LITMIR.BIZ

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      Then he pulled the white linen cover off the fried chicken. “Mmm, Mama does know how to fry up a chicken. Doesn’t that smell so good?”

      Her stomach growled like the traitor it was. Taking a bit of meat that Dillon tore from a crispy breast, she nibbled it, then tried to put the fat and calorie content out of her mind.

      Unrolling the silverware his mother had thoughtfully provided, Dillon dipped a spoon into the white mound beside the chicken, then held it out to Isabel. “Want some mashed potatoes?”

      “Stop it!” Isabel said, taking out her frustrations on the pop top on her drink. The sound hissed and sizzled almost as loudly as the tension between them. “Just tell me you’ll go back in and get your tux.”

      “I might,” he said after shoveling the potatoes into his own mouth. Then he picked up a drumstick and bit into it. Chewing thoughtfully before he dropped it back on the plate, his eyes on her, he said, “Then again, I might just show up like this.” He shrugged and waved the white napkin over his jeans. “Or, I might not show up at all.”

      That comment caused her to set her drink can down with a thud. “Oh, that would be just perfect. Show everyone around here that they’re right about you after all. Make Susan feel even worse and cause your mother even more heartache. Yeah, Dillon, I’d say just blow the whole thing off. Why should you try to do something for someone else, anyway?”

      In a blur of motion, he dropped his napkin and stood before her, one hand on her shoulder and one braced on the panelled wall behind her. “Don’t, Isabel. Don’t make me feel any worse than I already do.”

      She took a shuddering breath, her face inches from his. “Why do you fight so hard against everything?”

      His gaze traveled over her face, then back to her eyes. “Why are you standing in my kitchen telling me what I should or shouldn’t be doing?”

      She stared him down, though she knew she’d be a nervous wreck later because of it. “Good question. So, let me go.”

      “No.”

      Glaring up at him, she said on a breath hot with rage, “You haven’t changed a bit. Still the macho tough guy, still trying to make me feel small and insignificant.”

      He moved an inch closer. “Is that what I’m doing? Is that how you feel right now?”

      She backed farther into the wall. “Yes, to both questions. I’m right up there on your list along with Eli and all the other people in this town you’re still holding a grudge against, aren’t I?”

      “I thought you were the one with the grudge,” he said, his hand lifting off her shoulder to come up and cup her chin. “You told me I’d never get to you again. Did I get to you before?”

      “No,” she said, hoping she’d be forgiven for lying. “No.”

      “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

      Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her with a tenderness that contradicted everything she believed about him. No man this tough could kiss with such a whispered gentleness that it left a woman’s soul dancing.

      No man except Dillon, of course.

      When he lifted his head, the kitchen was still and warm, the house silent and waiting. And his eyes were alive with a fire of surprise, of awe, of longing. “I wasn’t teasing just now, Isabel.”

      Isabel swallowed hard, then tried to find what little sense of reason she had left. She shouldn’t be here with him. She should run away as fast as she could. Instead, she reached up a hand to stroke away that irresistible spike of hair centered on his forehead. “Are you sure, Dillon? Are you sure that kiss wasn’t just a way to inflict pain on me?”

      He ran a hand down the length of her hair, then gave her a wry smile. “Right now, darling, I’m not sure about anything, except that maybe I have a champion in you.”

      Surprised, she asked, “Why do you think that?”

      He backed away then, letting her hair trail through his fingers to fall in cascading waves back around her shoulders. “Because, you didn’t run away. You came here to fight me, and maybe, to fight for me. And you stayed even after I insulted you.” Tipping his head to one side, his hands on his hips, he added, “And you stayed even after I kissed you.”

      Isabel moved away from the wall, and on shaking knees, tried to walk to the counter where she’d put her drink. Taking a long, cool swallow of the amber liquid, she turned to face him again. “I didn’t have much choice. You had me against the wall.”

      A smug indifference replaced the gentleness she’d seen in his face. “That’s how I court all of my women.”

      Tired and frightened of her own soaring feelings, she snapped at him. “We’re not courting each other.”

      He came back strong. “Then what are we doing?”

      Sighing, she threw her wavy hair back off her face, holding it tightly against her head with her hand. “I came here to ask you to behave, to show Susan some respect. But since it was my fault you left the shop this morning, I just wanted to make amends.”

      “Well, you did,” he said, his voice going soft again. “You did that and a whole lot more.”

      Isabel dropped her hair over her shoulder, then crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive manner, still holding her soda with a loose hand. “Will you go back and get yourself a tux for the wedding?”

      “Will you sit by me during the ceremony and dance with me at the reception?”

      “I asked first.”

      “I’m asking now.”

      She smiled, then set her nearly empty can down. “You haven’t changed a bit, Dillon.”

      He tipped a hand to his head in an acknowledging salute, then leaned back against the creaky table. “Ah, but you have. And for that, dear Isabel, I might be willing to behave—for my brother’s wedding, that is.”

      “And wear the tux?” she said, tossing him the challenge.

      “And wear the infernal tux,” he added. Then he grabbed her to pull her back into his arms. “Just remember, save the last dance for me, okay?”

      “Okay,” she said as she allowed him to hold her close. Battling with Dillon Murdock had always left her drained.

      Dillon didn’t try to kiss her again. Instead, he just closed his eyes and held her. Isabel couldn’t help feeling as if she’d come home. But she knew in her heart, that Dillon couldn’t give her a home. Neither of them would linger here at Wildwood for very long. They were both still searching for something, some elusive something to ease the ache in their souls.

      And all around them, the waning sun cascaded through the tall kitchen windows in rays of gold, white and muted yellow, revealing dancing fragments of dust that had long lain as dormant and still as the pain buried deep in both their hearts.

      Chapter Four

      “Don’t open the door!”

      Isabel stood in the dark bathroom at the back of the house, watching through the red glow of the safelight as the picture she’d taken of Dillon developed in a chemical bath. If her grandmother opened the door now, the picture would be ruined. “I’ll be out in a minute, Grammy.”

      “It’s not your grandma,” a deep masculine voice said through the closed door.

      Dillon.

      Isabel almost knocked over her whole tray of developer. “Just a minute!” Taking a deep breath, she checked the timer, then stood back to see the emerging picture of the man who’d kissed her not two days ago, and who’d kept her awake thinking about him since then. With quick efficiency in spite of the flutter in her heart, she lifted the picture out of the developer, then dropped it in the

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