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CHAPTER NINE

ONCE JEFFERSON HAD turned back to the boat, Angie touched a finger to her lips. She had just kissed her boss.

Oh, it had been a casual thing, an impulse when words had evaded her. She had just wanted to let him know how much she had loved the boat ride, and she wanted to acknowledge she knew he had made an extra effort to make it pleasurable for her. Maybe, she had even wanted him to know, in that brief touch of her lips to his cheek, that she saw, despite how much he did not want her to see it, that he was a good man.

She could tell he felt guilty about his wife not liking the lake, that it was a burden that had become heavier because Hailey had died. Maybe she had hoped that kiss could tell him what she could not: that his guilt was uncalled-for.

It was a lot to expect of a kiss.

And it had rocked her world more than she had expected it to. She had intended a light peck on his cheek, and really, that was all it had been.

And yet she had been so aware of the rough scrape of his whiskers, the sun and water scent of him, the color of his eyes, the easy strength and confidence of him.

“No more kisses on the cheek or otherwise,” she ordered herself internally. Otherwise? How had that crept in there? But you did not kiss a man like Jefferson Stone on the cheek without wanting more, without contemplating the sweetness of his lips.

Distracted as she was by the pure and unexpected pleasure of the boat trip—and her lips on the roughness of his cheek—Angie made herself focus on Anslow. She had passed through here briefly just yesterday. It was a measure of how fraught with anxiety she had been that she had barely noticed the town.

Now, she saw the sleepy lakeside village was like something you would see on a postcard of a perfect place to be in the summer. The pier jutted out from the main street. That street had a row of single-story false-fronted stores on one side of it, facing the lake. The buildings were authentically old, mostly whitewashed, though some were weathered gray. Oak whiskey casks, cut in half, served as planters, and spilled abundant displays of colorful flowers. All in all, downtown Anslow looked like a set for a Western movie!

Along the wooden boardwalk the Emporium was front and center, but there was also a post office and a museum, an ice-cream parlor and a law office. There was a bookstore and a place to rent canoes and bicycles and, farther along, a barn-like structure that was the community hall.

Apparently, many people shared her view of Anslow’s summer perfection, because the main street was currently clogged with tourists. The general store, which billed itself as the Anslow Emporium, was packed with holiday goers. Just a short while ago, the crush of people might have made Angie panic. Today, all that summer happiness cemented her sense of well-being.

Or maybe it was knowing that Jefferson was just a few steps away, going about his errands, somewhere on that boardwalk. Though it might be silly, she felt as if his mere presence in such close proximity was protecting her. It felt to Angie as if he would never let anything happen to her. That made Angie feel as at ease as she had felt in months.

Exploring the shop, which stocked everything from clothing to lawn mower parts to groceries, Angie was taken, again, with how delightful it felt to be normal and to be shopping for normal things. She snooped contentedly through the crammed aisles of the general store with a sense of discovery instead of with the ever-present fear shadowing her.

She came to a rack, a slender portion of which had been dedicated to bathing suits. Angie hesitated. In her rush to leave her apartment, swimming had been the furthest thing from her mind.

But now the water of the lake beckoned on these sultry, hot days. The selection was tiny. The one-piece model was a leopard print with no back that was available in four sizes, small to extra-large. The two-piece selection was not much better: the scanty bikinis were available in two different prints, leopard or red polka dots, in the same four sizes.

She snatched a small red polka-dot one before she changed her mind. He never had to see it, but it would allow her to enjoy the lake. She could pay Jefferson back for it out of her first check.

She almost sighed out loud. Enjoyment had not been part of her vocabulary—or her experience—for quite some time!

After that one impulse buy, Angie focused on her list. While Jefferson had been right that it did not stock anything exotic, it did have all the basics and a nice selection of spices, too. Since getting to the store was not an easy matter, even if it was delightful, she planned several meals in advance. Was it delightful to be normal? Or was it delightful to be planning meals for Jefferson? She ignored the heavy black lines he had drawn through many of the items on the list.

When she got to the checkout counter, there was a stand of movies for rent. The rental period was a surprising two weeks. When Angie saw the movie Wreck and Me, she could not resist adding it to the purchases. As instructed, she put them on the Stone House account. The clerk looked at her with interest but asked no questions, for which she was thankful.

Her things were loaded into her cart, which she took out into the bright sunshine. The thunderclouds were building over the mountain and there was an ominous pressure in the air. The heat had become absolutely stifling. There was not a breath of wind.

She began to push the buggy toward the dock, but Jefferson materialized at her side and began to lift bags from it. Between the two of them they got everything down to the boat in just one trip. She stowed it under the deck, absently putting her frozen items in the cooler he had brought while contemplating him. Was he avoiding looking at her? Was it because of that kiss? Should she apologize?

When she came back above deck, he was eyeing the clouds and she could sense a certain urgency about him.

“Ready?” he asked tersely. He didn’t wait for her reply. She took her seat, and he ignored her completely, scanning the water and the clouds with intensity of focus. Was she a little disappointed that his terseness might be more related to the building clouds than the building tension between them?

When they came out of the protected bay in front of Anslow, she was taken aback at the change to the water. The wind was quite ferocious out in the open and the water had gone from silky smooth to choppy.

“That was sudden,” she said.

“This lake can turn in a hair,” he said. Under the gathering wind, the chop deepened. The boat began to feel as if it was climbing in and out of swells.

Angie watched Jefferson’s face. He looked grimly determined, but not in the least afraid. And then the rain began to pelt down. Lightning hit the water, seemingly right in front of them, and the thunder was so close that the boat shuddered.

The brightness of the day was swallowed in the darkness of the storm. The heavens opened up and the rain began to pelt down.

“This falls into the be-careful-what-you-wish-for department,” he told her.

She remembered saying, when they had set out this afternoon, that she had wanted to stand in the rain. “I’m not at all sorry I wished for it,” she said. “It’s exhilarating.”

He cast her a surprised glance, and she grinned at him. He returned to focusing on what he was doing.

Angie was aware she could allow herself to feel the exhilaration because of him: unruffled by the storm, radiating confidence in his ability to handle it. She experienced, again, the exquisite sense of being protected.

She could feel the electricity in the air; she could feel the pitch and power of the water beneath the boat. After the heat of the day, having the water pour down, soaking her hair and then her clothes, felt lovely and sensual in a way she was not sure she had felt before. She felt no danger at all, only the exhilaration of being on such intimate terms with the storm, of sharing this experience with him.

The boat rolled, and she rolled toward him and then away. She realized there was no one she would rather be with in these circumstances than him. Despite the powerful twin engines at the back of boat, the boat was bobbing like a cork on the stormy waters.

“Summer storms like this don’t usually last long,” he called over the noise. “I’m going to pull into one of those coves and drop the anchor. We’ll wait it out.”

The water calmed as soon as he made it past the mouth of the cove and into its shelter. He dropped the anchor, and they stood side by side watching the fury of the storm out on the main lake. The lightning show was amazing. The echo of the thunder was caught in the steep mountain sides of the forested land around the lake.

Angie was so aware of everything: her clothes plastered to her, and his to him. The rain plastering her hair to her head, and his hair to his head, the water running down her face, and his. The blessed coolness in the air after the heat of the day. The feel of the boat moving beneath them, as if it were a living thing—a dragon—that they were riding.

Finally, the thunderstorm moved by them, though they could still hear it as it pressed down the lake.

“That,” she finally said, “was amazing.”

“Yeah,” he said, “it was. We still won’t be going anywhere for a while.” Despite the storm passing, the wind remained, and the waves in the main lake were huge.

Was it wrong to love that, to love it that she could hang on to the intensity they were sharing for just a little bit longer?

“Jefferson?” Yesterday she had not even known this man. But after she had accepted his comfort, and offered him some of her own? After she had seen how the man handled a storm on a lake? Her sense of knowing him deeply was complete.

“Hmm?”

“We have a problem.”

He turned and looked at her. His eyes went dark as he took in her soaked shirt. She could see the outline of his chest through his own wet shirt.

“Please, don’t tell me the boat is leaking.” His tone suggested he knew that was not the problem.

“No.”

The problem was that the storm had passed and the electricity still leaped in the air between them.

“What’s the problem?”

She looked at the slick wetness of his hair. The problem was she wanted to run her hands through it. The problem was that she wanted to press her wet body against his. She gulped and looked away from him.

The problem, she reminded herself. Her mind was blank for a moment, and then she remembered.

“Ice cream!”

“Huh?” He ran a hand through that wet hair where her own hand wanted so badly to go. It freed droplets that ran down the line of his temple, and then his cheek and his jaw.

“You know you took the ice cream off the list?” she said in a rush. “I bought it anyway.”

“Why am I unsurprised?” he said, his voice full of irony.

“And the cooler is not going to prevent it from melting.”

“No, it won’t.”

“That’s our problem. We have to eat it now. All of it.”

“Sounds like kind of a fun problem to have,” he said.

“And since you didn’t want dark chocolate, I bought two kinds. The dark chocolate for me, and one for you. I tried to guess what you might like.”

“And?”

“Salted caramel.”

“I have to know,” he said drily, “what would make you look at me and think salted caramel?”

“The contradictions,” she blurted out. “Sweet and salty.”

“Don’t kid yourself. There is nothing sweet about me.”

But that, she knew, was a lie. She remembered his tenderness from the night before. She thought of how he had deliberately made the boat ride to Anslow exhilarating. Still, she played along with him. “It was Salted Caramel or Nutty Road.”

His lips twitched. And then he laughed. It was no less delightful because it was so reluctant.

“I hope you like Salted Caramel. A lot. Because you have to eat a whole bucket of it.”

“We don’t exactly have to,” he pointed out pragmatically.

“I should have got the Nutty Road because only a nut would even consider letting ice cream melt,. Even with the cooler it won’t last long in this heat.”

Aware that something was easing between them, Angie went below and retrieved the two containers of ice cream. She came back topside and he turned from where he had been digging through a side compartment. In his hand he had one of those Swiss Army combination knife sets. He unfolded it to reveal a spoon.

“We’re going to have to share,” he said. “Only one spoon.”

The danger of the storm had nothing on this: sharing a spoon with him. The new ease between them became laced with something else, something as sensuous and unpredictable as that storm.

Jefferson gestured to a bench seat at the back of the boat, sat down and patted the seat beside him. She took the seat, not quite touching him but close enough to be aware of the heat radiating from under his damp shirt. She set down one bucket of ice cream, put the other on her lap and popped the lid off it. She looked into a vat of chocolate the same color as his hair.

“It’s already started to melt,” she said.

“That lends a sense of urgency to the whole situation,” he said.

She glanced at him and realized he was teasing her. The ease and the electricity braided themselves together even more completely.

He dug the spoon in and then held it, heaping with dripping ice cream, out to her. She moved into the circle of his electricity and closed her lips over the spoon, her eyes locked on his.

Without breaking the hold, he took the empty spoon and dug it back into the chocolate. Seeing his tongue dart out to free the ice cream from the spoon was way too sexy. But then he was holding the spoon, filled again, out to her. She closed her lips around the spoon, aware that his lips had just touched that same place. Ever so slowly, she tugged the ice cream off.

And then she watched him take that same spoon and dip it back into the ice cream and put his lips exactly where hers had just been. His eyes met hers. He did something exquisite to that spoon with his tongue.

When it was her turn, she did something just as exquisite with her tongue. She heard him give a little gasp of surprise.

And longing.

Sharing that spoon became an exploration of sensuality almost as powerful as a kiss. She was so aware of him: the wet transparency of his shirt, the shape of his lips, the light in his eyes, the solidness of his wrists, the strong columns of his fingers as they held the spoon to her lips.

“So, would you say this ice-cream flavor—dark chocolate—is a reflection of you?” he asked.

She gulped. “In what way?”

“Sweet, but with surprising depth and a hint of mystery.”

Was he flirting with her?

“You need to be writing ice-cream labels,” she said.

“You write the next one.”

He reached over her, and took the second bucket of ice cream. He pried the lid off the salted caramel one and dipped the spoon in. He held it out to her and she took it.

“What do you think?” he said. “What would you put on the label?”

“Subtle, but sensuous with hints of salt.” Was she flirting back?

He ducked his head and dipped the spoon back into the ice cream and tasted it slowly, rolling the ice cream on his tongue as if he was at a wine tasting.

“I like it, but—” he dipped the spoon back into the chocolate and then into the salted caramel “—who knows what could happen if you combined two such different flavors?”

Was he talking about ice cream? Or was he flirting? Whatever he was doing, she liked it. She never wanted it to end.

With her eyes still locked on his, she slid the ice cream off the spoon. The whole experience was so exquisite it was almost painful. She had to shut her eyes against it.

When she opened them, he was sliding a spoonful of the mixed version between the sultry mounds of his lips.

“The ice cream tastes like ambrosia,” he said gruffly.

“What does that mean, exactly, ambrosia?”

“Food of the gods.”

“That’s what we will call this new flavor then, Ambrosia.”

And this experience, in her mind, also had a name. Ambrosia. Surely, this was the kind of experience the gods fed on? Not food but the quality of air, and the static from the storm, and the hint of danger between her and him right now.

They ate ice cream until they could not eat another bite. They put the lids on the now melted containers and put them aside. While they had been eating the ice cream, darkness had been sliding over the lake. They sat there, side by side, rocking gently on the waters of the cove, while just beyond them the lake rolled, white tipped and violent.

The waves appeared as big and violent as they had during the storm. The wind outside the cove howled a warning.

She shivered, whether from cold or from eating too much ice cream or from awareness she was not sure. Jefferson went below and came back with a blanket.

Again, he had just one. He tossed it over both their shoulders and pulled it tight around them. The warmth from him and from the blanket crept into her. They were sailors, marooned, and she loved it. Night fell and the stars winked on, one by one, studding the pure inky blackness of the sky.

It was crazy, and beautiful.

Going for groceries by boat was definitely the most romantic thing that Angie had ever done.

She was so amazingly aware of everything: the wind, and his warmth and solidness of his shoulder underneath the blanket and the flavor of ice cream in her mouth. She was so aware of how he was not watching the restless waters of the lake, but her.

“What?” she whispered.

“I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“Really?”

“Because it is apparent to me that there’s nothing about you that is a shrinking violet. It is apparent to me you are very courageous. So, I want to know what has you so frightened.”

“This morning you weren’t interested,” she reminded him.

“I was interested,” he admitted. “I just didn’t want you to know I was interested.”

“And what has changed?” Besides everything, she thought to herself.

“This morning we hadn’t eaten ice cream off the same spoon.”

She sighed deeply. And surrendered.