Loving Evangeline Read online

  She shook her head. “Home is important to me. I lost my home when Mom died, and though Becky and Paul made me welcome, I was always aware that it was their home and not mine. Matt and I were going to live in a trailer, at first, but after he died I couldn’t…. Anyway, his parents asked me to live with them, and they needed me as much as I needed company. Maybe because they needed me, I felt comfortable there, more like it really was my own home. And now,” she said simply, “it is.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully. He had never felt that sort of attachment for a place, never felt the tug of roots. There had been a large country estate in Connecticut, when he was growing up, but it had simply been the place where he lived. Now his penthouse served the same emotionless function. Evie wouldn’t like it, though it was spacious and impeccably decorated. Still, he was comfortable there, and the security was excellent.

  The restaurant featured a live band, and they were really very good. In keeping with the image of the place, they played old standards, meant for real dancing rather than solitary gyrations. He held out his hand to Evie. “Would you like to dance?”

  A glowing smile touched her face as she placed her hand in his, but then she hesitated, and a look of uncertainty replaced the pleasure. “It’s been so long,” she said honestly, “that I don’t know if I can.”

  “Trust me,” he said, soothing her worries. “I won’t let you come to grief. It’s like riding a bicycle.”

  She went into his arms. She was stiff at first, but after several turns she relaxed and let the pleasure of the music and the movement sweep through her. Robert was an expert dancer, but then, she hadn’t expected anything else. He held her closely enough that she felt secure, but not so close as to touch intimately. More of those exquisite manners, she thought.

  As the music continued, she realized that he didn’t have to be blatant. Dancing was its own seduction. There was the tender way he clasped her hand, the warm firmness of his other hand on her back. His breath brushed her hair; the clean scent of his skin teased her nostrils. This close, she could see the closely shaven stubble of his beard, dark against his olive skin. Occasionally her breasts brushed against his chest or arm, or their thighs slid together. It was stylized, unconsummated lovemaking, and she wasn’t immune to it.

  They left at midnight. During the forty-minute drive back to Guntersville, Evie sat silently beside him as he competently handled the black Renegade. They didn’t speak until he pulled into her driveway and turned off the ignition, flooding the sudden darkness with silence. As their eyes adjusted, they could see the river stretching, soundless and glistening, behind her house.

  “Tomorrow night?” he asked, turning toward her and draping one arm over the steering wheel.

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I haven’t arranged for Craig to take over my shift, so he’ll open the marina in the morning as usual. I wouldn’t, anyway. That isn’t the deal we made.”

  He sighed. “All right, we’ll compromise. How about swapping shifts with him once a week? Would that be acceptable to your strange scruples? He works for you, rather than the other way around, you know.”

  “He’s also a friend, and he does a lot of favors for me. I won’t take advantage of him.” The coolness in her voice told him that he had offended her.

  He got out and walked around to open the door for her. As he lifted her to the ground, he said with a touch of whimsy, “Will you try to make a little time for me, anyway?”

  “I’ll talk to Craig about it,” she replied noncommittally.

  “Please.”

  She extracted her house key from her purse, and Robert deftly lifted it out of her fingers. He unlocked the door, reached inside to turn on a light, then stepped back. “Thank you,” she said.

  He delayed her with his hand on her arm as she started to go inside. “Good night, sweetheart,” he murmured, and placed his mouth over hers.

  The kiss was slow and warm and relatively undemanding. He didn’t touch her, except for his hand on her arm and his lips moving over hers. Unconsciously she sighed with pleasure, opening her mouth to the warmth of his breath and the leisurely penetration of his tongue.

  When he lifted his head, her breasts were tingling, her body was warm, and she was breathing faster than normal. It gratified her to notice that his breath, too, was a little rough. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. Then he kissed her again and walked back to the Jeep.

  She closed the door, locked it and leaned against it until she heard the sound of the Jeep fade in the distance. Her chest felt tight, her heart swollen and tender. She wanted to weep, and she wanted to sing.

  Instead, she kicked off her shoes and walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Her left foot landed solidly in something wet and cold, and she jumped in alarm. Quickly she turned on the kitchen light and stared in dismay at the puddle around the bottom of the refrigerator. Even more ominously, there was no faint humming sound coming from the appliance. She jerked the door open, but no little light came on. The interior remained dark.

  “Oh no, not now,” she moaned. What a time for the refrigerator to die! She simply couldn’t afford to get it repaired now. She supposed she could buy a new one on credit, but she hated to add another payment to the monthly load. The refrigerator had been elderly, but why couldn’t it have lasted another year? By then she would have paid off a couple of debts and had more ready cash. Another six months would have made a difference.

  There was nothing, however, that she could do about the refrigerator at nearly one in the morning. She was drooping with fatigue, but she mopped up the water and put down towels to catch any additional leaks.

  When she finally got into bed, she couldn’t sleep. That part-time job she had thought about during the afternoon now looked like a necessity, rather than an option. Her lower abdomen was dully aching. The evening with Robert, about which she had been so nervous, had turned out to be the best part of the day.

  At seven o’clock she was on the phone to Becky. While Becky was calling around to her friends, Evie began systematically calling in response to every Refrigerator For Sale ad in the paper. As she had suspected, even at that early hour there were a number of calls that weren’t answered. One, which had seemed the most promising, had sold the refrigerator as soon as the ad appeared.

  By nine o’clock, she and Becky had located a good refrigerator for sale. At a hundred dollars, it was more than she could readily afford, but considerably less than a new one would cost. Becky came to get her, and they drove out together to look at it.

  “It’s ten years old, so it probably has another five to seven years,” the woman said cheerfully as she showed them into the kitchen. “There isn’t anything wrong with it, but we’re building a new house, and I wanted a big side-by-side refrigerator. We were getting one, anyway, but last week I found just what I wanted, on sale at that, so I didn’t wait. As soon as I get this one sold, I can have the new one delivered.”

  “It’s sold,” Evie said.

  “How are you going to get it home?” asked Becky practically. “Until your truck is fixed, you don’t have any way to haul it.” Having stated the problem, she set about trying to solve it, running down the list of everyone she knew who owned a pickup truck and might be available.

  Evie’s own list was formidable. After all, she knew a lot of fishermen. Half an hour later, Sonny, a friend who worked second shift and had his mornings free, was on his way.

  Time was running short for Evie by the time they got the refrigerator to her house. She called Craig to let him know what was going on and that she might be a few minutes late. “No sweat,” was his easygoing reply.

  Sonny hooked up the ice maker while Evie and Becky hurriedly transferred what food had survived from the old refrigerator into the new one. The frozen stuff was okay, and since she hadn’t opened the door, most of the food in the other compartment was still cool and salvageable. She threw away the eggs and milk, just to be on the safe side.

  “Do you want