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“May I kiss you?” She liked it that Rick had asked. That he seemed suddenly a little nervous.
“Only if I can kiss you back...”
Suddenly she was in his arms. His fingers warm against her cheek. His lips burning against hers, despite the cold.
This was nothing like a kiss between friends after a good evening spent together. Their kiss held all the passion of their fights, all the excitement of what they’d achieved together. Maybe it was what it had all been leading up to, an explosive acknowledgement of the electricity that had sparked and crackled between them since they’d first met. He held her close against him, the strength of his body molding hers to his.
They drew apart slowly, stealing small kisses from each other’s lips until the very last moment. Rick took her hand, placing it securely into the crook of his arm, and they started to walk.
“You’re not staying on Maple Island, are you?” He spoke quietly. Fleur knew that everything between them hinged on her answer.
“No, I’m not. I wish I could but... This place stopped being my home a long time ago. You’ve done so much to help me come to terms with what happened, but I can’t undo the fact that my life’s on the mainland now.”
“And you need to go and find out how much of that life you have left?”
“Yes, I do. I know I’m not going to be able to dance again, but there are plenty of other theater-based jobs. I have to try, Rick. You were the one who told me that settling for second best isn’t such a bad thing.”
His short, explosive laugh sounded over the crash of the waves. “Yes. I did tell you that, didn’t I?”
“And you believe it. I know you do, it’s what gave Ellie back to you.”
He caught her hand, pressing it to his lips. “I believe it. And I believe you need to go, too.”
They drew close to the lights of the house, and Fleur stopped on the back porch, her hand moving to her hair. Rick smiled at her.
“Do I look as if I’ve been kissing someone on the harbor path?” She felt as if she did. As if it was written in large letters all over her face.
“Your nose is a little red, but that’s just the cold. I think we’ll pass muster.”
Fleur glanced in the direction of the kitchen windows and saw no one there. Quickly, she stood on her toes, kissing his cheek. “Let’s go and face the music then.”
“And dance?”
“Always.”
* * *
Rick wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking. In fact, he very probably hadn’t been thinking at all, because no amount of thought could have anticipated how good Fleur’s kiss had felt. On every level. He hadn’t run out of adjectives yet to describe it.
Moment of madness. Actually, that was the best description. Something that was very sweet but hadn’t really been thought through, because in the cold light of day there were so many reasons why he shouldn’t have kissed Fleur. They both wanted different things, and they had to be in different places to do those things.
Fleur had clearly come to the same conclusion. She hadn’t mentioned the kiss, neither did she make any move to repeat it. If she had, Rick was pretty sure that the temptation to be carried away by the short term, and tell the long term to go to hell, might have clouded his thinking.
But they’d become friends. Suddenly he had someone to pop round and see on his days off. Fleur’s preparations for the upcoming Fright Night took them all the way up Main Street with Ellie, delivering posters. By the time they got to Brady’s Bistro and Bakery for lunch, Ellie’s pocket was full of treats from the shopkeepers.
He’d been trying to decide on costumes for Ellie and himself, and Fleur had told him she had just the thing. Yes, she’d handle it all. No, she wasn’t going to tell him what he’d be going as.
The Saturday evening of Fright Night approached, and he wondered whether he’d been a little rash, since Fleur was perfectly capable of the outrageous. But wanting to know how she saw him, how she’d dress him given the chance, lent a frisson of excitement. The Fright Night was up and running, and nothing was going to stop it now.
CHAPTER TEN
BY SATURDAY LUNCHTIME, the air of anticipation at the lighthouse was almost tangible. Fleur and Ellie had chased him away, whispering and laughing over their secrets, and Rick had gone to the clinic to catch up on his paperwork
and spend a little extra time with some new patients.
As he drove toward the lighthouse cottage it was silhouetted blackly against the dusky sky. The light was on in the circular room at the top of the tower below the glimmering light in the lantern room.
He parked the car and walked through into the kitchen. He called, and put his head around the sitting-room door, but the cottage was empty. Walking back through the kitchen, he opened the door that led to the tower.
