“So you want to help other families avoid that.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ll be good at it. Because you care.”
“Thank you.” It was the nicest thing he could have said to her, Anna thought. “I have to admit that ego is part of it.”
“Ego? You?”
“I have one, and it’s dam tired of having to train college graduates how to be my boss, simply because I don’t have a degree. With a degree and a business of my own I won’t have to put up with that nonsense.”
“Smart thinking.” He toasted her with his nearly empty glass. “Smart lady.”
The waitress spotted his empty glass the instant he put it down and swooped over to cheerfully refill it.
“So what about you?” Anna asked when the waitress finished. She was tired of talking about herself. “Have you ever been married? Do you have any children?”
“No, and no. Someday, maybe, but I’m in no hurry to settle down. I like my life just the way it is.” He smiled wryly. “Besides, first I would have to find a woman who’s more interested in me than in the number of rock stars I know.”
“I don’t believe that,” Anna scoffed.
“That I know a lot of rock stars?”
“That women only want you for who you know. I can’t imagine a woman not being attracted to you.”
Gavin grinned at the fierce blush that stained her cheeks as she realized what she’d said. “Yeah?”
Mortified, Anna dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Well, uh, I mean, uh, never mind.”
“Ah, come on,” he teased. “What were you going to say?”
“Absolutely nothing. My lips are sealed.”
“I’m crushed.” His grin was wide.
“Is this that twelve-year-old-boy ego you spoke of?”
He winced playfully. “Ouch. Okay, truce. Let’s just say you like me and I like you.” His smile was crooked. “I do, you know. I like you very much, Anna Lee Collins.”
He could have no idea, Anna thought, how much that meant to her. She’d never made friends easily. Friends, and family, too, hurt you. They left you.
Gavin would leave, too, she reminded herself. And soon.
“Now I’m really wounded,” he told her. “When a man tells a woman how much he likes her, he doesn’t expect her to look so sad.”
Anna shook her head and smiled. “Sorry. My mind wandered.”
“To someplace sad?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. I don’t want you to be sad. Come on,” he said, gesturing with his fork. “Let’s think of something fun to do tomorrow.”
Anna blinked. “Fun?”
“Yeah, you know, as in having a good time.”
“What kind of fun?”
“I don’t know. When’s the last time you flew a kite?”
Anna chuckled. “Try never.”
Gavin’s fork clanked against his plate. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I’ve never flown a kite.”
“Well, now, we’ll just have to do something about that”
It was big and bold, five feet wide, seven feet long, divided into three triangles of red, yellow and green, a bright, sassy diamond dancing in the brilliant sky, sporting a ten-foot tail of bright blue bows.
It was Anna’s first kite and she was shrieking with delight as the wind tugged hard, threatening to lift her from the ground as she held the spindle tight in both hands.
“Whoa.” Gavin laughed with her and put his hands around her waist. “I think I better hold on to. you, or that kite’s gonna carry you clear across the lake.”
The wind, as usual for a warm June day in Oklahoma, was strong out of the south. There were at least a half dozen kites flying from this wide grassy area south of the marina on the east shore of Lake Hefner in far northwest Oklahoma City. Anna appeared to be the only person over the age of ten who was doing it for the first time, but she wasn’t worried about it.
She wasn’t worried about much of anything just then. Not even the knowledge, via the morning’s e-mail, that Ben was definitely in San Francisco could spoil her mood. That just meant Gavin would be with her that much longer.
She knew she was heading for trouble. Her feelings for Gavin were growing by the hour. When he left, as she knew he would, he would leave a hole in her life.
But for now he was beside her and the day was much too glorious for her to be looking for trouble. Out on the lake, windsurfers darted across the wakes of sleek sailboats. On the south shore at Stars and Stripes Park families picnicked, children chased each other and laughed. On the southeast shore, Anna had the wind and sun on her face, the kite soaring high, and Gavin Marshall’s hands upon her waist. There had never been a more glorious day.
She hadn’t realized how liberating it could be to simply have fun. It was hard to worry about much of anything while flying a kite. Except keeping her kite aloft and out of the water, away from other kites, away from the few trees around that were tall enough to be a threat. Those were the important concerns of the day. Nothing else. Nothing else mattered at all.
“Let it out some more,” Gavin urged.
“Are you sure?”
“Come on, live dangerously.”
Anna laughed, wondering if he realized she was laughing at herself. Because for her, flying a kite at Lake Hefner on a Sunday afternoon with Gavin Marshall was about as dangerous as Anna’s life got.
“Slowly,” Gavin cautioned. “Just a little at a time.”
“Like this?”
“Just like that. A little more. More. There, that’s good.”
A clean, tantalizing scent rose from her sun-warmed hair, tempting Gavin to bury his nose against it, press his face into it and just breathe her in. Lord, but the woman was getting to him. Even her sunscreen—SPF gazillion, because Anna didn’t take chances—smelled sexy to him.
To take his mind off her, he brought up a subject he’d been curious about since he’d first seen this lake when he’d been out riding around a few days ago. “So tell me what the heck Oklahoma City is doing with all these seagulls?”
“Enjoying them?” Anna offered.
“Uh-huh, but what are they doing here?”
“You don’t like seagulls?”
“I like seagulls just fine. But they’re usually found near the sea. In case you haven’t noticed, Oklahoma is a little on the landlocked side.”
Anna laughed and shrugged. “I have no idea how they got here. Maybe they blew up from the Gulf on the remnants of a hurricane.”
Gavin pursed his lips. “I hadn’t thought of that. That could do it.”
“Oh, no! It’s dropping,” Anna cried, looking up at the kite. “Why is it dropping? I knew we shouldn’t have let it out so much.”
Gavin laughed. “You did not.” He reached for the string a couple of feet above the spindle and gave it jerk. “Come on, try this.” He turned her and together they ran while Gavin tugged upward on the string, trying to lift the kite.
The kite drifted upward, but when Anna turned her head to watch, she stumbled, and Gavin tripped over her. They went down together in a tangle of arms, legs and kite string. Gavin managed to roll and avoid landing on top of her, but his arm was still around her waist. She landed on top of him.
Finally, he thought, she was right where he wanted her. In his arms.
The thought startled him. He hadn’t known he wanted to hold her, but as he was doing it and it felt so damn good, it was hard to deny.
He had a feeling that if he brought it to her attention that she was nestled snugly between his legs, the startled laughter in her eyes would die, and he didn’t want that. Didn’t want that at all. So he rolled slightly until she lay beside him on the grass, his arm slipping up behind her neck.
He would have been stunned to know that Anna was disappointed by the move. She was a little stunned herself. Shocked was more like it, to have enjoyed being sprawled on top of him that way. It had been...intere
sting.
She bit the inside of her lip. Who was she trying to kid? It had just relegated kite flying to the second most dangerous thing she’d ever done. Lying on Gavin’s chest, with his hips cradling hers, held the number one spot.
Dangerous. Exciting.
Maybe she was glad after all that that particular contact had been so brief. If she’d had time to think about it she might have had time to get embarrassed.
And maybe he’d shifted her off his chest because he hadn’t liked having her there as much as she’d liked being there.
And maybe she was making more out of an innocent accident than she should. It was still a glorious day. She didn’t want to ruin it by thinking too much. If she thought, she would start to wonder what it would have felt like if he’d kissed her.
“Ah,” he said with a gusty sigh. “This is how kite flying is supposed to be done.”
Anna chuckled. “On your back?”
“Exactly. You can watch the kite, look at the clouds and not have to worry about getting a crick in your neck.”
Gavin wanted to keep her there next to him, but she wouldn’t stay put. He didn’t know if he’d made her nervous, or if she was just having too much fun to be still. Whatever the reason, she sprang up and took the spindle with her. Not entirely displeased, Gavin rose slowly and stood beside her.
There would be another time, he vowed, when she would lay in his arms and want to linger.
Down, boy, she’s not for you.
That, he admitted, was the absolute, undeniable truth. She was not for him. She wasn’t a good-time girl out looking for a little mutual satisfaction. She was the sober and serious Anna Collins who was just now learning how to have fun.
And none of what was running through his mind made him want to hold her any less.
Damn.
They stayed in the park for another hour, until dark clouds started rolling in from the west. Flying a kite over a lake with a thunderstorm on the way being a blatant invitation to a lightning strike, they reeled in the kite and headed for home.
“I guess I can safely assume,” Gavin said from the passenger seat of her car, “that you enjoyed kite flying.”
The storm was moving in faster now, with purple-gray clouds boiling forward, rapidly eating up the sky.
Anna laughed. “I loved it. It was...exhilarating.” At a stoplight on Northwest Sixty-third, she glanced at him and smiled. “Thank you.”
Oh, the lady didn’t play fair. When a woman said thank you in a voice gone all quiet and husky that way, a man wanted—needed—to kiss her when he said you’re welcome.
What the hell, the light was still red. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re welcome.”
Startled, Anna touched a hand to her cheek, to the very spot where his lips had pressed against her oh, so briefly. Too briefly. She wasn’t in the habit of being kissed, on the cheek or otherwise. “What was that for?”
“Just because.”
Just because, she thought. Just because.
That was probably the reason her heart was suddenly racing. Just because.
By the time they pulled into the driveway, storm clouds had blocked out the sun. Gavin got out and raised the garage door. Anna barely had the car in the garage before the first sheet of rain swept in.
Tugging the door down and wiping splattered rain from his face, Gavin eyed Anna as she got out of the car. “I repeat—you need an automatic garage door. If that last light had been red, we wouldn’t have made it.”
She shrugged, closed the car door and headed for the kitchen door. “We could have waited it out. It won’t last long. Or we could have gotten wet. I doubt either of us would have melted.”
Gavin shook his head and followed her into the house.
True to Anna’s prediction, the storm didn’t last long. Within an hour it had swept past them, leaving everything shiny clean and wet. “If I were to guess,” she muttered, looking out the patio door, “I’d guess the grass loved that rain. I swear it’s grown an inch since this morning.”
“Maybe I’ll take another swipe at it with the mower tomorrow,” Gavin told her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested.
“I don’t mind. It’ll give me something to do. I kind of enjoy feeling useful now and then,” he added with a smile.
“You mowed the yard last week,” she reminded him. “And fixed my garage door. Just yesterday you washed my car. If you keep on, I’ll start to think you’re indispensable and won’t let you go home at all.”
“You’d keep me here?” Tilting his head and studying her, Gavin gnawed on the inside of his jaw. “I think I’ll write a song. ‘Kidnapped by a Slave-Driving Woman.’ It could be a hit.”
“And here you’ve led me to believe you were a successful songwriter.”
“Why, Anna Lee Collins. You made a joke.”
“Why, I guess I did. I don’t know what came over me.” But she did know. Gavin Marshall had come over her. She just wasn’t sure what, if anything, she should—or could—do about it.
The question kept her awake most of the night. She chose to blame her sleeplessness on the second thunderstorm that crashed through at 2:00 a.m.
It really wasn’t anything to lose sleep over, this growing feeling inside her for Gavin. It couldn’t go anywhere, mean anything. She knew that. It wasn’t like her to get all hot and prickly on the inside over a man. Not like her at all.
Still, it was a private thing, something she could, and would, keep to herself. She wouldn’t dream of doing anything to let him know how she felt. If she even knew herself what she was really feeling. For surely Gavin Marshall wasn’t the least bit attracted to her.
Was he?
No. Other men weren’t. It was foolish to think that a walking, talking Adonis of a man like him would be.
No, Gavin was just a very nice man—who happened to cause odd reactions inside her. He’d come into her life to try to help keep her brother out of trouble. He was being nice to her because he was a nice man.
The truth of that tied her stomach in knots and kept her awake until nearly four. When her alarm went off at six-thirty she stumbled from the bed and groped her way toward the bathroom. The light over the mirror blinded her. She squeezed her eyes shut and moved to sit on the toilet lid to gather her wits before turning on the shower. But something went wrong.
The toilet lid wasn’t there.
Neither was the seat.
Her shriek of shock as she fell butt-first into the toilet echoed off the tiled walls and spilled out into the rest of the house.
Gavin was certain he’d never moved so fast in his life. One minute he’d been sound asleep; the next, he’d been awakened by a scream. In one leap he was out of bed, through the door and down the hall. He barely had time to register that his heart was thundering in his ears. All he knew was that something terrible had happened.
“Anna? Anna!” He hit the bathroom door in time to see her erupt, fury on her face and in every muscle, from the toilet. From...inside the toilet. Maybe he wasn’t as awake as he’d thought, but unless his eyes were deceiving him, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened.
He thought maybe he was in trouble.
She turned toward him. Her fists were clenched at her sides. The back of her nightgown dripped water onto the bath mat. There was murder in her eyes and, when she spoke, a snarl in her voice. “You left the lid up.”
“Uh...uh...” What could a man say? The prudent thing to do, he figured, was to retreat. He took a step backward.
“And the seat,” she growled, stalking him.
He took another step out into the hall and tried to choke back a snicker. It wasn’t funny, he told himself. A woman falling into the toilet really wasn’t funny. “Now, Anna.”
Anna was so livid she was nearly sputtering with it. Red spots danced in front of her eyes. The indignity of falling into her own toilet was simply not to be borne. And to have a witness! The guilty p
arty himself! It was just too much. With her fingers curved like claws, she took another step toward him. “Justifiable,” she muttered.
“How’s that?” His lips were twitching.
“Justifiable homicide. That’s what they’ll call it.”
“Now, Anna.” He snickered. “You have to admit—”
“If, that is, they ever find all the pieces of your body.”
“I had no idea you were the bloodthirsty type.”
She advanced on him again. “Did you know we have a Make My Day law in Oklahoma? Being threatened in my own home gives me the legal right to kill you.”
“I’m sorry. I apologize. I’ll never leave the seat up again. Come on, Anna, you—”
He couldn’t finish, Anna noted, for the simple reason that the sorry creep obviously found the entire incident absolutely hysterical.
“You dare to laugh?” She took another step, desperately afraid she might be starting to see the humor in the situation.
“You have to admit...”
“I don’t have to admit anything to a man wearing—Good grief.” She squinted to make sure she was seeing correctly. “You sleep in Bugs Bunny boxers?”
“You can’t murder a man wearing Bugs Bunny boxers. I’ll just, uh, go on back to bed.”
With a snarl, she chased him to his bedroom door.
Back in the bathroom she stood in front of the tub and stared down at the water on the mat.
She burst out laughing.
Chapter Nine
“All right, out with it.”
In the act of putting her purse away for the day in the bottom drawer of her desk at work that morning, Anna paused and looked up.
Donna stood beside the next desk, hands on hips, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.
Anna slid the drawer shut and straightened. “Out with what?”
“Last week out of the blue you ask about a rock-and-roll songwriter, and suddenly you know the names of songs and artists you never paid any attention to before. Today you walk in here with a smile on your sunburned face. You never walk in with a smile, and you never get sunburned. And you haven’t even noticed that we finally got that new filing cabinet we’ve been begging for for months.”
Until You Page 12