The Next Santini Bride. Maureen Child

be gone ten days, and…”

      The rest of her mother’s words drifted into a stream of sound as Angela watched the last of the wedding guests filter out of the hall. The past two hours had crawled by. All she’d been able to think about was being alone with Dan Mahoney. It had been so long. So long since she’d been held, kissed, touched. Her body burned with an intensity she’d never known before. Every square inch of her skin seemed alive with sensation, as if she could almost feel his hands on her already.

      “Are you listening to me?” her mother asked, laying one hand on Angela’s forearm.

      She jumped slightly, then tried to laugh it off. “I’m sorry, I must be tired.”

      “Actually your eyes look a little feverish,” Mama said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

      Oh, she was feverish all right, but it was nothing aspirin could cure.

      “I’m fine, Mama,” she said, looking past her mother to the car pulling up opposite the doorway. “Look, there’s Margaret now. You’d better hurry or you’ll miss your plane.”

      “All right then,” Mama said, giving into the excitement of her first cruise. “You take care and make sure you lock the house and—”

      “For heaven’s sake, Mama,” she said, impatience stampeding through her, “go.”

      “Okay, I’m going.” Shaking her head, she hurried to her friend’s car, opened the door and got in. Then with a wave of her hand and a honk of the horn, she was off.

      Angela pulled in a deep breath and blew it out again. Alone. Finally alone. Jeremy had gone home with his friend Mike, the caterers would clean up the mess in the hall, Mama was taken care of. And that meant that for the first time in too long, Angela Santini Jackson, mother, daughter, sister, widow, could be, for tonight, anyway, simply Angela.

      She headed for the parking lot on suddenly shaky legs. Her stomach spun, her mind raced as she asked herself if she was doing the right thing. This was so not her.

      She just wasn’t the one-night stand kind of woman.

      Rounding the edge of the old brick building, she dug in her purse for her keys, and when she looked up, she saw Dan Mahoney, spotlit in the soft yellow glow of a parking lot lamp, leaning negligently against the hood of his car. Arms folded over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles, he stared at her from across the lot, and even at a distance Angela felt the power, the hunger in his gaze.

      Her heartbeat quickened, and the parts of her body struggling back to life throbbed and hummed with an electrical pulse. She paused only briefly, then started toward him. Her heels tapped loudly against the asphalt and kept time with the pounding of her heart.

      Her car was parked just a few spaces away from his. She stopped at the driver’s side door, unlocked it and then looked at him.

      He straightened up, moved over to her car and leaned both forearms on the roof. “So, Angela,” he said softly, his voice whispering along her spine, “do we still have a date?”

      She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him again. If she said no, he’d leave, no harm done. There it is, she told herself. One last chance. One final opportunity to back out. To forget about the craziness of what she’d been planning and go back to her house alone.

      She could pack away the box of condoms she’d purchased the night before and slide into her empty bed. She could dream her dreams and do without the soft slide of this man’s hands on her skin.

      Instead of feeling a man’s arms around her, she could sit in the darkness and regret not having had the courage to take what she wanted. To, for once, put her own needs ahead of everyone else’s.

      The chilly, damp air swirled around her, and in the soft tendrils of fog blowing in off the ocean, he looked almost otherworldly. As if he was only the dream image of a man. But she knew he was all too real, and that’s exactly what she needed. What she wanted.

      There would be no backing out.

      Not tonight.

      Swallowing hard, she said only, “I haven’t changed my mind.”

      He nodded. “Me, neither.”

      Oh, my. The flash of desire glinted in his eyes and set off sparks deep within her. Her heart galloped, and she sucked in a gulp of air before opening the car door with a shaky hand. Then she looked directly into those amazing eyes of his and said, “You can follow me to my house.”

      He gave her a slow smile and nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”