I like it?”
“I doubt it. It was a love story.”
“Hey, I’m all in favor of love.”
She regarded him with blatant skepticism. “You want to read this?”
“Sure, why not? The fish was very good, by the way. You follow directions well.”
She seemed startled by the praise. Her gaze shifted to his clean plate, then to her own. “I do, don’t I? Maybe I’ll learn to cook while I’m here.”
“I’d be happy to be your guinea pig,” he offered. “I have a cast-iron stomach. I have to, given how lousy I am in the kitchen.”
“Maybe Maggie could give us both lessons,” she suggested. “That could be fun.”
“Even relaxing,” he retorted. “As long as you don’t turn it into some sort of competition.”
“Not everything has to be a competition with me,” she insisted.
“Really? I’ll bet by the time you were three, you wanted to know if your hands were the cleanest when you came to the supper table.”
“I did not,” she said, but there was a spark of recognition in her eyes that suggested she saw herself in his comment just the same.
Josh wondered if a woman who obviously thrived on challenges would ever be content with a slower, less stressful pace, or if she would always need to be in the thick of some battle. It was something he needed to decide about himself, as well.
He’d come down here to simplify his life, to cut through the clutter of being on the fast track and see
if he wanted to get off entirely. He suspected Ashley wasn’t in the same place at all. If anything, she was probably champing at the bit to get back on that fast track. It might be the kind of complication that meant they were doomed, but it was hardly something that needed to be resolved tonight.
Tonight it was enough to be with a woman who stirred his blood and kept him on his toes mentally. At some point during the evening, he’d gotten past the triumph of being invited to Rose Cottage by one of the unattainable D’Angelo sisters. Now it was all about being with a woman who intrigued him, a woman with strengths and vulnerabilities he wanted to understand, a woman whose bed he wanted to share.
When that thought cavorted through his head, he immediately slammed on the brakes. He was getting ahead of himself, way ahead of himself.
He glanced across the table and saw Ashley studying him intently. There was an unmistakable and totally unexpected hunger in her eyes. He told himself it had to be for the chocolate.
“Ready for dessert?” he asked, his voice thick and unsteady.
She nodded, her gaze never leaving his.
“Cake?”
She shook her head.
“A brownie?”
Again, that subtle shake.
Josh swallowed hard. “Eclair?”
“Not right now.”
“What do you want?”
“You,” she said quietly.
Amazement flooded through him. “But—”
“No questions, no doubts, unless you don’t want me,” she said.
“That is definitely not the issue,” he admitted.
Her lips curved slightly. “Then why are you still sitting there?”
“Because I’m an idiot,” he said, trying to ignore the way his pulse was racing with anticipation. He was a nice guy, dammit, and she was vulnerable. He would not take advantage of her.
She stared at him for an eternity. “You’re saying no?”
He nodded. “I don’t know what brought you down here, but having sex with me isn’t the answer.”
“It could be the answer tonight,” she said lightly.
He smiled at that. “Indeed, it could be spectacular, but when you and I get together for the first time—and we will, Ashley—then I want it to be because it’s inevitable, not because it’s convenient.”
Patches of red flared in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m the idiot,” she said, instantly stiff and unapproachable again.
“Don’t you dare say that,” he chided. “You have no idea how flattered I am that you suggested this or how hard it was for me to say no. We’ll get around to making love, make no mistake about that.”
“I’m only here for three weeks,” she reminded him, as if to define the urgency.
He grinned. “Which means we still have twenty days left. Since we barely got through one without tumbling straight into your bed, I suspect we won’t waste too many.”
She stared at him quizzically, as if she were trying to discover if he was making fun of her. Apparently she recognized just how serious he was, because she laughed. The tension evaporated.
But Josh knew that thanks to his noble gesture, sleep was going to be a very long time coming.
5
Ashley still felt like a first-class idiot in the morning. Josh had been amazingly gracious when she’d hit on him, but she’d clearly misread all the signals. She’d thought all those sparks were going to lead to something that would help her to forget her problems. Fishing, pleasant as it had been, sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. A steamy, meaningless affair might have.
Oh, well, no one died of acute humiliation. She simply wouldn’t make that mistake again. For all she knew, Josh wouldn’t even set foot on the grounds at Rose Cottage again, despite all those pretty words and promises.
She was still beating herself up as she lingered over her second cup of coffee when someone knocked on the kitchen door, then walked right in. She glanced up, fully expecting it to be her sisters, only to find Josh there in another pair of faded shorts and another of those equally disreputable T-shirts. He looked incredible. Her resolve to forget about an affair sizzled and died.
Without saying a word, he walked over to the table, leaned down and kissed her. The first touch of his lips on hers was a shock. She had a hunch he’d meant it to be nothing more than a casual, good-morning kind of kiss, but it set off enough heat to boil eggs. Her head was spinning, and she was pretty sure her eyes had to be crossed by the time he pulled away. If he’d been trying to prove that he’d meant what he said the night before, he’d accomplished that and then some.
“I thought you might be over here beating yourself up about trying to seduce me last night,” he said as he casually turned to the coffeepot and poured himself the last cup. She’d drunk all the rest of the coffee herself.
Indignation flared at his comment, even though he’d guessed exactly right. “So what? You decided to come over and toss me a consolation prize?”
He laughed. “No, I came over to prove that you have nothing to worry about. A couple more kisses like that one and I won’t be able to resist you. My noble intentions will fly right out the window.”
She frowned at him. “Was that my mistake last night—not grabbing you and kissing you right off the bat?”
“You didn’t make any mistakes last night,” he assured her. “Aside from being a little premature.” He surveyed her. “Why aren’t you dressed for fishing?”
“I didn’t know we were going fishing,” she said, her tone still peevish. He’d thrown her completely off-kilter yet again. It was getting to be an annoying habit. The men she liked were predictable. None of them would have turned down her offer of uncomplicated sex.
And, she was