He had a week or less before Mrs. Cabilla, or Perry, her weasel-faced minion, showed up. Then what was he going to do; what was he going to say? If he didn’t have something more to show his benefactress, Grace would win the grant. And though Grace’s project intrigued him, the thought of five wasted years terrified him.
Dan truly believed in what he was doing or he wouldn’t be doing it. And there was the tiny problem of proving to his parents that he wasn’t the failure they’d always insisted he would become. Even though he hadn’t spoken to his parents in five years, and didn’t really miss them, proving them right, rather than wrong, about his ineptitude was not something he looked forward to.
Dan sighed and forced himself to cross the room, sit down with his back to Grace, and fiddle with his bottles and beakers.
Someone had to.
Grace was nearly done entering the data into the computer. Five years of research made a lot of paper. Dan was lucky there’d never been a fire. Everything would have been gone. Poof! Sometimes geniuses just weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box when it came to common sense.
She didn’t think Dan had been taking care of himself, either. He looked tense, pale, as malnourished as a huge guy could look, which shouldn’t surprise her since he forgot to eat all the time and he never seemed to go outside unless he were jogging or chopping wood.
She’d discovered why the man had heavy calluses on his palms. When a problem nagged him too much he chopped wood—a manly version of crocheting, she assumed. When she’d asked him about the huge pile of split logs behind the lab, he’d mumbled something about a woodstove to offset the cost of air-conditioning. The more Grace learned about Dan, the more she found to like.
But she wondered. Had he always been this driven, or was it just the recent ultimatum that had gotten him so uptight?
Glancing at Dan, Grace found him hunched over his little glass tubes, mumbling. Her heart rolled over and flopped into her stomach every time she caught him muttering like a lunatic and mixing things.
When had she started to fall for him? It could have been at any one of a thousand moments. But the fact remained the same—she wanted Dan Chadwick, and she really shouldn’t take him.
The past two weeks had been pure torture. At home, Em and Olaf were in love, and while she was thrilled that two of her favorite people had found happiness with each other, watching them make out all the time played havoc with her self-control.
Every morning she worked in Dan’s lab. She could hear him; she could see him; she could smell him. She became a model of efficiency trying to keep from staring at him. Since she’d had that talk with Em, all sorts of things were becoming obvious. Dan was not the man she’d thought him to be—he was a whole lot more.
Every night she dreamed of him. Amazingly erotic dreams she’d never believed herself capable of. She would awake hot, damp and unsatisfied, with memories of Dan’s mouth on her body and his body on hers.
In her life there’d been one other man. He had been her first, and when she’d discovered his betrayal, she’d vowed he would be her last, too.
Silly thought, she realized now, but she’d had it just the same. All the bad things in her life had converged and she’d had neither the time nor the desire to mess with affairs of the heart again. Then Dan had walked naked into her life. And she had both desire and a mess on her hands.
Every day when she entered the lab, she wanted nothing more than to see him naked again, to touch that big, hard body, to taste that soft, smooth skin. And because she wanted those things so badly, she made herself stare at the computer screen like a robot.
The more she forced herself to work, the more interested in Dan’s work she became. The more she read his notes, the more she learned of the man. He was devoted to this project. He believed curing one infection could cure countless more—and he was probably right.
His muttering became louder, and she glanced at him again. So earnest and scientific, he’d run his fingers through his hair until the strands stuck up like cornhusks waving in the autumn wind. He hadn’t gotten a haircut yet, and he headed into ponytail territory. What would he say if she walked up behind him, smoothed her fingers through that hair, over his neck, down his shoulders and underneath his lab coat?
Grace stifled a moan. She had it bad.
Dan cursed beneath his breath, causing Grace to frown. He never did that. Things must not be going well. She suspected he worked harder than usual these days because of the time limit imposed by Mrs. Cabilla. Because if Dan worked this hard, all the time, he was going to die very young.
Just like her father.
A tiny cry escaped Grace’s lips and Dan glanced her way. She jumped up from the computer and crossed the room. He tensed as she approached, as if he expected her to break all his precious beakers. Her mouth twitched. Sometimes she wanted to break them.
She stopped a foot away and held out her hand. Confusion evident upon his face, Dan took her hand. She tugged. He sat there like a lump. She sighed. Spontaneous man, he was not.
“Come with me. There’s something you need to see.”
“But—”
“No buts.” She stepped closer. Close enough to feel his heat and let him feel hers. Holding his gaze with her own, she raised his hand to her lips and placed a kiss on the back. His shiver showed he was as aware of her as she was of him.
While he stared at her mouth, she unbuckled his watch, then her own. “And where we’re going, we won’t be needing these.”
She tossed them onto the table with the rest of the stress-related items and tugged his hand again. This time he stood, though he cast a longing look back at his watch.
“But—”
“Today forget all the buts in your life.” She released his hand and unbuttoned his lab coat. His breath caught on a sexy sigh that caused her own body to heat. She needed to stop thinking of sex every time he entered the room. Perhaps if they weren’t in a room, the allure would be less. She intended to find out.
Grace shoved the pristine coat from his broad shoulders and let the garment fall to the floor. Dan made a grab for it, but she caught his hands with her own. “Let it go,” she whispered. “Let me show you a place where nothing else matters but the blue of the sky and the sun on the water. Just for today, let’s be free.”
His face torn between hope and uncertainty, he shook his head as he pulled her closer and nuzzled her hair. Grace’s heart fell, but the word that brushed her cheek was . . .
“Yes.”
Dan had never played hooky in his life. Not in college, not in med school, not from work. Never.
Perhaps that was why he kept looking over his shoulder as he and Grace walked hand in hand out of the cabin. No one shouted, “Stop, thief of time! Get back in there and work!”
So he kept going. He hadn’t called Grace the Pied Piper for nothing. When she spoke his name, the music of her voice drew him wherever she led.
They got into her car, and she drove in the opposite direction from town, out into the wilderness, where he’d never been before. Dan got even more nervous. What was it he was supposed to do if he got lost?
Oh, yeah. Hug a tree.
He stared at the miles and miles of evergreens that looked exactly the same. Sure. That ought to work.
Without his watch Dan felt adrift. He must have been insane to let her take it away. But when she’d come so close her scent invaded his senses, then kissed his hand and taken off his lab coat, his poor tired brain had only held one word.
Yes, yes, and yes again.
Well, how long could it take to show him one little place? What could it hurt to take a few hours off? Perhaps a few hours was just what he needed.
His granny had always said, “a watched pot never boils,” so the experiment he’d been playing with for the last several months, which he’d set to boil then cool, would be fine without him staring at it. He’d be back by late afternoon and hopefully there’d be a breakthrough awaiting him.
The lull
of the car, the heat of the day, the rolling miles of highway and acres upon acres of tall, tall trees made his eyes heavy. Dan awoke when the car stopped.
“Wh-where are we?”
“Paradise.”
“Huh?” Dan peered out the window. A secluded lake surrounded by trees, a raft floating in the middle, and a rowboat on the shore. “Looks like an advertisement for Outdoorsmen ‘R Us.”
“If you’re making jokes, you must feel better.”
“I felt fine.”
“That’s why you aren’t eating and you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Dan blushed, remembering why he couldn’t sleep. “I sleep fine.”
“If that were true then you wouldn’t have crashed like a baby as soon as I hit the highway.”
He ignored her and got out of the car. Leaning his rump against the hood, he stared at the scene. Grace was right. Here the sky was bluer than blue, not a cloud, not a streak of jet stream. Nothing but sky. The sun shone on the pristine water so brightly his eyes ached.
Grace joined him. “See? Doesn’t this just make you want to stay here forever?”
He nodded. “What time is it?”
A startled laugh escaped her. “That’s all you can say? ‘What time is it?’”
“Well, what time is it?”
“I have no idea. I don’t time my time off.”
Dan glanced at the sky, but he’d never been able to judge the time from the sun—especially when the sun was so high and he had no idea which way was north, south, east or west. He’d never needed to tell the time that way, since he hadn’t taken off his watch since . . . since . . . 1981.
He pointed at the sky. “What does the sun say?”
“How would I know?”
“You can’t tell the time from the sun?”
“Sorry.” She strode off toward the lake.
Dan found himself distracted by the sight of Grace’s legs and the shape of her rear in shorts. She hardly ever wore shorts. Just those long, slitted skirts that drove him mad. The shorts had the same effect.
At the lake’s edge she struggled to pull the boat from the shore into the water. Dan hurried over and gave her a hand. “You truly don’t know what time it is?”
She straightened, put her hands on her hips and shot him that look that plainly said, Idiot. But when she spoke her voice was gentle, and he wondered just what in the hell was going on. “No, Dan, I don’t know what time it is. I only wear a watch when I’m working, never when I play, and I don’t know how to tell time by giizis.”
“Giizis?”
“The sun. I never learned, because I never cared. By my calculations . . .” She got into the boat. “It’s daytime. Are you coming?”
“Coming?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. The word had sounded sexual, though he hadn’t meant for it to. Luckily she let it pass without a quip. “On the lake with me. Come out and play, Doctor. It’ll be fun.”
“But—”
“Ah.” She silenced him. “Push off and jump in. Please?”
Why couldn’t he relax for just a little while? All he’d wanted for the past two weeks was to touch her again. Today he might get a chance, if only to hold her hand. He could work all night and make up the time.
In answer, Dan shoved the boat the last few inches into the water and stepped in. The boat wobbled alarmingly, and Grace grabbed his hand and yanked him down. Their knees bumped, and her smile blossomed. “I don’t suppose you know how to row?”
He glanced at the oars resting inside the boat. How hard could it be? Just once he wanted to know something she thought he should know. “No problem.”
In the act of pulling the oars loose from their mooring, she paused to gape at him. “You’ve rowed before?”
On a rowing machine. “Sure.”
“You’re elected then.” She handed him the oars. “Let’s just go out in the middle and drift awhile.”
“All right.” He fiddled the oars into position with a lot of clunking and thumping, but he made it. Grace watched him with a half smile upon her face.
“Relax. We’re all alone. The lake is ours. Peace awaits.”
“You’re sure no one will show up with a motor boat or jet skies?”
She wrinkled her nose as if she’d smelled something foul. “Not on my lake.”
“You own a lake?” He’d gotten the impression she was poor and struggling.
“My mother does—or at least all the land access. Dad bought this place for a vacation retreat. They were going to build a house on the shore and come here on the weekends, maybe retire here, too.” She stared past his shoulder with a wistful gaze in her eyes. “You know they never came here once? My dad worked weekends—always. He kept saying next weekend, next summer, next year.”
Dan couldn’t imagine his mother sitting still for that. But then his mother and father would never plan a weekend retreat, never dream of taking time together, away from their jobs, never, ever allow someone to steal their watch. “And what did your mom say?”
Grace brought her gaze back to him. “She said, ‘Yes, darling, whatever you want. Next year is fine with me.’ But there wasn’t a next year. There will never be a next year for them. My mom hates this place now.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and still. Dan didn’t like to see her sad. She so rarely was. He picked up the oars and started rowing toward the center of the lake. If he could give Grace one thing, he could give her this day, without complaint, without constraint.
“You can row.”
The surprise in her voice made him frown. “I can do a few things besides mix and stir, read and write.”
“I wondered.”
Since she smiled when she said it, Dan smiled, too. The sun warmed his muscles. The black T-shirt he’d slipped on that morning as the only thing left clean was probably not the best choice for a late August day on a lake. He set the oars up and pulled the shirt off.
His hair brushed his neck and fell in his eyes. He wished for a moment he had a rubber band to pull the strands out of his face and off of his neck. Then he gave a snort of laughter. Dr. Daniel Chadwick with a ponytail. The image wasn’t all that bad.
“What?” Grace asked.
He shook his hair out of the way and discovered her staring at his biceps. He glanced down to discover that rowing made them flex and release. Not bad for a geeky scientist. He looked at Grace again. The expression on her face had Dan’s temperature rising several more degrees. “Uh, my hair,” he fumbled. “I should get it cut.”
“You think?” She lifted her gaze from his arms to his eyes. “I kind of like it.”
“You do?” Was that the first time she’d said she liked something about him? Or was it merely the first time he could recall anyone saying they liked anything about him—except his incredible brain, of course.
“I do. If you pull it back when you work, it’ll stay out of your eyes.”
He nodded, imagining his mother’s face if she saw her son wearing a ponytail. The image was too appealing to deny.
“Look.” Grace pointed at the sky. The movement pulled her shirt up, baring her midriff. Dan caught a glimpse of tanned, supple skin, stretched over a flat belly. Sweat trickled down the middle of his chest. “Doc!” He looked at her face. Exasperation filled her eyes. “You’re going to miss it.” She jabbed her finger at the sky again. Her shirt rode higher. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
He swallowed the scalding lust at the back of his throat and followed the direction of her hand. A bird soared above the lake, a very big bird. Dan squinted against the flare of the sun.
“Is that . . .?”
“An eagle. Yes. There’s a nest here.”
Dan stopped rowing and stared. The boat drifted on in a lulling, soothing coast across the center of the lake. “I’ve never seen one,” he whispered.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“There’s a lot you’ve missed.”
“Yes.” He tore his
gaze from the majestic bird that soared and dipped as if dancing in the sky. The eagle, a symbol of freedom throughout the world, was the perfect image for this day of Grace. Dan lowered his head to look at her.
She stared again. No one had ever gazed at his body with such longing before. Everywhere her eyes touched he burned.
“I have missed a lot.”
Her gaze flicked from an ardent perusal of his belly, up to his face. The sun had kissed her nose, just a hint of spice on cinnamon skin. Dan wanted to kiss her nose, too. He wanted to kiss a whole lot more than her nose.
Their eyes caught and held. He read desire in the depths of her brown gaze. She licked her lips. “Grace, you make me crazy.”
Those lips curved; temptation’s name was still Grace. “You don’t do so bad at that yourself, Doctor.”
She leaned forward and ran a single finger down the center of his chest along the trickle of moisture, the softness of her skin and the rasp of her nail a contrast that had him shivering despite the summer sun. He burned; he froze; he ached. He had to kiss those curving lips or explode.
Leaning forward, Dan puckered up. Grace’s eyes drifted closed, a soft sigh of expectation and surrender filled the air, competing with the lap of the waves against the boat.
He couldn’t reach her. Frustration filled him. The first time they were alone in the world, no Olaf would come to kill him, and he couldn’t reach her for a kiss. Thinking only of those lips on his, Dan stood so he could sit next to Grace on the bench seat and take her into his arms.
The boat tottered. “Uh-oh,” Dan murmured, trying to backtrack.
Grace’s eyes snapped open. “Ah, hell,” she said.
They both went into the water.
Chapter Thirteen
Grace couldn’t help but laugh as she went into the water. That’s how she ended up with a mouthful of lake. She came up coughing, and sputtering, and gagging. By the time she cleared her throat, her teeth tasted like seaweed.
Her heart gave a sharp, panicked kick when her searching gaze did not discover Dan. Dear God, please let him be able to swim.
When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) Page 15