one wall she’d painted an ivy-covered trellis. Even in the dead of winter the garden room gave one the feeling of being constantly bathed in greenery and light.
She had just begun dusting the glass-topped coffee table when the doorbell chimed. Stuffing her cloth into her apron pocket, she hurried to open the door, only to cling to the doorknob for support.
Grace would have recognized him anywhere, regardless of the fourteen years since she’d seen him. Denton Hardesty, a ghost from the past.
It was obvious from the stunned look on his face that he hadn’t expected to see her, either, as his mouth was slightly open while his green eyes narrowed.
“Grace,” he finally muttered, his tone hoarse as if he had a sore throat.
“Hello, Denton,” she responded, staring at the man who, one starlit night, took her virginity and her heart with him.
Two
Somehow Grace managed to derail that traumatic thought and force herself to behave as though Denton Hardesty were a stranger, someone she’d never known. But that wasn’t easy, as she was more than a little overwhelmed and flustered by his showing up on her doorstep out of the blue. Holding on to her fractured composure was even more difficult because her senses had leaped at the sight of him.
Dear Lord, that would never do.
“What on earth are you doing here?” she finally asked, the silence having built to an almost thundering roar, at least to her. Maybe it was the sound of her heart beating. Absurd. She no longer gave a fig about him.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I live here,” she said simply, feeling her chin jut slightly and her spine stiffen.
As if he picked up on the slight edge of defiance in her posture, he sighed. “I was wondering if you’d ever left.”
“Again, what brings you back to Ruby?”
His sigh deepened. “So that’s the way it’s going to be?”
For a second Grace was confused. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t say that I blame you for not inviting me in.”
Grace flushed, realizing that she hadn’t budged so much as an inch since she’d opened the door. In fact, she seemed to be guarding the door as if he was an intruder who might force himself inside. In a way that was exactly what he was. However, she had no intention of letting him know that her senses still hadn’t quite settled, that his unexpected presence had definitely thrown her for a curve.
“Of course you may come in.”
His head leaned to one side. “Are you sure?”
“Certainly,” she said, swallowing her irritation at his assumption that she gave a damn one way or the other. She’d best be careful. He’d always had the uncanny ability to read her heart. But that was then, when she was just a teenager. Now she was an adult and he didn’t know beans about her.
Finally she stepped back and gestured with one hand. “Welcome to Grace House.”
He pulled up short. “You mean this is your place?”
“Yes.” Again her tone held a note of defiance, this time with an edge of acid.
Denton chuckled. “I see you haven’t lost that sharp tongue.”
“Some things never change,” she said, more breathlessly than she intended.
“In some cases that’s not bad.”
It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it that set off a warning inside her. That raspy note in his voice was just as much a turn-on now as back then. What had she done to deserve this cruel twist of fate? She’d never expected to lay eyes on her first love again.
And why now, when she was lonelier than she’d ever been?
“I’m impressed.”
Grace forced herself back to the moment, though what she really wanted to do was tell him to leave, to go back where he came from and not disrupt her life one more second.
Instead she made her way into the garden room and watched as he strode to the long expanse of windows before turning and facing her again.
“Would you like a glass of iced tea?” she asked. “Or would you rather have coffee?”
“Both, actually.”
A spontaneous laugh erupted before she could control it. “That’s not a problem.”
He answered with a smile that hit her like a sledgehammer. He was still too good-looking for words, even if the added grooves of maturity made him appear older than his thirty-four years, two years her senior.
Too, there was an uptightness, a restlessness that she didn’t remember. But it had been so long since that summer evening after her last year in high school, when she’d been so madly in love with him, she couldn’t be expected to remember every detail about him. Nor did she want to.
Liar.
Right now she was standing there like an idiot, soaking up every detail about him. His hair, while still brown, was now dusted with silver. Not a bad thing, she noted, since the silver highlighted his tanned skin and green eyes that were surrounded by such thick lashes they appeared darker and sootier than they actually were.
As for his over-six-foot frame, he hadn’t added an ounce of fat to it. At one time he’d had washboard abs, and since his knit shirt hugged him in all the right places, she knew that hadn’t changed. Nor had his long legs and powerful thighs. When her gaze reached that part of his anatomy, and she saw the slight bulge behind his zipper, she averted her eyes back to his face. Those perfect white teeth hadn’t changed, either. Or that smile. Both had always been high-wattage and still were.
Not fair.
Here she was, aging, gathering wrinkles in all the wrong places. So what? It didn’t matter whether the years had been kind to her or not. Except that it did. Granted, Denton was just passing through, but it was important to her that she at least didn’t look like the wrath of God, for heaven’s sake.
Then it hit her she was still wearing her apron.
Feeling her cheeks flood with color, she reached for the sash at the back and jerked it.
“Don’t.”
Her head jolted up. “Don’t what?”
“Take it off.”
Her hands stilled, and when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.
“It’s…different.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“What you are is ‘seriously’ making fun.”
“Somehow it suits you.”
“You don’t have a clue what suits me,” Grace snapped, then mentally kicked herself.
“True,” he said, his mouth slightly downturned. “But I know what I like, and I like your apron.”
“Fine. But I don’t.” She jerked it off and headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the drinks and be right back.”
“Need any help?” he called to her back.
She didn’t so much as slow down. “No, thanks.”
By the time she had a tray filled with both iced tea and coffee, her hands were shaking. It was a miracle she had glasswear of any kind left. Just get through this, she told herself. Be polite, make small talk, then get rid of him. Send him back from whence he came.
Blowing out a deep breath, Grace planted a smile on her face and went back into the garden