White Pines Summer

by Sherryl Woods

  Hank couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her face as emotions raced across it, from anxiousness to anticipation to pure, ecstatic delight. Then when he was sure that her pleasure was at its peak, he allowed his own to build until they both shattered with soul-rocking climaxes, first hers, then his.

  Slowly, slowly, their breathing returned to normal. Hank’s heart began to pump at a steadier beat. But, he realized, his desire hadn’t waned at all. He knew in that instant that he would never get enough of Lizzy Adams, that the attraction would never wane, only deepen.

  Maybe if this night had never happened, eventually he would have found another woman to love, another woman to share his life. Now, though, he knew for fact what he’d always suspected: his life would never be complete without Lizzy in it. Just how in hell they were going to accomplish that was something to contemplate another time, without the distraction of having her curled up next to him, her sweet breath feathering across his chest.

  “Lizzy?”

  “Hmm?” she murmured.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh my, yes.”

  He smiled at the disingenuous reply. “Hungry?”

  “You mean for food?”

  “Yes, for food. It’s getting late, and we missed dinner completely.”

  She sat up and stretched, the unselfconscious movement stirring him all over again. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze away from her body. She looked over at him, noticed his state of arousal and grinned.

  “Are you absolutely certain dinner is what you’re hungry for?” she inquired.

  “I suppose I could wait a little longer,” he conceded, reaching for her again.

  It was an hour later before they finally left his bed and traipsed into the kitchen. He’d insisted Lizzy wear one of his shirts. “Otherwise we never will get dinner.”

  “No willpower, huh?” she inquired lightly.

  “I think I’ve displayed amazing willpower over the years. Today’s lapse is hardly inexcusable.”

  Her expression sobered. “Hank?”

  He stilled and gazed into her upturned face. “What, darlin’?”

  “What happens now?”

  The topic was way too heavy and way too complicated for a midnight discussion. Hank sidestepped it.

  “Now we get out eggs and scramble them, add a little ham and cheese and have ourselves a midnight snack.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  He sighed. “I know it. I think maybe that’s a question we both need to sleep on before we get into it.”

  “Which raises another subject,” she said. “Am I sleeping here tonight or are you taking me home?”

  Hank had given the matter some thought already. “Much as I would like to have you stay right here with me all night long, I think the smart thing to do is get you back to White Pines.”

  “Why?”

  “The obvious answer is to keep your brothers from hunting me down with a shotgun, but it’s more than that.”

  “Such as...?”

  “I’m not sure we want to stir up a lot of questions before you and I are ready with the answers. Beyond that, I respect your father and mother too much to want to flaunt this in front of them.”

  She nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right.” She regarded him with a hint of uncertainty. “You’re not regretting this, are you?”

  He cupped her head in his hand and planted a lingering kiss on her lips. “There is no way I could ever regret this. You and I have had this date with destiny a long time now.” He studied her closely. “What about you, though? Any second thoughts?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Well, then, let’s get out a bottle of champagne and have a toast with our meal.”

  “Champagne?”

  He grinned. “Would you prefer hot chocolate?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” she said, eyeing him with a touch of defiance. “So I’m not a world-class sophisticate. Sue me.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing I like better than a little hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.”

  “You manage to make that sound incredibly sexy.”

  “It is. When all that gooey marshmallow winds up on your lips, I get to lick it off.”

  Lizzy’s eyes brightened. “Now, there’s an idea. Where are the marshmallows?”

  “Over the stove.”

  He couldn’t help noticing that when she reached for them, his shirt rose to an indecent level that distracted him from the eggs he was supposed to be fixing.

  “Hank, is that the scrambled eggs I smell burning?”

  He glanced down and yanked the frying pan off the burner. “Damn.”

  Lizzy peered into the ruined mess.

  “Maybe you’d better let me fix them this time. You don’t seem to be able to stay focused.”

  “If you had on a few more clothes, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  She spun around in an exaggerated pirouette. “I don’t know. I’m growing rather fond of this look. It makes a definite fashion statement.”

  “Exactly. It says ‘I’ve just been in bed with a man and I’m going back there at the first opportunity.’”

  She chuckled. “Can you think of a better marketing slogan than that?”

  “I don’t think they need to market sex. It does just fine on its own.”

  “I was talking about shirts.”

  “Sure, you were.”

  “Not everything is about sex.”

  “It is in this room,” he observed. “Now sit down over there and behave. The eggs will be ready in a minute.”

  She sat, but she bounced right back up. “How about toast? Want me to make toast?”

  He scowled with mock ferocity. “Sit.”

  She grinned knowingly, but she sat once more, only to pop right back up. “Juice. I’d love some orange juice. How about you? Aren’t the glasses up on the top shelf? I’ll just stretch a little and—”

  Hank gave up on the eggs, the meal, everything except Lizzy. He turned off the stove, then scooped her up.

  “Whoops,” she exclaimed when he swept her off her feet and headed back to the bedroom.

  It was 3:00 a.m. when he finally dropped her off at White Pines. Neither one of them seemed to give a darn that they never had had dinner.

  4

  Lizzy would have slept until noon, but the pounding on her bedroom door had her jolting awake at barely seven. The incessant noise pretty much destroyed the good mood she’d been in when she’d crawled under the covers after coming home from Hank’s.

  “Who the devil is it?” she shouted.

  “Justin.”

  “And Harlan Patrick.”

  Her nephews, who were virtually the same age she was, had better have a very good reason for hauling her out of bed at this ungodly hour or she was going to scalp the pair of them.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, hauling the covers up to her neck and considering whether to bury her head under a pillow to drown out the noise.

  “We thought you might want to go for a ride,” Justin said, sounding innocent as a lamb. “Unless you’ve turned into too much of a city girl and forgotten how.”

  “It’s a beautiful morning,” Harlan Patrick added.

  Neither of the two young men had ever been particularly inspired by the weather before. Lizzy’s suspicions were promptly aroused. They had been sent, no doubt by their respective fathers—her big brothers—to pump her for information about her date with Hank.

  “Go away.”

  “You sound sleepy,” Justin noted. “Must have been a late date.”

  “She got home after three this morning,” her father chimed in from his suite of rooms across the hall.

  Oh, sweet heaven, Lizzy thought, moaning. The whole blasted family was in on the act
. Thank goodness she had come home, instead of staying at Hank’s as she’d desperately wanted to do. He’d been very wise to insist on it.

  Obviously, going back to sleep was out of the question. She climbed out of bed and yanked on a robe. Without bothering to wash her face or run a brush through her hair, she yanked open her bedroom door and padded out to join the fray.

  “Are you two happy now?” she inquired testily. “Now the whole household’s wide-awake and knows the details of my date.”

  Justin grinned. “Sounds to me like Grandpa Harlan already knows more than we do.”

  She poked her head in her father’s room to find him out of his bed and reading the morning paper in a chair by the window in the sitting room next door. He wasn’t even trying to look innocent. She aimed a suspicious look in his direction.

  “Which brings up an interesting point,” she said. “What were you doing up at 3:00 a.m.? You’re supposed to be a sick man.”

  He winked at his grandsons, then turned to Lizzy. “I’m a light sleeper. You ought to remember that next time you come in humming some cheerful little ditty. Of course, your mama and I certainly did enjoy the entertainment.”

  “I’ll bet it was a love song,” Harlan Patrick, Cody’s son, taunted with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  “And I’ll bet you never inspire a woman to hum a love song, you sorry excuse for a male,” Lizzy retorted.

  “Children, children,” her father chided.

  Justin’s expression sobered at once. “How’re you feeling, Grandpa Harlan?”

  “Better now that I’ve got a doctor in the house.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Lizzy countered. “You don’t even trust me enough to let me take your pulse.”

  Harlan Patrick winked at her. “Is that what you were doing till three in the morning? Playing doctor with Hank?”

  A fiery blush bloomed on her cheeks. “You are such a pain. You know that, don’t you?”

  “But I’m handsome and sexy and lovable.”

  “I can’t imagine who ever told you that,” she said.

  “Laurie Jensen, that’s who,” Justin retorted, giving his cousin a wink. “Laurie thinks Harlan Patrick hung the moon. And for your information, she has been writing songs about him. She claims one day she’s going to make him famous with a Grammy-winning country-music song.”

  “She’ll do it, too,” Harlan Patrick said with obvious pride. “The woman does have a way with words.”

  “She ain’t half-bad-looking, either,” Justin noted appreciatively. “Wait till you meet her, Lizzy. You won’t be able to imagine what she sees in a poor old cowboy like this one.”

  “Hey, watch it,” Harlan Patrick warned. “Just because you don’t have a woman in your life doesn’t mean you get to pay close attention to mine.”

  “Would you all stop your fussing?” Harlan grumbled. “A man can’t get any peace in his own house anymore.”

  Lizzy dropped a kiss on her father’s cheek. “I thought you were sick of peace and quiet.”

  “I’m just beginning to recognize its advantages,” he retorted. “Now, get along with you, all of you. Breakfast’s getting cold downstairs.” He shot a look at his namesake. “I don’t suppose you could slip one of those blueberry muffins up to me.”

  “No, he could not,” Lizzy declared, even as Harlan Patrick gave his granddaddy a conspiratorial wink. She whirled on her nephew. “You will not bring a muffin up here.”

  “Oh, don’t go getting your drawers in a knot, Doc,” Harlan Patrick responded. “They’re fat free. Everything around here these days is fat free and cholesterol free—”

  “And downright boring,” her father concluded.

  “You mean healthy,” Lizzy corrected.

  “No, I mean boring. If you knew what I’d pay for some eggs and bacon and home fries, you’d haul it up here yourself.”

  “Not if I was destitute,” she countered. “Now read your paper and rest. It’s good to see you out of bed.”

  “Then you’ll be downright thrilled when you find me downstairs at lunchtime,” he retorted. “It’s about time I had me a face-to-face talk with that housekeeper of mine. Janet won’t let Maritza near me because she’s afraid I’ll pull rank and make the old woman fix me something edible.”

  That said, he turned his attention back to the paper, dismissing the lot of them.

  With her father’s bedroom door closed again, Lizzy turned to her nephews. “I’ll see the two of you downstairs.”

  “Don’t take too long primping,” Justin warned. “Hank’s probably getting restless.”

  “Besides, something tells me the man’s so smitten already, he won’t care if you’re all dolled up or not,” Harlan Patrick chimed in.

  “What does Hank have to do with this ride we’re taking?” she inquired warily.

  Both men grinned.

  “What would be the fun of going if it didn’t give us a chance to see the fireworks going off the minute the two of you get into close proximity?” Harlan Patrick said.

  Justin added, “And something tells me the show’s going to be better than ever this morning.”

  “Daddy told me Hank planned to work up by the creek today,” Harlan Patrick added. “Funny how that immediately brought to mind what a lovely spot that would be for a romantic little picnic should anyone special happen to come along.”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you guys the old expression that two’s company and three’s a crowd?” Lizzy muttered, slamming her bedroom door in their faces.

  Despite their admonition to hurry, she took her time and primped. She told herself it was just to spite Harlan Patrick and Justin, but the truth was she wanted Hank to take one look at her and remember every steamy, sexy minute they had spent together the night before. She didn’t want that famous noble streak of his to go kicking in and call a halt to this relationship before it got off the ground. He’d already been worrying something fierce by the time he brought her home. She’d felt it in the distracted, halfhearted way he’d kissed her good-night.

  Thinking about that, she concluded she didn’t especially want an audience when she saw Hank this morning. She wanted to be able to indulge in all of her powers of persuasion, which she certainly didn’t want reported back to the rest of the family as the kind of gleeful gossip Justin and Harlan Patrick were prone to. The pair of them had spent their teenage years tormenting her about her crush on Hank and about every other date she had. They considered it their duty to be their grandfather’s eyes and ears on his baby girl’s love life.

  She slipped down the back stairs, intending to sneak out through the kitchen, only to find Harlan Patrick and Justin sitting at the kitchen table talking to the housekeeper as they drank their coffee.

  “Took you long enough,” Justin grumbled.

  “Typical woman,” Harlan Patrick said.

  “Actually, I was hoping you two would be long gone by now.”

  “And miss out on watching you and Hank dance around each other in some sort of bizarre mating ritual?” Harlan Patrick said. “Not a chance. I can’t recall ever seeing two people spend so much time pretending not to be crazy about each other, when it was plain to everyone else how they really felt.”

  “Boys, stop teasing your aunt,” Maritza chided. “In matters of the heart, only the people involved can decide what’s for the best.”

  “But some of them are pitifully slow about figuring it out,” Justin commented.

  “I wasn’t aware there was a timetable,” Lizzy retorted. “Maritza, is there any coffee left or have these two finished the entire pot?”

  “I have coffee in a thermos for you and saddlebags packed with warm coffee cake. Enough for two.”

  Lizzy grinned. “Not four?” She looked at the two men as she took the thermos and headed for the door. “Sorry, guys.”

  “They h
ave had their share,” the housekeeper said. “Along with eggs and toast and home fries and ham.”

  She paused with the screen door half-open. “Neither of them slipped away during breakfast and carried that same menu upstairs, did they?”

  “Never,” Maritza insisted. “That is why I made them eat in here, where I could keep a close eye on the two of them. I know they are the ones responsible for sneaking things to your father.”

  “Uh-oh,” Justin said. “We’ve been busted.”

  “Hope word doesn’t get around when you go off to the police academy,” Harlan Patrick said. “You’ll never get an undercover assignment.”

  Stunned by the taunt, Lizzy stared at the older of the two. “Justin?”

  He shot her a defiant look. “What?”

  “Since when are you not going into the oil business with your father?”

  “I decided a while ago,” he admitted.

  “But he just got around to telling Jordan last week,” Harlan Patrick said. “Be glad you weren’t around for that explosion.”

  “I can imagine,” Lizzy said. “He always dreamed of turning the business over to you.”

  “So, he’ll turn it over to Dani’s husband instead,” Justin said, referring to his older half sister. “Duke loves the oil business. He’s good at it. Let him sit around and push papers for the rest of his life. I want to be a cop.”

  Lizzy wasn’t sure which startled her more, Justin’s choice of a career or his daring to defy his father.

  “Even when we were kids, you always wanted to play the good guy,” she recalled thoughtfully. “I suppose it makes sense. If Jordan calms down long enough to think about it, maybe he’ll see that you came by the notion naturally. He was always a real straight arrow, too.”

  “Maybe you could mention that to him next time you see him,” Justin said. “Not that I need his approval, but it sure would be nice not to walk into an armed camp every time I go through the front door. Poor Mom’s caught in the middle.”

  “How does she feel about you becoming a cop?”

  “She’s pretty much okay with it, as long as I come back here to work, instead of going to some big city like Dallas or Houston. That scares her to death.”