LITMIR.BIZ

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have to work in the morning!”

      She refused an offer to be walked home, and instead went down the darkened streets by herself. Partway home, she realized her feet ached from all the dancing, and she slipped off her shoes and went barefoot.

      A little ways from her house, she saw a figure coming toward her. She knew from his size and the way he carried himself exactly who it was, and she felt her heart begin to race.

      But his walk was different, purposeful, the strides long and hard, like a gladiator entering the arena, like a warrior entering the battlefield.

      He stopped in front of her and gazed down at her. His eyes were flashing with cold anger.

      “Where the hell have you been?”

       “Scusi?”

      “You heard me.”

      “I told you I was at a birthday party,” she said.

      “Well, I assumed a child’s birthday party, and I thought it would be over at a decent time.”

      “What’s it to you?” she snapped, angry at his high-handed manner, angry that he thought he could treat her like a child on the night she felt sexy and adult.

      Her tone was louder than she intended. In fact, both their tones might have been louder than they thought. A light came on in a window above the street.

      Connor stepped back from her, ran a hand through his hair and looked away. “You’re waking the neighbors,” he said, glancing up at that window.

      “Me?” she said, unrepentant.

      “Us,” he conceded.

      “Well, I have an excuse—boiling cauldron of repressed passion that I am, I am now shrieking like a fishwife in the streets. What’s yours?”

      “Good question,” he said.

      “You rescued me this afternoon. That does not put you in charge of my life!”

      “You’re right,” Connor said. The anger had faded from his face. Instead, he looked faintly confused. Her own annoyance at him ebbed away a little bit.

      “Are you out here looking for me?” she asked, astounded.

      He could barely look at her, but he nodded.

      What remained of her anger drained away. “But why?” She remembered thinking earlier tonight, with the news of Marianna’s pregnancy, of the burden he had placed on himself of looking after the whole world. She remembered wondering if the first person he had felt protective of was his mother.

      Almost against her will, something in her softened toward him.

      “Hell, I started thinking about you bumping your head. It can be such a tricky injury. I should have checked more for signs of concussion.”

      “You were worried about me,” she said. It was not a question.

      “It’s just that you’d had quite a bang on the head, and you were dressed like that, and I started thinking you might not be making the best decisions.”

      “I’m thirty-three years old!”

      “But you’d had a head injury. And you said you were lonely... I thought you might be...” His voice trailed away uncomfortably.

      She looked at him silently. She should be insulted. He thought she might be what? Getting carried away with the first man who looked at her with avarice? But poor Connor looked tormented. His expression stole her indignation away from her.

      “Vulnerable,” he continued.

      That was so true. She did feel very vulnerable. But it seemed he felt vulnerable, too.

      “It’s not that you wouldn’t make good decisions under normal conditions,” he said hastily. “But a bump on the head can cause confusion. Alter judgment slightly. I’m sorry. Am I making a fool of myself?”

      “No,” she said softly, “you are not. I am quite touched by your concern for me.”

      “I’m not sure it’s rational,” he said. “It’s just that, unfortunately, I’ve just seen a lot of people get themselves in trouble before they know what’s happened to them.”

      “I wasn’t in trouble. But the party wasn’t for a child. Not really. For a sixteen-year-old. It’s a big deal in Monte Calanetti. Almost like a wedding. A meal and dancing. The party could go on all night.”

      “I hate it when I act from emotion,” he said gruffly.

      “Do you?”

      He stepped one step closer to her. He lifted her hair off her shoulder with his hand. “What are you doing to me?” he asked huskily. “I feel as if I’m not thinking straight.”

      “Ah.”

      “I find you very beautiful. It’s hard for a man to think straight around that.”

      “It’s just the dress,” she said.

      “No, Isabella, it’s not.”

      “It’s not?”

      “There’s something about you that makes me think with my heart instead of my head.”

      “Oh, dear,” she said, and her tone was playfully mocking.

      “Here’s what I think,” he said firmly, as if he had it all figured out.

      “Yes?”

      “I should take you on a date.”

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ISABELLA STARED AT CONNOR. He should take her on a date? But was that his head or his heart talking? Because the way he said it, it was almost as though he hoped to get her out of his system.

      “You should?” she asked.

      “Sure. I mean, if you’d like to.”

      There was something very endearing about seeing this big, self-assured, superconfident Texan looking so unsure of himself.

      “I’d like to,” she said softly. “I’d like to, very much.”

      And then it seemed slightly and wonderfully ridiculous that they turned and walked home together.

      Only it didn’t seem ridiculous when his hand found hers.

      It felt not as if she was going to go on a real date for the first time in her life, but as if she was coming home.

      * * *

      “I’ve gone and done something really stupid,” Connor whispered into his phone.

      “Huh? Who is this?”

      “Justin, it’s me.”

      “Connor?”

      “Yeah.”

      “What the hell is going on?”

      “There’s this girl.”

      Something relaxed in Justin’s tone. “This better be good—it’s two o’clock in the morning here.”

      Connor contemplated that. Was there one rational thing left in him? No, that’s why he was consulting his friend. That’s what SEALs did when they were in a pickle, they relied on each other.

      “She’s not really a girl. A woman.”

      “Uh-huh?”

      “I asked her out.”

      “That sounds like it’s worthy of a two a.m. phone call.”

      “The thing is, I didn’t really ask her out for me. I asked her out for her. She’s a widow. She married really young. She’s

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