When You Wish (Contemporary Romance)

by Handeland, Lori

  Grace joined him at the window; her shoulder brushed his bicep. Very few women’s shoulders came to his elbow, and Dan found he liked having Grace’s head so close to his own. If he leaned down just so, turned his head this way—

  “What happened?”

  Poof, there went that image, too. Dan sighed. He was getting pathetic. “Perry must have gotten tired of waiting.”

  “So he shut the electricity off before he left?”

  Dan shrugged, and his arm slid along hers. The sexual shiver created by the contact of bare skin against bare skin, revealed by short-sleeved summer garments, made him hold his breath. Grace must have felt something too because she stepped away too quickly, too deliberately, breaking the connection of flesh on flesh.

  “Uh, I guess we’d better go then.”

  He followed her through the darkened house toward the front door. They stepped onto the porch, the summer breeze pleasant after the heat of the day. The season had been dry, bad for farmers, great for tourists. No water meant no mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes could get so thick in the summer you couldn’t get from your car to your house without being attacked by a plague worse than locusts.

  Grace headed for her car, and Dan stood on the porch for a long moment and watched her move. Out here in the middle of nowhere with Grace, Dan was having strange thoughts—thoughts he’d never entertained in his staid, productive little world.

  Her dress shone silver in the light of the half moon. The stark red of the sash against the brilliance of the white should have looked harsh against the subdued hues of the lake, and the trees, and the sky, but instead they looked just right. For Grace.

  Dan followed, unable to help himself. That skirt, with the slit all the way up the side, enticed him as nothing else ever had. He wondered how much of her leg would be revealed when she got into her car.

  But instead of going to the car, Grace meandered nearer to the lake, staring at a ripple across the surface of the water. The breeze picked up a strand of her hair and unfurled it in his direction. The scent of Grace washed over him and his body responded, as usual.

  “We seem to be in a bit of a jam,” she said.

  She didn’t know the half of it. Just in case she turned to see what was keeping him, and saw something else, Dan moved behind her.

  She tilted her head and looked at the sky. “Did you ever wish on a star?”

  The woman changed subjects at the speed of light.

  “Never?”

  Star wishing had not been encouraged in his family. Wishing was for losers. Doers got the prize. “What would be the point?”

  “When you wish, your dreams come true.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t you believe in anything, Dan?”

  “I believe in science.”

  “That’s all?”

  He thought a moment. “Pretty much.”

  “Well, I’ll do whatever I have to, to make my dream come true.”

  “Even wish on a hundred stars?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  In that they were alike. He’d do whatever it took to make his dream come true. But Dan knew when you wished you only wasted time. From the way Grace was gazing up at the star-studded night, explaining his view to her would only waste more time. So he let the wishing argument go.

  Grace lowered her head and gave a sigh that wavered in the middle. Before he could think about what he was doing Dan put his hands on her shoulders. Instead of stiffening, or pulling away, she went very still.

  “That’s my lab across the lake.” His voice sounded normal. Amazing, when his body was anything but.

  “The old scout camp.” Her voice sounded strangled, as if she couldn’t quite force the words past whatever blocked her throat. Dan’s thumbs rubbed along the bend in her neck and she caught her breath.

  He shouldn’t touch her. Touching her was an incredible mistake. Feeling the shift of her bones beneath the dress, beneath her skin, was a bigger mistake. Being aroused even more by the heat of her in his hands, the scent of her in his nose, the need for her taste in his mouth, was insanity.

  But with the moon half full, and himself completely aroused, Dan ignored his voice of reason and listened to the voice of lunacy instead.

  When she turned in his arms and tilted her chin to look into his eyes, that perfect brow scrunched up and her mouth irresistibly puckered, he closed the small gap of space between them and took what he’d been wanting to take since he’d seen her only hours before.

  She tasted like lemon drops and sunshine. Silly thoughts, but his mind was full of them. Of how she suddenly smelled like summer rain and winter pine. How her hands were soft on his face, then hard at the back of his neck, pulling him closer, deeper into her.

  Her mouth opened, or maybe his did, but they joined with a groan that floated away on the silent night. Lips and tongues meeting, melding, magically, as if they’d been searching for each other for a very long time.

  Chapter Four

  Grace had always enjoyed being kissed by a man who knew what he was doing, but they were so few and far between. Amazingly, Dr. Dan was quite skilled. She’d never have known it by talking to him. Stiffs usually went—well, quite stiff, when sex was involved. Grace shifted in his arms. Her hip bumped his groin.

  Hmm, stiff in more ways than one.

  Dan started and would have pulled away, but Grace was not done yet. She pressed herself farther into his arms, mouth to mouth, chest to ribs, hips to thighs. Rarely did she meet a man who fit her as well as this one did. And as an extra, added plus, when his mouth was occupied upon hers he wasn’t talking. When Dan talked he annoyed her, but when he kissed . . .

  “Mmm,” she murmured against his lips, then ran her tongue along his teeth. Her palm cupped the back of his head, holding his mouth to hers, unwilling to let him go—yet.

  Being a massage therapist attuned Grace to the sensual order of life. In order to heal, you had to feel with your hands the mysteries of the body. If you were any good, you became sensitive in the extreme. To touch, to taste, to smell.

  She ran her tongue, hard, down the center of his. He shuddered and gathered her closer, tighter. She tasted mint; she smelled lake water and faded sunshine; she opened her fingers and ran them through his hair.

  He had the most incredibly soft hair she’d ever touched and it was much longer than the average doctor’s. Heck, much longer than the average man’s, especially if you counted Olaf of the biweekly buzz cut. The only men who wore their hair longer were related to her, and since Grace just couldn’t see the good doctor wearing a ponytail, or a braid, she figured this was as long as his hair got. Too bad, because she really liked that hair.

  How long had it been since she’d been kissed? Far too long because she didn’t want to stop. She was losing herself in him. She wanted more, and more would be a very bad idea. Sleeping with Dr. Chadwick would screw up more than her head.

  Grace pulled back from the intense embrace, kissing him gently one last time because she couldn’t help herself. Those lips made magic. Grace had always sensed things about people; still, she never would have figured Dan for a kissing wonder.

  Em always told her nerds did it better because they tried harder. Em’s third husband—or had it been the fourth?—had been an inventor with an IQ that made Grace’s look puny. When he wasn’t blowing up the basement, he’d been fashioning Em into a sexual savant. Her aunt hadn’t been the same since.

  Grace’s eyes opened slowly, as if the lids were stuck together, and she stared at Dan in the pale moonlight. His eyes stayed closed, his lips looked ravished—wet, and swollen, and red. Had she done that?

  Her fingers still tangled in his hair; his palms still rested along the curve of her spine. The thin, cotton dress did little to stop the heat of his hands from molding her skin against his. They might as well have been naked, since she could feel everything, and no doubt, so could he.

  Their bodies pressed together, his arousal hit her just above the pelv
is. She resisted the nearly irresistible urge to press against him and ignite the embrace to another level. Just because she hadn’t had sex in—oh, say, half a decade—didn’t mean she was going to encourage a near stranger to make it with her on the shore of Lake Illusion—even if he wasn’t a complete stranger. She had, after all, seen him naked.

  The image burst to life in her brain, arousing her further. He had an incredible body, and she wanted him to hold it against hers. That was always her problem. She wanted what she could not, should not, have. That wanting had gotten her into trouble more often than not. For an instant, she remembered another lake, another man, another heartbreak.

  She must have stiffened in his arms, because Dan’s eyes popped open, and he stared at her as if trying to see into her brain. Grace stared back. Hey, he’d kissed her. Even if she’d kissed him back, a lot, he’d just better not—

  “ . . . apologize.”

  —do that. She hated when they did that. Right now Dan looked shocked, as if he’d been caught boffing the maid.

  Grace’s lips pressed together, and she tasted Dan upon them. Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped back, breaking his hold upon her. Her hands unclasped, tangled again in the hair that reached to his nape, and the softness of the strands enticed her to wrap her fingers in them once more. She wanted to hold him close and kiss him more deeply, nearly as much as she wanted to slug him. She resisted both behaviors—barely.

  He watched her, eyes wary; he wasn’t so dumb, or perhaps merely more attuned to feelings than she’d thought. Grace turned and stalked toward her car. Dan followed on her heels.

  “Grace, wait.” She kept on going. “I’m sorry.” She growled. “I-I mean, I’m not.”

  She spun around with her fists upon her hips. He stopped before he rammed into her back and knocked her into the next county. “Which is it? Sorry or not?”

  He tilted his head and stared at her for a long, contemplative moment. “Which would you like?”

  Her lips twitched. Definitely not so dumb, after all. Still, she wasn’t going to let him off so easily. Dan was after her dream, and if she started to like him too much, she might just let him take it without a fight.

  That could not happen. Too many little people needed Project Hope—and little, sick people were what mattered to Grace. Not the curve of Dan’s lips, the scent of his skin, the tangle of his golden hair beneath the silver moonlight.

  She cursed and yanked open the door of her car, leaping inside to get away from him. He caught the door and held on with his typical, superior strength, tugging outward while she pulled inward. “Let go,” she demanded.

  “No. Not until you tell me why you’re so mad. Is it the grant?”

  “Partly.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  They both held on to the car door, as if afraid to let go and allow the other one to win even the smallest tug-of-war. Grace sighed. It was going to be a very long three weeks.

  She wasn’t about to tell Dan that his blasted apology had reminded her of the last man she’d taken to her bed. The last man who had broken her heart. The last man she’d vowed ever would. A man who had always apologized for touching her as if wanting her were his deepest, darkest, guiltiest secret—which had turned out to be the truth.

  “Grace?” Dan’s hand slid along the door, and he rested his big, warm fingers atop her smaller, cold hand.

  She started at the contrast and would have yanked her hand free, then he rubbed his thumb along the hollow of hers and the gesture soothed her speeding pulse. How could the man set her heart a-racing with one touch, then calm it with the next?

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “What? To kiss me?”

  He frowned. “No. I didn’t mean to upset you. I meant to kiss you.”

  “Why? You can’t think I’d give in for a kiss.”

  “Give in?”

  “Give up the grant.”

  “That’s not why I kissed you.” He frowned. “Is that why you kissed me?”

  His voice had that lost quality again, which kept her from snapping “yes,” a lie to soothe herself.

  Could Dan really be this gentle? This sweet? This utterly clueless?

  Probably, which meant Grace was in big trouble. Lost boys were her specialty. She couldn’t resist a sad-eyed male.

  Before he could entice her any further away from her goals, Grace yanked the door from his grasp. It slammed with a bang, and she clicked the lock shut. Then she pushed her key into the ignition and twisted her wrist, planning to spin out of Mrs. Cabilla’s drive and leave Dan in the dark.

  The only problem with her plan was that when she turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. Grace rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  She turned her head to the side. Dan’s face hovered in the dark outside the window. “Need a ride?”

  Dan wasn't sure what he'd done to make her so mad. He'd tried to be a gentleman, after nearly turning into an animal, and she’d acted like he’d done just the opposite.

  She’d kissed him back, damn it! She’d kissed him back and liked it. She had not flinched from his body’s response to her. She’d welcomed him, wooed him, wanted him. Or at least when her mouth had been against his, he’d believed that. Now he wasn’t so sure. With Grace, Dan wasn’t sure about anything.

  She was earth and fire, woman and passion—different from anyone Dan had ever known. He wanted to know more, even though she’d probably kick his teeth down his throat if he tried.

  As he watched her get out of the car, and discovered how the slit in her white skirt skimmed back from her bronzed thigh, Dan thought a kick in the teeth might just be worth one more kiss.

  He followed Grace across the driveway toward his pickup truck. Before he could open the door for her, she did it herself and got inside. Unfortunately the position of the door kept Dan from watching her skirt again. He really liked that skirt.

  Can’t have everything, although something, once in awhile, would be nice, Dan thought.

  Abstinence had been his choice for a long time. He had priorities, and women were far down the list. He hadn’t minded—until today. Why, suddenly, with this woman, did he think of nothing but tumbled sheets, naked bodies, and the scent of her all over him?

  With a sigh of disappointment, tinged with exasperation, Dan crossed to the driver’s side and got in. Grace perched as close as she could get to the passenger door, as if she’d leap out if he so much as slid an inch closer. Dan was used to people keeping their distance from him, because of both his size and social ineptitude, so why did Grace’s distance hurt?

  Maybe because he wanted nothing more than for her to slide across the bench seat and cuddle up against his shoulder as he drove her home—like the conclusion of a date to a drive-in movie?

  Dan shook his head at his own foolishness. He’d never been to a drive-in movie. Heck, he hadn’t been on that many dates. As a kid, he’d been too big and awkward for the girls to like. While he was still big, though less awkward, dating didn’t appear like very grown-up behavior, even if he had the guts to go trolling for women in Lake Illusion.

  “This doesn’t seem like your kind of car,” Grace ventured.

  Dan glanced her way. She still hugged the door, but if she wanted to try polite conversation, he was game. “No? What does? A Ferrari?” He’d always wanted one—fancy, exotic, sleek—three things Dan Chadwick could never be.

  “No.” That single word deflated his fantasy. He should have known Grace didn’t see him as a Ferrari kind of guy. Her gaze wandered over his large body, and she bit her lip, concentrating. His eyes fixed upon white teeth against russet lips and stuck there. Her mouth moved. “Not a Porsche, either.”

  Pop went the fantasy of nibbling that lip himself. Dan snorted. In a Porsche he’d resemble a sardine in a can. That’s why he had a pickup—a big guy’s car—meant to get him where he needed to be, any time he needed to be there. Even in the dead of a north woods winter wh
en hardly anyone got anywhere, ever.

  “Maybe a Lincoln,” she said. “Navy blue.”

  Dan scowled. His father had a navy blue Cadillac—too close for comfort. “Not up here,” he said.

  “Then one of those fancy four-by-fours—a Navigator, an Expedition.”

  “A car’s a car,” he said, a bit irritably, as he reached under the floor mat for his key.

  “Not really. My father and I always played this game when I was a child.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality as she remembered. “We lived in a town very like Lake Illusion. On sunny summer days we would sit downtown, pick a tourist, then try and figure out what kind of car they drove. Dad was very good at the game.”

  “Was?”

  “He died about eight years ago.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Long time passing.”

  “So how come he was so good at the car game?”

  “Figuring out why people did what they did, what they were hiding, if they were lying, that was his job.”

  A sudden insight dawned. “He was a lawyer.”

  Grace rewarded him with a smile. Dan resisted the urge to stick out his chest and preen.

  “Yes, from the inside out. When we played the car game it was one of the few times he played with me, and I ate up the attention. It wasn’t until years later that I realized observing people wasn’t a game to him but practice. And he was right. A car says quite a bit about the owner if you take the time to look.”

  Dan glanced through the windshield at her leaf- green Bronco. “If that’s true, then your car doesn’t match you either.”

  Her lips curved a bit, and she sat up straighter, away from the door and closer to him. Perhaps small talk wasn’t such a bad idea if it made Grace relax. And he liked hearing about her family. Not only was Grace different from any woman he’d ever known, but her family was fascinating, too. He’d never been interested in people before. Maybe he just hadn’t met the right people.