That Carolina Summer (North Carolina) (6 page)

“Marsha, you aren't losing it. You're just going to accidentally leave it behind. And if you're going to argue, will you please smile?” she urged. “I don't want Josh to think we're up to something."

“No,” Marsha agreed with a wide and faintly sarcastic smile. “We mustn't let Josh know that we're plotting against him. If you want to leave a sweater behind for him to find, drop your own—and leave me out of it."

“Marsha, I can't. It would be too obvious if I left mine,” Annette reasoned with forced calm. “It has to be yours so he won't get suspicious."

“And what happens if he doesn't see it? Or someone else sees it and steals it?” Marsha retorted. “Then I'm out a sweater."

“I'll buy you another one,” Annette offered. “Will you do it?"

“Give me one good reason why I should,” she challenged.

“Because you're my sister,” Annette replied. “And I've helped you out of trouble a lot of times."

“You've also got me into it a lot of times,” Marsha reminded her, then sighed. She wasn't even sure why she was resisting. She always gave in to Annette's mad plans, however reluctantly. “Okay, I'll do it,” she agreed, and added the warning, “But if I don't get my sweater back you're buying me a whole new tennis outfit, not just a sweater."

“That's a deal.” Annette beamed her agreement to the terms, her gray eyes sparkling like burnished silver. “Let's go."

As they walked to the gate in the fence, she glanced at Josh. She was warmed by the discovery that he was watching her. It took all her control not to break into a smile. Instead, she lifted her head in an absent wave.

Josh acknowledged the salute with a nod of his head. When they started down the walk, Annette murmured instructions to her sister. “Let the sweater slide off your fingers while you pretend to be talking to me."

“What am I supposed to talk to you about?” Marsha asked anxiously. She had never been any good at subterfuge or deception.

“It doesn't matter.” Annette tried not to let her exasperation creep out. “Just talk to me about what you can't think to talk about."

“I think I'm going, to regret this,” she murmured as she nervously tried to let go of the sweater so it could slide casually to the ground. “As a matter of fact, I know I am. I don't know how you always manage to talk me into these things. You'd think by now I'd have better sense, wouldn't you?"

The sweater was lying in the middle of the sidewalk. No one had called their attention to it, and Annette breathed easier now that the mission was accomplished.

“You don't have anything to worry about,” she soothed her sister's rattled nerves.

“What happens when he returns it? If he returns it?” Marsha questioned.

“I'll handle it,” Annette promised. “You're going to be in the shower. I'll thank him for you, so there won't be any reason for you to even speak to him.” She was well aware that one look at Marsha's guilty face and Josh would know it was a put-up job. He was going to guess it anyway, but she was going to see to it that he had plenty of reason to doubt his conclusion.

She glanced over her shoulder. They were already out of sight of the tennis courts. “Let's hurry,” she urged her sister, and quickened her pace to a running walk.

“Why?"

“Because I want to be out of the shower before Josh comes,” Annette answered, and broke into a run.

HER HANDS WERE TREMBLING as she twisted her hair into a demure knot on top of her head. Annette was certain she hadn't been this nervous on her first date. She had butterflies in her stomach and her knees were shaking. She secured her hair with a bobby pin and stepped back to view her overall reflection in the mirror.

“How do I look?” she asked Marsha, nervously moistening her dry lips.

The culotte-styled lounging robe was made out of dotted swiss fabric in a cool lime green. Its vee neckline had a single row of stand-up ruffles, which accented the slender curve of her neck. A white cinch belt nipped around her slender waist. With her blond hair swept atop her head in the little-girl knot and the clearness of her round gray eyes, she looked the picture of innocence.

“Like an angel,” Marsha admitted in all truth.

Annette jumped when she heard the knock on the door. She breathed in deeply and looked at her sister for the reassurance of her moral support. “Go get in the shower,” she ordered quickly. “And don't come out until I call you."

“Don't worry. I won't,” Marsha promised, and scurried off to the bathroom.

Annette's legs felt like rubber as she walked to the door. The security chain was on it and she left it in place, opening the door a crack to peer outside. Josh had an arm braced against the door frame, still in his tennis clothes. His dark eyes gleamed with a mocking smile, but the line of his mouth was straight.

“Hello.” Annette tried to sound surprised to see him, but her voice wasn't behaving very well.

“Hello,” he returned the greeting in his well-modulated voice. He didn't alter his casually relaxed stance, silently waiting for her to open the door.

“Just a minute.” She closed it to unhook the safety chain, then opened it.

Her heart was beating a rapid tattoo against her ribs as she moved into the opening, blocked from stepping too far outside by his masculine bulk. The dark mahogany of his hair was attractively rumpled, its thickness inviting a smoothing hand. His gaze roamed leisurely over her, taking in every facet of her appearance and making it even more difficult for her to breathe normally.

“You need a sprig of lilies of the valley,” Josh stated dryly.

“Oh?” Annette wondered if she sounded as disturbed as she felt.

“Yes. To go with those big gray eyes and that button nose,” he explained. “With your hair like that, you look like a little girl on her way to Sunday School.” His tone seemed to deride her youthfulness.

“I just got out of the shower.” Annette touched a hand to her hair, wishing for a brief instant that she looked older. The thought was banished when she caught the glimpse of something smoldering in his eyes, especially when their glance swept over her as if probing beneath the robe to discover what she had on underneath.

“Yes, I noticed how fresh and clean you smell.” Josh didn't appear too happy about making the admission, Annette noticed.

She was very conscious of his unique scent drifting about her, so male and stimulating to her senses. Her glance strayed to the breadth of his chest, the knit shirt clinging to its sinewy wall and stretching across the bunched muscles of his shoulders. The arm braced against the door frame was very near to her. She could see the sun-bleached hairs on his arm and wondered if they would be as silky to the touch as they looked. She shifted her gaze to his strong male features, but that didn't ease the turmoil his nearness aroused within her.

“Did you want something?” Annette asked in a surprisingly steady voice. His glance fell to her lips, and her heart stopped beating for a full second. Then his mouth tightened and the moment passed.

“You left this by the tennis courts.” He lifted his other hand to show her the sweater and the room key between his fingers.

“I did?” She took it from him, her fingers tingling when they brushed against him.

“I admit it's a bit more subtle than a dropped handkerchief,” Josh mocked the ploy to get him there. “A new twist on an old trick."

Annette pretended to examine the sweater. “Except that I didn't drop it,” she replied. “This belongs to my sister, Marsha.” She showed him the label inside the collar and the initial M stamped on the tag. “She must have left it."

When she lifted her gaze she saw the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Her plan was working. Josh couldn't be sure the sweater had been left deliberately.

“It's lucky you returned it. Marsha is in the shower,” Annette explained, drawing his attention to the sound of running water coming from inside the hotel room, “or she'd thank you herself. She didn't even miss it."

“Then it isn't yours?” Josh was still skeptical.

“It looks a lot like mine,” she admitted. “That's why I was confused when you first handed it to me. But mine has black trim to go with my tennis outfit. This is navy blue, so it's easy to mistake them."

“Yes, it is.” Josh continued to watch her closely.

It took all of Annette's skill to keep from betraying herself. “If I hadn't had my room key with me, we probably would have noticed Marsha's sweater was missing and gone back to look for it. As it is, the key told you where to return it."

“It was certainly convenient to find it in the sweater pocket,” Josh agreed with a continuing trace of suspicion.

“Marsha's lucky it wasn't stolen. I don't know how to thank you. Maybe I should offer you a reward ... or something...” Her voice trailed off at the last, affected by the crooked slant of his hard masculine mouth.

“Or something,” Josh murmured to indicate his choice was the latter.

A heady sexual tension enveloped Annette as his hand came up to lightly hold her chin, the touch of his fingers warm and firm. A tiny quiver ran through her at the contact. Josh leaned toward her, slowly bridging the space between them while his knowing gaze held hers. She was incapable of movement.

Her lashes drifted shut when his mouth settled onto her lips, his warm breath fanning them an instant before he claimed them. It was a tasting kiss, without demands or passion, yet incredibly evocative. His mouth's easy mobility revealed his experience, but there was no attempt to take her into his arms, not even when her lips softened under his light possession to invite a more demonstrative show of his skills.

Josh released her lips as slowly as he had taken them, and lifted his head to study her. The hand under her chin became absently caressing, his fingers lightly stroking the feminine lines of her throat. She felt on the edge of a precipice, ready to jump if he asked her.

The corners of his mouth deepened in faint amusement. “That's what you wanted me to do, wasn't it?” Josh challenged.

It was, but for the life of her, Annette couldn't answer him. Her lips continued to tingle with the sensations left by his kiss. Some very elemental message was being transmitted between them. When his hand came away from her chin, the connection was broken. Josh straightened to sever completely all silent communication.

His gaze flicked past her into the shadowed hotel room. “You should tell your sister to keep better track of her things."

“I will,” Annette promised, but Josh had already turned to leave. “Thank you,” she called after him.

As his long unhurried strides carried him away, Annette remained outside the door a minute longer to watch him leave. Then her glance was pulled down to the sweater clutched in her hands. The elation of triumph propelled her inside the hotel room. An airy jubilant laugh spilled from her throat as she waltzed across the room and hugged herself, her eyes sparkling and alive.

“It worked, Marsha!” she called, trying to make herself heard above the noise of the shower.

“What?” came the half-muffled reply.

“I said it worked!” Annette shouted.

“I can't hear you!” she yelled back.

“Turn off the water!” It was several seconds before the noise subsided and Marsha ducked her head outside the bathroom door.

“Has he gone?” she asked.

“Yes.” Annette was smiling broadly. “It worked!"

“Good. Another minute and I would have turned into a prune,” Marsha declared.

Annette stared at her dripping sister as Marsha wrapped a towel around herself. “You haven't been in the shower all this time?"

There was a blank look at the question. “You told me to stay there until you called."

“You idiot,” Annette laughed. “I meant that you should stay in the bathroom."

“That isn't what you said,” Marsha retorted.

“Well, you weren't supposed to take me literally.” It was very hard not to smile.

“Did he bring back my sweater?” Marsha changed the subject.

Annette presented it to her with a little flourish. “Here it is.” Then she couldn't contain her excitement any longer. “He kissed me, Marsha."

“And?” Marsha thought surely there was an invitation to go out on a date. She would have thought that the dropped-sweater trick was worth more than a kiss.

“That's all,” Annette admitted, but it didn't lessen the warm glow. “It's enough for now."

Chapter Four

THE ANGLING LIGHT from the morning sun glinted on the blue waters separating Wrightsville Beach from the mainland. Diving from overhead, a screeching gull swooped, close to shore. Annette slowed out of her jogging trot into a walk, stretching her legs now and then so the muscles wouldn't cramp. She angled off the path onto the sandy beach. The small marina belonging to the hotel complex was in sight just ahead.

It had been another fruitless morning with no sign of Josh. She would have quit jogging every day except that she didn't want Josh to think that she ran only in the hopes of seeing him. She wanted him to believe it was part of her normal routine. Actually she was beginning to enjoy it and was physically invigorated by the exercise.

A chunk of blond hair had worked free of its ponytail. Annette slipped the elastic band off her hair and shook her head to let her hair tumble loose about her shoulders. Running her fingers through it, she lifted its long mass to let the cool sea breeze reach her scalp. Across the waters the mainland of North Carolina stood sharply against the horizon, and she paused to look at it.