Abby led the way into the kitchen and took the leftover pasta from the refrigerator. “You realize this won’t be as good reheated as it was when I made it.”
He grinned at her. “Stop making excuses. I’m so hungry, I could eat cardboard.”
She put the pasta into a pan to warm, then regarded him closely. “I thought you usually ate dinner at the inn, at least when you don’t have other plans.”
“Tonight’s menu included too many questions about where I spent the night,” he admitted.
Abby chuckled. “Ah, Grandma Jenny was on a quest, was she?”
“Not Grandma Jenny. She wasn’t even around. This was Kelsey. That was embarrassing enough. I didn’t stick around to see what might be on Jenny’s mind.”
“You do realize they’re only the tip of the iceberg, right? If we keep seeing each other, there will be questions and looks and speculation everywhere we go.”
“We could just hole up right here,” he suggested hopefully.
Abby laughed. “I know this house seems as if it’s hidden away, but trust me, on Seaview Key nothing is off-limits to prying eyes.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.”
“There’s always the mainland,” she suggested. “No one over there knows us or cares what we’re up to.”
She was only joking, but Seth immediately stilled, a frown settling on his face. “What?” she said.
“Are you thinking about leaving Seaview Key?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said at once. “I was teasing. Why?”
“It was something Mary said. She was afraid if you got too discouraged, you’d take off.”
She studied him intently. “And that would bother you?”
“Well, sure it would,” he said irritably. “We’re just getting started. I know that I’ve predicted all along that we might not last, but I was hoping for more than a one-night stand.”
Abby thought she heard real worry in his voice. She turned the heat off under the pasta and slipped onto his lap, linking her hands behind his neck. “How about a two-night stand?” she suggested quietly.
He smiled at that. “Not enough.”
“Three?”
“Better.”
“You want to go for broke?” she asked. “See how long a run we can have?”
“That sounds more like it,” he agreed. “How about you?”
“Just what I was hoping you’d say,” she agreed, lowering her head and touching her lips to his.
The kiss was so sweet, the heat so immediate that dinner no longer seemed to be on Seth’s mind. As for Abby, she couldn’t think at all.
* * *
It was after midnight when the grumbling of his stomach reminded Seth that he was hungry for more than the woman beside him. He tried to slip out of the bed, but Abby’s whimpered protest kept him in place.
“Don’t go,” she murmured.
“I was just going to the kitchen to heat up that pasta.”
Her eyes blinked open and she was suddenly wide-awake. “Oh, Seth, it’s probably a congealed mess by now,” she said apologetically. “I’ll fix you something else.”
“I can make a sandwich or something,” he protested. “You stay right here.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but then she sighed and stretched, drawing his attention straight to the expanse of well-toned skin exposed by the suggestive drape of the sheet. He blinked and looked away. If he focused on Abby, he’d never get out of this room.
She smiled, obviously sensing his struggle. “You won’t take off, will you?”
“Not a chance,” he promised. “Try to stay awake till I get back.”
“I might be fighting a losing battle,” she said. “But feel free to wake me.”
Seth nodded and headed for the kitchen. The pasta truly was an unappetizing mess, so he fixed himself a thick ham-and-cheese sandwich on sourdough bread, then even grilled it. As he finished the last bite, he congratulated himself for not having lost his skill at making the best grilled cheese he’d ever tasted.
In the bedroom doorway, he hesitated, noting that Abby had snuggled deeper under the covers and was sound asleep. While crawling back into bed with her and taking advantage of her invitation to wake her held a lot of appeal, so did the prospect of going back to the inn. A night in his own bed might save him from another awkward cross-examination. It would also help him to reclaim some of the emotional distance that made him feel safe, as if he were still in control of his life.
He jotted a note—“See you tomorrow. Love, Seth”—and left it on the nightstand, then headed back to Seaview Inn.
Only when he was stretched out in his own bed did he acknowledge that what he’d done was a self-protective act of cowardice. He was still hedging his bets where Abby was concerned. As long as he could walk away, even for a few hours, as long as he could sleep without her beside him, he could tell himself that his heart wasn’t in danger.
The reality, though, was that he’d already lost it. That note he’d left? Love, Seth. It pretty much gave him away.
* * *
Abby woke to a lonely bed and a note that said far too little. Impulsively, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Seth’s number.
“Did you get scared?” she asked bluntly.
Rather than a direct answer, he said, “You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Very thoughtful,” she commended him. “Did you get scared?”
She heard him sigh and knew she’d hit the nail on the head.
“Okay, yes, I had a momentary twinge of panic,” he admitted eventually. “But it wasn’t so much about us.”
“Oh?”
“It was more about avoiding another one of those inquisitions over here,” he insisted.
He made it sound like a credible excuse, but Abby wasn’t buying it. “I find it hard to imagine that a woman in her eighties and a girl in her twenties can scare a big, tough ex-soldier like you.”
“Have you met those two? Those in-your-face reporters on 60 Minutes are pussycats by comparison.”
Abby laughed. “You just have to learn avoidance techniques,” she said. “Dodge and weave. Isn’t that something they taught you
