“I don’t know what it’s like to lose both parents, but I was closer to him than my mom. I love her, but…I was my father’s daughter.”
I smile, appreciating how he follows my lips and nods in understanding. He listens better than most people with hearing.
“They look like nice people.” I look back at his father, holding the rake, that smile so broad and full. I wonder if that’s what Clint’s full smile looks like. If he has occasion to smile.
I turn to him so he can see what I’m saying again.
“Your father looks like he was a good man.”
Clint’s throat bobs as he swallows, looking at me.
I smile. “Youlook like a good man.”
We’re close again. So close I can see a little scar over his upper lip.
He already made it clear he was uncomfortable with how I came on to him earlier. And I know what the right thing to do is—to find a hanger and get the dress flattened out. Then leave; face whatever’s waiting for me back at the hotel.
But the way he’s looking at me now, I wonder if I wasn’t right the first time. That he feels a pull too. That maybe he just felt shy.
That maybe my feet carried me here for a reason.
Clint’s eyes are a deep blue gray, like the ocean. And right now, they pour into mine.
My hand lifts, almost like it’s not mine. I press my fingers to his temple, brushing the hair from his face.
The feeling of indulging my desire sets off a reckless heat in me once more.
Clint’s skin is warm and somehow both smooth and rough. His eyes close, his hand lifting to cup the back of my hand.
I take that as an invitation to continue. I lower my hand, pressing my thumb against the scar over his lip, feeling the smoothness of it under the pad of my finger. I draw my thumb over the swell of his upper lip without thinking.
A sound escapes him then. A guttural breath.
I gently pull my hand away.
His eyes flutter open. He looks bereft. Like he wants to pull my hand back to him.
I smile, then turn and walk slowly up the stairs, aware of how nearly naked I already am, my slow gait belying the way my heart thunders in my chest.
Chapter Five
The upstairs is small. A neat guest bedroom. A linen closet. A bathroom.
A bedroom with a queen-size bed. I enter that one.
It smells like him. There’s a shirt hanging over the back of a chair. An old-fashioned washbasin. A window that looks out over the garden to the sea. The window faces west, so the closest land isn’t home, but the islands further out. Beyond that, the open ocean.
It’s stunning.
When I turn around, Clint stands in the doorway, filling it completely.
His posture is stiff. He doesn’t know what the right thing to do is, I realize. He’s not sure what I want.
His eyes drop to my dress, and he moves to the closet, opening the door and pulling a wooden hanger from the rows of neat clothes hanging there. I spot plaid and denim. A working man’s clothes.
He comes over to me, taking the dress from my arms. He fumbles a bit, unsure of what to put on the hanger, and I smile, helping him. We get the dress smoothed out, and he turns, making room for it in the closet.
While his back is turned, I set my rose down on the washbasin.
