He shook his head. “Sounds depressing—why do you do it?”
She stared out the window for a long time, then said, “You know, I’m starving.”
He blinked at the subject change and slowed the vehicle involuntarily. “We can stop to get a bite to eat.”
“A drive-through is fine,” she said. “Will there be somewhere to sit once we get to your place?”
Clay looked at her lithe body, her touch-me skin, her glittering gold eyes, and had the incomprehensible urge to push the pedal to the floor and to keep driving until reality was far behind them. The compulsion to…
experience
this woman, to find out more about her was overwhelming. They were running out of time.
“Clay?”
He blinked. “Hm?”
“I asked if there would be somewhere to sit once we get there.”
His body warmed, and his stomach clenched with a mixture of dread and anticipation at being alone with Annabelle. A crazy, dangerous situation, his instincts warned. He should simply take her to the grocery, stop for a to-go meal, and take her back home. And he’d never gone against his instincts.
“Clay?”
“I think we’ll be able to find a spot of shade.”
Chapter Fourteen
ANNABELLE MADE ONE full revolution, then turned back to Clay. “How did you find this place?”
His smile was boyishly proud as he set a bag of food on the trunk of a huge downed tree overgrown with spongy moss. “I ran across it last year while following bad directions to a golf course.” He threw a jean-clad leg over the log and opened the white bag. “Needless to say, I missed my tee time.”
“It’s heaven,” she breathed, feeling truly good for the first time since leaving Detroit. A tiny creek she could cross in one good leap hooked around a sand bank a few feet in front of them. Far, far above, boughs of top-heavy pine trees rubbed together, conversing. “How much of this land is yours?”
“Twenty-five acres, give or take.”
She inhaled deeply, reveling in the eucalyptus-scented air, then walked back to straddle the log, opposite Clay. Under the low canopy of dogwood trees, she felt childlike with her legs dangling on either side of the monstrous tree, felled many years ago. She met his gaze and that strange sense of connectivity bolted through her again.
It was because they had reached their mutual goal to stop the wedding, she reasoned. Still, the intimacy of the secluded space spooked her, and she regretted suggesting that they bring lunch. The lines of his jaw, the arch of his nose, and the curve of his upper lip were becoming alarmingly familiar to her. He hadn’t slept well last night, and the fact that she could tell bothered her as much as knowing he, too, had been lying awake.
Breaking eye contact to unwrap her hamburger, she strove to keep her tone light. “Based on the roll of papers you gave that man, you must be planning to build soon.”
He unwrapped his sandwich and frowned. “Did you get the one with no tomatoes?”
She checked. “Uh-huh.”
They traded sandwiches, and she was struck by the ease of the moment. “Are you?” she prompted after a bite. “Planning to build, I mean?”
He shrugged, chewing. “Someday. The guy I brought the papers to works for the forestry department—he’s helping me put together a plan to replace some of these downed trees with a bamboo grove so I can grow some of my own materials to use when I build.”
She shifted on the log—ensuring a permanent moss stain on her shorts, no doubt. Clay the naturalist didn’t mesh with the picture of Clay the jet-setting workaholic she’d created in her head. “I was under the impression you don’t spend a lot of time in Atlanta.”
“It depends,” he said, not looking up.
“On what?”
The hollows of his cheeks appeared and disappeared as he chewed slowly. “On the weather…on my bank account.” He glanced up. “And on Dad.”
Feigning fascination for a curly French fry, she cast about for words to form the question nagging at her. “And do you have no other ties to Atlanta?”
“I don’t like strings,” he said, his voice brusque as he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.
She swallowed a too-large bite. “Then I’m sure you’ll be glad when I’m gone.”
His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch.
Annabelle hurried to amend her words. “I mean when I take my mother back to Detroit.”
Clay studied her for so long she flushed, wondering if her sudden, crazy physical desire for him was so evident that he was about to laugh in her face.
Another Castleberry conquest.
Instead, he finished his sandwich, balled up the foil wrapper and dropped it in the bag, then leaned forward. “We were interrupted this morning when I was trying tell you….”
She was riveted, lulled by the sudden gentleness in his voice.
That you wished we’d met under different circumstances? That you’re looking for a good attorney to help you close business in Paris?
“Tell me what?”
He inhaled, expanding his chest. “That I appreciate your help this past week.” He laughed, lifting his hands in the air. “If I’d only known, I could have stayed in Paris.”
Her stomach flipped. She was thinking romantic thoughts and he was thinking it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d never met. “If you’d only known?”
Clay nodded. “If I’d only known that you were the perfect person to convince our folks that getting married was irresponsible.”
Perhaps he had a lover in Paris. “I’m the perfect person?”
“Of course.” He gestured toward her magnanimously. “You know better than anyone how disastrous marriage can be.”
He spoke the truth—she’d said the same thing many times. So why did his words chafe her? Her appetite gone, she rewrapped her half-eaten sandwich and dropped it inside the bag. “Well, everybody’s good at something,” she said with a glib smile, drawing on the straw in her soft drink.
His inky hair, having dried a bit haphazardly from his morning swim, fell over his forehead thick and shiny. His chest and shoulder muscles occupied every inch of his cotton T-shirt, and she noticed a faint scar on his left forearm beneath the dusting of dark springy hair. His big hands rested on his thighs—at least the mystery of the calluses was solved—and she acknowledged with a feminine rush that she’d never met a more physically appealing man. Was this disjointed, prickly feeling what her mother felt when she looked at his father?
“So—” He fanned his hands and smiled. “Thanks.”
He was thanking her for spreading her cynicism regarding marriage? She ran out of soda, eliciting a loud, sucking noise from her straw. “Don’t mention it.”
He laughed suddenly. “I was thinking it’s a shame we don’t live in the same city.”
Her heart jerked crazily. “Why?”
“Maybe our paths would cross once in a while.”
Was he hinting that he’d like to see her romantically? Annabelle attempted a small laugh. “I doubt we’d be moving in the same circles.”
He gave her a dubious look. “What kinds of circles do you think I move in?”
She shrugged. “You know—gilded ones.”
Clay scoffed lightly. “Only when duty dictates. I prefer more interesting company…like yours.”
Suddenly, the trees seemed to be closing in on her, and the noises from the creek and insects underfoot grew to a roar in her ears. Her heart raced, and for a moment she thought she might be having a panic attack. “I need to go,” she blurted, and struggled to her feet.
“Sure.” He stood, easily spanning the tree trunk, and reached toward her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, but accepted his assistance until she had both feet on the ground. The sooner they left, the sooner she could return to her mother’s, and the sooner she could pack to get away from Atlanta, and the sooner she could put this blunder of the senses behind her.
“You have a leaf in your hair,” he said with a crooked smile, and lifted his hand to retrieve it.
A feeling of dread washed over her because she knew he was going to kiss her again, and she knew she was going to let him.
Our last
, she justified as he lowered his lips to hers.
And best
, she instantly realized as her senses came alive. After a second’s hesitation, she sighed into his mouth, leaning into him, curling her fingers around his biceps.
His embrace was so fierce, he practically lifted her off her feet. He slid his hands down her back and slipped them under the hem of her shirt to clasp her waist. She sucked his breath into her mouth as his thumbs caressed the bare skin beneath her ribs, mere inches from her peaking breasts. He transferred kisses along the line of her jaw to her earlobe, then to her neck, where he nipped at her pulse. Annabelle arched against his hard body, thrilling at his bigness, his maleness. He molded her against him, matching curve to hollow. His breath came out in warm blasts, carrying whispers of her name, and promised pleasure, sending shivers over exposed skin.
She tried to think, really she did. A vague sense of apprehension hovered just out of reach—she shouldn’t be kissing Clay, shouldn’t be feeling this way, but she couldn’t remember why.
One minute she was standing with her body wedged against his, and the next he had lowered her to the warm dry grass and she lay willing and wanton underneath him. Their lips and hands grew more demanding—he pushed up her shirt, she pulled his from the waistband of his jeans, he lowered his mouth to lave a peaked breast through the filmy leopard-print bra, she slid her hands over corded muscle to the small of his back. He used his teeth to pull aside the bra, she reached down to loosen his belt. Her mind and body reeled from unadulterated pleasure…this man drove her wild…made her impatient to have him.
Mounting frustration gave way to alarms sounding in her ears, rapid and staccato. Clay moaned and dragged his lips away, and she slowly realized the noise was a horn beeping from the direction they’d come.
Clay did not look happy, and she shrank from his gaze as she fell back to earth. He exhaled noisily and pushed to his feet. Hot shame flooded her as she yanked her clothes into place. She and Clay had conspired to break up their parents, and here they were rolling around like a couple of teenagers who couldn’t control their urges.
“I’m sorry. I told the guy to honk if he needed something,” Clay said, reaching down to help her stand.
“Go ahead,” she managed, extracting her hands to wrap her arms around her middle. “I’ll pick up our trash and be right there.”
He studied her face for a few seconds, then nodded curtly and strode away from her, pushing past bushes and tramping through hillocks of red clay they had carefully avoided on the way down.
She started to tremble, and the lump at the back of her throat refused to subside. With much effort, she fought tears of dismay as she watched him walk away. Was this what her mother felt when she looked at Martin? Could she possibly be falling in love with Clay Castleberry? The idea seemed too incredible for her mind to embrace; indeed, a pain needled her temple. No matter, she reminded herself—this time tomorrow he’d be on his way back to Paris, and she’d be on her way back to Detroit.
Her laugh was humorless. Paris, Detroit. Fitting destinations to illustrate their differences. Glamorous versus glamour-less. She indulged in one full minute of self-pity before turning away from the sight of Clay’s retreating back.
*****
Annabelle stood in line at the supermarket tapping her foot, her restlessness fueled by the thought of Clay waiting for her in the parking lot. They’d barely spoken since leaving the secluded site. The lady in front of her in the express checkout lane had three times as many items as the limit on the sign. Oh, and great—the lane violator also wanted to write a check.
Tamping down impatience, she glanced around at the other lines, which were strung back as far as she could see. Since she’d left Atlanta, the population in the northern counties had exploded—where had all these people moved from?
Probably Michigan, she decided, whose brutal winters could certainly make one yearn for warm, sunny climates.
Looking for something to pass the time, she scanned the tabloids that lined the shelves at eye-level. The U.S. government was trying to keep the gold strike on Mars top secret. A woman in Memphis was channeling new lyrics from Elvis and the afterworld. And—
Her eyes bulged at the subtitle
Casanova Castleberry Strikes Again!
in bold red letters, story on page three. She yanked the newspaper from the stand, dropping a roll of slice and bake cookie dough in the process.
She scanned the page and zoomed in on the picture of Belle and Martin, leaning against the picnic table where they’d stopped to eat three days ago. They were locked in a torrid kiss. The copy beneath read: Is this mystery woman caught cuddling with legendary film actor Martin ‘Casanova’ Castleberry at an Atlanta retreat destined to be Mrs. Castleberry number six? According to diners at an Atlanta restaurant, Castleberry announced his engagement at the establishment. In the picture below, the couple was caught cavorting in the forest with Martin’s son, Atlanta businessman Clayton Castleberry, and another unidentified woman. Like father, like son?
Annabelle gasped in outrage.
Cavorting?
Fury bolted through her, and she snatched every copy of the paper in the rack.
*****
Clay played with the radio knob, trying to find something other than a sappy love song, but it appeared that the Atlanta airwaves were conspiring against him, delivering every ‘can’t live without her’ tune ever written. Irritated, he flipped off the music, and opened the door. Never claustrophobic before, small spaces suddenly seemed to squeeze the air out of his lungs. He banged the door closed behind him and leaned against the warm metal of the truck, his eyes drawn to the exit of the grocery store, hungering for the first glimpse of her…dammit. The June sun bore down on him, relentlessly burning a sobering truth into his brain.
He had feelings for Annabelle. Strong, troubling feelings. Feelings than ran deeper than his desire for her, a longing which had already taken on a life of its own. He couldn’t explain why or how this slip of a woman had managed to prick the armor he had carefully constructed around his heart, but she had. In fact, he hadn’t even realized how closely he’d guarded his emotions until he met Annabelle. He’d dated many women in his life, but he’d never been distracted to the point of losing his appetite or focus, especially not by a woman with whom he’d shared little more than a few stolen kisses. But crazily, he thought of her nonstop, wanted to look at her, to spend time with her, to touch her, even if only to hold her hand. Could this distracted, out-of-body sensation possibly be love?