LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Maybe Simon and I should split up for a bit,” she said airily. “People seem to think we’re a fixture.”

      He drew back his dark head, staring into her eyes. “Aren’t you?”

       Cool. Keep cool.

      So much for that! She found herself answering with intensity. “What if I dared ask if you and Violette are an item?”

      “Who says we ever were?” he challenged.

      She drew a long breath. “Most of the Valley. Simon and I aren’t and never will be an item, Guy. Simon and I are Best … pals. Yes—pals is a good word for it. I’ve been looking after him ever since I can remember. Certainly pre-school.”

      “He loves you.” There was a quiet seriousness in Guy’s voice.

      Uncertain, she searched his eyes. They were beautiful eyes, black as night, but with a diamond sheen. “You sound serious?”

      “I’m always serious with you, Alana.”

      Heat swept her like a flame. She could feel the flush spread out all over her body. “Well, I never knew that! In fact, it’s a bit too much to take in. Generally you speak to me as though I haven’t made much progress since my eighteenth birthday.”

      “A bad habit I picked up,” he rejoined suavely.

      “So you admit it?”

      “Absolutely. You didn’t really want me to treat you like an alluring woman, did you?”

      She nearly folded, deeply surprised. “Hey, I’m not the alluring one. You are.” The heat off her body could be throwing off sparks.

      “Alana, that’s plain crazy!” He spun her then, in what felt like some elegant choreographed step. In fact the two of them were beginning to look like ballroom champions, she thought, aware people were looking their way, expressions openly admiring. “Men aren’t alluring,” he scoffed gently.

      “Aren’t they?” He gave off male allure in metre-high waves. “You should try reading some of Vi’s romances.”

      “Violette reads romances? How delicious!”

      As was his laugh. “Well, she might, for all I know. I was having a little joke. But, just so there’s no misunderstanding, I want to make it perfectly plain. Simon and I have no plans that involve romance.”

      That little smile was tugging at his mouth. “Does one have to plan it?’ he asked. “Surely it just happens? You wake up one morning wishing you could reach out for that special someone.”

      Her body quickened. She knew his hands would be just lovely. “Well, you must have done a fair bit of that—” There was the faintest trace of hostility in her voice. She broke off, horrified. He was her host.

      He drew back to stare down at her. “It might be a good time to tell you, Ms Callaghan, that you’ve just about used up all my gentler feelings towards you.”

      “So I should start to worry?” she challenged.

      For answer he pulled her in so close that the room around them started to blur.

      “It might be an idea,” he cautioned.

      “Does that mean you can say and do what you like, but I can’t?”

      He didn’t answer.

      Silence had never seemed to say so much.

      “Who would you reach for, Guy?” The words simply came.

      “I won’t terrify you and say you.”

      She, so wonderfully sure on her feet, stumbled. “You’re terrifying me just thinking about it. You’re joking—aren’t you?”

      He saw the bright confusion in her lustrous eyes. “Of course.” His glance remained on her. It brushed her face and her throat, and her very feminine creamy shoulders. “But who could blame a man for wanting you near him, Alana?”

      Every single nerve-ending in her body was wired. “You’re taking me somewhere, Guy,” she said, unable to control the tremble in her voice. “Where is it?”

      “The big question is, do you want to come?” His handsome face was unusually intent.

      “And leave my safe little world?” she asked shakily. She marvelled at the difference in him—in her. What had changed things so dramatically? Was this precarious kind of intimacy better or was she about to jeopardise her whole future? “It would be far too easy to fall under your spell, Guy,” she said. “The result could be a lot of pain.” Her sharp-talking, supremely self-confident cousin hid a lot of pain.

      “And you’re scared of that?”

      “Absolutely.” She released a pent-up breath.

      “So what is it about me that scares you? You certainly haven’t given that impression over the years.”

      “You’ve never invited me to come close.”

      “You were too young. Come closer now.” He gathered her in. “You’re a beautiful dancer, by the way.”

      “Have you just noticed?”

      “I’ve always noticed.”

      “You could have asked me to dance with you hundreds of times over the last couple of years, but you never have.”

      “In the space of a few minutes the intervening years have disappeared. Maybe I thought you were being faithful to Simon?”

      Her body abandoned all pretence, trembling in his arms. “Maybe I thought you were being faithful to Violette? Among others.” She couldn’t resist the little waspish sting in the tail.

      His hand at her back exerted a little more pressure. “Remember what I said about being more careful?”

      “Actually, I remember an astonishing number of things you’ve said to me,” she found herself admitting. “At my eighteenth birthday party you told me I was sweet. And smart.”

      He gave her a disturbing smile. “Sweet, smart, and tart. Let’s see—I remember now. I could have added passionate, argumentative, with a good sense of humour and sexy but innocent too. Sad, beautiful, a wonderful daughter and sister. The best woman rider in the valley, and that’s saying something. I’ve always loved to see you competing. Poor Violette was always doomed to run second. Come to that, I love to see you working those Border Collies of yours. Not easy working dogs, but you instinctively know how to get the best out of them. You have a very attractive voice too. I’ve heard you singing to your own guitar accompaniment.”

      She was totally disarmed. “Now you’re using your fabled charm on me, Guy.”

      “Is it working?” He flicked her a downward glance.

      “I’m not sure it would be wise to tell you.” She shook back her honey-blonde mane. “I feel sure you’re pledged elsewhere. Or you soon will be.”

      Another couple whirled by, coming in too close. Instantly Guy’s arms drew her out of harm’s way.

      Harm’s way? Her heart rate had risen as though she had run halfway up Mount Everest. They had known each other such a very long time, but she couldn’t imagine anyone who seemed so familiar yet so new to her. Her body fitted his so perfectly, it was beyond explanation. So perfectly she wondered if she should back off. All it needed was one tiny step over the dividing line. And there was a dividing line. She could never allow herself to forget that.

      For the first time her graceful body offered resistance. “Cousin Vi’s over there, looking like she wants to bury a tiny hatchet in my head.” She tried to turn what must have been her perceptible withdrawal into a joke.

      “I wouldn’t let her.”

      Her

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