LITMIR.BIZ

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predictions about the bride and groom’s future, gossipy conversations, held in lowered voices and speculating about why Randi Howell had fled her wedding to Hal Stuart, reached his ears.

      Alex refused to speculate. Women, he mused wryly, were unpredictable creatures with hidden agendas. Trying to figure out their motives for any action was a waste of time. They could, however, turn an otherwise dull evening into something memorable, he added, noticing the slender, dark-haired female who had just entered and was making her way to the buffet table. She had a graceful walk…enticing, actually. Pretty, too, he noted as the large candelabra on the table illuminated her face. Her cheekbones were high and her features finely cut. His gaze went to her hands. No ring on her ring finger.

      Thoughts of leaving faded. He followed her movements, waiting to see if an escort joined her. When she finished gathering her plateful of food and made her way, alone, to a discreet corner, his interest peaked more. Leaving his shadowy hideaway, he crossed the room, picking up two glasses of champagne on the way.

      “I thought you might like a beverage,” he said as he reached her.

      Nina looked up at the tall, dark-haired, imposing man who had halted in front of her. She recognized him from other parties she’d worked at. He’d even come into the diner once or twice. She didn’t know his name, but she’d heard a couple of women whispering about him once. The oil tycoon who’d built the summer place on the mountain was how they’d referred to him. They’d also mentioned that he was a bachelor who was playing very hard to catch. Strikingly handsome, he was the kind of man who could take a woman’s breath away, and a flush of pleasure that he was paying attention to her brought a tint of pink to her cheeks. “Thank you for your consideration. Now if I only had a third hand,” she replied.

      “I’ll hold your glass for you while you eat.” He grinned. “It’s a good ploy, don’t you think? Unless you want to go thirsty, you have to put up with my company.”

      She regarded him with dry amusement. “I doubt very much that you need any ploy. It’s my guess that very few women have told you to get lost.”

      Alex didn’t deny her assessment. “I’m Alex. Alex Bennett.”

      “I’m Nina.” She chose not to add her last name. She was allowing herself a momentary fantasy. No need to reveal she was not one of the guests.

      “You’re here alone?” He normally made it a rule never to browse in another man’s store, but in this case he was seriously considering trying to take her away from her date if he’d been mistaken and she was here with someone.

      “Yes.” She wondered how she could sound so cool and in control. Since she’d been widowed nearly three years ago, she hadn’t even dated. She thought she’d forgotten how to talk to a single man, much less how to flirt with one. Yet, she must be doing something right because Alex Bennett was still there.

      “Interesting nonwedding.” Watching her take a bite of a strawberry, Alex wondered how her lips would taste.

      “Very.” Think of something to say! she ordered herself, but small talk had never been her strong point. Smiling stiffly, she bit into a tiny finger sandwich.

      You’re boring her, Alex chided himself. “Rather a Gothic atmosphere, don’t you think? The bride flees the wedding in the midst of a raging storm, and the mother of the groom doesn’t even show up. Now the groom appears to be missing, and we, the guests, are left to fend for ourselves by candlelight.”

      “A night fraught with intrigue,” Nina quipped.

      “And music,” Alex noted as the strains of a popular song filled the air. A glance over his shoulder told him that one of the guests had discovered the piano in the corner. The opportunity to test the feel of her in his arms was too strong to resist. “Would you care to dance?” Without giving her an opportunity to say no, he quickly set the glasses of champagne on a nearby table, then gently eased her plate from her hands and set it down with the glasses.

      As he drew her into a loose embrace, the scent of his after-shave teased her senses, and she was acutely aware of his strength. How much she liked being in his arms shook her, and a curl of guilt wove through her. Tom Lindstrom had been her childhood sweetheart, and there had never been another man in her life other than him. It’s just a dance, she admonished herself.

      Alex didn’t think any woman had ever felt so good in his arms. Nor had he ever been so sharply aware of another…her soft perfume, the cut of her jaw, the curve of her hips, the velvet look of her lips. It’s this strange night. The lightning is filling the air with electricity, causing my perceptions to be heightened, he reasoned.

      Nina felt herself wanting to move closer. For the first time since Tom’s death, she found herself missing male companionship. Well, she was only human, and thirty-one was still young.

      The song finished, and at the shouted request of one of the guests, the pianist began pounding out an old rock and roll tune. Still Alex held her and continued to move slowly, as if the strains of the other song still filled the air.

      “I think we’re out of sync with the rest of the room,” she said, but did not fight his lead, choosing to remain in his arms and move with him.

      “I prefer to think they are out of sync with us.”

      His breath played on the sensitized skin of her neck, and her blood began to heat. A crack of thunder shook the building. She trembled and he drew her closer. “I’ll protect you,” he said gruffly, and marveled at just how much he wanted to do that and a whole lot more.

      Her senses reeling, Nina looked up, uncertain what to say. Until now she’d been too nervous to look into his eyes. Now she realized they were green…a warm, inviting green like the woods on a summer day. Her gaze locked with his, and she felt herself being drawn into their lush depths.

      “You have the most kissable-looking lips I’ve ever seen,” he said, his face moving closer to hers.

      Suddenly panic flowed through her. Her resistance was dangerously too low. This was all happening much too fast! She was letting her fantasy get out of hand. In the cold light of dawn, when he discovered she was a poor widow with three children, he was bound to bolt.

      “I just remembered something I have to do.” She squirmed out of his arms and rushed from the room.

      Alex followed her into the hall, but in the dimly lit passages, he lost her.

      Chapter One

      “The end is near,” the lanky, white-haired, eighty-five-year-old man propped up by pillows in the large four-poster bed announced with conviction. “I can feel death breathing down on my neck.”

      Alex studied his grandfather’s lined, weather-worn features with concern. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing William Bennett pale and weak. “You should be in a hospital.”

      “I ain’t goin’ no place. When you’ve got as much money as I have, the doctors come to you.” The frown on the old man’s face deepened. “But there are things money can’t buy. I’d hoped to bounce a great-grandchild on my knee before I went to those oil fields in the sky, but that doesn’t seem likely now. However, I’d die a happy man if I knew you’d, at least, found yourself a wife. You’re thirty-seven. A man should be putting down roots at that age.”

      “We Bennett men don’t have much luck at finding women whose roots take hold,” Alex reminded him.

      The old man scowled. “Be that as it may. Your dad and I both tried. If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here today. You need an heir, boy. When I’m gone you’ll be the last of our line.”

      Alex had been certain the old man was too ornery to die. At twelve, William had gone to work in the oil fields, learning the business from the bottom up. He was tough as leather and had the determination of a bull with a purpose. It had been by sheer grit, willpower and the sweat of his brow that he’d held his fledgling drilling company together until they’d hit their first

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