Thirty Day Affair. Maureen Child

A compliment?”

      “I’m not sure that’s how I meant it.”

      She grinned. “That’s how I’m taking it.”

      “Big surprise.”

      Keira wasn’t fooled. There was a twitch at the corner of his way-too-kissable mouth that told her he was fighting the urge to smile. In the last day or so, she’d noticed he fought down smiling a lot. And she wondered why.

      “So,” she asked, “are you really going to dance with me?”

      He sighed. “If I don’t, are you going to sic the fishermen on me again?”

      She lifted her arms into the dance-with-me position and said, “Nothing wrong with a good threat.”

      Four

      The music slowed down into as close as a rock band could get to a romantic ballad, and Nathan reached for Keira. The instant his arm went around her waist, he felt a charge of something that jolted him from the soles of his feet straight up through the top of his head.

      She smiled at him and he knew she’d felt it, too.

      Her right hand felt small in his and the featherlight weight of her left hand seemed to be branding his shoulder. The air was icy and the street was crowded with people, yet he felt as if he and Keira were alone in the tropics, heat pouring through them with enough intensity to kindle a white-hot flame.

      “What’re you thinking?” she asked as he steered her around the makeshift dance floor in the middle of town.

      “I don’t think I’ll tell you,” he said and deliberately raised his gaze from the sparkling beauty of her green eyes. “I have a feeling you’d find a way to use it against me.”

      “Oh, you’re a sharp businessman, aren’t you?” she asked, and suppressed laughter colored her voice.

      He risked a glance down at her and found that the power in her gaze hadn’t lessened a bit. “You’ve already blackmailed me once,” he reminded her.

      “For a good cause,” she pointed out.

      “I really don’t think that’s an excuse the legal system would smile on.”

      “Hey, I’m the mayor. Would I do anything illegal?” She smiled at him again, and damned if Nathan’s body didn’t do a quick lunge. His arm tightened around her waist, tucking her in even closer, and when she moved in the dance, she did things to him he didn’t want to think about.

      So he didn’t. To distract himself, he let his gaze sweep the town, and it didn’t escape him that he could see the whole thing in a matter of seconds. The buildings were old, but well cared for. Fresh paint shone in the lights and sidewalks were swept clean. Flower boxes jutted out from window fronts and he presumed that if spring should ever come to the mountains, those boxes would be full of bright flowers.

      A couple hundred people crowded the blocked-off streets, and he saw everyone from old couples sitting quietly holding hands to teenaged lovers gazing at each other so intently, he half expected to see tiny cartoon hearts circling their heads.

      Keira fit right in here. She was greeted by hugs, kisses, teasing laughter and shouts, and Nathan wondered briefly what it must be like to so thoroughly belong somewhere. He hadn’t known that feeling since he was a kid. And he had, over the years, done everything he could to keep from belonging anywhere in particular. Yet he could see that Keira thrived on the very kind of life he’d avoided.

      Overhead, the moon peeked through a wisp of clouds and shone down onto the town, bathing it in a silvery glow that made it look almost magical. Which was a ridiculous thought, since Hunter’s Landing was clearly no more than a tiny town in between a couple of bigger ones.

      If Hunter Palmer hadn’t chosen this town—no doubt for the pleasure of building a mansion in a town that shared his name—Nathan would never have known of the place’s existence. He wasn’t a man to go wandering down unbeaten paths.