CHAPTER 6
Dear Levi, I found a piece of beach glass this morning the exact shade of your eyes. I’ve suspended it from a length of fishing line and hung it in my bedroom window...
Natalie nodded at the lavender box sitting on the table next to Adam. “Winnie came by?”
Adam consulted his cards, purposely, it seemed, avoiding her gaze. “She did. She brought me some of those little cakes and cookies.” He nodded approvingly. “Good stuff.”
“She makes the best in town,” Natalie said, pleased that Winnie had made this first step. She determinedly looked at her own cards, trying not to ogle Levi who was currently painting over “The Sabrina” with a coat of heavy duty white paint.
Considering he was shirtless, it was damned hard.
Muscles bunched beneath gleaming, surprisingly tanned skin and she was suddenly hit with the almost overwhelming urge to lick the fluted hollow of his spine, to run her hands over the intriguing landscape of his chest. Even his neck was sexy, particularly the little soft part just below his ear. Her belly grew all hot and muddled and a tingle of heat washed over her breasts. Natalie released a shaky breath. Good Lord, the man was beautiful. Literally, truly beautiful. And--
“Natalie?”
She started and felt a blush rush to her hairline. “Oh, is it my turn?”
Adam grinned at her in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable. He jerked his head toward Levi. “I know he’s not much to look at, Nat, but staring at him like he’s a circus freak isn’t polite.” If his tongue was planted any more firmly in his cheek it would have to be surgically removed, the smart ass.
“I wasn’t s-staring,” she lied, hoping a rogue bolt of lightening wouldn’t strike.
He shrugged. “Looked to me like you were staring. And that little slurping noise you made--“ He winced, leaving the rest unspoken.
She gasped, outraged. She knew damned well she hadn’t made a slurping noise. At least, she was relatively certain she hadn’t. Natalie chuckled, trying to keep from throwing up.
He knew.
“You’re so full of shit,” she said, then gestured to his cards. “Just play, would you? We’ve only got a few more minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You and Levi are going back to the beach.” There was a very vague sense of envy in his voice, which made her heart ache. Though she knew he put on a brave front, her friend was hurting and, other than being there for him, she was powerless to help. “He said you found a lot of good pieces this morning.”
“We did,” she confirmed. “I really appreciate him telling Dad he’d go with me. He wouldn’t have agreed to go to Uncle Milton’s otherwise.”
“I know he’s your dad, Nat, and I understand why he’s worried about you, but...”
“I know,” she said, sighing. “I’ve let it go too far. “ Her poor father had called twice already today to check on her. She hated that he worried so much, but he truly had to come to terms with the fact that she would be fine. “And, strictly speaking, I can go alone,” she continued. “I’ve told Levi that, but he insists that he come along. Says he gave his word to my dad.” A man who kept his word, she thought, her lips twisting. A novel change. Of course, she wouldn’t expect anything else from Levi.
A dry bark of laughter erupted from Adam’s throat. “If he gave his word, there’s no way in hell he won’t go with you. But if you’re thinking he volunteered for the job just for your father’s sake, you’d better think again.”
Natalie’s mouth went bone dry, her head felt light and heart began to pound.
Adam tossed another card down, then leaned forward and shot her a grin. “I think he’s into you. And I think you’re his Mysterious Ms. X.”
That was it--her chicken salad was coming back up. Natalie bolted from her chair. “Excuse me,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth as she hurried to the bathroom.
Three minutes later, after she’d emptied the contents of her stomach and after digesting the fact that Adam was apparently psychic, she made her way back outside to argue with him on both counts.
But she couldn’t. Because Levi had finished his paint job and had returned to the back porch. He was just shrugging into his shirt--more’s the pity--and his caramel gaze tangled with hers as she walked out.
“You okay?” he asked, concern lining his brow.
“Fine,” Natalie said, her gaze swinging to a completely unrepentant Adam who was smiling so smugly she was inclined to pummel him with his own crutches.
“Adam said you’d gotten sick.”
She glared at Adam. “My lunch didn’t agree with me.”
“Nothing agrees with you when you get nervous, does it, Nat?” he needled.
She genuinely wanted to throttle him.
“It’s like a little truth barometer, isn’t it?” he continued. He shook his head, seemingly pondering the magical properties of her nervous stomach.
Levi’s gaze jumped back and forth between the two of them. “Am I missing something?”
“Just a chromosome or two, but it’s nothing to worry about.” He glanced at his watch. “I thought you were going to the post office today?”
Levi nodded and an unreadable look passed over his too handsome face. His gaze found hers and he quirked a brow. “Do you mind if we swing by the post office before going down to the beach? I’m expecting a letter.”
It was a good thing her stomach was empty, Natalie thought as she pasted a wholly unnatural smile onto her face. “Not at all.”
Adam’s lips twitched infuriatingly. “Nat, have you chosen a chick flick yet?”
Oh, she’d get him back. “As a matter of fact, I have. You haven’t seen Love, Actually, have you?” Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman. She inwardly sighed. It was the motherlode of Hollywood hunks.
“I haven’t.”
She nodded once and resisted the urge to preen. “Excellent. I’ll see you at seven.”
He idly threaded his fingers and put them behind his head, stretching. “Are you making your lasagna?”
“I can.” But only because she knew how much he liked it. Honestly, he was shameless.
“Good. I’m sure Levi will enjoy it.”
A flutter of panic whipped through her chest and from the corner of her eye she saw Levi arch a brow.
“Why would I enjoy it?” he asked.
“Remember how you said if there was anything you could do for me, just to name it?”
Seemingly suspecting a trap, Levi nodded cautiously. “I remember.”
“I’m naming it.” He jerked his head toward Natalie. “I want you to watch the chick flick in my place.” He rubbed his thigh, playing the ultimate sympathy card. “I’m going to be too tired to go to her house and watch a movie.”
Natalie felt a disbelieving smile slide over her lips. He was the devil. The spawn of Satan incarnate. And so bloody obvious she wanted to crawl into a hole. “Too tired to watch a movie? Really?”
Though Adam sighed heavily, a twinkle lit that unrepentant gaze. “Yes, I’m afraid so. I’ve got therapy in the morning, so I need to conserve my strength.”
As much as she would love for Levi to come over for dinner and a movie, she didn’t want him maneuvered into it and she didn’t want to take anymore time away from his family. He was already spending a couple of hours in the morning and evening with her. It hardly seemed fair to let Adam--well-intentioned as her interfering friend was, she thought exasperatedly--impose his chick-flick loss on Levi as well.
“What about your mom and dad?” Natalie asked. “Don’t you think they’d like for him to stay home?”
“They’ve got their ball room dancing class tonight,” he said. A wide smile split his face. “They’ll be gone for hours. Besides, they’ll see him tomorrow. Other than hanging out with you, he’s spending every minute with them. They’ll understand.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought this through,” Levi remarked, studying his brother carefully.
Adam snorted. “Anything to get out of watching Love, Actually.”
“What?” Natalie asked. “Afraid you’ll cry again?”
Adam instantly bristled. “I didn’t cry, dammit. I told you I had something in my eye.”
Natalie looked at Levi. “It’s true. He did. It’s called a tear.”
Levi chuckled and she felt that sexy laugh all the way to the bottoms of her feet. She loved the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the faint dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. She was hit with the inexplicable impulse to lean in, to move closer to him. He smelled like Ocean and Man, a tang of sea salt and a woodsy fragrance all his own. Her toes actually curled.
“Smart ass,” Adam grumbled.
“Damn, bro. If you’re afraid you’ll cry, I don’t mind watching the movie for you,” Levi told him. Humor danced in his toffee-gaze. “I’ll take one for the team.” He looked at Natalie and the glimpse of heat she caught in those light brown orbs made her momentarily lose her breath. “Can I bring anything?” Levi asked her. “A bottle of wine, maybe?”
Wine? she thought as her pulse tripped wildly in her veins. If he’d offered to bring dessert or a salad or anything else, she could have written it off as being polite. This was the South after all. You didn’t show up to any sort of social event empty-handed. It wasn’t done.
But offering to bring wine indicated a change in the status quo, a plan to take things up a level. It smacked of something much more intentioned and romantic.
Something like, Lord help her, a date.
* * *
At ten minutes before seven, Levi found his brother parked in front of the television, idly flipping channels. He looked bored to tears and there was a haunted look shading his eyes that made Levi long to fix things for him, to make things right. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure what his brother needed.
“I know what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it,” Levi said, watching Adam frown before biting into another one of those cookies he’d been munching on all day. “But why don’t you come down to Natalie’s with me? Forget the movie and we’ll just hang out. Play cards or whatever.”
“I’ll have plenty of time to hang out with Natalie after you’re gone.”
Too true, Levi thought. At the end of the week he’d be boarding another flight back to Iraq. He’d be back with his boys, back to what was familiar.
Because being here with Natalie was anything but familiar.
This intense desire, this bone-deep, unbelievable ache to spend every waking--and non-waking--second with her, the almost blinding, driving need to bury himself between her thighs...there was absolutely nothing familiar about that.
He’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her.
It was the strangest thing. Once he’d fully admitted to himself the depth of his desire, it was as though the admission had triggered a landslide of emotion--of need--inside of him that threatened to wash away anything which even remotely resembled common sense or restraint. And whatever shred he’d managed to hold onto had completely vanished with Adam’s approval and his insight into Natalie being his Ms. X.
Honestly, he’d never looked a woman and felt this mind-boggling ache in his chest while his nether regions experienced the fiery hell of the damned. It was strange and wonderful and looking at her made him wonder if he’d been too premature in deciding that there wasn’t room in his life for a wife and his career.
This afternoon while he’d gone over to the post office, Natalie had insisted on dropping by the gallery to check on things, citing an incompetent assistant and things that needed her attention. He knew she was purposely avoiding going to the post office with him and more than ever, he was convinced that Adam was right.
She’d been writing the letters.
He felt it in his gut.
After listening to the sound of her voice, the cadence in which she spoke, he could “hear her” for lack of a better description, when he read the letters. Though nothing from her had arrived in today’s mail, he had gotten a few items--bills and such--so things were definitely being forwarded. It was a small comfort. He knew that another letter had to be coming, otherwise she wouldn’t be so damned nervous. If she hadn’t been the one writing to him, then why had she acted like a spooked cat when he’d tried to get her to walk over to the post office with him?
It had to be her.
This afternoon, after beach combing with her for about an hour, he’d come home and he and Adam had taken his newly unnamed boat out for a short spin. While Adam had lazed around on deck, Levi had taken the time to read back through the letters and had found what he thought was a pretty good clue. In one of her letters, she’d described the view from her living room over the water. There was lots of water-front property in Bethel Bay, but very few had a weeping cherry tree in their yard.
He knew because he’d looked today.
Point of fact, gut-feeling and wishful thinking aside, there were too many little things that suggested Natalie was his Mysterious Ms. X. The ginger-citrus scent that accompanied each one of the letters, the fact that she’d actually thrown up when Adam had point blank told her that he thought she was his Mysterious Ms. X--a curiously endearing quirk--her reticence to join him at the post office. He was ninety-nine point nine percent positive that she was responsible for the letters and the instant the next missive came, he had a feeling he was going to know for certain.
In the meantime he intended to do exactly what his brother had suggested--he was going for it.
Whether or not Natalie turned out to Ms. X remained to be seen, but he wanted her. He’d wanted her from the instant he’d seen her dancing around their driveway to the tune of Sweet Child of Mine and, though he’d kept his distance and tried to replace her with someone else, had come up with and had used many arguments to keep from pursuing her...the time for that was at an end.
Something about Natalie had always drawn him. Intense physical attraction aside, he could honestly say he simply loved being around her. She had the unique ability to simultaneously energize and relax him. As Adam had so eloquently pointed out, she was easy company. She had a fantastic sense of humor--alternately wry and outrageous--was incredibly talented, loyal to her friends, her town and heritage and genuinely...did it for him.
Furthermore, though this made absolutely no sense given the fact that he loved traveling and thoroughly enjoying living in different places, Levi suspected that the thing that truly drew him to her was the fact that she was so...grounded.
Natalie Rowland knew her place in the world, her position here in the local scheme of things. She had roots, Levi thought, and despite the fact that he’d rather sow seed from one end of the globe to the other, there was something distinctly comforting in that.
“You’re sure you don’t want to go?” Levi asked his brother again.
Adam looked up. “Absolutely.” He paused. “You’ll be good together.”
He silently agreed, then grabbed the wine he’d picked up from town and took his leave. The short walk to Natalie’s door was probably one of the longest he’d ever traversed and he was unaccountably nervous. He’d fought terrorists, dammit, and his hands hadn’t so much as shook, and yet at the moment his insides were vibrating so hard he could barely swallow.
It boggled the mind.
And, of course, now that he was relatively certain she was Ms. X, Levi knew he wasn’t going to be able to look at her without imagining each and every one of those fantasies she’d written to him about.
He wanted to reenact them. In the flesh.
The mouthwatering scent of lasagna washed over him the instant she opened her door. Natalie wore a pale yellow and white polka-dotted sundress and she’d left her hair down where it fell in soft waves over her shoulders and slithered down her back. Plain diamond studs winked in her small ears and the smile stretching across her elfin face was nothing short of breathtaking. It was also a bit unsure, which he found curiously endearing. Just like those freckles scattered over her pert nose.
She was beautiful. Quite possibly the loveliest creature he’d ever seen. And the kicker? The thing that just set him off like a firecracker on the Fourth of July?
She had no idea.
He held up the bottle of wine. “Your booze, milady.”
Natalie laughed. “I happen to like chick flicks. You’re the one who’s going to need to self-medicate with the alcohol.”
She accepted the wine and gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen. Naturally he couldn’t do it without looking at her ass and damn. Though the fabric wasn’t see-through, he could make out of the top of what he instinctively knew was a thong. A band of sweat broke out over his upper lip.
Clearly she was trying to kill him.
Levi sighed and shook his head. “So you’re going to hold me to it, eh?”
Natalie withdrew a corkscrew from a drawer and handed it to him. “You do the honors, would you? And, of course, I’m not going to hold you to it.” She rolled her eyes. “Adam’s the one who owes me the chick flick, not you. You can read the back of the DVD box and pretend like you’ve seen it.”
Levi chuckled. “Very crafty. I like that in a woman. So what are we going to do then?”
He could think of lots of things and none of them included watching a movie. For starters, now that he’d decided to seriously make a play for her, he’d like nothing better than to kiss her. His gaze lingered over her lips. He wanted to taste those raspberry lips, feel her tongue against his. He wanted push his fingers into her hair and feel it slide over the backs of his hands. He wanted to set her on the counter, lift the dress and make dinner of her. Eat, sample and savor every part of her.
And because of her letters, he knew she wanted it too.
Natalie opened the oven door and made a groan of pleasure that affected him on a visceral level. She grabbed a couple of pot holders from the counter and withdrew the aromatic dish, then set it on top of the stove.
“We’re going to eat and watch a movie, just not the one Adam thinks we’re watching.”
He poured them each a glass of wine, strolled over and handed one to her. He purposely invaded her space--if she had any doubts about his intentions and what he wanted he’d disabuse of her of those right now--and had the pleasure of watching her pulse flutter wildly at the base of her throat. Mission accomplished, Levi thought, pleased.
“And what are we really going to see?”
“The Shining,” Natalie said, shocking the hell out of him as she accepted her drink.
A bark of laughter erupted from his throat. “The Shining? Really?” What? Was Psycho already rented?
Her coffee-colored gaze tangled with his, then dropped to his lips. She absently licked hers and he went hard. “I’ve, uh... I’ve always wanted to see it and am too much of a wuss to watch it alone.” She quirked a brow. “Is that okay with you?”
Only if she ended up in his lap, Levi thought, a slow smile sliding over his lips. And somehow he imagined that was the whole point. Good food, good company, wine and a horror flick.
It was the perfect first date.
He smiled down at her. “It’s totally fine with me. But I’ll warn you. You may have to hold my hand.”