He finished his juice and threw out the can, then picked up his duffel bag and headed into the bedroom he called his own when staying at the apartment. The room, like the rest of the place, was large and luxurious. Decorated in deep blues and pale silver, it boasted big, masculine furniture. Photos of Kyle in uniform hung on the walls.
It took him only minutes to hang his clothes in the closet and set his toiletries on the counter in the adjoining bathroom. Then he wandered back into the living room, his head still consumed with thoughts of Joanna Marie Morgan.
She had made it quite clear that she had no intention of picking up where they’d left off, that she just wanted to forget that single night they had shared together.
But he couldn’t do that. He had to have some answers. He needed to have some closure where she was concerned. He wanted to know why she had left him that morning after they had made love so passionately, then fallen asleep in one another’s arms.
More than answers, he wanted one more night with her. What he wasn’t sure of was if he wanted one more night of the pleasure of making love to her, or if he simply wanted an opportunity to be the one to walk away.
At precisely 0500 hours the next morning, Joanna knocked on the Ramsey apartment door. The security officer on duty had told her to go on up, that Lieutenant Commander Ramsey was waiting for her. For the past month she’d been experiencing morning nausea, but none quite as intense as what she felt at the moment.
Nerves, she told herself. She’d been a nervous wreck from the moment she’d seen him again. The one time in her life she’d made a mistake and done something irrational, spontaneous and stupid, fate had to be a perverse jokester and throw the mistake right back in her face.
Her “mistake” opened the door, looking as breathtakingly handsome and male as ever. “Ah, Joanna, right on time.” He stepped aside and gestured her in.
She swept past him, knowing he was freshly showered from the scent of soap. He was dressed not in his uniform, but casually, in tight jeans and a pale blue, short-sleeved dress shirt that emphasized taut biceps. It was similar to what he’d been wearing on the night they had first met.
He closed the door behind her and she found herself in a huge, airy living room. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
“No, thanks,” she replied, the very thought making her stomach twist and buck. Lately it was rare that she drank coffee or ate anything besides crackers before noon. Her morning sickness made it virtually impossible to keep much of anything down.
“Then have a seat. I’ll be ready to head out in just a minute.” He disappeared down a hallway and into what she assumed was one of the bedrooms.
Joanna didn’t sit, but rather wandered around the room. At least he’d been impersonal and businesslike so far, she thought as she moved to a wall of windows and peered out.
It was still too dark outside to be able to see what kind of view the windows would provide. In her mind, she didn’t see the darkness of predawn, but rather a vivid picture of how Kyle had looked the morning she’d sneaked out of the hotel room.
He’d been gloriously naked and stretched out on his stomach. His golden, tanned back had looked impossibly broad against the white sheets of the bed, and his slender waist, buttocks and long, lanky legs had made him look like a model in a pinup calendar.
From the moment he’d walked into that bar that night and their eyes had met, she’d known. She’d known that before the night was over they would be in bed together. It had been wonderfully exciting and more than a little bit frightening at the same time.
She moved away from the window and consciously forced herself to focus on a bookcase and an array of framed photographs on one of the shelves.
They were apparently photos of the Ramsey family. In one picture, a smiling older couple stood just behind three young boys. It was obvious the child in the center was Kyle. Even then, at the age of about ten or twelve, he’d been handsome. His features were clean-cut and well defined, and there was already a confident gleam in his eyes.
She assumed the older couple were his parents, and it was obvious by the expressions on their faces that they were proud of their boys.
A wistful yearning echoed in an empty chamber of her heart. How wonderful it must be to have a family, to always know you had a place where you belonged, where you were loved.
“I see you found the family photos.”
She whirled around to face him. “Yes. These are your brothers?” She pointed to the photo that had captured her attention.
“Yeah.” Kyle walked over and stood next to her…far too close. “This is Jake. He’s twenty-nine, two years younger than I am. He just became CEO of Ramsey Enterprises.” He pointed to the other young boy in the picture. “And that’s Tyler. He’s twenty-eight and works for the company, also.”
“So, you’re the only rebel who didn’t go to work for Ramsey Enterprises?” she asked, half-teasingly.
His eyes darkened and he turned away from the pictures. “Something like that.”
She looked at one of the other pictures. It was an older photograph of a young man in uniform. “Your father was in the Air Force?”
“Yeah. He’s a decorated Vietnam War hero.” Pride was evident in his low voice. For a moment his gaze remained on the picture of his father, then he frowned. “But he quit the military to join corporate America and fill his coffers with money.” He turned to look at her, his gray eyes turbulent. “Let’s get going.”
“Okay.” She’d obviously touched a nerve.
As they left the apartment and got into her car, Joanna thought of everything she knew about Ramsey Enterprises. She knew that the company was owned by Edward Ramsey and headquartered in the United States. The plant on Montebello was one of three that worked to produce plane parts.
She hadn’t imagined the tension in Kyle’s voice when he’d spoken of his father. Apparently there was strain between Edward Ramsey and his firstborn son.
“So, what about your family? You have brothers or sisters?” he asked when they were in her car and headed toward the nearby military base.
The yearning that never seemed to be completely still echoed once again inside her. “No brothers, no sisters. No immediate family since my father died three years ago.”
“What about your mother?” he asked.
“She died when I was born.”
“That’s tough.”
Joanna said nothing, although she wanted to tell him that the loss of her mother hadn’t been half as tough as life with her military father.
She’d spent her childhood being pulled from base to base and raised by hired help, some good, some not so good, and none of them family.
The end result was that she had no place to call home…no connection to anyone else in the world. The night she had met Kyle and slept with him, she had been driven by an overwhelming need to connect, and “connecting” with him had been frighteningly wonderful—until she’d realized he was military, just like her father.
“That night I first met you, I just assumed you were a local woman. Your coloring—your features—are of the locals.”
She felt his gaze warming her face and wondered why, despite knowing he was absolutely wrong for her and there would never, ever be any future relationship between them, she remained so acutely aware of him, so intimately drawn to him.
“My mother was a native of Montebello. My father met her while he was based here.”
“Your