When he finally reached the ground and her own pulse rate slowed to something close to normal, she whirled on him. “Kevin Halloran, are you out of your mind?” Hands on hips, she stood toe-to-toe with him. “What did you think you were doing?”
“Checking the drainpipe for leaves,” he replied nonchalantly. He dropped a casual kiss on her forehead. “No big deal.”
Lacey felt her temper climb. “No big deal. No big deal! You could have fallen and no one would have been here to help. You’re not supposed to go up and down steps, much less ladders. What if you’d gotten dizzy?” she demanded, listening to the hysterical rise of her voice, but unable to control it.
“I would have held on until the dizziness passed,” he said so calmly that she nearly missed the glint of anger in his eye. “You have to stop hovering over me, Lacey. I can’t take much more of it. I won’t let you make me out to be an invalid.”
She felt as if he’d slapped her. Unshed tears stung her eyes.
“Hovering?” she repeated furiously, Mrs. Renfield’s wise advice a distant memory. “Is that what I’ve been doing? Well, I’m sorry. I thought I was just thinking about your welfare. I thought I was just trying to make sure that you recuperated the way Linc wanted you to. I’m sorry all to hell for worrying about you!”
If she’d had the groceries in her arms, she would have thrown them at him. Instead, she turned and stomped off, only to have him catch her by the arm and twirl her around to meet his equally furious gaze.
Before Lacey could catch her breath, Kevin’s lips were on hers, hard and urgent. There was a raw, primitive anger behind the kiss, a battle for possession and control.
She had known the kiss was coming for days now, known that their mutual desire could be banked only so long. She wanted desperately to fight his claim, but her body’s needs wouldn’t let her. She had hungered for far too long to feel Kevin’s mouth on hers, to feel his heat rising, drawing her closer with the certain lure of an old lover. Day by day that hunger had grown, controlled only by stern lectures and rigid willpower.
Now, with the decision taken out of her control, her hands fisted, clinging to the rough denim of his shirt. He dragged her closer until their bodies fit together as naturally as two pieces of a puzzle. Her mouth opened too eagerly for the sweet invasion of his tongue. Within seconds the punishing kiss became a bold, urgent caress that set off a fire low inside her. Her blood rushed to a wilder rhythm.
It had been so long, so terribly long, since she had felt this alluring heat, since his clean, masculine scent had teased her senses. Her responses were instinctive, as doubts and warnings fled. This was the way she and Kevin had once been together—sensual creatures who stirred to passion with the most innocent touch, the most casual glance. This had been the crowning glory of their love, a lure so powerful that nothing, nothing could have stood in their way.
Thinking, as she had, that it had been lost, she exhilarated in the sensations pulsing through her body, the quick rise of heat, the questing hunger, the aching need. And all because of a kiss—a single, long, deep, slow kiss.
She moaned as he drew away, moaned and clung to his shoulders, her knees weak, her breathing uneven, her emotions in turmoil.
Reluctant to end the moment, Lacey was slow to open her eyes, slow to search Kevin’s expression for some sign of what he was feeling. Even so, it was impossible to miss the naked longing in his eyes, the ragged rise and fall of his chest, the still-angry set to his lips.
“I want you,” he said, his voice gruff. “I want you more than I’ve ever imagined wanting a woman.” He took her hand and pressed it against him. “This is what you do to me still, after all this time.”
Lacey swallowed hard against the emotions that were crowding in her chest. Her fingers lingered against the roughness of denim, lingered against the evidence of her own powerful sensuality. If she could still affect him like this, if she could still make him yearn to touch and caress and love, weren’t all things possible?
Maybe. Maybe not, she thought with a sigh as she slowly withdrew. At her age she knew better than to equate passion with the forever kind of love. Knew better, but wished just the same. Oh, how she wished that these few moments of uncensored desire were proof that she and Kevin were almost there, almost back to the way they had been.
As if the rare display of vulnerability had cost him dearly, Kevin refused to go to Mrs. Renfield’s for tea, but insisted Lacey accept the invitation. Lacey went through the motions, listening to the latest gossip, pretending that everything in her own life was fine, accepting the cobbler because it would have hurt the older woman’s feelings to turn it down.
When she returned, Kevin was careful to avoid her, as if he feared, as she did, that the raw emotions that had rushed to the surface earlier would disrupt their tenuous hold on an atmosphere of calm.
If they dared to allow passion to run its natural course, would they ever take the time to search their hearts for the answers they needed to make their marriage work? Lacey knew that soul-searching talks were something they had to do. The time was fast approaching when their discussions would have to reach deep, in order to bring all the old hurts into the open. Without such brutally painful honesty, they would never clear the air once and for all.
Lacey spent the last hours of daylight trying to stay out of Kevin’s path, not yet ready for a confrontation that would rip open wounds just now
