Gerry, however, looked tense, his smile forced as he led his bride-to-be in a slow dance. Was he feeling threatened, perhaps, by his stepbrother's larger-than-life presence?
Physically, the two men couldn't have been less alike. Gerry was taller than Blue but slighter, almost willowy, if that word could be used to describe a man. Although they both had blond hair, Gerry's was a lighter, paler shade, and his hair was fine and slightly thinning on top, not thick and wavy like Blue's. And though Blue's smiles were scarce, Gerry's were almost constant. In fact, Gerry's carefree, fun-time, no-worries attitude contrasted so sharply with Blue's serious intensity that Lucy found it hard to believe the two men had lived under the same roof as young boys. It seemed almost impossible that they'd shared a home and not driven each other crazy with their different approaches to life.
But the talk around town was that despite their differences, Gerry and Blue had been closer than many blood brothers, that their strengths and weaknesses had complemented one another. Lucy didn't know for sure that that was true. By the time she and her mother had moved to Hat-boro Creek, Gerry was off at college, and by the time Gerry returned after college, Blue had already left to join the navy.
Lucy gazed across the ballroom, studying Blue's face, watching him as he watched Gerry dance with Jenny Lee.
His gaze swept around the room, passing directly over Lucy with no glint of recognition, as if she wasn't even there—or as if he'd forgotten that she even existed, as if she paled so absolutely compared with Jenny Lee.
Lucy's stomach clenched in disappointment. But really now, she scolded herself. What did she expect? Did she honestly think she'd be anything to Blue but a poor substitute for the woman he truly wanted? She had to keep her imagination in line here. If she wasn't careful, she'd start believing that Blue had unconsciously reached out to her because deep down he was searching desperately for a good woman to love. Or she might start believing that she could make Blue fall in love with her, that just one glorious night of lovemaking with Lucy would soften his damaged heart.
No, the sad truth was, Lucy had come here tonight with her eyes wide open. She knew exactly what Blue wanted from her. He wanted sex. No strings, no desperate search, no falling in love, no softening hearts.
She knew that, and she'd come anyway.
Except now the way Blue's eyes seemed to look right through her signified a decided lack of interest on his part.
Lucy was a fool for thinking she could ever compete with Jenny Lee. Even though Jenny was engaged to marry another man, she was so pretty and sweet it was crazy to think that Blue wouldn't be carrying a torch for her. No doubt he'd asked Lucy here tonight hoping for a distraction—a distraction that she'd failed to provide.
Lucy knew she should turn away, walk out of the room and down the long corridor to the stairs that led out to the back parking lot. But she couldn't move. She could only gaze at Blue and wish that things were different.
His rugged features were impassive, his eyes revealing nothing—no emotion, nothing. And that, of course, convinced Lucy that there was something Blue was working so hard to hide.
On the other hand, she had to admit it was a no-win situation for Blue. She knew that she was not the only person in the room watching him for his reaction to his stepbrother and his former sweetheart's dance. If he smiled, it would be with "bittersweet longing." If he frowned, it would be with "barely concealed jealousy."
No, Blue's were not easy shoes to be in right now, and Lucy had to give the man credit for showing up in the first place.
Shoes. Blue wasn't wearing shoes, Lucy realized suddenly. He was wearing sandals. He was wearing his gleaming white navy dress uniform with rows and rows of ribbons and medals on his chest, and a pair of leather sandals on his feet.
As more and more people moved out onto the dance floor, Blue turned away and headed for the French doors that led out onto the patio. The doors were closed tonight. It was too hot to keep them open. The air-conditioning would escape and the muggy night air would be let in.
With his hand on the doorknob, Blue turned back and looked across the room—directly at Lucy. This time he didn't look through her. This time he met her eyes. He moved his head almost imperceptibly, but his message was clear. Follow him outside.
Lucy's heart was pounding as she moved along the ballroom wall toward the patio doors. Perhaps she'd been wrong. Blue did recognize her. He did know she was here. It took her several minutes to work her way around the room, but finally she reached the French doors and slipped out onto the patio.
The sounds of the music and laughter from the party became muffled and distant as she shut the door behind her. The heat brushed against her face and arms like something solid. The moon was nearly full and it glowed through a haze of high clouds.
The patio was wide and made of carefully evened-off flagstones, with a decorative cast-iron railing surrounding it. Several chairs and tables with flickering citronella candles were set up around the edges. Japanese lanterns were strung overhead, but the pale light they cast couldn't compete with the moonlight.
As Lucy stood and let her eyes grow accustomed to the dimness, she saw Blue in the shadows, leaning against the railing, just watching her.
Blue couldn't believe his eyes. That was strange, because he'd been a lot of places, seen both the best and the worst that humanity could offer, and he'd begun to think that nothing could ever surprise him.
But Lucy Tait, dressed to kill in a sexy black dress, with her legs looking at least seven miles long, with her hair piled sophisticatedly atop her head and her brown eyes made up and smoldering, had proven him wrong.
He'd expected her to arrive at the country club wearing something demure and functional. He'd expected he would have to use his imagination to see beyond her clothing to the woman he suspected was underneath.
She started toward him, and he felt his pulse kick into the double time of anticipation, which he immediately tried to squelch. He hadn't been thinking straight when he'd asked her to come to this party with him. It wasn't until he arrived and realized that he was the focus of covert—and some not so covert—attention that it occurred to him that, as his date, Lucy would be subjected to the same curious stares and speculation.
She didn't deserve that. He had to send her home before anyone saw them together.
That was why, when he first noticed her standing on the other side of the room, he didn't allow himself to react. He didn't even let himself do the double take he so desperately wanted to do.
But here in the darkness, away from all the prying eyes, Blue could do all the double takes he wanted.
Mercy.
She could have been the poster model for carnal desire. But as he gazed into her eyes, he realized that it was entirely possible that Lucy didn't know how incredibly sexy she looked. He could see hesitation in her eyes, and a kind of vulnerability that, combined with her incredible outfit, made her seem a curious mix of experience and innocence.
Blue couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a woman and wanted her more than the way he wanted Lucy right now.
He pushed himself up off the railing as she drew closer. The sexy black spike heels of her shoes made her nearly his own height and she gazed directly into his eyes.
"Seems I've been away from town longer than I thought,” Blue said softly. He felt his body tighten as he dropped his gaze to her mouth to watch her nervously moisten her lips with the pink tip of her tongue.
"Twelve years," she murmured.
He nodded. "So...why aren't you married...settled down with a couple of kids and all?"
She crossed her arms, one dark eyebrow lifting slightly. "Why aren't you?"
"I never met someone I couldn't live without," he said bluntly. "I guess I'm picky that way."
Lucy lifted her chin challengingly. "And what makes you think I'm not?"
Blue had to smile. "Touche." With that defiant gleam in her eyes, she looked so like the girl he'd first
met all those years ago—and so unlike her, all at the same time.
He could still remember the way fifteen-year-old Lucy had tried to hide her pain, even after the boys who had been beating on her had run off. Her nose had been bleeding slightly, and she was holding her side. Though Blue had seen one of the boys kick her savagely in the ribs when she was down on the ground, she never cried, and tried not to let on that she was badly hurt. But there was a sheen or perspiration on her face that had told Blue otherwise.
She'd sat on the grass, knees pulled in tightly to her chest, and he'd sat down next to her. "You all right, Yankee?"
"Yeah," she said, wiping the blood from her nose with the back of one hand. "Yeah, I'm... fine."
"You don't look so fine."
"I just... need to sit here for a minute."
"Okay," Blue said quietly. "Mind if I sit here for a minute, too?"
She shook her head. No, she didn't mind.
"Those boys give you a reason for kicking the bejesus out of you?" Blue asked.
"They don't think a girl belongs on the baseball team," Lucy said.
"Well, it is called the boy's baseball team," Blue commented.
Lucy's eyes flashed. "So where's the girl's team?"
Blue shrugged. " 'Round these parts, girls try out for the cheerleading squad."
"The coach said I'm the best shortstop this hick town has ever seen," Lucy said flatly. "And from what I've seen, he might be right. He put me in the starting lineup and has me batting lead-off. And you want me to be a cheerleader?"
Blue hid a smile. "You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"
"There are some things boys can do better than girls—like pee standing up," Lucy told him, her eyes narrowed dangerously, "but playing baseball is not one of them. I'm going to stick it in those creeps' faces by winning MVP this year—and accepting the award in a dress."
Blue might have even laughed out loud at that, except a spasm of pain made Lucy wince. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Her face looked so pale.
"How about I give your mama a call?" Blue asked.
Lucy shook her head. "She's working."
"You're hurt--"
"I'm fine."
Blue stood up. "She works in the office at the mill, doesn't she?"
"I said, I'm fine!" Lucy scrambled to her feet, and the effort made her sway.
Blue reached for her, holding her up. "You got a broken rib, Yankee. I'm taking you over to Doc Gray's."
"No, please!" Lucy's dark-brown eyes were wide, her voice beseeching as she gazed up at him. "It's only a crack. The doctor will tape me up and tell me I can't play ball for three weeks. By then I'll have been off the starting lineup for so long I'll have lost my place. I'll spend the rest of the season on the bench."
"Sometimes you gotta sit out."
"Not this time," Lucy said desperately. "If I sit out, those creeps will win. I can't let that happen."
Blue was silent.
"I'll tape myself up," Lucy had told him, chin held high. "It'll hurt, but I'm damned if I'm not going to play."
She had played, and sure enough, that year she'd won the coveted Most Valuable Player award for the junior-varsity team. She'd had one hell of a stubborn streak back then, and from the way she was holding her head at that same challenging angle, it seemed that she still had those same guts and grit now. Inside, she wasn't that different. It was the outer packaging that had changed some. A whole lot of some.
Blue let his gaze travel over Lucy's formfitting black dress and down her long, nylon-clad legs. "I guess what I really meant," he said, gazing back into her eyes, "was that I can't believe you're unattached. I can't believe you could walk into this place alone, looking the way you do."
"But I'm not alone," she said softly. "I'm with you."
Desire knifed sharply through Blue, and despite all his best intentions, he knew there was no way he could send Lucy home. Not unless he went, too.
But maybe he could go. In half an hour or so he could make his excuses to Gerry and Jenny Lee and bow out before dinner was served. Until then, he and Lucy could stay out here on the patio. No one would see them. No one would have to know.
Lucy held Blue's gaze, wondering almost desperately what he was thinking. And he was thinking. He was planning, deciding. There was more than sheer, hot, raw desire in his eyes—although there was plenty of that, too. She'd have to tell Sarah, she thought almost inanely, that her little black dress was a raging success.
"May I have this dance?" Blue finally said, his smooth Southern drawl like black velvet in the darkness.
Oh, yes. But... "Right here?" Lucy asked, breaking free from the magnetic hold of his eyes to glance around the deserted patio.
Blue smiled crookedly, just a slight lifting of one side of his mouth. "Yeah," he said. He hooked the rim of his hat over one of the posts of the cast-iron railing. And then he reached for her.
Inside the country club, the band was playing an old, slow, familiar tune. The music seemed to drift in the stillness of the night, distant and haunting and pure.
Lucy slipped her right hand into Blue's, resting her other hand on the solidness of his shoulder. She felt his arm encircle her waist, felt the warmth of his hand on her back.
Dear God, she was slow-dancing with Blue McCoy.
He was graceful and surefooted, and when his thigh brushed hers, she knew it was not by accident. Slowly and so surely he pulled her in, closer to him, until her breasts touched his broad chest, until their legs touched continuously. His hand moved upward, exploring the back of her dress, finding the round keyhole of exposed skin.
Lucy felt herself sigh, felt herself tighten her hold on Blue as his slightly work-roughened fingers caressed her back. Gently she pulled her fingers free from his and ran her hand up his arm and shoulders to meet her other hand at the back of his neck.
She could see satisfaction in the ocean-colored depths of Blue's eyes. He knew as well as she did that she was probably going to end up in his bed tonight. It was clear that pleased him. It was also clear that he desired her, too—-she couldn't help but be aware of that from the way their bodies were molded together.
Any moment now, he was going to kiss her. Any moment now, he was going to lean forward and touch his lips to hers and they were both going to explode with passion. She could imagine them making a beeline for Blue's motel room, undressing each other as they climbed into the cab of her truck, barely making it inside before...
Lucy felt dizzy. This was moving much too quickly. Yes, she wanted to make love to this man. She'd come here tonight knowing that the clothes she was wearing sent a message, knowing that her mere presence was a loud and clear affirmative to Blue's unspoken sexual question. But she'd imagined them having dinner first—shoot, at least having a drink and a certain amount of conversation—before giving in to the animal attraction that flashed between them.
But polite conversation and small talk had no place in this relationship. Her body understood that, heat flooding her, readying her for what she really wanted—the most basic and intimate of acts.
Lucy didn't wait for Blue to kiss her. Pulling his mouth down to hers, she kissed him.
She felt more than heard his surprised laughter—laughter that lasted only a fraction of a second before he angled his head and returned her kiss with an urgency that took her breath away.
He pulled her with him deeper into the darkness of the shadows. His hands explored her body, covering her breasts, slipping down to cup her derriere, reaching for the edge of her dress and sliding up underneath the hem, pushing her miniskirt up along her nylon-smooth thigh. He discovered the edge of her thigh-high stockings and groaned, kissing her harder, deeper, as his fingers caressed the soft smoothness of her skin, as he found the silky lace of her panties.
They weren't even going to make it back to his hotel room. The thought flashed crazily through Lucy's head. But they had to. There were laws against making love in publi
c. For God's sake, she was a police officer. She couldn't do this. Not here.
Lucy pulled back slightly. "Blue..."
"Come back to my room with me." His velvet voice was rough, hoarse, and out of breath.
She nodded. "Yes."
Blue kissed her again and she clung to him, shutting her eyes tightly against the regrets that were sure to come in the morning and all the rest of her tomorrows. But for the first time in her life, Lucy refused to think beyond the here and now. She lost herself again in his kiss.
He tasted the way she'd always imagined he would—sweet and clean and wonderful.
He broke away from her, taking her hand and pulling her toward the gate. "Come on."
"We're just going to leave?"
His eyes were blazing hot in the dim glow from the Japanese lanterns. "You bet.”
"But..."
"Come on, Yankee. Let's go make all my dreams come true." His voice was low, vibrating with his desire as he tugged on her hand.
"Your brother will look for you." His brother and a hundred or so odd guests. "He'll wonder where you went."
"If Gerry caught sight of you walking into that country club, he'll know exactly where I went."
Lucy blushed. "I'm serious," she said, pulling her hand free from his grasp. "You know how small-town gossip can be. Everyone is going to think that you left because you couldn't stand watching Gerry with Jenny Lee."
"Me and Jenny Lee," Blue said, shaking his head. "That's ancient history."
Lucy could almost believe him. Almost. "That's not the way it's going to look," she said quietly. "No one is going to know that you left with me—no one has even seen us together."
"And I don't want 'em to," Blue said. "I don't want 'em talking about you, too."
Lucy smiled ruefully. "Whatever they'd be saying, it would probably be true, wouldn't it?"
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