Dealing with Annie Read online

  “You are a big softie. What else?”

  “I listen to rock. Loud.”

  “Okay, we’ll have to disagree there. How do you feel about Italian food?”

  “I love Italian food. I love all food. You?”

  “Not fond of anything fishy,” she admitted, and he nodded his head in agreement.

  “How about cars—” She broke off when he put his finger to her lips. “No more questions?” she said around his finger as he slowly shook his head.

  “Then…?” Her eyes were huge. “What?”

  “Then…” He ran his thumb over her lower lip, nearly groaned again when her tongue darted out and licked him. “This. Just this.”

  And he lowered his head.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ANNIE WAS DYING OF PLEASURE. Ian kissed as he did just about everything else, with his entire being. Breathing him in, she felt light-headed and dizzy, just from his touch.

  She hadn’t come here for this, she’d come to apologize and that was it, but now, effortlessly, he changed her mind. She wanted to drown in him, she wanted to forget her troubles, if only for a little while. But the truth was, she’d never been able to separate mind and body, and sex with Ian would involve her mind as well as her body.

  Could she handle it?

  “Ian,” she said against his mouth, bringing her hands to his lean, tough jaw, trying to get a grip of her quickly slipping control. “Ian…”

  He pulled back a fraction, breath ragged, his sexy, sleepy eyes eating her up. “Stop?”

  “No. Yes.” She covered her face and let out a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure.”

  “You said you wanted to jump my bones,” he pointed out a little hoarsely.

  “Yeah.” In direct opposition to those words, she took a step back, and a bigger mental one. “I do. I really, really do.”

  “So why are you wa-a-ay over there?”

  How to explain that while she wanted him more than her next breath, she also wanted things she suspected would send him running, screaming into the night? “I—” She broke off with a disparaging sigh when the beeper against her hip vibrated.

  She glanced down at it, then back at Ian. “I have to go.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s Aunt Gerdie. She’s probably just wondering where I am.” She backed up a few more steps, offered him an apologetic smile, and whirled off into the woods.

  * * *

  SHE HADN’T BEEN IN HER house two seconds when the phone rang.

  “Damn it, don’t do that,” Ian growled in her ear.

  “Don’t…kiss you?”

  “You can kiss me anytime, anywhere, but goddammit, don’t run off. Not until my leg—I can’t catch you,” he said, and now she could hear the fear, the worry in his rough tone. “I can’t keep up to make sure you get home okay.”

  “Oh, Ian.” She sighed, and sank to a chair. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. No bogeyman tonight.”

  “Are you having that package traced?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me when you hear,” he demanded, and she, a woman not used to demands from anyone but herself, found a smile on her face.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I’ll call you,” she promised, and when she hung up, she still had the idiotic smile on her face.

  “You’ve kissed him, then.”

  Annie turned as Aunt Gerdie came into the living room.

  “Oh, it’s all over your face,” Aunt Gerdie assured her, and sank to the couch with a lusty sigh. “You know, I used to be able to stand all day long. I’m sorry if I interrupted anything special, I just couldn’t find you, and there was no note.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” What would really scare her was knowing the truth, hearing about the note, the tires…but Annie wouldn’t do that to her. “Aunt Gerdie…I’d really like it if you’d stick around home for a while, that if you need to go anywhere, you let me take you. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. But you worry far too much. I’ll be okay, Annie, so will you. Now, about that kiss…”

  “Aunt Gerdie!”

  She grinned. “I remember those days, where you can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything but think of how it feels when his arms are around you and he’s kissing you silly. Oh, yes, I remember them well. And just so you know, each time it happens you just sink deeper. You always do when it’s the real thing.”

  Unbelievably, Annie felt a blush creep over her cheeks. “I never said anything about this being the real thing.”

  “You didn’t have to,” Aunt Gerdie said gently. “As I said, it’s plastered all over your face.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY ANNIE WORKED in the workshop, facing the large window as she fiddled at her workbench with her fall colors. She’d been in there for several hours with the only interruption being a few phone calls she’d let the machine pick up. That was the beauty of being in Cooper’s Corner. Here she had some peace and quiet, both of which were so important to her.

  In the late afternoon, a police car pulled up into her driveway, shattering that peace and quiet. With the sun reflecting off the windshield, she couldn’t get a good look. A long, jeans-clad leg emerged from the passenger door, followed by a face with mirrored Oakley’s, a grim set to the mouth, and a head of hair containing every hue of brown, red and gold under the sun.

  Ian stood, most of his weight on his good leg, his gaze skimming the landscape and unerringly settling on her through the window.

  With a knee-jerk response, she stepped back. Remembering that kiss from yesterday destroyed any concentration, any ability to maintain her cool, but even so, it was hard to regret something so… deliciously perfect.

  Unable to resist, she took a quick peek.

  He was still there, broad shouldered and tall.

  Her tummy tingled. So did every erogenous zone in her body, of which there seemed to be more than she’d known about.

  Ian shoved his sunglasses on top of his head and seemed to look right at her. Into her. All from eyes the color of a perfect shot of expensive whiskey. Good Lord, the man was a walking, talking specimen of blatant, earthy sexuality, and he didn’t even know it.

  Or maybe he did. He certainly knew how to kiss.

  Fanning her face, laughing a little at herself, she moved to the door of her studio and opened it. She looked at State Trooper Scott Hunter first, because she wasn’t prepared to let Ian see how potent he was. “You have news,” she said.

  “UPS traced the package,” Scott said. “Unfortunately, the packing slip was shoddily filled out.”

  “On purpose,” Ian said.

  “On purpose,” Scott agreed. “And was left at a drop-off box only two blocks from the Annie’s Garden office.”

  Ian lifted a brow, signifying what he thought of that.

  “Has anything else happened?” Scott asked her, and when she shook her head, she’d have sworn Ian let out a long breath of relief.

  It was odd how that alone made her feel better. No matter how badly they bungled things, or how much he confused her, she wasn’t entirely alone in this.

  He wouldn’t let her be.

  After promising to be in touch, Scott left them alone.

  Ian limped up the steps to the doorway where she stood, his cane nowhere in sight.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi.” He took the last step, and stood toe to toe with her now, his hands braced on the doorway on either side of her so that it felt as if he was surrounding her with his body.

  And yet not an inch of them touched.

  Odd then, how it affected her breathing. “Where’s your cane?”

  “I told you, I’m getting better.”

  “Better from what?”

  He let out a slow smile that unexpectedly made her nipples harden. “This is about you today, not me.”

  “If you came to act all protective and he-man on me, you can just turn around righ