“Pow!” she said softly, ludicrously. And came back strenuously for more. And backed away again, taking a quick step to regain her balance and said, “I feel dizzy. And I don’t feel the least dang bit scared. Or crawly. Or anything like that. I feel like I’d all of a sudden turned into a big pile of warm raspberry Jello.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t be silly! What else could feel like this? I love you too. More, please.”
With the next kiss, her warm brown arms were strong, and she made a guttural purring sound deep in her throat, and she bruised her mouth and his. And so she went home and she came back, and they walked and talked, with pauses for kisses, until dawn. There was lots of time coming for more than kisses, and this was the time to catch up on all of those that she had missed. She drove to Tampa with him, because he had to go back, at least this time. And by then it had been agreed that because she was a marriageable girl with perhaps plenty of money, he’d be very smart to marry her. He would go up and check on the next assignment and wangle something where a wife could be taken along, and also get enough time off to come down and marry her and take her back with him. And in the meantime she would have a chance to find a very bright girl for the office so Buddy wouldn’t miss her too much. Then after she had her taste of far places, and probably enough kids to make traveling a major problem, he would have his twenty years in and they would come back to Ramona and buy on the beach and build there and drive Buddy nuts helping him run the Larkin-Doyle Boat Yard and Marina.
It seemed remarkably easy to organize the rest of your life. No trick at all.
He waved from the top of the ramp as he got onto the plane.
At first when the stewardess walked down the aisle toward him, she smiled broadly. By the time they were over Georgia he thought she was looking at him rather strangely.
And it was then that he discovered that he was still wearing a big, broad, idiotic smile, fringed with lipstick.
Deadly Welcome Page 16