Cara swallowed against the lump in her throat. "You express yourself beautifully, Alec, but anger is a strange emotion. It makes it difficult to think or feel or reason. That's where I am right now, and I think I'm going to be there for a while."
He moved closer and took her hands in his. "Dearest Cara, we don't have to let my brother ruin our lives. All you have to do is open your heart and let me love you."
As her doubts fell away, her emotions seemed tuned to Alec's to an exquisite degree. Her world expanded to make him a part of her, and her heart filled with the possibilities of the two of them together. It was a moment of pure magic.
He gazed at her, his eyes bottomless and still and blue to their depths. In the background the softly rolling waves curled and broke, their sound fusing with the steady rhythm of her pulse. Cara let herself be drawn to him until his lips covered hers and her arms went around him.
She stood on her tiptoes in the sand, letting him fit her against the curves of his body. His lips were warmly insistent, and deep within her she felt a fire kindle and grow, smoldering for a moment before flaring to envelop her in its blaze. She thought she would never get enough of this man's kisses, not if she lived a hundred, a thousand years.
When he stopped kissing her, he buried his face in her hair and pressed his lips to the nape of her neck.
"I think this means you've forgiven me," he said shakily.
She had. Unbelievably, she had.
"It's amazing what one kiss can do."
He leaned back and smiled at her, brushing a tendril of hair away from her face. "Wait until you find out what ten kisses can do. Or twenty. Or a million over a lifetime. Let me show you."
She considered this. "Well, maybe one for starters." She raised her lips to his. They kissed once, twice, more times than she could count.
When at last they broke apart, Alec said huskily, "You won't be catching that airplane."
Cara saw herself mirrored in his eyes. "I won't?" she said softly, holding back joyful tears. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Because I've grown to love you, Cara Demorest, and we're going to be married."
She managed an unsteady laugh. "Whatever makes you think that?"
"Oh," he said, grinning down at her, "I have a portrait I want to finish, and asking you to marry me seems to be the only hope I have to get you to stay here and pose for me. I have no intention of following you to Chicago in order to paint it. I've never cared for those cold northern winters." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Besides, as I told you once before, your nose is almost perfect. It just needs more kissing. And I don't relish leaving that chore to anyone else."
"Shouldn't we get to know each other better?"
"That's the general idea of marriage, I believe. We can have a long engagement, if you prefer. I can't wait to buy you a ring with a diamond so enormous that even the Princess will turn phthalocyanine green with envy."
"Thalo what?"
"I'm an artist. I deal with multiple shades of every color. Trust me, phthalocyanine is the perfect shade of green for the Princess."
"A huge diamond is not necessary," Cara said, backtracking. "I'd love you even if you were poor."
"Fortunately, I'm not. I want to give you things, Cara. Travel with you, have children with you, sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life."
"Oh, Alec. I love you so much." Moved to tears, she reached up and drew his face closer, her lips finding his. It was a long kiss, one that held all her hopes and dreams.
"We shouldn't stay out here, kissing in full view of everyone," she teased.
"This time I don't even see the pelican, the gulls, or the sandpipers. And certainly not Tandy hiding behind the windbreak."
A slight movement in the sand nearby caught their eyes. An inquisitive sand crab peered out of his burrow and scuttled curiously toward them.
Alec laughed. "Since we have an audience of sorts, we'd better go elsewhere."
"Look," she said, pointing upward. Overhead, the sinking sun had touched fire to the tops of the minarets. A flock of gulls swooped down across the orange grove, their high-pitched cries barely audible over the swish of the sea.
"That's the way I'll paint Xanadu," Alec said suddenly. "Just like this, with the sunset beyond."
Cara turned to him with a question in her eyes. "You said you didn't want to paint Xanadu."
"I believe I'm ready now, and I'll begin as soon as I complete your portrait. Perhaps I'll finish my painting of Xanadu in time to give it to you as a wedding present. We'll hang it over our bed in our airy loft apartment."
"Oh, Alec," was all she could say, her heart full.
She leaned against him, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, and listened to the waves murmuring the love words she felt in her heart. Then she slid her arm around Alec's waist and, as she accommodated her steps to his, they walked slowly across the golden sand to Xanadu.
The End
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INTERIOR DESIGNS
The Beach Bachelors Series
Book Four
Excerpt from
Interior Designs
The Beach Bachelors Series
Book Four
by
Pamela Browning
Award-winning Author
"What kind of way is this for a woman to live?" he said sharply, jolting her out of her trance. "You're earning a good living, you could travel, enjoy life. Instead, you hide yourself away from the world and everything in it."
"You're wrong," she said, feeling an anxious surge inside her, wondering if it was from anger at his curt questions or from something else. "The world and everything in it are at my fingertips, waiting to be shaped into beautiful places for people to live."
"And in the meantime, the place where you live must be devoid of relationships, of people to make it real and warm and alive?"
This was not the usual kind of man-woman conversation, thought Cathryn despairingly. She had expected him to be curious and appreciative, and she was hurt that he was neither. Why was he delving so deep inside her, wanting to know about her? Why didn't he just leave her alone?
She didn't know what to say—this man made her nervous and unsure of herself, and she never knew what he was going to do next.
"You're retreating from me now, aren't you?" he demanded. "I can see it. You let your defenses take over, and the message is 'Leave me alone.'"
He knew. It was true, what he had said. She had always cloaked herself in a thin garb of reserve, letting few people penetrate it, and even the resulting loneliness was a kind of protection. But no one had ever had the audacity to comment on it.
He stood before her, his hands on her shoulders. His hands felt heavy there and strong. Her shoulders seemed fragile beneath them, bending under the weight.
She held her breath. She thought he would make his move, either invite himself into her bedroom or begin to impose upon her his considerable physical persuasion. But again, Drew Sedgwick surprised her.
"I'm going to melt that icy facade," he said mildly, a hint of a smile on his lips. At her blank and surprised look he said, "Oh, yes, Cathryn, I want to make love with you. But when it happens, it's going to be a conscious decision on your part, not just a spur-of-the-moment romp in bed. And it'll have to be something long-term, because I won't be satisfied with anything else!"
He dropped his hands from her shoulde
rs, and she felt at once bereft. She didn't want him to go now, but he wheeled and walked to the door. She started to follow, but he turned and shook his head.
"I'll let myself out," he said, stopping her in her tracks.
She stood there staring at him. She felt caught in the frame of a movie that had just stopped inexplicably.
"I think the ice is already melting," he said, his eyes glinting in the harsh overhead fluorescent light. "Careful, don't let it drip on your toes. I wouldn't want you to get cold feet." Then, with a wink, he was gone, leaving her staring down at her naked feet.
Interior Designs
The Beach Bachelors
Book Four
by
Pamela Browning
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Interior Designs
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Pamela Browning grew up in Florida, where she was fascinated by stories of gold doubloons and pieces of eight from Spanish shipwrecks washing ashore on the beaches near where she lived. Unfortunately, she never found one, but she knows what to look for.
"A seasoned treasure hunter described a coin from a shipwreck as looking exactly like an Oreo cookie," she says. "It has something to do with corrosion that builds up on the outside."
Needless to say, she's spent a lot of time at the beach looking for Oreos. She's managed to turn up pretty shells, a lot of plastic bottles, and, once, a rusty old alarm clock, which she interpreted as a sign that it was time to quit looking.
"I've decided to confine my treasure hunting to writing books about it," she says. "That way it always turns out the way I like. Especially the love part."
Pamela is a former newspaper reporter, columnist and feature writer. She's worked as a college public relations guru, an editor, and a cruise lecturer. Somehow along the way, she's managed to raise two children and garner a bunch of awards for her writing. She hopes you enjoy the story of treasure hunters Alix and Ponce and how they found the most valuable treasure of all—in each other.
Pamela invites you to visit her at:
www.facebook.com/pamelabrowning.author
www.pamelabrowning.com
www.twitter.com/PamelaJBrowning
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Sea of Gold
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Touch of Gold
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Sands of Gold
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
A Note from the Publisher
Excerpt from INTERIOR DESIGNS (The Beach Bachelors Series, Book 4)
Meet the Author
The Beach Bachelors Boxset (Three Complete Contemporary Romance Novels in One) (The Beach Bachelors Series) Page 48
