“Nice to know.” Her lips bowed as she pushed back her chair.
He rose too, followed her out the door, and waited while she locked up. When she turned, he reached for her hand and wove his fingers through hers. “This isn’t too fast, is it?”
“No.” A dimple appeared in her cheek. “I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t done that.”
The walk back to the cottage in the quiet night was much too short, and all too soon she was unlocking the door.
He couldn’t leave, though, without a plan in place to see her again.
“There’s a great restaurant not far from here, if I could interest you in dinner one night next week.”
“Sold.”
He hitched up one side of his mouth. “That was easy.”
“Should I play hard to get?”
“No. I’m not into game playing. Why don’t I call you over the weekend to arrange a day and time?” A flimsy excuse to hear her voice between now and their date, since there was no reason they couldn’t finalize their plans tonight, but if she caught on to his ploy, she let it pass.
“My calendar is wide open in the evenings. Whatever works for you will be fine with me.”
“Good.”
Silence, broken only by the chirp of serenading crickets.
There was no excuse to linger. He should go.
But as Cara’s eyes suddenly filled with yearning ... as the air around them began to crackle ... as longing pulsed between them ... a powerful temptation to kiss her chipped away at his resolve to confine expressions of affection tonight to hand-holding.
He had to get out of here.
Fast.
If he didn’t, he was going to—
All at once, Cara rose on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. Then, with a whispered, puff-of-warm-breath “good night” that caressed his cheek, she slipped through the door and closed it behind her.
Heart thudding, he groped for the chair beside him and held on tight.
It seemed his definition of slow was different than Cara’s.
Yet by her own admission, she was a woman who didn’t beat around the bush. Who communicated what was on her mind.
Since kissing had apparently been front and center, she’d taken the initiative and set the stage for more—whenever he was ready.
Which might be a lot sooner than he’d expected, given the buzz radiating all the way to the tips of his tingling fingers.
At last he turned and walked back down the path, pausing to cast one last final look at the cottage before he rounded the house to return to his car.
A soft, uplifting glow emanated from the windows.
But it was nothing compared to the glow in his heart.
So barring any unforeseen complications, his top off-duty priority was about to become the beautiful historical anthropologist whose life had fortuitously intersected with his.
THE DIZZY SPELLShad been a perfect prelude—and catalyst.
The potholder incident had moved me closer to my goal.
