“At first it was because I never met anyone I wanted to do those things with,” he said quietly.
“Come on. You’ve become news with some of the women you dated! Kelly O’Ranahan? Beautiful, successful, talented.”
“Insecure, superficial, wouldn’t know Orion if he shot her with an arrow.”
The moment suddenly seemed shot through with more than an arrow. Heat sizzled between them as his gaze locked on hers.
“What do you mean, ‘at first’?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer—he just reached out and slid a hand through her hair, and looked at her with such longing it stole her breath from her lungs.
The air felt ripe with possibilities. Kayla again felt seen, somehow, in a way no one had seen her for years.
Somehow, feeling that way made her feel more intensely guilty than her disloyal thoughts about her husband.
And then, thankfully, the uncomfortable intensity of the moment was shattered when the darkness exploded around them, and they were both frozen in an orb of white light.
“End to a perfect day,” she said, happy for the distraction from the intensity. “Beesting, hospital emergency room, lost dog—” disloyal thoughts about my deceased husband “—now alien kidnapping.”
He didn’t smile at her attempt to use humor to deflect the intensity between them.
“Don’t forget the stargazing part,” he said softly.
She looked at him. Not many people would look better under the harsh glare of the light that illuminated them, but he did. It brought the strength of his features into sharp relief.
It occurred to her that the stargazing was the part she was least likely to forget.
David broke the gaze first, sat up and shielded his eyes against the bright light that held them.
“Police! Get up off that grass.”
THEIR PREDICAMENT STRUCK KAYLA as hilarious, but she suspected her sudden desire to laugh was like biting back laughter at a funeral. Her nerves were strung tight over the moments they had just shared. Her emotions felt electric, overwhelming and way too close to the surface.
Could David possibly think she was more attractive than Kelly O’Ranahan, the famous actress?
Of course not! She was reading way too much into his hand finding her hair and touching it. He probably felt nothing but sorry for her.
“Put your hands in the air where I can see them.”
Poor David. She cast a look at his face. If David had been ultracool back then, he was even more so now. A proven track record of ultracoolness.
It occurred to her she was about to get one of Canada’s most respected businessmen arrested. It was no laughing matter, really, but she couldn’t help herself.
She laughed.
David shot her a look that warned her he wasn’t finding it in any way as amusing as she was. His expression was grim as he reached for her hand and found it. Then he got his feet underneath him and jumped up lithely, yanking her up beside him.
She noticed he stepped out just a little in front of her, shielding her torn nightie-clad body from the harshness of the police searchlight with his own.
It reminded her of something a long time ago—a thunderstorm, and seeking shelter under the awning of the ice cream store. She remembered him pulling off his shirt and putting it over her own, which had become transparent with wetness.
Was it in some way weak—a further betrayal of her marriage—to enjoy his protective instincts so much? He let go of her hand only after he had put her behind him, and then shaded his eyes, trying to see past the light.
“Sir, I need you to put your hands up in the air. You, too, ma’am.”
The light they were caught in was absolutely blinding. Kayla squinted past the broadness of David’s shoulder and into the brightness. She could make out the dark outline of Blossom Valley’s only patrol car.
She did as asked, but the laughter had started deep inside her and she had to choke it back. She slid a look at David. His expression was grim as he put his hands up, rested them with laced fingers on the top of his head.
The spotlight went off, and a policeman came across the lawn toward them. He looked grumpy as he stopped a few feet away and regarded them with deep suspicion. He took a notepad from his pocket, licked his pencil, waiting.
When neither of them volunteered anything, he said, “We’ve had a report of a prowler in this area.”
Kayla bit her lip to try and stop the giggle, but she made the mistake of casting a glance at David’s face. Naturally, he was appalled by their predicament, his face cast in stone. A snort of laughter escaped her.
“Have you folks been drinking?”
“No,” David bit out, giving her a withering glance when another snort of laughter escaped her.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to sputter.
“Is this your house?”
“No,” David snapped.
“Have you got any ID?”
“Does it look like we have any ID?” David said, exasperated and losing patience fast. She cast him a glance, and saw instantly that he was not intimidated, that he was a man who was very accustomed to being in authority, not knuckling under to it.
“Well, what are you doing half-dressed in front of a house that isn’t yours? How do you know each other?”
David sucked in a harsh breath at the insinuation that they might have been doing something improper. He took a step forward, but Kayla stepped out of his protection and inserted herself, hands still on top of her head, between him and the policeman. She sensed David’s irritation with her.
“We’re neighbors. We’re looking for my dog,” Kayla said hastily, before David really did manage to get himself arrested. “We thought we saw him and gave chase. I’m afraid we did trespass through several backyards. It turned out to be that bunny over there.”
“What bunny?”
Kayla turned and lowered one arm to point, but the bunny, naturally, had disappeared. “There really was one. We haven’t been drinking.” She could feel a blush moving up her cheeks as she realized a nightie that was perfectly respectable in her house was not so much on the darkened streets of Blossom Valley.
“Or doing anything else,” she said, lowering her other arm and folding both of them over the sheerness of her nightie.
The policeman regarded them both, then his suspicion died and he sighed.
“You can put your hands down. My little girl has been looking for that dog since the posters went up. She went to sleep dreaming about the reward. She wants a new bicycle.” He squinted at David. “Do I know you?”
David lowered his arms and lifted an eyebrow in a way that said I doubt it. How could he manage to have such presence, even in such an awkward situation?
“Are you that investor guy?” the cop asked. Deference, similar to that Kayla had heard in the care aide’s voice, crept into the policeman’s tone. “The one I saw the article about in Lakeside Life?”
“That would be me.”
“You don’t look much like a prowler, actually.”
“Do most prowlers not go out and about in their pajamas?” David asked a bit drily.
“Well,