes I even started talking before I realized you weren’t there. But the next year was a bit better. Then I hit a groove, moved on. Yeah, I thought about you sometimes, but I was living my life.” A life full of redheaded women. “Now it’s like those eleven years are gone, and the thought of telling you goodbye is tearing me up.”
Her eyes drifted open, so full of pain it hit him like a load of shrapnel to the gut.
“But, Danny, those eleven years did happen. We’re different people now.”
He was in over his head here. But he had her talking, and he intended to press whatever advantage he could. “I’ll be straight up with you, Mary Elise. You can check my pulse if you want to prove it.” He gripped her wrist and flattened her palm to his chest again, over his heart. “I still suck at romance. Don’t want it and usually manage to screw it up if it comes my way. But I make a mighty good friend. Just ask that pool full of people.”
