I’m not fine. I don’t have time to sleep away a whole day. Despite all that rest, I feel as if I’ve been through the spin cycle of a giant washing machine. I hurt everywhere, worse than the worst hangover ever.”
“You’ve had a hangover?” He said this with insulting incredulousness.
“Of course I have. Living in Moose Run isn’t like taking vows to become a nun, you know.”
“You would be wasted as a nun,” he said, and his gaze went to her lips before he looked sharply away.
“Let’s talk about that,” she said.
“About you being wasted as a nun?” he asked, looking back at her, surprised.
“About the fact you think you would know such a thing about me. I don’t normally act like that. I would never, under ordinary circumstances, kiss a person the way I kissed you. Naturally, I’m mortified.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“There was no need to throw myself at you, no matter how grateful and discombobulated I was.”
His lips twitched.
“It’s not funny,” she told him sternly. “It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s not your wanton and very un-nun-like behavior I was smiling about.”
“Wanton?” she squeaked.
“It was the fact you used discombobulated in a sentence. I can’t say as I’ve ever heard that before.”
“Wanton?” she squeaked again.
“Sorry. Wanton is probably overstating it.”
“Probably?”
“We don’t all have your gift for picking exactly the right word,” he said. He lifted a shoulder. “People do weird things when they are in shock. Let’s move past it, okay?”
Actually, she would have preferred to find out exactly what he meant by wanton—it had been a little kiss really, it didn’t even merit the humiliation she was feeling about it—but she didn’t want to look like she was unwilling to move past it.
“Okay,” she said grudgingly. “Though just for the record, I want you to know I don’t like masterful men. At all.”
“No secret longing?”
He was teasing her! There was a residue of weakness in her, because she liked it, but it would be a mistake to let him know her weaknesses.
“As you have pointed out,” Becky said coolly, “I was in shock. I said and did things that were completely alien to my nature. Now, let’s move past it.”
Something smoky happened to his eyes. His gaze stopped on her lips. She had the feeling he would dearly like to prove to her that some things were not as alien to her nature as she wanted them both to believe.
But he fended off the temptation, with apparent ease, pushing himself away from the wall and heading back for the door. “You have one less thing to worry about. I think I have the pavilion figured out.”
“Really?” She would have leaped up and gave him a hug, except she was naked underneath the sheet, he already thought she was wanton enough, and she was not exposing anything to him, least of all not her longing to let other people look after things for a change. And to feel his embrace once more, his hard, hot muscles against her naked flesh.
“You do?” she squeaked, trying to find a place to put her gaze, anywhere but his hard, hot muscles.
“I thought about what you said, about creating an illusion. I started thinking about driving some posts, and suspending fabric from them. Something like a canopy bed.”
She squinted at him. That urge to hold him, to feel him, to touch him, was there again, stronger. It was because he was looking after things, taking on a part of the burden without being asked. It was because he had listened to her.
Becky English, lying there in her bed, naked, with her sheet pulled up around her chin, studied her ceiling, so awfully aware that a woman could fall for a guy like him before she even knew what had happened to her.
THANKFULLY FOR BECKY, Drew Jordan had already warned her about guys like him.
“What does a confirmed bachelor know about canopy beds?” she said, keeping her gaze on the ceiling and her tone deliberately light. “No, never mind. I don’t want to know. I think I’m still slightly discombobulated.”
“Admit it.”
She glanced over at him just as he grinned. His teeth were white and straight. He looked way too handsome. She returned her gaze to the ceiling. “I just did. I’m still slightly discombobulated.”
“Not that! Admit it’s brilliant.”
She couldn’t help but smile. And look at him again. “It is. It’s brilliant. It will create that illusion of a room, and possibly provide some protection from the sun if we use fabric as a kind of ceiling. It has the potential to be exceedingly romantic, too. Which is why I’m surprised you came up with it.”
“Hey, nobody is more surprised than me. Sadly, after traipsing all over the island this afternoon, I still haven’t found a good site for the ceremony. But you might as well come see what’s going on with the pavilion.”
She should not appear too eager. But really? Pretending just felt like way too much effort. She would have to chalk it up to her near drowning and the other rattling events of the day. “Absolutely. Give me five minutes.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you on the front stairs.”
Of course, it took Becky longer than five minutes. She had to shower off the remains of her adventure. She had sand in places she did not know sand could go. Her hair was destroyed. Her leg was a mess and she had to rewrap it after she was done. She had faint bruising appearing in the most unlikely places all over her body.
She put on her only pair of long pants—as uninspiring as they were in a lightweight grey tweed—and a long-sleeved shirt in a shade of hot pink that matched some of the flowers that bloomed in such abundance on this island. Her outfit covered the worst of the damage to her poor battered body, but there was nothing she could do about the emotional battering she was receiving. And it wasn’t his fault. Drew Jordan was completely oblivious to the effect he was having on her.
Or accustomed to it!
Becky dabbed on a bit of makeup to try to hide the crescent moons from under her eyes. She looked exhausted. How was that possible after nearly twenty-four hours of sleep? At the last minute, she just touched a bit of gloss to her lips. It wasn’t wrong to want him to look at them, but she hoped she would not be discombobulated enough to offer them to him again anytime in the near future.
“Or any future!” she told herself firmly.
She had pictured Drew waiting impatiently for her, but when she arrived at the front step, he had out a can of spray paint and was marking big X’s on the grassy lawn in front of the castle.
Just when she was trying not to think of kisses anymore. What was this clumsy artwork on the lawn all about? An invitation? A declaration of love? A late Valentine?
“Marking where the posts should go,” he told her, glancing toward her and then looking back at what he was doing. “Can you come stand right here and hold the tape measure?”
So much for a declaration of love! Good grief. She had always harbored this secret and very unrealistic side. She thought Jerry had cured her of her more fantastic romantic notions, but no, some were like little seeds inside her, waiting for the first hint of water and sun to sprout into full-fledged fairy tales. Being rescued from certain death by a very good-looking and extremely competent man who had so willingly