LITMIR.BIZ

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shook her head. “A future that is very unsure right now. It wouldn’t be fair to drag you into my problems.”

      “If you’re talking about finding your birth mother—”

      “It’s more than that. I’ve just got a lot to deal with and not much time to get it all figured out.”

      “So I don’t fit into the equation?”

      “I don’t want to fit you into the equation. I hope you understand. It wouldn’t be right between us, it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

      He leaned closer. He wanted to kiss her bad, but instinct told him that wasn’t such a good idea when she was giving him the proverbial brush-off. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that—unless of course, I’m reading all the signs wrong and you’re really not as madly in love with me as I am with you.”

      She reached up then, to touch a hand to his face, to run a slender, polished nail through his wind-tossed hair. “Lorna told me you fall in love very easily.”

      He grabbed her hand, brought it to his lips. “My sister should mind her own business. Just because she’s finally found her soul mate, she thinks she’s the local authority on the rest of this miserable lot.”

      “She cares about you and she worries about you.”

      He kissed her fingers one by one and enjoyed the way she blushed, the way she seemed to like his touch. “I can take care of myself. Been doing it for years.”

      “Can you?” Willa watched as he touched her fingers to his mouth, her eyelashes fluttering softly against her cheeks before she looked into his eyes. Lucas saw the attraction jolt through her as it had pushed through him.

      Okay, she did have a point. He was losing control. This could turn out to be more dangerous than any of the other stunts he’d tried.

      “I used to think I could handle anything,” he admitted as he held her hand against his lips. “But it’s different with you. I think…I think I’m scared of you, certainly of what you do to me.”

      She touched her forehead to his. “Oh, Lucas, I don’t think you’re afraid of anything. I just think you need to know…you need to be warned…I’m not right for you.”

      Abruptly, he let go of her hand and backed away. “Then maybe I should be scared. At least, that’s what you’re trying to tell me.” Irritated, he opened the door and tugged her out of the Jeep and right into his waiting arms. “Am I right? Are you deliberately trying to scare me away, Willa?”

      He saw the answer in the blue of her eyes. And he also saw the contradiction. She was trying to deny her feelings toward him. Lucas took that as a personal challenge to win her over.

      “Answer the question, chère,” he said, his voice low.

      She looked down, her expression full of regret. “Yes, I guess I am. For your own good, Lucas.”

      The anger flared deep inside him, but he tried to hide it as he shifted her closer in his arms. “I really wish everyone would quit telling me what’s for my own good.”

      “Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad. It’s just that—”

      He didn’t let her finish that sentence. He couldn’t bear to hear the words. Instead, he gently nudged her against the Jeep so he could wrap his arms around her. Then he kissed her with all the pent-up frustration and long-held need that was raging inside his heart.

      With the first touch of their lips, however, his rage turned to relief. She was sweet, soft, yielding, promising. She filled that empty place in his soul, the place he only brought out whenever he visited his lost, forlorn garden. The place he’d often prayed would be healed.

      Willa was like that prayer being answered at long last.

      When he lifted his head, he couldn’t take his eyes away from her. He could tell the kiss had affected her, too. It was there in the bright hope of her eyes, there in the sweet innocent flush of her skin, there in the soft sigh of her breath on his cheek. She might be able to deny her feelings, but she could never again deny the attraction between them.

      Their kiss had pretty much made that a certainty and a fact.

      But kisses aside, they had a lot of ground to cover before this was settled between them.

      “Je regrette—I’m sorry,” he told her in a whisper. “It’s just that…I really needed to do that. For my own good.”

      Chapter Six

      “So my brother took you up in the Piper this morning.”

      It was a statement, said with Lacey’s soft, cultured Southern drawl.

      Willa nodded then glanced around the quaint Garden restaurant, wondering where Lucas had gone off to this time. They’d agreed to meet here for a quiet dinner, but instead of finding Lucas waiting for her, she’d run into his older sister, Lacey.

      Sensing a hint of disapproval in Lacey’s cool gaze, she said, “Yes, he did. And I have to admit, I enjoyed it way too much.”

      “Lucas has that effect on people. He thinks we all should just drop everything when the mood strikes and go off into the wild blue yonder. He’s very impulsive, I’m afraid.”

      Willa got the distinct impression she was being reprimanded. Or was it yet another warning for her to stay away from Lucas? His sisters sure were protective, even if they did claim to condemn his wild ways.

      Before she could respond, Lorna leaned over the table. “I’ve already warned her, Lacey.”

      Wanting to defend Lucas, Willa tossed her hair off her shoulder, then placed both hands on the table. “Would you two stop hovering over me? I can take care of things with Lucas. So you both can stop worrying. I’m not sure whether you’re trying to protect me, or your brother from me. But I can assure both of you—there is nothing serious going on between Lucas and me.”

      Lorna took that as her cue to sit with them. “Oh, really? Then why do you look positively dreamy every time we mention his name? And why are you sitting here, waiting for him to walk through that door?”

      “Yes, she sure has all the signs,” Lacey said, her gaze as still as the quiet swamp waters that ran behind the small building.

      “We were supposed to meet here tonight,” Willa said, her tone low and level in spite of her fluttering heart. She wouldn’t dare tell them that since Lucas had kissed her this morning, she’d counted the hours until she’d see him again. Even while she dreaded seeing him again. Lacey was right. He’d had an effect on her. A profound one.

      She’d never been a touchy-feely person, but for some reason she couldn’t keep her hands off Lucas Dorsette. She liked the feel of his rough-shaven skin, liked the crisp, springy curls of his dark chocolate hair, liked holding his big, callused hands. Loved looking into his mysterious eyes.

      But she had to remember that Lucas flirted with a lot of women. Probably took them all flying in his fancy plane. And he probably kissed all the pretty girls and made them cry, too.

      “Another date?” Lacey smiled at her sister, then gave Willa the once-over. “That’s three dates with the same woman in three days. He’s right on schedule.”

      Seeing the teasing gleam in both sisters’ eyes, Willa relaxed and smiled. “I get the point. Okay. And honestly, let me repeat—there is nothing going on between Lucas and me. We haven’t actually had what one would term dates. We’re just…friends. He’s been showing me around—”

      “From several vantage points, I gather,” Lorna interrupted, her chef hat bobbing as she moved her head. “I wonder where he’ll take you next. There’s lots of rooms in the house, several private spots in the gardens and the whole swamp out back to explore. And he’ll probably want to take you horseback riding—on that wild animal he calls a horse and keeps on his place

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