by Joan Hohl
“You haven’t been here before?” he asked the moment the hostess turned away from the table.
“No,” Tina said, raising her eyes from the menu to skim another glance around the room. “Though several of my friends have recommended it to me, I just never got around to coming. It is charming.”
Eric nodded his agreement. “Food’s good, too.” He inclined his head to indicate the menu. “The broiled seafood dinner is excellent.”
Tina lowered her gaze to the menu, noting the listed items included with the dinner. “Too much food,” she murmured, perusing the column for a lighter meal. “I’m afraid I overdid it with the pizza last night.” She glanced up to give him a dry look. “Have to watch the calories, you know.”
“Right.” Eric ran an even drier look over the portion of her body visible above the table.
“But I do,” Tina insisted, smiling in response to his skeptical expression. “I have to be careful, because I love food, especially fattening things—breads, pastries, pizza, stuff like that.”
“So do I.” Eric looked surprised. “I love Italian bread, slathered with butter. And pizza. And pastries.” His lips curved into a self-deprecating smile. “My favorite is homemade lemon meringue pie.”
“And mine!” Tina laughed. “And, at the risk of sounding terribly conceited, I must admit that my homemade lemon meringue is the best.”
“Better than my mother’s?” Eric asked in feigned disbelief and shock.
“How would I know?” Tina demanded, suppressing an urge to giggle. “I’ve never tasted your mother’s.”
“It’s to die for,” Eric said, his solemn tone of voice belied by a devilish grin.
“Well, in that case,” Tina rejoined, “I’ll take your word on it.”
“You’re not willing to die for pie?”
“No.” Tina lost the battle against the giggle. “Not even lemon meringue.”
It was silly, but it was fun.
The realization suddenly struck Tina that she was not only relaxed, but genuinely enjoying herself. Eric’s whimsical sense of humor was a surprise, a very pleasant surprise, since it complemented her own.
The waitress arrived at their table with her seltzer and Eric’s beer, asking if they were ready to order dinner. Tina chose the soup-and-salad combo, then studied Eric with unabashed curiosity as he struggled with the tough decision of whether to have the seafood or the charbroiled steak.
And Eric was a subject worth studying, Tina mused. With his tall, muscularly lean body, shock of sun-kissed, tawny hair, crystal blue eyes, chiseled features and downright sexy mouth, in looks alone Eric embodied the stuff of feminine fantasies. In addition to his appealing appearance, he had a great sense of humor and his fair share of charm. In total, the man possessed the power to be devastating to an unwary female. But, she concluded, as she was not one of the unwary, she was perfectly safe. She had traveled the male-charm route, she knew every one of the dangerous curves. It was all familiar territory that she had no intention of traversing again.
Eric chose the steak. Rare. A portent of some inexplicable something? Something feral, perhaps?
Dismissing the errant thought as even sillier than their banter, Tina took a sip of her seltzer and decided to indulge her curiosity about her new neighbor.
“You spoke of your mother’s pie as if you regularly enjoy it,” she said. “Does she live close by?”
“It depends on what you mean by close,” Eric replied, moving his shoulders in a casual-looking shrug.
Tina thought his shrug was much too casual looking, and his answer rather evasive. A warning signal flashed through her, causing a sense of unease that banished relaxation. Along with exuding charm as effortlessly as most men sweat, her ex had always been too casual, and definitely evasive. And for good reason. Glen had had a lot to hide.
Tina had admittedly been naive at the beginning of her relationship with her former husband, but she had never been stupid. She had learned her lesson fast and well. She detested lies, and any form of deceit. Now, observing Eric, she could not help but wonder what, if anything, he might be concealing behind an attitude of charm and casual evasiveness.
“I mean close,” she replied, determined not to play by anyone’s rules but her own—direct and to the point. “In this vicinity.”
Eric narrowed his eyes slightly at the hint of sharpness that edged her tone. But he met her steady gaze straight on, and he answered at once.
“Then, no, she does not live close by. She lives in a small town north of here.” This time, when he shrugged, there wasn’t a casual thing about it. “Sprucewood.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ever hear of it?”
“Yes.” Tina nodded. “I’ve never been there, but I have a general idea of where it is.”
Eric made a low sound of satisfaction. “Then you should understand what I meant by ‘close.’ I can get there in a half hour or so on my bike.” He smiled. “To me that’s close. It’s a matter of perception.”
“Hmm...” Tina murmured, taking another sip of her seltzer and asking herself if she was being too picky. Yet, while Eric now appeared quite open, she still felt he was reluctant to talk about himself. Why? It was that why that bothered her. In her experience, most men not only were willing to talk about themselves, they did so ad infinitum.
Unless, like Glen, they had something to hide.
Her conclusion made Tina uncomfortable, for several reasons. The most important of those reasons was the undeniable fact of the attraction she felt for Eric, an attraction, moreover, that he gave every indication of sharing.
After her crushing experience with Glen, Tina hadn’t planned on feeling attracted to, or becoming involved with, any man. At least not for a good long time. Once bitten, and all that. But, most especially, she sure as sunrise had never dreamed of finding herself attracted to a man she couldn’t quite trust.
Or was she being not just picky, but paranoid? she asked herself, even if she did have cause for her admittedly suspicious tendencies. Maybe Eric was reticent by nature. Yet the idea persisted that he was hiding something. But what?
“Do you get the opportunity to visit often?” Tina asked, deciding she might as well question him, since she obviously wasn’t learning anything questioning herself.
“As often as I can,” Eric answered, readily enough. “Which hasn’t been too often lately, since the bike hasn’t been running too great.”
“Well, maybe you’ll be able to visit soon,” Tina offered in a commiserating tone. “You did say on Friday that you thought you had solved the problem, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Eric grimaced. “But now I’m not so sure.” He heaved a sigh. “Looks like I’ll be spending my entire vacation fiddling with the damn thing.”
“Too bad. This would have been a good time for a visit,” she said. “The weather’s perfect.”
“Oh, well.” Eric shrugged. “Mom understands. I call her at least once a week since my father died and she’s alone in the house.” He smiled. “Even though my younger brother keeps pretty close tabs on her.”
“Oh, you have a brother?” Tina said, wanting to keep him talking, now that he seemed to be opening up a bit.
“Three,” Eric replied, his wry tone telling her he was wise to her ploy. “But Jake, the youngest, is the only one living in Sprucewood.”
“You’re the oldest?”
Eric shook his head. “I’m third in the pecking order. What about—” he broke off, as the waitress arrived at their table with their meals. “What about you,” he repeated when the waitress finished serving. “Do you have family living in the vicinity—” he grinned “—or close by?”
“No.” Tina shook her head. “I have an older sister. She’s married to a rancher in Montana. My parents moved to Arizona when my dad retired.”
“So you’re on your own?” Eric asked, heaping mounds of sour cream on his baked potato.
“Hmm...” Tina murmured, test sipping her soup for temperature. “More or less.” Al
though the soup was good, the potato looked better. “There’s got to be a zillion calories in that,” she said, frowning at the vegetable.
“That’s okay,” Eric said, digging in to it. “I’ll run it off tomorrow.”
“You work out, too?” Tina asked, squashing an urge to beg for a forkful of the steaming potato.
He finished chewing and swallowed before answering. “Yeah, doesn’t everyone these days?”
“Just about,” Tina agreed, stifling a sigh as she unenthusiastically stabbed her fork into her salad. “From the president on down.” She sighed and made a face at the sliver of carrot speared on the tines. “It seems that most folks today derive some perverse pleasure from torturing themselves with exercise and diets.”
Eric grinned. “Yeah, but think of the great-looking corpses we’ll all make.”
Tina laughed. The laughter eased the tension inside her, and she relaxed again. There was even an added bonus from his dry wit; her headache was completely gone.
Four
Tina hurt all over. A fine film of perspiration sheened her body. Her breath came in harsh little puffs. She was tired. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to sit down, or lie down and rest, relax...maybe die.
“Lift that leg and kick and kick and...”
The upbeat female voice blaring from the TV lashed at Tina. Gritting her teeth, she kicked and kicked, imagining the instructress as the target for her thrusting foot.
“Higher and higher. You can do it!”
Tina narrowed her eyes on the TV screen. The physical-fitness expert was young and beautiful, with gleaming chestnut hair, sparkling hazel eyes, whiter-than-white teeth and a figure to kill for.
Tina hated her. And yet, without fail, she shoved the video into the VCR every Tuesday and Thursday evening and, like now, every Sunday morning, working off the calories accumulated on the days in between.
One oft-bemoaned bane of Tina’s existence was the fact that she loved to eat...all the wrong foods.
“Now rest...a ..slowly...in...and slowly...and out...slowly...”
Raising her eyes, as if seeking sympathy from the ceiling, Tina silently cursed the woman, but inhaled...slowly...and exhaled...slowly...and turned her back on the screen to gaze out the rain-spattered picture window.
Still breathing...slowly...she focused on a russet leaf the driving wind and rain had plastered to the pane. Autumn had finally decided to put in an appearance.
A blur of movement at the far side of the window caught her attention. Her gaze settled on the figure of a man, a tall man, jogging past the house.
What kind of nut jogs in the pouring rain? she wondered, moving closer to the window to get a better look.
The kind of nut who tools through traffic on a roaring motorcycle and devours baked potatoes drowning in butter and sour cream while sipping on a light beer, she reflected, identifying the jogger as her new neighbor, Eric Wolfe.
“Rest period’s over, ladies. Now let’s get to work on those flabby upper arms.”
“You know what you can do with your upper arms, honey,” Tina muttered, feeling smug because she didn’t have flabby upper arms. Nevertheless, since she also didn’t want flabby upper arms, she reluctantly dragged her riveted gaze away from the elongated form of her neighbor.
He might be a nut, she mused, swinging her arms around in ever-diminishing circles, but nut or not, Eric Wolfe did possess one fantastic body.
Memory flared to vibrant life. The too-peppy sound of the instructress’s voice faded into the background. A delicious chill shivered along Tina’s spine. The leotard clinging to her thighs seemed to contract, confine, conjure up a response.
She could feel him pressing against her flesh, as he had on Friday morning and twice last night, zooming to and from the restaurant, the slim tightness of his tush and hips a solid presence between her parted legs.
Tina’s breathing processes slowed, then raced forward. She was panting, nearly gasping. Her leaden arms fell unnoticed to her sides. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the TV screen. Her stomach muscles clenched. Perspiration trickled in rivulets down her temples and at the back of her neck. She felt drained of energy, weak all over.
“Geez!” Tina whispered, raising a limp hand to massage her nape. “Talk about chemistry!”
The video was only three-quarters over, but Tina knew that she was through for the morning. Drawing a shaky breath, she reached for the remote control and pressed the Stop button, then hit Rewind.
Nut or not, Eric Wolfe was nothing if not dynamic—at least as far as the crackling awareness the mere sight of him instilled in her was concerned, Tina acknowledged.
Eric had played the role of the perfect gentleman when he brought her home last night, even leaving the bike idling in the driveway while he escorted her to the front door, even though Tina had insisted it wasn’t necessary for him to do so. He had plucked the keys from her unsteady fingers and unlocked the door for her. Then he had stepped back, not so much as touching her hand as he wished her a murmured good-night.
Tina had been rendered speechless, and she had been wide-eyed with surprise as she gazed after his retreating figure. After the sensual awareness that had simmered beneath the surface between them all evening, she had expected Eric to make a move on her when he brought her home—try to take her in his arms, kiss her, or at the very least, since it wasn’t very late, suggest she invite him inside for a cup of coffee or something.
It was the contemplation of that possible something that had made Tina’s hands unsteady. All the way home, she had worried the question of what she would do if Eric did attempt to kiss her...or something. Then, when he hadn’t so much as brushed his fingers against hers, Tina had been hard-pressed to decide whether she felt relieved or insulted.
If truth were faced, Tina had to acknowledge that she was more than passingly curious as to how it would feel to have Eric’s sexy-looking mouth pressed to her lips.
Of course, Tina had no intention whatsoever of facing that truth. She was too busy reminding herself that the absolute last thing she wanted was involvement with a man.
Now all she had to do was figure out a way to stop speculating about him, banish him from her mind.
Stealing a quick glance through the window over her shoulder, Tina admitted ruefully that ejecting Eric Wolfe from her mind would not be a simple matter. Some masculine essence of him spoke in eloquent and erotic terms to some wayward and errant feminine essence inside her.
Tina felt a hollow yearning, a blatant hunger she had not experienced since the very early days of her marriage.
Wrong. The denial flashed through her mind, bringing with it the unwanted added baggage of self-realization. She had very recently conceded that not even with Glen, before or after they were married, had she experienced such a degree of melting arousal. Not with Glen or any man she had met since her divorce.
Ted immediately came to mind; Ted, and the drunken play he had made when she drove them home Friday night. He had pressured, cajoled, even coaxed her to allow him to deepen their friendship into a more intimate relationship.
Tina had been tactful, but she had been firm, letting him know she simply wasn’t interested. And she wasn’t, and never had been. Even with her husband, she had pondered her lack of burning enthusiasm for the physical act of love; hadn’t Glen repeatedly accused her of being cold, devoid of sensuality? He had. And hadn’t she come to accept his accusation? She had.
But that had been before she met Eric Wolfe and her hormones went bananas.
And, except for the odd bits of information she had wrung from him last night, she didn’t even know the man.
Tina shuddered. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want it. She didn’t need it.
Well, it had been nearly two years since...and maybe she did need it...but...
Both startled and shocked by her own silent admission, Tina forgot the video and took off at a trot for the shower, as if she could run away from her own thoughts.
* * *
He had to be nuts. Eric made the conclusion as he stripped the sodden sweats off his chilled body. Certifiable. No doubt about it. Grinning at his rain-slicked reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, he stepped into the bathtub and under a stinging-hot shower spray.
She looked sexy as hell in a leotard.
Heat unrelated to the steaming water cascading over him streaked through Eric’s body. Without appearing to look or turning his head as he jogged by her house, he had caught a glimpse of Tina standing at the wide window, her neat, curvaceous body encased in an electric blue-and-sun yellow spandex leotard. He had very nearly tripped over his own big feet.
So, she hadn’t been merely making conversation over dinner when she said she worked at keeping herself in shape, too, he mused, slowly turning the tap, adjusting the water temperature from hissing hot to chilling cold.
She’d be lithe and supple in bed.
A shiver shot down Eric’s spine. His imagination took flight. He could see Tina, feel her, her arms clinging to his shoulders, her legs clasped around his hips, her body moving sinuously beneath him.
“Damn.” Cursing the near-painful response of his body, Eric twisted the tap, shutting off the gushing flow of water. A frown drew his brows together as he stepped from the tub onto the bath mat and snatched up a towel.
Last night, raw hunger for her had begun gnawing at him at the sight of her tempting mouth, so close and yet so far away across the table from him. He had fully intended to pull Tina into his arms and taste her luscious mouth when he escorted her to her front door, and he would have, if he hadn’t noticed the fine tremor in her fingers when he took her keys from her. The impetus to hold her, crush her lips beneath his, had been squashed by the protective feeling that had swamped him. Suddenly certain that Tina was fearful of just such a move on her by him, Eric had backed off, leaving her untouched, unkissed—and, in the process, himself frustrated as hell.
Tossing the towel in the general direction of the hamper, Eric strode into the small bedroom. The visible physical effects of his erotic speculations had dissipated, but his mind had set on a course of action. He needed to work on calming her fear of him; that might be enjoyable. Then he would feed the beast. Sooner or later, one way or another, he was determined to make a feast of Christina Kranas. The sooner the better.