Laughing, Jeff shook his head. “No, you missed one. Are you an aunt?”
“Not yet. Summer and Derek had their first wedding anniversary last month, and Spring and Clay were married three months ago. I think both couples want children, though, when they decide the time is right.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” she asked absently, toying with a bread stick because she knew what he was asking.
“Do you want children?”
She shrugged. “It’s not high on my list of priorities.”
“What is?”
Again a shrug preceded an answer that was just a bit too flip. “Independence. Self-sufficiency. Pride.”
“Interesting answers.”
“Yes, aren’t they? Good thing you’re a pediatrician instead of a shrink or you’d be busy trying to find out what makes me tick, wouldn’t you?”
His gaze held hers. “I’ve been doing that from the moment we met, Autumn Reed.”
She lowered her eyes, staring hard at the tablecloth. “Don’t. I don’t like being analyzed.”
She was grateful that their dinners arrived just then. By the time they’d been served, Jeff had changed the subject, as if sensing that he’d better keep the conversation fairly impersonal if he wanted her to participate. Still, he continued to ask about things that related to her, unwilling to abandon his efforts to find out more about her. “Spring, Summer and Autumn. Pretty names, but you must have been teased quite a bit when you and your sisters were growing up.”
She grimaced good-naturedly. “Did we ever. To make it worse, our father owns Reed’s Seed and Feed Store in Rose Bud. Name games became our personal peeves. For a while we tried to change over to our middle names, Deborah, Linda and Sarah, but it never seemed to take. We were already firmly established as Spring, Summer and Autumn by that time.”
“Autumn suits you,” Jeff commented quietly, his gaze lingering on her red-brown hair, green eyes and gold-dusted dress.
She didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she deftly turned the conversation back to him. “My turn to ask questions?”
He spread his hands in a go-ahead gesture.
“Where were you born and when, do you have any brothers and sisters, why did you decide to become a doctor, what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream and what do you sleep in?” Autumn asked boldly.
He chuckled, then made an effort to answer in the correct order. “Born in Sarasota thirty-three years ago in July. No brothers or sisters. I wanted to be a doctor because it looked interesting and I like working with my hands.” This was a teasing paraphrase from her. “My favorite flavor of ice cream is cherry vanilla, and I sleep in cotton pajamas.”
Autumn choked on a sip of wine and looked suspiciously at him. “You really sleep in cotton pajamas?”
“Mmm. Want to find out for yourself?” he inquired mildly.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she muttered, though she was disconcerted to find herself flashing a mental image of unbuttoning the top to a set of cotton pajamas, a set being worn by a handsome, dark-haired doctor. Behave yourself, she crossly told her overactive imagination. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re just a little too good to be true?” she casually asked the handsome, dark-haired doctor of her fantasy.
Jeff looked startled—and not altogether pleased. “What do you mean by that?”
Even to her, her smile was a bit feline. “You’re a good-looking, single young doctor living in the nicest part of town in an immaculately kept home that you vacuum yourself. You’re kind to children and electricians, you’re every mother’s dream of a polite gentleman, you have no vices that I’ve noticed—” he’d even turned down wine in favor of iced tea for dinner “—you don’t mind if a woman asks you out or picks you up for a date, and you don’t sleep in your underwear. You’re darned near perfect, Jefferson Bradford.”
She’d managed to make him blush, a fact she noted with a certain malicious pleasure. After all, she’d blushed a few times over him, and she hadn’t liked it a bit!
“I’m hardly perfect, Autumn,” he protested, still visibly embarrassed.
“Oh, yeah? Name a fault, then,” she challenged him, beginning to enjoy this new game.
“I’ve been wanting to take you to bed since the moment I saw you, and it was all I could do not to throw you over my shoulder and haul you to my bedroom when I saw you in that dress tonight.” His tone was brisk, answering her challenge in kind.
Proudly not blushing, she waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s not a fault, it’s a genetic weakness. You’re a male, after all, and some things you can’t help. Like breathing, eating and thinking with your hormones at times. What else?”
If he’d hoped to disconcert her, he was disappointed, but he made a valiant effort to prove himself imperfect. “I don’t like cats.”
She shook her head. “Lots of people don’t like cats,” she returned. “That doesn’t count, either. What else?”
He exhaled gustily. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you this.”
Crossing her hands in front of her, she leaned forward, her lips curving into an avid smile. “Tell. Tell.”
He looked one way and then the other, furtively, obviously checking for eavesdroppers. And then, very quietly, “I’m an addict.”
He’d spoken so seriously that Autumn was taken aback. An addict? She’d read about doctors who took advantage of their access to drugs, but Jeff? No way. “You are not.”
He nodded gravely. “Yes, I am. It started in medical school, and now I can’t stop. I’m truly hooked.”
“On what?” she demanded, beginning to get concerned.
“Dr. Wilson’s World,” he replied mournfully, looking deeply ashamed.
Autumn relaxed muscles that she hadn’t deliberately tensed and semiseriously considered decorating his pin-striped suit with the remains of her dinner. “A soap opera? You’re hooked on a soap?”
Still looking as if he’d confessed to a string of heinous crimes, he nodded. “For years. I tape it every day and watch it before bedtime or on weekends. I can’t help it. When I miss it, I start wondering what’s happening to Paul or Melanie or Dan or Misty or poor old Dr. Wilson, and I’m not satisfied until I find out.”
“That’s appalling.”
“I know.” He hung his head in shame.
“You know it will rot your brain.”
He nodded, chin sinking even lower. Then he risked an upward glance at her though his lush dark lashes—much too lush for a man, she thought enviously—and his blue eyes were dancing with humor. “Now will you believe I’m not perfect?”
“I suppose I’ll have to. Anyone who watches Dr. Wilson’s World every day is seriously flawed.”
“I can’t help it,” he repeated, looking quite pleased with himself. “I’m compulsive.”
“I’m terribly disillusioned. So tell me, who do you think is the father of Misty’s baby? Dan? Running Wolf? Or old Dr. Wilson?”
Jeff shouted with laughter, not at all concerned that dozens of eyes immediately turned his way. “You watch it, tool” he accused her in what could only be termed unholy glee.
She lifted her chin disdainfully. “Not very often, but when I do, it’s for a good reason.”
“Oh, yeah? What?”
“I like to watch Dr. Noble suffer.”
Jeff eyed her questioningly, obviously confused by her pleasure in the many tribulations suffered by the serial’s unfortunate heartthrob hero, one of the more popular actors on daytime TV. “You mean you’re a fan of his?”
“Nope,” she answered cheerfully. “I keep hoping he’ll die in a horrible soap opera accident and fade into television oblivion. No such luck so far, but hope lives on.”
“I don’t suppose you want to explain?”
“Nope,” she replied, deciding not to tell him that the actor who played Dr. Noble was a Little Rock native who’d painfully jilted her sister, Summer, after her permanently damaging motorcycle accident. �
�But I am glad you have a weakness. I have so many myself that you were making me feel inferior.”
“Name a few.”
She shook her head firmly. “Subject closed. Tell me about doctoring.”
So they talked about him for a while, about the grueling course of study in medical school, the exhausting hours of internship and residency, the occasional heartbreak and more frequent rewards, the demands on time and energy. And Autumn listened in fascination, feeling herself growing more and more attracted to him—if that were possible—as the evening went on. And then they were talking about her again, and she was telling him funny stories about her work and discussing favorite books and movies and television programs, and too soon their dinner was over.
Dancing seemed to be the natural continuation of their evening, a physical confirmation of the intimacy that had begun when they’d both confessed to watching the same soap opera. While they were dancing, she discovered the small electronic pager attached to his belt, reminding her of his demanding profession. “Are you on call?” she asked.
“No. I always carry the beeper in case Pam or Julian need to contact me. They know I want to be notified if anything serious happens to one of my patients, even though whoever is on call is perfectly capable of taking care of any situation.”
A dedicated man. A very special man. How could she possibly resist him?
Autumn loved to dance, and Jeff was the perfect partner. She could have quite happily remained in his arms for days, their feet moving in easy synchronization, their conversation light and low-voiced, his hand warm on her bare back.
“I love this dress,” Jeff informed her, as if reading her thoughts.
“Thank you. I’m glad Webb made me wear it,” she murmured, drifting along in some wonderful fantasy, barely conscious of what she’d said.
But Jeff heard her, and he stiffened. “Webb?” he asked, a bit too casually.
“Webb.” She lifted her head from Jeff’s shoulder and smiled up at him. “Webb’s one of my best friends. You know him—Webb Brothers. He says you go to the same health club.”
“Sure, I know him. Nice guy. In fact, he’s the reason I called your company when I needed an electrician. I like to do business with my friends when I can. Are you and he, uh…?”
“Friends,” she supplied firmly, choosing to leave it at that. After all, she didn’t owe Jeff any explanations.
“Are you involved with anyone else? Seriously, I mean,” Jeff asked cautiously.
She shouldn’t really answer. She wouldn’t. He shouldn’t even have asked. But then her mouth opened, and the words came out on their own. “No, I’m not involved with anyone. And I like it that way.”
“I’m not, either,” he told her, returning the courtesy, even though she hadn’t asked. “But I don’t know that I like it that way. It’s just the way things are right now.”
He was a man who would want a wife and a family, a man who was probably looking for those things now that he’d established his career as a doctor. Autumn dropped her eyes to the knot in his tie, reminding herself once again that she had no business being out with this man, feeling these feelings for this man. She was single servings, irregular hours and haphazard housekeeping; he was dinner at eight, family outings and socks in the hamper. She belonged to a union and a bowler’s league; he joined community service organizations and health clubs. They were opposite ends of the spectrum, day and night, apples and oranges.
And his hand on her back was turning her into marshmallow.
She stifled a sigh and swayed to the strains of romantic music, memorizing the feel of his chest pressed lightly against her breasts, his thighs brushing hers, his arms around her, his breath on her forehead. No, she couldn’t allow herself to become too deeply involved with him. It wouldn’t work. He deserved someone who could give more, who wanted to give more.
But, Lord, she wanted him! The sensual side of herself that she’d sternly repressed for the past few years responded to him in a way that she’d responded to no man before him, not even Steven. She was tormented by images, images that had formed in her mind the moment she’d met him. His head bent to hers, his hand on her thigh, his mouth at her breast. Her hands buried deep in his luxurious ebony hair, her lips tasting the firm, glistening skin of his chest. She groaned softly.
“Did you say something?” Jeff asked, still moving in a slow, tantalizing dance.
“No,” she assured him without looking up.
An affair. The modern, sophisticated thing to do would be to have an affair with him. An affair that she controlled—taken at her own speed, ended when she was ready. The ultimate in liberation. She wanted him, he’d indicated that he wanted her. Why not? She’d learned years before that sex and marriage—even sex and love—did not necessarily have to go together. Consenting adults did it every day—met, acknowledged mutual attraction, slept together and parted, unscarred by the experience. She was twenty-five, no longer an innocent small-town girl in the throes of infatuation. She could handle it.
Couldn’t she?
Of course she could.
The music ended. Jeff stepped back and smiled at her. Her heart jumped into her throat.
Then again, maybe she couldn’t.
“WOULD YOU LIKE to come in?”
“Um, I don’t think so. It’s late.” Autumn had the oddest sense of postponing the inevitable as she declined Jeff’s invitation, but she still felt compelled to try.
“Could you spare just a minute? I’d like your advice on something.”
She looked at him suspiciously, finding his expression blandly innocent in the murky light inside her car. “What?”
“Pool lights, remember?” He sounded surprised that she hadn’t known. “I told you that I’d like your advice on redoing them.”
“At—” she squinted at the lighted clock on her dashboard “—one o’clock in the morning?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “If you’re too tired, it’s okay. I understand. We’ll do it another time.”
With an inward sigh at her own lack of judgment. Autumn reached for her door handle. “All right, I’ll look at it,” she told him, swinging her legs out from under the steering wheel. Of course she didn’t believe that Jeff had invited her in only to look at his pool, but then, that wasn’t her purpose for going in with him, either.
It might be the dumbest thing she’d ever done, she decided, but the past couple of hours spent dancing in Jeff’s arms had left her hungry for more of him. She’d made her token protest to salve her own conscience later; now she was giving in to desire and curiosity. After five years of caution and control she figured she owed herself one evening of impulsive pleasure.
Without speaking, Jeff led her straight through his house—as immaculate as she remembered it—and then through double glass doors to the screened-in patio containing his pool. Glancing almost indifferently around her, Autumn briefly noted the romantically subdued lighting, tastefully contemporary patio furniture and lush profusion of tropical plants before turning immediately back to Jeff. At that moment she had no interest in anything but him.
Jeff stared back at her, his hands in his pockets, his face carefully shuttered, but his eyes glowing with what could only be interpreted as hunger. A hunger to equal hers. Autumn locked suddenly icy fingers in front of her, her heart beginning to pound.
“So, uh—” he strengthened his voice with a visible effort“—what do you think?”
“About what?” she asked in little more than a whisper. Even that small sound seemed to reverberate in the middle-of-the-night stillness surrounding them, isolating them.
“The lights.” He gestured awkwardly with one hand, the movement meant to include the entire patio.
“I think they’re perfect.” For just this little while, Autumn thought, everything was perfect. The evening, the setting, the mood. The man. She ached for him to touch her.
His gaze holding hers, Jeff took a slow step forward. And then another. And then s
he was in his arms, and finally he was kissing her as she’d longed for him to kiss her, as she’d dreaded for him to kiss her. Even as she gave herself up to the devastating effects of the embrace, she tried to convince herself that one kiss could not change her entire life.
Jeff swallowed a groan as his hold tightened convulsively around the beautiful woman in his arms. He told himself that her passionate response shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it did. He hadn’t expected such glorious enthusiasm.
Her arms were around his neck, her full breasts crushed against his chest. Her bare back was warm and yielding beneath his eager palms, making him ravenous for more of her. He swept the depths of her mouth, savoring the sweet taste of her. Her tongue welcomed his, and this time he couldn’t hold back his groan of pleasure.
Desire had never come so swiftly, need so powerfully. Jeff wanted her so desperately that he thought he would shatter into dust if he couldn’t have her. He ached, he throbbed with desire for her. Inside his head, his chest. His arms, his legs. The painfully swollen part of him that was even now pressing into her stomach. He groaned again when she moved closer, her body undulating sinuously against him.
“Autumn,” he muttered against her lips, needing to say her name. It felt so good on his tongue that he said it again. “Autumn.”
Her fingers toyed with the hair at the back of his neck. He shivered, burying his face in her softly scented throat, tasting the glistening skin there. She arched her neck for him, allowing him freer access. He pressed another kiss to her throat, then lifted his head, wanting to look at her.
God, she was so beautiful. Her fair skin was flushed with passion, her hair tousled and shining in the golden patio lighting. Lips kiss-darkened, eyes closed, lashes lying softly against her cheeks. Everything in her pose and expression told him that she was more than willing to increase the intimacy of their embraces. All he had to do was lead her inside, unfasten the button of that stunning dress and he could have her. At last.
5
JEFF BROKE into a cold sweat, his body tensing in protest at what he had to do. Somehow, from somewhere, he had to find the strength to step away from her. For he knew without a doubt that if he took her now, he would lose her.
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