His eyes lifted. He laughed shortly. “You really do read minds, don’t you?”
She grinned, green eyes twinkling. “I tell fortunes, too, but not where Daddy can hear me,” she whispered. “He thinks it’s witchcraft!”
He grinned back. “My father’s mother could see far,” he said. “She had visions. I suppose a doctor might say she had aura from migraines and was hallucinating, but her visions were pretty accurate. She saw the future.”
“Did she ever tell yours?”
He nodded. He scowled as he finished his meal and lifted the coffee cup with cooling black coffee to chiseled, sensuous lips. “Yes, but it made no real sense.”
“What did she say?”
He put the cup down. “She said that one day I’d want something out of my reach, that I’d make bad decisions and cause a tragedy that would hurt me as much as it hurt the other person. She said that a third person would suffer the most for it.” He paused and then laughed at her puzzled expression. “Sometimes she was vague. I was very young at the time, too. She said that I was too young to understand what she was telling me.” His face hardened. “I lost her at the same time I lost my mother. I lost touch with my grandfather. By the time I was old enough to search for him, he was long dead.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how it feels to lose people you love. At least, I still have Daddy and Rod.”
He understood what she wasn’t saying. She was saying that J.C. had nobody. She was right.
His big hand reached for hers and closed over it. “You have a knack for pulling painful memories out of me,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I like it.”
She felt her heart soaring at the touch of his hand on hers. It was like tiny electric shocks running through her. She loved the way it felt to hold hands. “You don’t let people get close. I’m that way,” she confessed hesitantly. “But we’re different, because I trust people and you don’t. I’m shy, so I keep to myself.”
His thumb smoothed over her soft, damp palm. He studied her quietly. “I enjoy my own company.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
“But I enjoy yours, as well.”
She smiled. She beamed. “Really?”
“Really.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll have to do this again.”
“That would be nice.”
“Dessert?”
“I don’t really like sweets,” she confessed.
He chuckled. “Something else in common. Okay. Movie next.” He picked up the check, pulled out her chair and they left.
* * *
THE MOVIE WAS FUNNY. Colie thought she’d probably have enjoyed it, but her whole body was involved with the feel of J.C.’s arm around her in the back of the theater, in one of the couple seats. His fingers brushed lazily over her throat, her shoulder, down to her rib cage, in light, undemanding brushes that made her heart race, made her body feel swollen and hungry.
His cheek rested on her dark hair while they watched the screen. The theater wasn’t crowded, despite the great reviews the movie had gotten. There was an usher. He went up and down the aisles and left.
“Alone at last,” J.C. teased at her ear, and his lips traveled down her neck to where it joined her shoulder, under the lacy blouse.
She felt just the tip of his tongue there and she shivered. She’d never had such a headlong physical reaction to any man she’d ever known. The boys in her circle of friends were just that: boys. This was an experienced man, and she knew that if he ever turned up the heat, there would be no resisting him.
J.C. knew that, too. It should have pleased him. It didn’t. She wasn’t the sort of woman he was used to these days. She was like his grandmother. His mother. They were conservative, too. Neither of them had ever been unfaithful to their mates. His mother once spoke of being so naive that she hardly knew how to kiss when she married his father. They were women of faith, although his mother had been Catholic and his grandmother a practitioner of her native religion. They were the sort of women who loved their men and had families with them. J.C. didn’t want any part of that.
But he loved the feel of Colie’s soft body beside him. He wanted her, desperately. There were so many reasons why he should just walk away, cut this off now, while there was still time.
Her cheek moved against his hair. He could almost feel her heart beating. Her breath was shallow and quick. She was trembling.
He had to fight the surging need to push her down on the floor and have her right there. It was the first time in his life he’d ever wanted anyone that badly.
Because it shocked him, he drew away a little. He had to slow things down. He needed time to think.
She looked lost when he moved away. He caught her hand in his and held it tight, tight.
She relaxed. It was as if he was comforting her, cooling things down. She appreciated it, because she’d sensed his need. Perhaps he’d been alone too long, she thought, and he was hungry. That disturbed her. She couldn’t do what he wanted, not without some sort of commitment. She couldn’t shame her father in a town so small that gossip ran rampant.
She forced a smile and tried to concentrate on the movie.
* * *
J.C. DROVE HER HOME, still holding her hand. He liked her a lot, but he was getting cold feet. This was going to be a mistake if he let it continue. He should have left her alone. She was getting emotionally involved and he couldn’t afford to. He liked his freedom too much.
He walked her to her door. “It was a pretty good movie.”
“Yes, it was,” she agreed, thinking privately that she couldn’t remember a single scene.
He turned her to him and he was solemn in the porch light. “It’s unwise to start things you can’t finish,” he said after a minute.
Her heart sank, but she understood. He didn’t want involvement. She’d known that. It still hurt.
She forced a smile. “Still, it was nice. Fish and a movie.”
He nodded. He looked troubled. His big hand touched her cheek, felt its warmth, its smooth contours.
“You live in a conservative household,” he began. “You work at a conventional job. I don’t. I like risk...”
She reached up and put her fingers over his mouth. “You don’t have to say it, J.C.,” she said softly. “I understand.”
He caught the fingers and kissed them hungrily. Then he put them away. “You’re a nice woman,” he said after a minute.
“Thanks.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he said sardonically.
She laughed.
He drew in a breath and shook his head. She was a puzzle.
He stuck his hands in his coat pockets, to keep from doing what he wanted to do with them. He cocked his head and studied her through narrowed eyes. “What am I thinking?”
“That you’d love to kiss me good-night, but you think I might become addictive, so you’re going to rush out to your truck and go home,” she said simply.
His eyebrows arched. It was so close to the truth that it made him uncomfortable.
She laughed. “Now you’re thinking that I’m a witch,” she mused.
His breath rushed out in a torrent.
“And now you’re shocked,” she continued. “It’s