by Diana Palmer
Silly, but she had never had so much fun.
A curl of excitement spiraled in her stomach. He would be here any minute, she knew. Denise felt as giddy as a high school kid on prom night. But then, she admitted silently, she had felt that way almost every night since meeting him. She deliberately ignored a niggling thread of worry. They hadn't done anything foolish again. There had been no more wild, out-of-control lovemaking sessions.
Instead, they spent time together. Talked. Laughed. And the desire between them grew hotter, stronger.
Yet in its own way, that was just as dangerous. She stared at that photo again, her gaze locking onto Mike's image. Over the past few days, the feelings she had for him had changed, gone beyond that initial attraction.
Denise drew one long, shaky breath and jumped to her feet. Her head swam and the room spun around her in dizzying circles. Closing her eyes, she carefully sat back down and waited for the odd sensations to pass.
Her mind raced with more questions than she had answers. The period she had expected to arrive that morning hadn't. But it was too early to start worrying, wasn't it?
In seconds, she was fine again. When the doorbell rang, she stood up slowly. Once she was sure she wouldn't fall over, she went to answer it.
He cut the engine, set the kickstand into place then climbed off the bike and stood waiting on the driveway. Denise pulled her helmet off, looked at him, then shifted her gaze to the small house just a few feet away.
One light shone from behind the curtains at the front window, spilling onto a tiny lawn banked by a riot of flowers, their colors muted now by summer moonlight.
"Who lives here?" she asked, wondering if they were visiting some of his friends.
"I do."
Denise swiveled her head to look up at him from her perch on the bike. Interesting. Somehow she hadn't imagined him living in a tidy Cape Cod. He seemed more the efficiency apartment type. No ties, no sentiment. Beige walls and communal hot tubs.
Curious, she let her gaze sweep across the small, well-kept yard to the three-foot-tall picket fence surrounding the property. Unlike most neighborhoods in beach cities, the old houses on this street weren't jammed too close together. At least fifty years old, they had been built before land in California became so valuable that contractors now shoved twenty houses onto lots meant for fifteen.
This house had character. A personality.
"I like it," she said.
"Thanks." Mike's defensive posture relaxed. It was almost as if he had been prepared for her to hate the place. He glanced at the house and said, "It used to belong to my grandparents. They moved in right after their wedding."
"No honeymoon?" she teased.
Mike winked at her. "Grandpa Ryan always claimed that this was the best honeymoon cottage in the world."
A wistful pang erupted in her chest as she turned back to look at the little house again. In her mind's eye, she saw that long-ago young couple, coming to this house to start their life together. In a flash, she saw the years pass, children grow, grandchildren born and still that once young couple were together. Loving each other.
How nice it must have been she thought, to grow up seeing that kind of love.
Her own memories were less pleasant.
"Are they still—" She stopped, unsure of how best to ask that particular question. Yet she wanted to know. She somehow needed to know that his grandparents' love continued.
"Alive?" he finished for her. "Yeah."
Denise smiled, relieved.
"They moved to Phoenix a few years ago," Mike explained. "Grandpa said the ocean damp was bothering Gran, but I think he just wanted to live right on top of a golf course."
Ridiculous, she knew, to be so pleased that two people she didn't even know were still healthy and together. Her gaze slid across the wooden shutters at the windows, the shake roof and the flowering vines creeping along a trellis attached to a side wall of the house.
"I know you and Patrick are twins," she said softly as she realized that Mike had told her almost nothing about his family. "Are there any other Ryans I should know about?"
He helped her off the bike, flicked up the kickstand again and pushed the motorcycle down the short drive to the garage beyond the house. "Besides Patrick and me, there's Sean and Dennis. Sean's the oldest, then Dennis."
Denise followed him, listening. "Didn't any of them want this house?"
"Get one of the doors for me?" he asked and waited while she opened one side of the double doors to the too-small-for-a-car garage. "Sean's stationed in South Carolina. Dennis has a houseboat moored south of here and you couldn't blast Patrick out of his apartment," Mike said with a laugh.
"He's gone now," she reminded him.
"Only on vacation."
She leaned against the garage wall and watched him as he set the kickstand again and stepped away from the bike. "You said Sean is stationed up north?"
"Yeah." Mike reached up, yanked the cord on a bare light-bulb, then turned to look at her in the dim glow. He shoved both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "Career marine."
His features tightened and a muscle in his jaw twitched. He suddenly looked more like he had that first night in Patrick's office than he had in more than a week. Why? "You have something against the marines?" she asked.
"Not for Sean, I guess. He likes it. I didn't."
"You were in the service?"
"Eight years. Got out a few years back."
His answers were getting shorter. Sharper. Maybe she should have left it alone and backed away from what was apparently a tender subject. But she didn't.
"Why did you leave?"
He dragged a deep breath into his lungs and even in the indistinct light of that low wattage bulb, Denise saw the strain in his features. "Let's just say I saw enough of the desert to last me a lifetime."
Desert?
A cold chill ran down the length of her spine and she shivered. A marine in the desert. His grim expression. He had to have been in Iraq. She looked at him, trying to see behind the shutters he had erected over his eyes. Trying to see what that experience had done to him. But she couldn't. He was much too good at hiding his feelings behind a hard-as-nails mask.
At the same time, she realized that but for good fortune, he might have died in that desert war and she would never have met him. Never have known what it felt like to be held by him. Never have gotten to know the woman she had become since meeting him.
She couldn't imagine not knowing Mike. Her gaze settled on his features and she realized just how much he had come to mean to her. How much she looked forward to seeing him. Talking to him. How much she felt for him, despite her best intentions. What if they had never met? she wondered.
Another, deeper chill touched her and this time, he reacted when she shivered. He yanked the light cord again, plunging the tiny garage into darkness. "Come on," he said tightly. "You're cold."
She had caused this tension in him, by unintentionally stirring up old memories and now she wanted to dispel it. Denise wanted the real Mike back. The man she knew and cared for. As he came close, she said abruptly, "It must have been fun. Growing up with three brothers, I mean."
He walked to her side and as his features became clearer in the darkness, she saw a wry smile lifting one corner of his mouth. Apparently, he was relieved with the change of subject.
"Oh, yeah." He set one hand on the plank wall beside her head and leaned in close. "It was a blast. Yelling, fighting. Every day was Disneyland."
"You enjoyed it," she guessed.
"Every minute." He lifted his left hand to stroke her cheek. "What about you? Brothers? Sisters?"
Her breath caught at his touch. "No. None."
"Must have been lonely."
"And quiet." Maybe she wouldn't have been so lonely if she and her father hadn't been so far apart. Maybe… She cut short that line of thinking. It did no good to keep raking over the past. Denise sucked in a gulp of air and tried to keep the conversation
moving.
The tiny garage suddenly seemed claustrophobic and it had everything to do with the fact that Mike was standing way too close to allow coherent thought.
"What about your parents?" she asked.
He chuckled, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, before taking a step back from her. Then, leading the way out of the garage he said over his shoulder, "Both retired."
"From what?" she asked as he shut the door behind them and headed for the back porch of the house.
"Ever hear of Wave Cutters?"
"Of course. It's one of the biggest surfboard companies in southern California."
"That's the one." He unlocked the back door, opened it and ushered Denise in ahead of him.
She blinked at the brightness when he flicked the kitchen light on. A scrubbed pine pedestal table sat in the center of the big, square room and in the middle of the table was a huge, wicker picnic basket. As Mike moved to the refrigerator, she said, "Wave Cutters makes surfboards, wet suits, beach wear…just about everything."
"That's them."
"Them who?" she asked as he pulled a bottle of wine and a plate of sandwiches from the fridge and set them on the table.
"My parents. They're Wave Cutters." He stopped, shrugged. "Well, they were. Now, it's Dennis's headache."
"Headache?" Denise pulled one of the captain's chairs out and plopped down onto it. "You didn't want to be a part of your family's business?"
"Nope." He looked over the edge of the door and winked at her. "Well, all four of us are actually on the board, but Dennis is in charge. The rest of us just collect dividends."
"Why?" Wasn't he proud of what his parents had accomplished? Wave Cutters was one of the fastest growing companies in the country. "How could you not want to be a part of it? Your parents must have been furious."
"Furious?" Mike laughed out loud at that one. "My dad believes in doing what you want to do. His dad had wanted him to go into business with him—TV repair. Said that surfing and being a beach bum would never support a family." He shook his head. "Tell my dad 'No' and it's like issuing a direct challenge."
Like father like son, she thought.
"Anyway, when Wave Cutters took off, Grandpa sold his business and went to work for his son." Mike stood up, shut the fridge and leaned back against the door, smiling at her. "Together, they built it up so well, they both retired to do what they love best."
"Golfing."
"For Grandpa," Mike agreed. "My folks, though, bought a place in Hawaii." His black eyebrows wiggled and his eyes sparkled in amusement. "They're looking for the perfect wave."
Denise shook her head. Her own father seldom left his office. And Mike's father walked out on a hugely successful company to be a full-time surfer? She could just imagine what Richard Torrance would think of that.
"What's the matter?" Mike walked to her side and squatted down beside the chair. "Disappointed to find out that I've got money? That I'm not the dangerous desperado you thought I was?"
She looked into his green eyes and saw that he was actually worried about what she was thinking. Not dangerous? she thought. One look into his eyes and her toes curled and sparks skittered down her backbone. She drew a series of shallow breaths and forced her heart into a regular beat again. "Oh, you're dangerous all right, Ryan."
He grinned at her and her pulse jumped into jackhammer time again. "Good," he said. "I prefer dangerous to successful businessman."
Denise didn't understand that at all, but didn't bother to say so. At the moment, she was less interested in what he did for a living than in what he did to her. She stood up when he pulled her from the chair. Her vision blurred slightly at the quick movement and she leaned her forehead against his chest briefly.
"Hey," he asked, "are you all right?"
She pulled in a long breath, drawing the scent of Old Spice deep into her lungs. As the dizziness passed, she nodded. "Fine. I just got up too fast."
Mike looked at her warily. "You're sure that's all it is?"
Not entirely, Denise thought with a pang, but said only, "I'm sure."
He nodded abruptly. "In that case, let's get going."
"To where?" she asked.
Mike picked up the now full basket and gave her a slow smile. "A picnic."
High, craggy cliff walls surrounded him on three sides. Mike glanced skyward and sighed heavily. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, he told himself. Moonlight, an empty beach, a sheltered cove and Denise. Through hooded eyes, he watched her, standing only inches from the incoming tide.
Soft light from the full moon fell on her in iridescent patterns of shimmering silver. She lifted her wineglass to take a long drink and his gaze locked on the elegant column of her throat. Ocean air lifted her hair and teased the curls into a tangled mess that only served to make her more beautiful. The leather pants he'd given her for riding hugged her legs with a lover's grasp.
His hands itched to touch her. His body ached with a pain that had tormented him for the past ten days. She never left his mind. And that fact terrified him almost as much as the thought of never seeing her again.
But this couldn't go on and he knew it. Once they found out if she was pregnant or not, a decision would have to be made.
If she was pregnant… Instantly, his mind conjured an image of her lithe body rounded with the swell of his child. He groaned quietly as he realized she would be even more beautiful to him pregnant than she was now. He rubbed one hand over his eyes and told himself not to think about that yet. There was a good possibility that she wasn't going to have a baby. And if not, she would probably want him out of her life. Though that was most likely for the best, it bothered him to realize just how much he had come to count on seeing her every day.
To know how much she meant to him.
"Hey!"
He let go of his thoughts and looked at her.
"Are you going to hog all that grape juice to yourself?" She held out her empty wineglass toward him.
"You've had enough," he said, and wondered how anyone could get tipsy off of grape juice.
"Half a glass more," she called back over the roar of the ocean.
He shook his head, got up and walked to her side. Taking her glass, he filled it a quarter of the way and handed it back to her.
She nodded a thank you then reached up to push her windblown hair out of her face. So different from the woman who had tried to attack him with pepper spray. She looked relaxed. Happy.
And way too tempting.
"It's beautiful out here, Mike." She grinned at him. "I've never been to a picnic on the beach."
"In a couple of more weeks, this place will be so crowded, you wouldn't find a spot to throw a blanket down."
"I like it like this," she told him and leaned closer. "Empty. Private."
He told himself that she was drunk off the ocean air. That there were rules about things like this. You just didn't take advantage of a woman when her defenses were down. No matter how tantalizing the invitation.
"I know what you're thinking," she said and pressed herself against him. "You think I'm feeling reckless."
"A little."
"Not even a little," Denise said and met his gaze squarely, soberly. The wind brushed a lock of hair across her eyes again and she reached up to push it out of the way.
He set his hands at her waist to steady her as she leaned her slight weight into him. Every spot where her body met his was suddenly alive. His fingers tightened on her narrow waist. He looked down into her eyes and called himself a fool.
Only a couple of hours ago, his memories of desert warfare had been all too close to the surface. For one brief moment there in the garage, he had been able to feel the blazing heat of the sun. The scent of fear and sweat had surrounded him.
And with those memories had come another. The memory of a promise he had made to himself. To steer clear of love. To avoid giving anyone the power to hurt him as his friends and their families had been hurt.
Yet her
e he was, coming dangerously close to caring for a woman who even now might be carrying his child.
"Denise," he said abruptly, "when will we know about—"
She reached up and laid her fingertips over his mouth, effectively silencing him. "I'll buy a test tomorrow."
Tomorrow. A thousand differing emotions battled within him for dominance. He had never planned on being a father. Had figured on leaving all of that to his brothers. But, now that he was actually faced with the prospect of a child, it was different. Surprising as it was to admit, he had caught himself almost hoping there would be a baby. A girl maybe, with Denise's blue eyes and blond hair.
Something inside him shifted painfully. Was it the child he wanted…or was it her child that had suddenly become so important?
"We'll know for sure tomorrow," she said, "one way or the other."
He nodded.
"But tonight, Mike," she continued and her soft voice was almost lost in the pulsing rush of the ocean, "let's forget about everything but us. I want one more night with you before we know. Before things change forever."
Mike bit back a groan as an invisible hand tightened around his heart and squeezed. Her quiet words tore at him, leaving his insides open and unguarded.
"Kiss me, Mike."
A deep, throbbing ache settled low in his gut and his hands fisted at his sides to keep from reaching for her. He looked down into her face, brushed by moonglow, and silently admitted that he had also been hoping this would happen. He had counted on the moon and the stars and the seductive scent and sound of the ocean to urge her into his arms.
Why bother pretending now that he wasn't interested?
Mike groaned again as he grabbed her and pulled her into the circle of his arms. He lowered his mouth to hers like a dying man seeking salvation and dismissed the last of his guilt in the rush of need swamping him. No point in denying the truth to himself. He had to have her.
Chapter 8
She dropped the glass to the sand and when he tore his mouth from hers to lavish long, slow, wet kisses along her throat, her moan of pleasure heightened his every sense.