Passionate Kisses

by Various

“Can we talk?”

  He turned but stayed where he was, keeping a good four or five feet between them. “Sure.”

  She waited until the door shut behind Lon and Terrence and Francine finished clearing away the men’s coffee mugs. “I wanted to thank you.”

  He looked over her head, mouth tight. “You’re damn lucky.”

  “I know.”

  “Someone was out there? Chasing you?”

  She nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  “What do you mean? I heard him. I saw him.”

  “A man? Who was it? Can you describe him?’

  “No, I don’t mean like that. I mean I saw a shadow. Someone holding a flashlight. It could have been anyone. I mean, I’m not sure it was a man. It could have been a woman.”

  Lucas frowned. “And why exactly did you decide to go play detective in the middle of the night?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. I saw a light. I couldn’t sleep. I was curious.”

  “Curious.” He shook his head. “You have nine lives too?”

  “I’m beginning to think so.” She cracked a smile. “Lon would say yes, and I’ve probably used up about seven or eight of ’em.”

  He took a step toward her. He couldn’t keep his distance from her no matter how much he thought he should. He ran one thumb over her cheek. “Please don’t do that again, okay? I was worried about you. Really worried. When I got to you I couldn’t even tell how bad you were hurt.”

  She reached up and placed her fingers on his mouth. “I’m fine. One hundred percent.”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “And your mom was awesome. She took good care of me.”

  “I’m sure she did. She’s a pretty awesome woman.” He rubbed the top of her head. “You want to change, I’m guessing. Shower? Nap?”

  “Oh my God.” She looked down at herself. “I stink, don’t I?”

  He laughed. “No, you don’t stink. You just don’t look quite like the Sophie Smithwaite who rolled into Lindsey Point a few days ago. You look–ah–a little rough around the edges.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that, he wanted to add. She looked more real right now than she ever did on the television screen, which was fine by him.

  She curled her fingers into his. “How about that dinner date?” she asked. “I owe you. We didn’t get to go last night. Let me treat you.”

  The shower image returned in full force, and he almost asked if she wanted to skip the dinner and get straight to the dessert part. “Ah, I’m not sure.”

  “Aw, come on. Please?”

  “I don’t usually let women buy me dinner. It’s a macho kind of thing.”

  “I get it.” She dropped her head to one side and zinged him with her million-dollar smile.

  “But if you’re feeling up to it, I will go out with you. Yes. And I will let you buy me a drink and dance with me to the cheesiest slow song I can get the band to play. Because you do owe me for saving you last night, Sophie Smithwaite. Big-time.”

  Chapter 24

  She took a shower, a nice long one, and then another nap. Even the lukewarm water and the feathers sticking through the pillowcase didn’t bother her this time. Without the bandage, her ankle was sore, but she tested it out in the shower and it was able to bear weight. The bruised rest of her might take a while to return to normal, but by the time she woke up to her alarm a little after six, she felt about a million percent better than she had that morning.

  “Francine?” Sophie stuck her head into the kitchen when she got downstairs. “Any mail come for me today?” The birth certificate wasn’t scheduled to arrive until tomorrow. But it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “Ah, no, no, I didn’t see anything.” She dusted flour from her hands. “Were you expecting something?”

  “From Boston, yes.”

  “I’ll look for it first thing. Mail’s already been delivered today.”

  “Thanks.” Sophie peeked at the mess on the countertop. “You making something?”

  “Trying. I’m not a very good cook.”

  Sophie wanted to ask why she’d opened a bed and breakfast then, but before she could, Francine went on. “My sister and I always talked about having a place like this, when we were kids. Right by the water. She was going to be the cook. I’d clean.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Francine’s face fell, and her fingers plucked at her stained apron. “She got married and moved away.”

  So much for childhood dreams. Adulthood sure could knock her over the head with its own version of reality.

  “I think you’re doing a great job.”

  Francine smiled. “Thank you.” She gestured to the pile of dough behind her. “This cinnamon roll should be ready for breakfast tomorrow. I hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Sophie backed into the parlor as Lucas pushed open the front door, rapping on the outside with his knuckles without waiting for an answer.

  “Hi there.”

  She stopped in her tracks, halfway between the kitchen and the parlor. “Damn, Oakes. Looking good.” The combination of dark blue button-down shirt and faded jeans suited him.

  “Ah, thanks. You ready?”

  She nodded. He reached for her hand, and her fingers tingled as he tucked it into the crook of his elbow. Scratch that. Her whole damn arm–okay, the entire right side of her body, spreading fast to the left and all parts south and lonely–tingled. Could we maybe skip dinner and go upstairs instead? she wanted to ask. Instead she breathed in his cologne and led him lead her down the front steps.

  “Hey, no hat!” she realized as they walked to his truck. To be fair, she’d only looked up a few seconds earlier. The parts of him on her level, broad back, wide shoulders, ass that filled out his jeans in the right way, were more than tempting. But the rest of him up top was pretty nice too.

  “No hat,” he admitted.

  “I like it. I can see your face.”

  He colored but didn’t say anything. Without a word, he helped her into the cab of his truck and closed the door behind her.

  “So what’s the name of this place again?” she asked as they headed for the highway. He tuned the radio to a jazz station.

  “The Cove.” At the cross by the city limits, Lucas slowed. For a minute she thought he was going to stop, maybe say something or get out and pay respects. But he didn’t even glance at the cross, and she wondered if the slowing was almost subconscious, a reflex that happened every time he went near one of the memorials without even realizing it.

  How do you measure grief? Watching Lucas, Finn, the Oakes, even Shannon O’Brien, the answers were beginning to come to her: in little pieces, minute actions, the slightest change in the everyday ways people adjusted their lives after a loss.

  “Where is this place, exactly?” Sophie asked. They turned, merged onto the highway and left the cross behind them, and then it was a regular date again, complete with a few butterflies in her stomach and a glance every so often at the guy sitting beside her.

  “Halfway to Bluffet Edge. Thought it might be nice to get out of Lindsey Point for a while.”

  She couldn’t have agreed more.

  Ten minutes later, they bumped their way along a dirt road. Lucas frowned. “I haven’t been up here in a while. Road didn’t used to be so bad. We had a couple-a bad ice storms last winter. I guess the whole thing got torn up.”

  “I didn’t know roads could get torn up.”

  He chuckled and swerved to avoid a pothole. “That’s because where you live, street sweepers keep the roads clean twenty-four-seven, mostly at night when you’re getting your beauty sleep.”

  “Hey. What’re you saying? I need beauty sleep?”

  The road bent and dead-ended, and he swung the truck into a parking lot and pulled into a spot near the end of a row. “No. Of course not. I’m just saying there’s a lot of blue-collar work and blue-collar workers a city girl like you probably never even dreams about.”

  Was that how she c
ame across? “Dreams about in my beauty sleep, you mean.”

  He grinned. “If the shoe fits...” She swung at him, and he ducked.“Nice,” he said, intercepting her swing and grabbing her designer purse from the air. “What can you fit in here, a credit card and your cell phone?”

  “And a lipstick,” she retorted. “And a tampon if I need to. Now give it back.”

  He rolled his eyes but and handed it over. “You ready?”

  “Yes. More than ready.” Her stomach rumbled as if in agreement.

  “How’s the ankle?” Lucas asked. He took her elbow as they negotiated the gravel lot.

  “Better.” Walking over uneven ground didn’t help the ache, though, and she leaned into his touch. His hand slid across the small of her back, and when she looked up at him, a serious expression darkened his face. Not worry this time. Not anger either. If she read it right in the shadows, it looked a lot like desire. She ran her fingertips over his chest to say I feel it too.

  “Ah, d’ya want to sit outside?” Lucas cleared his throat. “On the water?”

  “We’re near the water?”

  He led her past the front door, to a deck wrapped around the back of the place. “Sophie, we’re on the water.”

  A few seconds later, she saw for herself. “Oh. Wow.” The balcony, some kind of outside dining room, literally stretched over the bay. White tablecloths and candles covered each table. A flowering vine crawled its way up a lattice that framed the space on three sides. Waiters dressed all in black moved among the tables with peppermills under their arms and order books tucked into their aprons.

  “It’s nice.” She squeezed his arm. “Thanks.” On impulse, she stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his mouth. She couldn’t stand not touching him any longer.

  “Hmm.” He ran his hand over her cheek. “Where’s the sarcastic Sophie I met three days ago? I’m not sure I know who you are.”

  She took one step back from him. “I’m trying to be nice after that whole Knight-in-Shining-Armor thing you pulled last night on the beach. My sarcasm meter is at an all-time low.”

  He leaned down and tasted her, let his tongue slip inside her mouth and tease her until she lost her breath and her balance in the same moment. “I think I like it,” he whispered.

  Sophie pretended to look for her lipstick to keep her face from betraying too much.

  “You’re sure your ankle’s not bothering you?” he asked as they walked to their table. “You’re limping.”

  “A little. But it’s fine.” She didn’t want to confess it wasn’t the pain as much as the strange feelings inside her chest that were causing her to stumble every time she got around him. Composure, Sophie. He’s just a guy. And it’s just dinner.

  Yeah, right.

  Lucas pointed from their table. In the distance, across the shiny expanse of dark water, a light blinked on and off. “That’s the newer lighthouse, up in Bluffet Edge. Automated.”

  Sophie watched the rhythm, a perfect metronome warning ships in the dark. Rocks. Land. Keep your distance. Stay away. Funny how the things that could ground most people could be death for others. She shivered. “They’re not very romantic, are they? I mean, when you really think about it.”

  “Lighthouses?” His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. They’re meant to protect. Meant to keep people safe. Seems as though that’s sort of romantic, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.” But somehow she didn’t see them like that. To her, they seemed lonely. Sad. Isolated from the rest of the world, stuck out on a rocky bluff or an island or the far edge of a sandbar. Solitary. Proud, maybe, important in the job they had to do, but not belonging anywhere except the ocean.

  Or maybe her whole view was a little skewed, given the way the Smiths had ended up fifty years back.

  “Hello? Earth to Sophie?”

  She jumped in her chair. “Sorry. Thinking a little.”

  “Don’t get yourself in trouble.”

  She smiled. “You’re funny.”

  “I try. In fact, the cable show was gonna give me a comedy spot, Saturdays at midnight, but I turned ’em down. That’s why I stayed in Lindsey Point.”

  “Really?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  She made a face, almost angry except he’d gotten rid of her pensive mood, so she forgave him and studied the menu instead. Seafood, lots of it. And rich cuts of steak and exotic-sounding side dishes. And oh my God, to-die-for desserts. “Wow. Where’s the chef from?”

  “Culinary Institute of America. Used to work in Manhattan.”

  She smiled, glad they’d come here and left Lindsey Point for a few hours. And glad this giant of a man sat in the chair beside her, with a grin on his face as he looked out toward the water and pretended not to watch her.

  “Bottle of wine?” Lucas asked. “They have a nice Shiraz.”

  “Sure. Sounds good.” Now the guy was a wine expert? What else would she find out about him as the hours went by? She ordered the salmon and folded her fingers under her chin.

  He glanced over at the bar, and when the bartender pointed at her and mouthed Sophie Smithwaite? Lucas nodded.

  “You know him?” Sophie checked out the guy: medium build, medium length brown hair, tribal band tattooed around one upper arm. Nothing notable. Average guy in an average small town.

  “Went to school with him.”

  “Oh, boy. Of course you did. How many kids in your graduating class? Fifty? Sixty?”

  “Hundred and twenty, smartass. What about yours?”

  “Close to five.”

  “Hundred?”

  “It was a suburb of New York City. Most schools around there are that big.”

  He whistled. “Easy to get lost in that crowd, huh?”

  It was what she’d loved about it. No one knew her business unless she wanted them to, and if she needed a different crowd to hang with for a few days or a year or so, she could find it. Easy enough to reinvent herself if she wanted to.

  But Sophie didn’t know how to explain that to someone like Lucas. Instead she leaned back in her chair and eyed him. “How tall are you? I mean officially.”

  “Stat books put me at six-seven.”

  “What’s a stat book?”

  “You don’t know much about sports, I’m guessing. Football stats. Statistics.”

  “Do I look like a football player?”

  “No. Definitely not.” His gaze ran up and down the length of her and left her hot. “But you look like you might have been a cheerleader, once upon a time.”

  “Oh, God no. I was never a cheerleader. But you dated the cheerleaders, didn’t you? I can totally picture it.” Big man on campus, cute girl in a short skirt on his arm walking into the Homecoming Dance...and why did that bother her?

  “I dated a couple. Dated girls who weren’t cheerleaders too.” His eyes didn’t leave hers.

  Sophie folded and refolded her napkin in her lap. That little fluttery feeling, like her heart trapped inside a cage, tickled the back of her throat. No more pretending to herself. She wanted more of Lucas, and soon. She wanted him to kiss her again, to wrap those incredible arms around her, to lift her off the ground until she grew dizzy with desire. She wanted him to peel off her dress and find his way down her bare skin, little by little.

  “They have dancing upstairs,” Lucas said after a few minutes. “On the second floor. Starts around nine, I think. Not like you’re up to dancing tonight, but it’s kind of a nice place. We could check it out, people-watch for a while if you like.”

  She nodded. The waiter delivered their wine, uncorked the bottle, and poured two glasses. Sophie tried it. “Not bad.”

  “Told you.” He paused, took a long sip, and clinked his glass to hers. “Cheers, Sophie Smithwaite. To you staying alive and in one piece for the next two days.”

  She laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Their salads arrived, then their entrees, and for a while neither one said a word. Lucas refilled their glasses. “I thin
k it’s eighties night,” he said after a few bites of his steak and shrimp. “The music, I mean. I know it’s not as upscale as you’re used to, but it might be fun to go upstairs and watch people make fools of themselves.”

  “I actually love eighties music.”

  He raised a brow.

  “I’m serious. Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses? Those guys knew how to rock.”

  He reached across the table and wrapped his fingers around hers. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  “And here I thought you’d just been checking out my ass for the last couple of days.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I have been. Don’t get me wrong. But your taste in music definitely adds to the attraction.”

  Her cheeks warmed. True, there was loads of attraction happening. On set. In the bed and breakfast. And take right now, for instance, across the table. Something about her turned to absolute putty anytime she got close to him. She sipped her wine and let its warmth spread down her chest and into her belly, where it mixed with something hot and getting hotter by the minute.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “I guess.” But she didn’t like the serious look on his face, and she grabbed her wine glass in case it was a doozy.

  “Don’t get mad. And if you don’t want to answer, that’s okay too.”

  “What the hell is it, Lucas? I’m not gonna break.” But her knee jiggled a little under the table. “Go ahead and ask.”

  He paused and looked straight at her. “Why didn’t you ever want to know more about your father?”

  Chapter 25

  Sophie sat back in her chair. Not the question she’d expected.

  “I mean, I know you said he died when you were a baby,” Lucas said, “and your mother never talked much about him. But didn’t you ever wonder?”

  She took a long drink of wine. “Sure. All the time, when I was little. But my mom never wanted to talk about it. He was her one true love, you know? She never even dated anyone after him, the whole time I was growing up. I didn’t want to upset her, and it seemed like every time I asked about him, I did. So I stopped after awhile.”