pressure of his mouth against hers. He’d kissed her and she’d let him.
“There isn’t any reason why the two of us can’t share a house for a week.” He wiped his thumb across his bottom lip, removing a red smear. “Unless, of course, you felt something from that kiss.”
“No. Not a thing,” she tried to assure him, and pushed the corners of her mouth upward, but she had felt something. She still did. Something warm and weightless in the pit of her stomach. She’d let him kiss her and she didn’t know why. She grabbed her briefcase and headed for the door before she screamed or cried and made a fool of herself. Perhaps it was too late. Responding to John’s kiss had certainly been foolish.
As she walked toward her car, she realized she’d hurried out of his house so fast, she’d forgot the picture he’d stolen from her. Well, she wasn’t going back to get it. Not now. And she wasn’t going to Oregon with him either. No way.
John stood on the deck attached to the back of his house and looked out at Lake Union. He’d kissed her. Touched her. And now he regretted it. He’d told her he hadn’t felt anything. If she’d bothered to check, she would have known he lied.
He didn’t know why he’d kissed her, except that maybe he’d wanted to assure her she’d be safe at his house in Oregon. Or maybe because she’d told him she’d rather kiss a dead fish. But mostly likely because she was gorgeous and sexy and wore blue lace garters, and he’d wanted a quick taste of her lips. Just one quick kiss. Just for science. That’s all he’d wanted. He got more. He got a swift kick of lust and a throb in his groin. He got a hell of an ache and no real pleasurable way to take care of it.
John kicked off his shoes and dove into the cold water, letting it cool his body. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. No kissing. No touching. No thinking about Georgeanne naked.
Chapter Twelve
Georgeanne hadn’t meant to agree to John’s vacation plans. She’d meant to remain firm in her opposition to Cannon beach. She would have, too, if it weren’t for Lexie and her interest in her fictional daddy, Anthony.
The day after they’d gone sailing near the San Juan Islands, Lexie’s questions started. Perhaps watching Charles with Amber had triggered her curiosity. Perhaps it was her age. Periodically Lexie had always asked about Anthony, but for the first time, Georgeanne tried to answer without prevarication. Then she’d called John and told him they’d meet him in Oregon. If Lexie was going to have a relationship with John, then she needed to spend time with him before she was told that he was her daddy. Now as Georgeanne drove toward the city of Cannon Beach, she hoped she wasn’t making a colossal mistake. John had promised her that he wouldn’t try to provoke her, but she didn’t really believe him.
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he’d promised.
Yeah. Right. And elephants roosted in trees.
She looked over at her daughter belted in the seat next to her. While Lexie meticulously colored a picture of a Muppet Baby, her black smiley-face ball cap shaded her forehead and her kiddie blue sunglasses covered her eyes. It was Saturday, so her lips were painted a vivid red. And at last, those little red lips were stilled, and quiet filled the inside of the Hyundai.
The trip had started out pleasant enough, but then somewhere around Tacoma, Lexie had started to sing… and sing… and sing. She’d sung the only verse she knew of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and all verses of “Where Is Thumbkin?” She’d belted out the words to “Deep in the Heart of Texas” and had clapped as enthusiastically as any proud Texan. Unfortunately she sang it clear to Astoria.
Just when Georgeanne had finished calculating the number of years before she could ship Lexie safely off to college, the singing had stopped and Georgeanne had felt like a horrible mother for visually kicking Lexie from the nest.
But then the questions began. “Are we there yet?”
“How much longer?”
“Where are we?”
“Did you remember to pack blankie?” From Astoria to Seaside, she’d become worried about where she was going to sleep and the number of bathrooms in John’s house. She couldn’t remember if she’d packed her press-on fingernails, and she fretted over whether she’d brought enough Barbies to play with for five whole days. She did remember her beach toys, but what if it rained the whole time? And she wondered if there were kids in his neighborhood, how many and how old?
Now as Georgeanne drove through Cannon Beach, she was reminded of dozens of other artsy communities that dotted the coastal Northwest. Studios and cafes and gift shops lined the main street. The storefronts wore subdued shades of blues and grays and foamy greens, and whales and starfish were painted everywhere. The sidewalks were filled with tourists, and colorful flags fluttered in the always present breeze.
She glanced at the digital clock above the radio in the dash of her car. She had been raised on punctuality and usually arrived on schedule, but today she was early by about a half hour. Somewhere between Tacoma and Gearhart, her foot got real heavy on the accelerator. Somewhere between the first round of “Where Is Thumbkin?” and “Are we there yet?” she’d gassed the Hyundai up past eighty-five. The possibility of getting stopped by a cop and given a ticket hadn’t concerned her. In fact, she would have welcomed the adult conversation.
She looked at the map John had drawn for her and drove past weathered homes sandwiched between beachside resorts. She slowed to read his bold, scrawling handwriting, then she turned onto a heavily shaded street and drove straight ahead as instructed and easily found the house. She pulled her Hyundai next to John’s dark green Range Rover parked in the driveway of a white single-story house with a steep roof of wooden shingles. Gnarled pine and acacia shaded the wood porch, stained a light gray. She left the luggage in the car and, with Lexie’s hand in hers, walked to the front door. With each step Georgeanne’s heart picked up its pace. With each step her concern that she was making a big mistake grew.
She rang the bell and knocked several times. No one answered. Looking at the map, she read it carefully again. If she’d drawn it herself, she would have felt the familiar uncertainty that usually sat on her chest when she feared she’d transposed numbers again.
“Maybe he’s takin‘ a nap,” Lexie suggested. “Maybe we should go in and wake him up.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Georgeanne looked at the numbers on the house once more, then she moved to the mailbox nailed to the house and opened the top. She peered inside and hoped neither a neighbor nor a gun-toting postal employee was watching. She pulled out a business reply card addressed to John.
“Do you think he forgot?” Lexie asked.
“I hope not,” Georgeanne answered as she turned the handle and opened the door. What if he had forgotten? she asked herself. What if he was somewhere in the house asleep? Or taking a shower-with a woman? She knew she was a little early; what if he was in bed, his body entwined with some gullible woman?
“John?” she called out, and stepped into the entry-way. Her feet sank into plush carpeting the color of champagne, and with Lexie following close behind, Georgeanne walked into the living room. She immediately realized that the house was not a single story as it appeared from the front. To her left, steps led downward, while to her right a second set went up to an open loft above the dining room. The house was built into the hillside overlooking the beach and ocean, and the entire back wall was made of massive windows framed with bleached oak. Three matching skylights dominated the ceiling above the living room.
“Wow,” Lexie gasped as she spun around in a circle. “Is John rich?”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” The furnishings were modern and made primarily of bleached wood and iron. An overstuffed sectional, upholstered in deep blue, was angled to take in the view of the ocean or the fireplace on the left wall. Above the mantel hung a large picture of John’s grandfather standing next to one of those big blue fish tourists catch off the coast of Florida. It had been a long time since Georgeanne had seen Ernie, but she easily recognized him.
“I wonder if John fell down somewhere.” Lexie moved toward one of three sliding glass doors off the living and dining rooms. “Maybe he broke his leg or got a cut.”
Together the two of them moved to the doors and looked out on a wraparound deck which went down to the beach. Beyond the deck, Haystack Rock jutted toward the clear blue sky. Seabirds circled and hovered above the
