TOPPING A SAND DUNE just above the shoreline, Maddie shivered and pulled her denim jacket closer around her. Here it was late August and yet summer seemed to have fled. Could it really have been only two days since the frightening board meeting that had gone—surprise!—smoothly? Friday had been hot and muggy. But today, Sunday, the wind was raw, the restive ocean was gray-green, and the rebellious waves punished the dun-colored sand. It was amazing. The tourists had left in droves. Hanscomb Harbor, for the most part, looked like a ghost town of its former self. Not that it was a bad thing to have one’s town back to oneself. Although weather like this wreaked havoc with the local businesses’ bottom lines, her own included.
Never mind about that. Focus, Maddie. Still standing atop the dune, she panned the beach, looking here and there and calling out, “Beamer! Where are you? Here, girl. Come here, girl. Good doggy.”
And then she waited, listening, watching, and fighting the determined wind for control of her hair that whipped about her head and lashed at her face. “Doggone it,” Maddie muttered. She then hollered, “I know you’re out here, Beamer. I saw your footprints in the sand.” Footprints? “Okay, pawprints. Whatever. Look, I don’t have time for this, you great big furry ungrateful dog, you. If you don’t come here to me right now this minute, I’m going to leave you out here. I swear I will.”
She knew she wouldn’t. And so did Beamer. What a name for a dog. Maddie recalled James saying he’d named her that because her doggy grin was as bright as a beam of sunshine. “Yeah, well, right now it’s not.”
Maddie thought back to her homecoming last Friday evening when Celeste, who’d not only minded the store but had doggy-sat while Maddie had been in the city, told her that Beamer had taken to jumping over the fence in the backyard and running off. Without fail, Celeste told her, she would find the golden retriever out here at the cabin she’d shared with her master for the better part of three summers. Maddie had sympathized with the dog at first, but now it wasn’t funny. Not six times in two days. The magic was wearing off, especially in this weather.
Maddie grimaced, feeling the cold chafe her cheeks. Fisting her hand around the dog’s leash, she tried to forget that she stood atop the very dune whose jutting tuft of sea grass had tripped her not too many nights ago when she and Hank had come here searching for Beamer that first time. And yet, here she was again and for the same reason, only she was now alone in her search. Alone and cold and wanting shelter and food and a hot cup of tea. Comforts.
“Beamer!” she yelled, frustration with the animal turning to anger as a first tiny drop of chilling rain hit her cheek and portended an unseasonal deluge. “Oh, just lovely. That’s what I need. A good, cold soaking.”
She looked over her shoulder to assure herself that her beat-up old Jeep Wagoneer, with its promise of shelter, was still there. It was. Right where she’d left it. What do I think it will do—take off on its own? Leave me here? Hardly. Still, she felt in her jacket pocket for her car keys. Her fingers closed around them, their familiar jangling weight reassuring her.
Just then a blast of wind pitched Maddie forward a few stumbling steps. “Whoa.” She regained her footing and renewed her resolve. I really ought to just leave the dog out here and see if she comes home on her own. Another stinging drop hit Maddie’s cheek and coursed down her face like a tear. She swiped it away. “Oh, like I’m really going to leave her out here,” she fussed back at the gods who were messing with her.
“Come on, Beamer,” Maddie yelled, hearing the whiny impatience creeping into her voice. “Let’s go ho-o-me. We have food and a warm fire and books and things waiting for us. Here, girl. Come o-o-n-n.”
Maddie listened. Still nothing. No response. She frowned, beginning to worry. Always before Beamer would come running. But not this time. Well, not so far this time. Maddie told herself that the golden retriever could be doing anything. Napping. Digging a hole. Following the particularly riveting scent of an especially revolting creature. Or maybe, on a more practical level, Maddie realized, it could be simply that the wind was carrying her voice in the other direction. See? The dog’s being a no-show could be for any number of reasons. It didn’t have to mean that something had happened to her.
Maddie marveled at her concern for the dog. For this dog. She still wasn’t totally over her mistrust of dogs in general. But this representative of the furry, warm-blooded mammals was starting to grow on her. They’d come to an understanding of sorts, which went like this: Maddie stayed out of Beamer’s three-fourths of the house (roughly defined as the second bedroom and all of the living room, the closed-in porch, and sometimes the kitchen), and Beamer did as she damned well pleased. It worked for them—as long as Maddie was quick enough to anticipate the dog and to move off the sofa or the bed or any given chair before Beamer could attack her and demonstrate her unconditional love of Maddie.
Truth to tell, even though she and Beamer were still essentially housemates and not soulmates, the dog’s current behavior tugged at Maddie’s heart. It was so human to go back to a place where you’d been happy. And yes it made her feel a bit inadequate to realize that the dog obviously couldn’t wait to escape her current home and run back here. The poor thing.
Maddie shivered from the chilling wind and continued to pan the shoreline looking for Beamer. As she did, she suddenly realized she was staring at the cottage where James had stayed and then Hank had, however briefly. She hadn’t heard from Hank, not since Friday, not since he’d said he could sleep there in that penthouse apartment. With her. He hadn’t actually said with her, but it was implied. And what had she done? Fled. Got scared, got cold feet, and totally left town after the stockholders’ meeting, running back to Hanscomb Harbor to sleep in her own bed. Alone.
Maddie could only shake her head in self-disgust. So you weren’t yet ready to deal with your feelings for Hank. Not under those circumstances, anyway. So what’d you do? You ran back here. To where you felt safe. Where you were happy. Just like the dog. Maddie grimaced, not finding it the least bit reassuring that she had so much in common with, and could relate to, a canine. But there it was, the parallel between them.
The dog. That was it. What she needed to do here, she reminded herself, was find the dog. And she would. If only it didn’t seem that Hank was everywhere out here. In her mind’s eye she imagined the picture he would make if he were here … maybe barefoot, wearing a cable-knit sweater, his pants legs rolled up, walking along the beach, maybe picking up and examining a seashell. Maybe tossing a pebble into the water. His dark hair would be wind-tossed. Maybe he hadn’t shaved that morning. Maybe his day-old beard gave him the rugged look of a sea captain. Maybe he would look up and see her and then the music would start and they would run toward each other and—
And maybe, just maybe, she’d been reading too many romance novels lately. “Another one of these corny things?” Lavinia Houghton always announced in an unduly loud voice when, red-faced, Maddie dared check one out of the library’s vast supply. With her narrow-eyed reproving glare, the puritanical librarian would add, “They’ll lead you down the garden path, missy. Just see if they don’t. Many a young girl has been led astray by the wantonness between these pages.” Which accounted for the dog-eared, oft-read appearance of the paperbacks, Maddie believed but had no courage to say. Still, maybe Lavinia was right. Maybe they were corny. Because those romantic images that she’d just envisioned didn’t happen in real life or to real people.
They certainly never had to her. She never had happy endings, much less beginnings.
With a shake of her head that Maddie hoped would dispel her funky mood, she looked down upon the one-room weathered-board beach cottages below. They were so pathetic as to be comical. The haphazard clump of cabins owned by Mr. Hardy resembled, to Maddie’s whimsical eye, a tumble of toy cardboard houses roughly constructed by some child’s hand and then abandoned for the delights of the arcade.
Well, standing there and staring at them wasn’t finding the dog. With a woe-is-me sigh, Maddie started down the dune, recalling her slippery sandals of about a week or so ago and pronouncing herself grateful this time for her lace-up boots and jeans. Warmth and surefootedness were to be prized in this landscape. So was patience. The sand beneath her feet kept shifting, which meant Maddie achieved level ground in an arm-waving stumble. Regaining a bit of her footing and most of her dignity—and feeling now an increased patter of cold raindrops—she set off at a trot, heading in a straight line for the cottage she thought of as the solitary one just before the sandy beach narrowed and disappeared around a rocky bend in the land.
Once at the slightly tilted beach house’s side, Maddie swung around a corner of it—and ran smack into a warm, solid presence that gripped her by her arms.
An involuntary scream of surprise erupted from her. She couldn’t believe her eyes. But her heart did—and beat in a wildly erratic manner just to prove it. In only a fraction of a second her mind kaleidoscoped through scenes of last Friday and how she’d fled for home following the stockholders’ meeting because she couldn’t come to grips with Hank’s—surely he’d been serious—proposition about sleeping with her that night. She’d run away, behaving like a jittery junior-high ninny unhinged by the prospect of her first kiss behind the gym bleachers. The truth was she just couldn’t sleep with the man until all this crazy will stuff was over and done. To do otherwise would be self-incriminating.
“Whoa. Hey, Maddie, easy now. You’re okay. It’s just me.”
Gasping for breath, Maddie stiffened and pulled back in his grip. “Hank Madison! What are you doing here? You just about scared the life out of me.”
“I can tell. I’m sorry.” He let go of her and shoved his hands in his jeans’ front pockets. His half-zipped leather bomber jacket revealed a plaid flannel shirt underneath and the white vee of his T-shirt.
Could he be more sexy? Maddie fussed. Self-consciously she tugged at her waist-length denim jacket and then tried to smooth a hand through her wind-tossed hair. Too many tangles made it impossible. She must look a fright, she knew. No makeup. Her hair flung every which way like a fright wig. Her cheeks wind-reddened, no doubt. Her nose runny. She sniffed mightily … always attractive … and scrubbed her fingers under her nose, hoping she wasn’t making it worse. “So what are you doing out here?”
The skies chose that moment to open up with a deluge of cold rain. “Trying to avoid the rain, for one thing.” Hank quickly stepped under the wide overhanging eave of the screened porch.
Maddie followed him and happily crowded up against him. Behind him, she could now see his SUV that apparently the cabin’s big boxiness had hidden from her sight when she’d been standing on the dune.
Hank put a sheltering arm around her, as if that were the most natural thing in the world between the two of them. “Man, it’s really starting to come down now.”
Maddie couldn’t truly say that she’d noticed. All her sensory perceptions were busy soaking up the man in front of her. His clean scent. His body’s warmth. The tone and timbre of his voice. The easy, confident way he held her. That jet-black hair. Those football shoulders—
“Come on.” Hank’s voice was raised in an effort to be heard over the steadily drumming rain on the cabin’s questionable roof. “Let’s go inside.”
That brought Maddie back to the moment. “Inside?”
“Yeah. We’ll get soaked.”
“You’re staying in this place? I thought you’d be in town.”
“No. I like it better here.” Hank pulled a key out of his jeans pocket and turned away, heading for the screen door that would let them onto the porch.
She watched Hank open the screen door and saw him glance over his shoulder, obviously expecting her to be right behind him. She wasn’t. He frowned, probably because she still stood where he’d left her. With her shoulders hunched against the cold and the rain, with her hands tucked into her jacket pockets, she watched him tromping back her way. She didn’t move. She couldn’t. Because she wasn’t so sure she trusted herself alone with him … on a wild and rainy day like this … in a secluded cottage like this. The potential here had that romance-novel scenario written all over it.
“What are you doing, Maddie? Come on.” He unceremoniously grabbed her by the stitched shoulder seam of her jacket and hauled her unresisting self along behind him. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
As he opened the flimsy screen door, Maddie balked and finally found her voice. “Wait. I can’t leave Beamer. She’s out here somewhere.”
“No she isn’t. She’s inside.”
“What? She’s inside? How did she get inside? You mean I’ve been in the cold and rain calling for her and she’s inside?”
“Yes, Maddie. The opposite of outside.” Hank hauled her onto the porch before letting go of her. He stepped back and shook his head and ran his hands through his perfectly barbered hair. A very practical gesture to, no doubt, simply rid it of excess water. But the effect it had on Maddie was mesmerizing. She wanted to applaud and say bravo, even as she admitted that it was always the little things with him that got to her. The laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. The straight cut of his short sideburns. His long eyelashes.
“You hear that?” He jerked a thumb toward the closed front door. “I told you she was inside.”
Indeed, Maddie heard the madly barking dog on the other side of the door. “Great. She’ll maul me.”
“That just means she’s happy to see you,” Hank said, grinning.
Maddie wasn’t convinced. “Yeah, right. That’s why she keeps taking off and coming back here. She hates me.”
Shaking his head, Hank sent her a sidelong glance of masculine appreciation. “I don’t see how anyone could hate you.”
Tremendously pleased by his compliment, but striving to give nothing away, Maddie resorted to good manners. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”
He quirked his mouth in amusement. “Well, don’t let that get out. It would ruin my reputation.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Maddie quipped before returning to the business at hand—the dog’s presence inside the cottage. “So, I guess you’re the one who let Beamer in, right?”
Hank, in the act of fitting the key into the lock, stopped and looked her way, obviously hearing in her voice all her other unasked questions. “Guilty as charged. She just showed up right before I went into town for groceries. I looked around, realized she was out here alone. So I put her inside until I could get back. And yes, I know I should have brought her to you. But she put up quite a fight over not wanting to leave. And yes, I knew you’d come looking for her.”
He’d kept Beamer here on purpose knowing she’d follow? How could she be anything but flattered? Trying not to preen, Maddie managed a chuckle and a bit of wit. “Well, that’s all my questions answered. But just so you know, I didn’t mercilessly leave her outside in this weather. She got out by opening the back door.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “The dog opens doors?”
“I can only assume because it was open and here she is, the stinker.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
He was clearly impressed. Maddie fought a sudden urge to proudly blurt that she too could open doors and had been doing so for years.
But Hank saved her from that bit of imbecility by speaking first. “With her mouth, right? She doesn’t use her paws but her mouth? To open doors?”
“I guess. I haven’t actually seen her do it. I just know she does somehow.”
“So you don’t keep your doors locked?”
“Not all the time. This is Hanscomb Harbor, remember.”
“Right. But that’s amazing. About her opening the doors.”
“Isn’t it? And because she can, I get to chase about in the cold and rain looking for her.” Maddie delivered all this with what she hoped was a brilliant smile. “Like now. And we’re still outside.”
“Oh, hell, excuse me. I got caught up…” Hank’s voice trailed off and he met her gaze, his dark eyes conveying more than his words. “Okay, I got caught up in staring at you, Maddie. I’m glad you’re here. Really glad.”
Her breathing suddenly affected, Maddie stared round-eyed and said nothing as Hank turned the key in the lock and worked the doorknob at the same time. Nothing happened. With a glance her way, he then pushed against the stubborn door with his solid weight behind his efforts. The door still wouldn’t give. Hank stood back and stared at it as if it had personally offended him.
His expression was comical, but Maddie wisely managed to maintain a sober countenance. “The wood’s probably swollen with the damp,” she offered in his defense. “The humidity makes it warp and hard to open.”
“That makes sense.” Then he pointed to the “In memory of James H. Madison, Senior” polished-brass plaque crookedly nailed to the vicariously hung door. “Did you do that?”
“No. Well, yes. In a way. I had Mr. Hardy do it.” Hank was frowning at her as if he needed further explanation. “He came to me after James died and said he didn’t know what to do with the rent money James had paid him in advance for his six weeks here. I told him it might be a nice gesture to have a plaque made and put up. I hope that’s okay.”
Hank nodded. “Sure. Yeah. It’s nice.” He rubbed his fingers over the words engraved on the brass. “Probably the nicest thing about this place.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Maddie drawled without thinking as she looked Hank’s handsome profile up and down. His eyebrows slowly rose as awareness flared in his eyes. Maddie could barely breathe. She feared a cloud of steam would rise from her damp clothes if they kept these hot-eyed stares going. “Uh, why don’t you try that door again?”
“Right.” But he didn’t move. He continued staring at her, desire radiating from his dark eyes.
Maddie knew in her hotly thumping heart that if he made one move toward her, she’d go to bed with him. Just one move toward her, and she was going all the way. Friday she’d been totally silly about the whole issue. She wanted him. She was a consenting adult who was totally turned on by him. Forget all the legalities and uncertainties between them. Sometimes sex could make those things disappear. Just one move, Hank, and I’m yours, baby … She tried her best to convey that with her eyes.
But failed. Hank abruptly turned to the door and put his shoulder into his efforts, shoving hard against the stubborn wood. Maddie slumped. Darn. But the door burst open as if there’d never been a problem, taking Hank with it. Caught completely off guard, stumbling and cursing, he all but fell into the one-room interior.
Gasping, Maddie was right behind him. “Ohmigod, are you all right?”
In the middle of the room and dodging the jumping, playful, dry, warm, happy, barking golden retriever, Hank jerked to a teetering stop, whipped around to face Maddie, and struck what was to her a comically dramatic pose with his feet apart and his hands fisted at his waist. This was not the man of the thousand-dollar suits and the penthouse and the board meetings. That man had to be his evil, or at least his sober-minded, twin. Right now, this guy’s expression was the exaggerated one of some silent-cinema romantic hero. “Why, yes I am. I meant to do that.”
Maddie laughed at him. “You did not. You nearly fell on your face.”
He arched an eyebrow nearly all the way up to his hairline, thoroughly impressing Maddie. “I did no such thing. What I nearly fell on was, in fact, my ass.”
Maddie burst out laughing. And apparently offended Beamer. The dog, close by Hank’s side, barked and barked at Maddie as if admonishing her not to laugh at her friend. Finding herself the least bit hurt in the pride area because Beamer hadn’t rushed to her, Maddie fussed good-naturedly at the canine. “And what are you griping about, traitor?”
Beamer lowered her ears and managed to look guilty, if unrepentant.
“Well, I see you two have made your peace,” Hank quipped, dropping his pose.
Maddie made a scoffing sound. “If you call her doing exactly as she pleases and my staying out of her way peace, then, yes, we have achieved that.”
He waved her inside. “Come in, Maddie. Close that door, and I’ll start a fire.”
She couldn’t resist. “And what will you start if I don’t close it?”
That eyebrow went up again. “I’ll start griping about the cold, most likely.”
“I’d rather have the fire.” Maddie closed the door, which muted the sound of the rain, but also blocked out most of what was left of the overcast afternoon’s questionable daylight. That left it pretty dark inside the cabin. Sure, she’d been brave and wanton outside, but now she felt suddenly shy at being in such close and intimate quarters with Hank and a bed.
But apparently he wasn’t afflicted by any such feelings because he was bustling about, opening the flimsy curtains that hung limply from slightly askew café rods. “There,” he announced, “that’s better.” He rubbed his hands together as if satisfied with his efforts. “I’ll go get some firewood off the porch.” He headed in that direction, saying over his shoulder on the way out, “Have a seat, Maddie. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Okay.”
Have a seat. Maddie frowned as she panned the cabin’s interior. It would have been a kindness to say the beach house was furnished in retro 1950s style. Only there was no style. And this stuff, given Mr. Hardy’s penchant for … kindly put … economy, had probably been in here since the 1950s. The early 1950s.
Capturing Maddie’s attention first was the old metal bed that sagged against the back wall. It sported a lumpy-looking mattress, graying sheets, and a stained bedspread. Maddie made a yuck face. Passion and desire had just taken a back seat to hygiene. She eyed instead the bedside lamp, torn shade and all, that teetered atop a red-painted crate of some kind. Turning around, she saw a dirty two-burner stove, a seriously stained sink with exposed plumbing, and a hulking monolith of an icebox crowding one wall. Adding to the kitchen area’s charm was a chrome table with two matching chairs, the seats of which were covered by a red vinyl material. Cigarette burns and just plain old rips in the fabric completed the lived-in look.
Grimacing her distaste, Maddie turned her gaze toward the seating area. The torn and stained excuse for a couch didn’t deserve further description, or to have a human sit upon it. As if that were her cue, Beamer climbed up on it and made herself comfortable. That explained that. An oval braided rug in front of the couch was no longer exactly oval or even braided. Okay, to be fair, not everything in the room was from the 1950s. Certainly, the Franklin stove sitting innocently against the far wall was from the 1750s.
But all was not lost, for next to the kitchen area was a hopeful sign. A closed door. One that Maddie sincerely prayed, for Hank’s sake, opened onto an indoor bathroom with clean and working plumbing. Completing this room’s décor, and facing the couch, was a small TV atop a slightly adrift bookcase. It leaned to the left, whereas the cottage walls leaned to the right. It was enough to make a person seasick. No books resided in the bookcase. But it did boast a jumble of magazines, the nature of which Maddie felt no compunction to explore.
And here was something you didn’t see every day. The TV proudly possessed rabbit-ear antennae. As expected, a folded square of aluminum foil, looking for all the world like a little shiny flag, had been mashed into place at the top of one antenna … and was even now slowly descending the antenna’s length as Maddie stared at it. She had to stop herself from putting a hand patriotically over her heart and humming taps.
“So? What do you think? Just like home, huh?”
Maddie whirled around.
There stood Hank with an armful of firewood. Clutched in one hand was a rusty-looking can opener, the old pliers-like kind that was hand-powered. He waved this item at her and proudly announced, “Look what I found outside behind the wood crib. Pretty lucky, huh?”
“Lucky?” With dreaded certainty, Maddie knew Hank would be dead inside of a week, tops, out here. “Hank, you cannot stay in this beach house,” she announced dramatically. “Not under any conditions. I had no idea these cottages were—and I use the word loosely here—furnished like this. Look at this place. What is Mr. Hardy thinking?” She stilled and stared soberly into Hank’s dark eyes. “If you stay here one more day, you will die.”
* * *
“I’ll die?” Because he still held the firewood, Hank could only awkwardly toss the can opener into the big ceramic sink before advancing on the wood bin next to the Franklin stove. Concerned by Maddie’s proclamation of doom, he looked all around the cabin’s interior, but didn’t spot any obvious or even potential threats. “What will I die from?”
“Can you not see?” She was clearly horrified. “Rust. And dirt. And grime. And germs. And other things, like dog hair.”
Hank chuckled. “Come on, Maddie, I’ve been here for days. And if that combination could kill anyone, Stephen King would have already written a book about it.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He bent over the crate and allowed the wood to roll out of his arms and into the slatted box. “There.” Satisfied with his efforts, he straightened up and briskly rubbed his hands together. He smiled Maddie’s way. “It’s cold in here, isn’t it? I’ll get us a fire started and then we can—”
“Hank, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Have you ever started a fire before in your life?”
He was thoroughly amused, and a bit offended, to realize she thought him a pampered little rich boy who couldn’t take care of himself. He briefly wondered if he should tell her about the mountain-climbing expedition he’d bankrolled and participated in that had actually required a Sherpa guide. Or all the white-water rapids, in a kayak, he’d run on various continents. Or the cross-country skiing in Sweden. That month-long trek down the Amazon. The time he’d spent among the Aborigines in the Australian outback.
But then he thought of a better story. And scratched at his jaw as he pretended to think about her question. “Hmm. Have I ever started a fire? Oh yeah, I did. When I was nine. It was with my mother’s lighter. We were at the country club. It was summer, and we were spending the day at the pool. There was a bunch of kids I knew, and I was trying to light a cigarette—”
“Wait. You smoked when you were nine?”
“Just that one time. It was a dare. A stupid-kid trick. Anyway, we were huddled in the dining room, just us kids. It was between lunch and supper. None of the wait staff was around. So anyway, Tommy Jenkins jostled me and I missed the cigarette and got the curtains.”
Maddie paled. “The curtains?”
“Yeah. And we were behind the curtains because we didn’t want the grown-ups to catch us. Smart, huh? But it gets better. Also behind the curtains were plate-glass windows and everyone outside at the pool could see us.”
Maddie was slowly shaking her head and staring at him as if he’d escaped a scientific lab somewhere. “Good God. Did anyone get hurt?”
“No. Some quick-thinking waiter was passing by with a couple pitchers of water and tossed it on the flames. And us.”
“The flames? There were actual flames?” Her tone of voice said he was not helping his case any.
“Well, they weren’t flames so much as … little ones. It was no big deal. No one was hurt. If you don’t count my backside.”
“Your backside got burned?”
“Blistered is more like it. By my mother. I learned my lesson. Or lessons. There were two. One, don’t smoke. And two, never piss off my mother, especially in front of her friends.”
Maddie tilted her chin up. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
Hank held up both hands as evidence that he was not. “Swear to God. It’s true. You can ask my mother.” Time to come clean. “Who is here in Hanscomb Harbor as we speak.”
Maddie tensed. “Say you’re lying.”
He shook his head. “Can’t. She’s here.”
“Define ‘here.’”
“Hanscomb Harbor. And don’t ask where. You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, God. Okay, then why is she here?”
“Because she wanted to see for herself what the attraction was for my grandfather in this small town.”
A silence stretched taut between them. Hank watched Maddie, seeing in her eyes the reflection of the wheels turning in her mind. He knew the moment she got it because she slumped. “We’re not talking the actual geographical scenery here, are we?”
“No. We’re not.” Hank’s smile was sympathetic.
“You know, Hank, very recently it has just started to totally suck being me.”
“I understand. And it’s all the Madisons’ fault. I know that, too. And I’m sorry.”
Maddie nodded absently as if benignly agreeing with him. Then she shivered. “We need a fire going in here.” Her own words seemed to bring him into sharper focus in her sight. “A planned fire properly made in the wood-burning stove.”
Hank crossed his arms over his chest. “I knew what you meant.” Beamer backed him up with a resentful woof aimed her owner’s way.
Maddie turned her pointing finger on the dog. “You’re next, young lady.”
Beamer lowered her ears and growled halfheartedly, as if she knew she had every reason to expect a dressing-down. Sure enough, Maddie began mock-seriously to chastise the dog. “How dare you open the door at home and get me out on a day like this and worry me like you did…”
Thoroughly enchanted with having her here, Hank took this opportunity to drink his fill of the blond and slender woman he’d spent many pleasurable hours with in bed … all of them in his head, unfortunately. Yeah, the fantasy sex had been great, but he’d also envisioned long hours of talking with her, of listening to her speak, of watching her movements and her expressions. The truth was, he found the thought of those activities with her just as sensual and intimate as sex would be. She excited him on every level. And that scared the hell out of him. Or should have. But didn’t, which scared him worse.
Could he be more confused? What was it he wanted here? Something permanent? That would be the only kind a man could have with a woman like Maddie. As Jim Thornton had said, she was the marrying kind. The mother-of-your-children sort. Hank’s bachelor’s heart thumped its protest. Damn. Am I sunk here or what? He didn’t know. But he did have an enforced six-week vacation to find out. Of course, a lot depended on Maddie’s cooperation. And why would she? Hadn’t the Madisons infringed on her life enough already? True. So go slow here, Hank. Give her some time, some room. You need the same thing, too.
Go slow? How? He was on fire for her. Just standing in the same room with her had him fisting his hands at his sides to keep from grabbing her and tossing her with him onto that damned rickety old bed in the corner. Going slow was going to be hard. Hank tried to ignore his body’s willing response to that word. Hard. Ha-ha. Funny.
But he was a grown man. In control. And this was important. Maddie was important. He felt they had to get this right the first time out or say goodbye. And he didn’t want that to happen. That was all he was willing to admit to right now, that he didn’t want to not see her. It was a beginning. He liked that idea. A good beginning with Maddie. Right here, alone together on a rainy, windswept late-summer afternoon inside an isolated cabin at the beach. Just him and her. And Beamer, of course. In fact, Hank realized, he had Beamer to thank for getting Maddie out here.
And that was when Hank also realized something else. Maddie was done with her halfhearted harangue of the dog and was now standing in the middle of the room … staring at him staring at her. He jerked to attention. “You want to sit down?”
Before Maddie could respond, Beamer adjusted her position on the couch, reclining with much the same superior attitude as Cleopatra had probably employed. Hank met Maddie’s bemused gaze. “I should have been more specific. So with the couch taken, I can offer you a kitchen chair or the bed.” Or the bed. She’d already taken off once when he mentioned beds and sleep. Hank exhaled. Go slow. “Okay, never mind that. Can you stay for a meal?”
“You cook?”
He shook his head. “No. I heat. Remember, I have a can opener.”
“If it’s not the one you brought in with the wood, okay, yes.”
Hank’s heart soared. She’d stay. How hopeless was he to be so delighted? “I promise to use the new one I bought today,” he said solemnly.
Now she looked uncertain. “Good. You really do want me to stay, right?”
“Oh, yeah. I want you to stay, Maddie.” Hank felt certain he was dying here. Just standing here looking at her … the way she filled out her jeans … that long blond hair … her smiling face.
Go slow? What kind of a dumb-ass idea was that? Well, dumb-ass or not, he was stuck with it. Right?