Chapter 10
Alana dashed through the stadium and flashed her ticket to the usher in the field section. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to come to a baseball game. But Matt had shown up in her dreams again, in vivid, luscious, erotic ways, and she just had to watch him play, see him move. The prospect was titillating.
She spied Jackie in a seat a couple of rows up behind first base and scooted into the open seat next to her.
“Sorry I’m late. There was an accident on the bridge.”
Jackie smiled. “Hey, there are four innings left.”
Alana tucked her bag under her seat. She’d brought a heavy fleece and a cap, knowing better than to trust San Francisco weather in June. No one ever knew when the fog and wind would roll in, sending temperatures down to a bone-chilling fifty degrees.
“I haven’t seen Scotty pitch since last year.”
“I was surprised when you called,” Jackie said. “Hadn’t thought baseball had captured your fancy.”
“I couldn’t resist seeing all of you. And it’s been forever since I’ve seen Alex or Chloe.”
Jackie raised a brow. “Your guy Matt’s on first base. They walked him. Alex made it to third.”
“He’s not my guy.” She turned her eyes to the field.
Matt crouched and put his hands to his thighs, then took a few steps off the base. The Rockies’ pitcher threw to first, but Matt made it back with time to spare. Before Alana could blink, he’d taken another lead. The pitcher pulled his glove to his chest and threw. In the time it took for the ball to reach the catcher, Matt stole second. He seemed to prowl the bases more than just run them. His movements were sleek, almost primal, radiating a visceral energy that resonated in her as if she’d been a tightly strung instrument and his every move strummed her. He seemed to have a different but equally mesmerizing effect on the opposing team.
Jackie caught her staring at Matt and shot her one of those looks that only a girlfriend can.
“I’m considering just a taste,” Alana said, feeling the need to explain.
“I imagine a taste of him could be addictive.”
Jackie had met Marcel. They hadn’t hit it off. Jackie had been subtly encouraging her to find a new guy ever since.
“Cross my heart,” Alana added. “He has a kid. And since I’m not in the market to become a stepmom, that puts a definite boundary around any liaison.”
“Your stepmom couldn’t have been all that bad.”
“On the contrary, my stepmom was, is, great. She saved my spirit, so to speak. She’s the one who urged me to keep at my painting and opened me to all the things you scientists consider woo-woo. It was my mother who freaked out and made the cordial, blended family my dad had hoped for nearly impossible.”
Jackie made an indignant face. “I never said woo-woo. And considering what happened to me last year, I’m having to rethink the vast powers of the invisible realm. I’d never have picked Alex, for example. Chalk the love of my life up to woo-woo,” she said with a chuckle.
A serious look quickly eclipsed her smile. “I heard Matt’s wife died in a plane crash. His child has no mother.”
Alana nodded. “Right. But I know the level of commitment my stepmother had to make, what she put up with. I’m not cut out for that.”
“You underestimate your capacities,” Jackie said with a cluck of disapproval. “But I can’t imagine how Matt does it, raising a child alone and staying in the game. And I can’t believe he’s pulling off a three-twelve batting average.”
“I can’t believe you know his batting average.”
“Alex told me at breakfast this morning. Right up there with state of the world.” Jackie tilted her head toward the field. "Not to mention it's right up there on the scoreboard."
Alana wrinkled her nose but didn't laugh. “Matt’s daughter, Sophie, signed up for all the camps at the ranch this summer. Matt told me she did it herself, online. I didn’t know six-year-olds could do such things.” She smoothed her hair which had caught in a gusty breeze. “My grandmother must’ve been out of her mind to start up summer camps for kids.”
“Is it too late for me to sign up? Sounds like loads of fun.”
“You are taking the third camp session out on your catamaran. I’m told you promised.”
“That was Alex’s doing. He’s convinced every kid should have a go at being on the water.”
“Tell me there’s not some secret handshake ritual at the end.” Alana smirked. She waved a vendor over and ordered a beer. “I only wonder what else Nana put into gear that I haven’t found out about.”
“Me too. Beer, I mean.” Jackie signaled the vendor and then sat back and took a long sip. “All you Tavonesis should come with warning labels.”
“This from a friend?” Alana said with a grimace.
“How’s it going with the ranch?”
Alana frowned. “Who knew olives could be so complicated?”
“You have lots more than olives, last I saw. It’s a veritable village.”
“Forty thousand trees. Forty thousand. And we just bottled the second vintage from the vineyard, and there are more vines going in.” She nudged Jackie. “Your husband’s to blame for that. He sent his guy Emilio over, and now the ranch manager’s convinced we should put in ten more acres of grapes. And if the damned windmill permit doesn’t come through”—she sipped her beer—“well, we’ll just have to take the thing down. I still can’t believe Nana put it up without finishing the permit process.”
“Politics?”
“Worse. Cranky neighbors with their heads buried in the twentieth century. Old-fashioned and influential. And it doesn’t help that there’s a group from the North Coast that says they’re worried about the birds. They said that the hawks will fly into it or some such thing. I think they’re just scared of technology.”
“Alex helped your grandmother choose that windmill. It turns slowly; it’s been tested. Check out the report the bird observatory did on it. The birds will be okay.”
“Can I have that in writing? From Dr. Jacqueline Brandon, international animal champion?”
“That’s not what you need. Try honey.”
“Honey?”
“Talk to your neighbors. Likely they’re just freaked about what will happen now that the ranch is in new hands. Earn their trust. When’s the permit meeting?”
“August seventeenth. But I have to postpone it. I’m going to the Versailles gala.”
“Better keep that buttoned up. ‘Heiress tromping around Europe’—that’d really piss off the Sonoma ranchers.” Jackie peered at her over the rim of her cup. “And you know what I think of Marcel.”
“Don’t remind me.” Alana sipped her beer. “How’s the seal biz?”
“Better this year.” Jackie rapped her knuckle against the arm of her seat. “No red tide outbreaks. No drug smugglers dumping chemicals into seal haul-out areas.”
Jackie had nearly lost her life two years earlier when she’d discovered the activities of a smuggling ring. They’d hidden drugs in imported fertilizer and then dumped the fertilizer in the bay after they unloaded the heroin. What they hadn’t foreseen was that the dumping would cause harbor seals to sicken and become stranded in record numbers. And they sure hadn’t counted on Jackie. Alex had risked his own life to thwart the smugglers’ murderous plan and rescue her.
“Are you saying you’re bored?” Alana tried to sound light-hearted, but the incident had horrified her. She could only imagine the trauma Jackie had endured.
Jackie laughed. “Holding my breath is more like it.” She pointed to the field. “Scotty’s batting.”
Scotty laid down a perfect bunt on a squeeze play. It spun and wobbled just long enough for Alex to cross home plate and put the Giants ahead by one run. Matt practically scampered to third.
Jackie grabbed at the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her cellphone.
“At least it wasn’t the rescue line,” she said as she pushed it back into he
r bag. “Chloe’s been held up. She said she’ll be here by the eighth inning.”
“Do you ever get used to it?”
“To Chloe?”
Alana waved her hand toward the field. “To all this, to the baseball life.”
They watched as Hunter, the Giants’ right fielder, struck out. The crowd was unhappy with the call, but Hunter just ran in to the dugout, grabbed his glove and headed back onto the field.
“I’m pretty sure no one gets used to it, not even the players.” Jackie nodded toward the field. “Maybe especially not the players. The patterns and habits become familiar, or so I’m told, but baseball can rattle your life in more ways than anyone can predict. Alex puts it a little more colorfully, says baseball busts everyone’s balls, that every game throws some new challenge in your face, ready or not.”
She took a sip of her beer, and a thoughtful look passed into her eyes. “I can’t complain. Alex deals with me trekking all over the planet to attend commission meetings and keeping crazy hours when I’m home. I’m lucky. He gets the do-what-you-love part of it all. But sometimes I worry what he’ll do when he leaves the game. He thinks his vineyard will fill the hole, but I have my doubts.”
Do what you love.
Jackie couldn’t know how her words spiked into Alana, gripping her. A year ago, if anyone had asked her, she’d have said she loved her life. But now she felt muddled and uncertain. A scientist had once told her that though instruments and perceptual abilities were not yet sensitive enough to measure such things, the world was likely so finely tuned that a butterfly could flit its wings in one place on the planet and affect goings-on thousands of miles away. It felt to Alana as though several butterfly wings had flapped and sent her world into a tailspin.
The irony didn’t escape her. Before inheriting the ranch she’d flitted from party to party, continent to continent, and had considered herself content in her glamorous, carefree life. Now she had responsibilities she hadn’t asked for, decisions to make that sometimes had no clear or easy answers, a village of people whose lives were basically in her hands and a guy who lit her up like crazy—a guy who had a kid with no mom, a guy who seemed drawn to her but was wary at the same time. And yet, in the face of it all, she felt more alive than she’d ever felt before.
A shout went up from the crowd, and she and Jackie looked back down to the game. The Rockies’ batter was enormous—his arms were the size of her thigh. He started to argue a call with the umpire but thought better of it. He took his stance, still clearly angry. A loud crack sounded as he connected to the next pitch. His bat splintered, and the bat head flew up the third-base line. The runner on third jumped over the flying bat and raced for home.
Alana froze as the ball shot past the pitcher, took a high hop and careened into the gap between short and third. Matt made a lightning-quick, bare-handed grab and in the same motion fired the ball home. The Giants’ catcher tagged the runner as he slid in on a cloud of dust. The umpire called the runner out. The crowd roared its approval and no one argued. Matt had executed a perfect play.
“Fielder’s choice,” Jackie said as she stood and cheered with the crowd.
“What?” Alana shouted over the noise.
Jackie leaned over to her. “The easy out was at first. But if the game is close, you take the risk and go for the harder out instead of playing it safe. Alex says Matt’s just that kind of guy.”
“I still can’t get used to you knowing this much about baseball.”
“I’m motivated,” Jackie said with a wink.
A routine fly ball ended the inning. The Giants jogged off the field toward their dugout. Matt looked over to where Alana sat and tipped his cap. She wished his flirty gesture didn’t give her such a tumbling rush of giddy delight, but it did. One date, she resolved. Well, maybe two. Anything more was asking for trouble.
Scotty’s wife, Chloe, didn’t make it for the game. But she hooked up with Jackie and Alana as they waited for the guys at the bar of a waterfront restaurant several blocks from the stadium.
“I just bought myself a great lefty,” Chloe said as she settled into her seat. She grabbed a menu and ran her finger down the small type. “I’m starved. How about one of everything?”
Jackie and Alana laughed. Chloe was famous for her appetite.
“This kid’s got a great arm, and he’s only twenty-two,” Chloe went on. “Charley thinks we’ll be able to call him up next season.” She gulped down a glass of water. “How’d Scotty throw tonight?”
“Brilliant. Stayed in until the eighth,” Jackie said. Her cellphone rang, and she rummaged in her purse. “Sorry. Meant to shut it off. I’m off rescue duty tonight.” She looked at the screen and answered.
Alana and Chloe both played with their menus to give her privacy.
“The guys want to go to the carnival,” Jackie said, pulling Alana’s menu down. They both looked over at Chloe, who nodded bemusedly.
“Guess it’ll be corn dogs for dinner, girls,” Chloe said. “Or maybe kettle corn.” She turned to Alana. “You up for this?”
“I’ve been practicing my gaming,” Alana said, trying to hide her disappointment. She’d been hoping for a sophisticated night out in the city. “Nothing like summer camps at the ranch to get one geared up for carnival fun.”
They made their way through the throngs of carnival revelers and met up with the guys in front of one of the game stalls.
“You’d think they’d be exhausted,” Chloe said to Jackie and Alana as they watched the guys line up to throw rope rings at raised wooden squares nailed against a wall. Scotty groaned when his toss fell short.
“Told you pitchers were precious,” Alex said over his shoulder. “If it’s not exactly sixty feet six inches away and the object to be thrown is not perfectly round and exactly five ounces—”
Scotty punched him in the arm, and Alex missed his shot.
Matt took the ring from the man running the stall and sized up his target. Alana couldn’t help but admire the muscles of his back rippling under the fine weave of his shirt. He held his body in a way that made her want to run her hands over him, track her fingers along the ridges of muscle covering bone, run her palms across his strong and perfectly formed butt. What was it about baseball players that gave so many of them the most deliciously formed backsides? Matt extended the ring at arm’s length. Just watching his forearm flex with the motion made her flush with desire. She suddenly felt self-conscious and looked to Scotty and Alex. They were talking and laughing and paying her no mind.
“Stalling the game,” Scotty shouted.
“Choosing my approach,” Matt said without looking back.
He tossed the ring, and it landed solidly on the center square. The man running the game asked him what prize he wanted. He turned to Alana.
“Pick something out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know what she’d want,” Alana said, feeling embarrassed.
“Not for Sophie, for you. Pick something out.”
“The brown bear.” Alana pointed to the enormous teddy bear at the end of the prize shelf. “And you carry it.”
“Hey, a new career role,” Scotty said, giving the bear’s ear a tweak as Matt looped his arm around it. “Bear toter. It could solve all our what-to-do-after-baseball wonderings.”
“The Bear Toter Union might have something to say about that,” Chloe said with a wink. “I’m starving. There’s an Ethiopian food stand a ways back.”
“My fave.” Jackie took Alex by the arm. “You two coming along?” She glanced at Alana and then at the bear. “Or should I say you three?”
“Umm...” Matt slanted a questioning look to Alana.
What she wanted wasn’t food. She wanted time with Matt. Alone.
“We’ll meet you back here in twenty,” Alana said as she waved them on their way. Matt exhaled. She hoped that it wasn’t just because exotic food wasn’t at the top of his menu choices. She turned to him. The smile he cast told her that he too wanted time alon
e, away from his friends.
“Watch out,” Scotty said over his shoulder. “My latest advice is to always choose your dates according to their food preferences and level of appetite.”
Chloe groaned. “Don’t listen to him. He’ll eat anything that doesn’t move.”
At the sound of Matt’s easy laugh, Alana was pretty sure his food choices weren’t what would be getting her into trouble. It’d be her own appetite that would lead her into murky territory. Once she’d had a taste of something she wanted, she found it hard to hold back, even when warning signals blared their caution. Ignoring caution was a bad habit she’d yet to break. As he smiled at her, she hoped he had as much trouble with control as she did.
They walked toward the piers jutting out from the waterfront park.
“There’s a bench—want to sit? You’ve been on your feet for the best part of three hours.”
“More like five,” he said as he eased onto the bench and set the bear between them. “It didn’t help that Donovan ran up a hundred-and-forty-pitch outing.”
“Or that you had two steals in four innings. Must be hard on the body.”
“Depends on the body.”
She was pretty sure his remark wasn’t meant to be provocative, but she couldn’t help but think about his body. No man she’d met had ever packed so much muscle and grace into such a tight, tall package.
An awkward silence settled, and her brain started running questions to break it.
Peel the onion, she reminded herself, don’t stab it with a paring knife. Getting to know someone new was like peeling an onion, one thin layer at a time. She knew better than to go too far, too fast. Her straightforward manner, her ease in interviewing people, had served her well when she’d had a college radio show, but she’d since learned that it put even the most extroverted people off at first, especially men.
Besides, it would be foolish to cruise deeper waters if she didn’t really want to know what swam in them. A guy didn’t have his wife die on him and end up with a demanding job in the public eye and a motherless six-year-old without having a few mines just waiting to explode. She was pretty sure there were plenty of obstacles bobbing just under the surface.
But it wasn’t like she could ask him about his workday—she’d just watched him on the field— and questions about the rest of his day would seem like probing.
“He’ll need a name,” Matt said, nudging the bear.
“You pick one. I’m just awful at naming things. I once named a dog Sneezy.”
Matt gave the bear a mock-serious stare. “Then you, my young bear, are lucky to have me doing the honors.” He sat back against the bench and took a long, deep breath. “I’m thinking.”
The lights of the city reflected on the water in the bay, and the scent of seaweed and salty water mingled with the acrid smell of creosote on wood.
“Piers smell like times gone by,” Alana said. “The way the past might smell if it had a scent. Times before the Internet and cellphones and instant this and that.”
Head cocked, Matt studied her.
“I hadn’t thought much about scent and time. Never put the two together.” He looked out over the water. “I’ve never been to a carnival on a bay; it seems odd. Usually they’re on sites that sport hay bales and cornfields and grass.” He tapped the pier with his foot. “You could call the bear Piers. It’ll remind you of where you got him.”
She wasn’t going to need much reminding. She’d remember this first date with Matt for a long time.
Outlined against the skyline of the city, with the light from a nearby street lamp highlighting his rugged jawline and illuminating his eyes, Matt was just about the most gorgeous man Alana had met. Already her imagination was filling in the blanks with steamy images of them in her bed. She tried to rein in her thoughts, but the images streamed on in spite of her efforts. Keeping a lid on her heart wasn’t going to be easy either. What she felt when she thought of Matt was different from what she typically felt at the beginning of a new affair. She didn’t understand the difference, but she certainly recognized it in her body and in her mind.
Matt nodded toward the bay. “I’m learning to love this city.” He shifted to face her. “Where’s your favorite place?”
That was a loaded question right now, but he couldn’t know that.
“Do I have to be honest?”
“I find it helps.”
“Paris. Or maybe Rome,” she added. “It’s hard to choose. Sometimes Rome can be overwhelming with all the traffic and tourists, but I find it lovely in the off-season. But Paris has a way of sneaking into my heart. Maybe I just know Paris better.”
“I’ve only been there once. I took a mad two-week trip to Europe after my senior year in high school. My buddy and I were there for maybe ten hours before we hopped the next train and headed for Munich. I think it was the German beer trumping wine and art galleries. We were young and stupid and always looking for the next great thing, rarely seeing what was right in front of us.”
“You never wanted to go back?”
“Not much baseball played in Paris,” he said with a grin.
God, she loved that grin. It melted a path through her and made it hard to tell if she was horny or if Matt just pushed all the right buttons, some of which had never been pushed before. It struck her then—if she’d never been in love, how would she know when she felt it?
And then she wondered why she was pairing Matt and love in the same moment.
She might like the grin, but now was no time to be thinking about love. But sex? Thinking about sex was another matter entirely.
“My life’s been pretty focused around baseball,” Matt went on. “And Sophie.”
Sophie. Right. He said the child’s name so casually that Alana knew without a doubt that the two of them came as a very tight package, just as it should be. In a perfect world parents would give attention to their children. Hers sure hadn’t.
“Do you have siblings?”
Matt’s question surprised her. But she was glad for the break in the tension. She poked the bear’s belly. “Have you been reading the top ten questions to ask on a date?”
As soon as she said the word date, she wished she hadn’t. Some words fenced moments in, made them feel like something they weren’t. But it was a date. And suddenly she felt as awkward as a teenager. The thumping of her pulse didn’t help.
“If I’d known there was such a thing to bone up on, I’d have a better question.” He sat the bear down on the pier and slid the tiniest bit closer to her. “Something like what is your wildest dream?”
Earnest. That was the quality she’d tried to nail down about Matt. He was earnest. Handsome, sexy and earnest. And funny. Killer combination.
“I have two brothers,” Alana answered, avoiding the wildest-dream prompt. “Pesky, fabulous brothers. Damien’s a wildlife biologist working in Patagonia. And much to my parents’ disdain, my other brother, Simon, has taken up farming.”
“I have little in common with my sister,” Matt said. “You’re lucky to share a passion with one of your brothers.”
It was certainly no time to tell him that the ranch wasn’t her passion. Matt caught her in his unwavering glance. If the sped-up throb of her pulse was any indication, her passion was transforming in that very moment. Damn him, he pushed buttons she hadn’t programmed. It was hard to be ready for something she hadn’t known was headed her way. He was the right sort of guy but in an exasperating and very wrong situation.
She slid her gaze to her watch; maybe he wouldn’t know she couldn’t see its face in the dim light. “We’d better get back. Jackie’s a fast eater.”
They stood and bumped arms as they both reached for the bear.
“Hey, toting Piers is my assigned job, remember?” Matt smirked. “I’m practicing for my postbaseball career.”
The gang was waiting for them back at the ring toss.
“You missed out,” Scotty said. “Gotta love food you can eat with you
r fingers.”
“He eats everything with his fingers,” Chloe said. “I drew the line at soup.”
“Time for the Ferris wheel,” Jackie said. She grabbed Alex’s hand and beelined for the festively lit ride.
“Outside seat,” Scotty said as he took Chloe’s arm. He looked back to where Matt stood with Alana. “You guys coming?”
“Not me,” Matt said. “I don’t go more than ten feet off the ground unless I’m belted in and there’s a pilot.” He turned to Alana. “I’ll wait for you.”
“I don’t like heights. I made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but I nearly passed out on the way up. Twice.”
She didn’t miss the sly smile Jackie shot at her. Or the steamy look in Matt’s eyes.
The Ferris wheel churned its gears and lifted their friends into the air. Jackie leaned over the rail of her seat. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she called out, gloating. “The city’s beautiful from up here.”
“I’m told she has absolutely no sense of danger,” Matt said as he stepped toward Alana.
He slipped his fingers down and took her hand. Her body sizzled with immediate want. She’d wanted him to touch her all night but had felt oddly shy about making the first move.
“There’s a peaceful spot a mere ten steps away,” Matt said, his lips brushing the tip of her ear. “No danger there.”
Alana wasn’t so sure. But she let him tug her into the shadows behind the nearby ticket kiosk. He dropped the bear to the ground and pulled her to him.
“The guy at the game booth said I could claim any prize I wanted,” he said with a velvety murmur.
Any thoughts she had about danger or kids or windmills evaporated in the heat of his plundering kiss.
This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales—but Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She’d never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess’s world.
But it was her own response that astonished her. She dug her fingers into his back, as if holding onto him was all that pinned her to life. Her body throbbed, and her pulse pounded in her ears, keeping an odd, out-of-synch rhythm with the clanging of the Ferris wheel, the screams of the riders and the tinny music of the distant rides. But as she opened deeper to his probing kiss and his hands cupped her bottom, those sounds fell away. Her only awareness was of the pounding of Matt’s heart against hers and the sound of his breathing mingling with hers and a driving desire to have him inside her, to lose herself in the wave of ecstasy that he’d summoned.
He spread his palms along her bottom and pulled her up to straddle his thigh. Was it her imagination or could she feel the heat of his palms through her jeans and all the way into her core? His erection throbbed against her, and the pulse of him spiked a thrill of wild abandon through her body. Consequences be damned, she wanted this man, wanted to feel more of the intoxicating power he’d unleashed. She molded her body tightly to his and felt his breath hitch. She thrust her tongue to meet his and grabbed at his shoulders, her fingers gripping hard muscle so she could lever her leg and stroke the length of his erection, slowly, intentionally, mercilessly, with the inner part of her thigh. He groaned and pressed her back. The rippled metal wall of the kiosk pressed into her shoulder blades as he balanced her on his leg and freed one hand. The cold metal forced a delicious contrast to the heat of his hand as he slid it under her blouse and raked it along her ribs. His cupped her breast, and his fingers rolled her nipple through the thin lace of her bra. She moaned into his lips, and she was sure she felt him smile in his kiss. He pinched her nipple, deepening the probing of his tongue, and the teetering balance of pleasure and pain sent a shock of orgasm flying through her. She arched into him, barely able to control the force rippling in her body. He braced her with his forearm and mercilessly rolled her nipple again, swallowing her cry with his lips. She dragged her hand down and gripped his erection through his trousers, running her thumb across the fabric covering the hood of flesh topping his throbbing shaft.
He groaned and broke the kiss, pulling her hand away. “No, Alana.” He grasped her waist and lowered her to the ground. “Not here. Not like this.”
He had to be kidding. But his protest was enough to bring her back, to sharpen her awareness of the clanging sounds of the carnival and the rasping sound of her breath against his chest.
He leaned down and touched his lips to hers in a tender kiss. The surprising sweetness was nearly more than she could bear. She ran her hands into his hair and pulled him harder against her mouth. She felt him fighting for control, and the power of his response was like a drug injected directly into her core. Never had she wanted any man as she wanted this one.
Matt reached behind his neck and took hold of her hands, nipping another of his sweet, gentle kisses to her lips as he did. He pulled her hands down and held them as he kissed her on the nose and pulled away from her.
“I think a real date is in order,” he said as he let go of her hands.
Even in the dim light she could see he wasn’t smiling. She could tell from his labored breathing and the throbbing pulse in the veins of his neck that it was all he could do to control himself.
“You crying uncle?” she said, still nearly breathless.
“Beyond uncle.” He smiled then, and she reached for him. He circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her arm down to her side. That he could control the movement of her entire arm with a thumb and two fingers was an erotic thrill. But he was right: this was a public carnival and he was a celebrity. What she had in mind to do with him had best be done behind closed doors.
“A real date it is then,” Alana conceded.
“The lady is merciful,” he said with a half smile.
“Don’t count on it,” she said as she straightened her blouse.
As he leaned down to pick up the bear, the sound of Beethoven’s seventh sounded from his back pocket. He balanced the bear on his hip and reached for his phone.
“Babysitter ringtone,” he said almost sheepishly. “Must be midnight.”
She watched as he tapped out a message.
Her would-be lover hadn’t turned into a pumpkin, but he had morphed back into a dad. Still, he’d rocked her and though she heard the bells of warning, she agreed to a date when he returned from his road trip.
The moon blazed a trail of silver light along the hillsides as Alana turned up the drive to the ranch. She pulled up next to the house and turned off her car. A breeze stirred and made the leaves of the olive trees dance in the moonlight like minnows flashing in a pond. She ran her finger over her lips, remembering the heart-stopping power of Matt’s kiss and the mind-blowing feel of his body against hers. He’d blazed through to a place she’d kept guarded for longer than she could remember. Maybe to a place she’d never known.
Her defense systems were definitely in need of a tune-up. That or a complete overhaul.