LITMIR.BIZ

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cuddling, and you know it. That was a straight up act of reproduction.”

      “You didn’t seem to mind it when you were hollering my name to the hills.” He threw back his head and howled in a mocking falsetto, “Oh, Sam! Sam! Please don’t stop!”

      She blushed even harder and did a lousy job of biting back her smile.

      A soft-bellied civilian like her would last about one minute outside the wire. But suddenly he realized—he loved that she was so soft…so tender. So female.

      “You’re still missing the point. I want more.”

      “Tell me if I hear you right. I hold you for a few minutes after we do it, and then everything else can go on being status quo.” All this fuss for nothing. And here, he’d been worried.

      “I need you to rub my back. Feed me ice cream. Waltz with me in the dark.”

      “You keep adding things.”

      “Do you care about me or not?”

      “Sure. Fine.” He was getting to be such a wuss.

      “Really?” she said, her voice softening. For the first time since they’d sat down, she lost that offended look.

      “Yeah. My legs are getting stiff.” He got to his knees. “Can we go now?”

      “There’s one more little thing.”

      “You said three. That was more than three already.”

      “It goes along with the cuddling. Kind of like number three, part two. And after that’s done, maybe we can talk about having sex again.”

      He dropped back down to the blanket. “Did I miss something? Who said anything about not having sex?”

      His near-panic didn’t seem to affect her a bit. “I need you to show me I mean more to you than just a body.”

      “That’s bullshit, Doc,” he said sheepishly, dropping his gaze to hide his emotions. “You know you do.” He ripped a handful of grass out of the ground.

      “No, I don’t. How could I, when mostly what we do is this?” she said, indicating his blanket. “I need you to talk to me. Really talk to me.”

      Sam’s sphincter slammed shut. Cuddle, sure. Buy her the occasional ice cream cone. Maybe even admit that they were in a relationship. But talk?

      “You know what I mean. Stop hiding your emotions behind jokes. Stop holding back and tell me what you’re feeling.”

      She was asking him for nothing less than the antithesis of who he was and what he’d been trained to do. Talking meant exposing feelings, which left you wide open to being hurt. His military training had only strengthened that conviction. Sharing anything more than his name, rank and serial number created vulnerability, endangering both him and his fellow soldiers. Nobody unmanned Captain Samuel Owens. Nobody.

      He grabbed his helmet, rose, and headed for his bike. “You said there were three things, and I agreed to three things,” he said as he strode off. “Now I’ve got to get back to work.”

      Red scrambled to her feet and tailed him, still without the blanket.

      “Starting with when you were overseas,” she said to his back. “What your job was. The kind of work you did.” She took his arm, gently turning him around. “I don’t know anything about it. Nobody does. It’s not healthy, holding it inside. It’s emotional constipation.”

      A burst of nervous laughter short-circuited the tension building up in him. “When will everybody finally get off my case? I was a supply officer. How many times do I have to say it?” he said, swinging a leg over the saddle.

      “I’m no expert, but something tells me not every supply officer gets fêted by the local VFW when he comes home.”

      His little welcome home shindig. Just because of that, people thought they knew everything.

      “Let’s roll,” he repeated. He revved the engine and a rumble filled the valley, striped with vineyards as far as the eye could see. He raised his voice over the roar. “Look at you. You’re getting burned. Get the blanket and let’s go.”

      “We’re not through talking,” she yelled back, crimson-faced.

      “Maybe you’re not, but I am. I don’t need you to dismiss me.”

      “Fine. I don’t need you at all.” She crossed her arms and planted her booted feet in the dirt in a wide-legged stance.

      “Fine with me.”

      He’d been patient long enough. He gunned the bike to show he meant business. “I mean it. Get the blanket and get on board.”

      “I’m not finished.”

      “Stay here, then.”

      It wasn’t like she’d die of exposure out here on this picture postcard day. There were several wineries within walking distance and plenty of shade, if she wasn’t too bullheaded to take advantage of it.

      “I will.” She raised her stubborn little chin.

      Sam checked his watch again. “The Pennsylvania people are going to be at the consortium in fifteen minutes and it’s a twenty minute drive and I have stuff to get ready.”

      Red jammed her fists on her hips. “You’re hiding behind your work again. That’s your typical response to anything that threatens your defense mechanism of shutting people out.”

      “Those growers and vintners trusted me enough to put me in charge of their livelihoods, you hear me? For some of them, a state contract could mean the difference between folding and scraping through another season. Their future’s in my hands. I gave them my word I’d have their backs, and nothing’s going to stop me.”

      With a flick of his wrist, the bike bucked.

      One more twist and the rear wheel swung sideways, spraying gravel in a rooster tail.

      Red flinched, squinting to keep the dust out of her eyes.

      Now Sam was back on the hardball, facing the direction from which they’d come.

      Still, she stood there, glowering.

      “Goddamn it, Doc…”

      They locked eyes in a showdown, her blinking in the harsh light, his eyes disguised behind his visor. The seconds ticked by while the July sun beat down on Red’s center-parted hair, and Sam’s insides fought a war between caving to her demands in exchange for more vineyard nookie and his responsibility to his winemakers.

      Just when he thought he was going to have to forcibly bungee cord her onto his bike, she said, “Set up a date with me, a real date, to show me you’re serious. And then I’ll go.”

      “I said I’d go on a date, didn’t I?”

      “Not the wedding. A separate date, just for us. Like, dinner for two.”

      “Go ahead,” he said, despite the curl of fear that wrapped around his intestines, threatening to strangle him from the inside out. “Pick any place and day you like.”

      “The Radish Rose. Next Saturday.”

      “You got it.”

      With that, Red smiled sweetly, turned, and retrieved the blanket.

      Chapter 6

      Sam sped along at speeds that would have his ass in a sling if a statie happened to be lurking around a bend in the road. That is, if they could catch him.

      Most men might associate the feel of a woman’s pillowy breasts pressing against his back, her arms wrapped securely around his core, and her firm inner thighs against his outer ones as a pleasant, even safe sensation. But what was innocuous to some was a threat to others.

      It had taken months of riding these roads with

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