“What?”
“I was being nosy, that’s all. Forget it.”
“Jasmine.” He liked the way her name brushed his lips, bringing to mind mysterious evenings and sultry fragrances. “Ask.”
“What were you toasting a while ago?”
He lifted his glass again. “A clean bill of health.” He wondered at the sudden narrowing of her eyes, as if she were assessing his-answer for truth.
“Was that something you were worried about?”
He sipped his drink before answering. “Not particularly. It was just my annual checkup.” The lie came easily. He’d never felt so vulnerable. He just wanted it all to go away. Maybe he could learn to ignore—
“That’s always a relief,” she said, angling a little closer.
Curious at the change in her body language, he waited for her to make the next move.
She patted an ironed crease on the tablecloth, flattening it. “And you said you were suffering from jet lag?”
He kept his gaze on her face. “I flew in today from Boston.”
“Business or pleasure?”
Patrick leaned back and smiled slightly at her show of interest. “Just a vacation.”
He watched a smile flicker across her lips before she straightened.
“I’ll be right back with your salad,” she said.
His gaze lingered on her as she moved across the room and disappeared through a swinging door with an economy of movement, no teasing swing to her hips.
He sought a word to describe her that wouldn’t get him into trouble. In his day, if you called a woman stacked or built, everyone knew what it meant. But in these days of political correctness, he was sure he couldn’t use either of those words.
Missing his usual Scotch on the rocks, he sipped his club soda as visions of the gray-eyed blonde with the tempting feminine curves filled his head. Voluptuous. Yeah, voluptuous. That suited her to a tee.
And he’d probably be slapped for even thinking it.
Jasmine set a chilled salad plate carefully on the kitchen counter, afraid if she didn’t control the movement she would fling the plate like a Frisbee across the room.
She mentally listed his credentials. He was here on vacation, he lived three thousand miles away, and he was in good health. Would a complete annual exam include all of the important blood tests? she wondered. Since there wouldn’t be time to get any before they slept together—if they slept together—she had to trust that it did.
He was of an age that he might be interested in her for a brief vacation fling, instead of some twenty-year-old hardbody he could likely have if he wanted one. A spark of interest had flared in dark green eyes that not only hadn’t undressed her with lascivious speculation, but hadn’t even looked below her chin that she could tell, except to determine her name, which put him on a pedestal as far as she was concerned.
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, nor did his finger hold that telltale indentation of having recently worn one.
He was extremely attractive, with his auburn hair that begged for a trim yet entreated a woman to comb it with her fingers, and his tall, athletic frame looked amazingly fit for a man she guessed was in his mid-forties.
She considered some of the other candidates she’d met over the past six months, each of them flawed in some way. Potential Donor 1, who she’d decided wasn’t tall enough; Donor 2, whose ears were too large; Donor 3, whose eyes were too brooding; Donor 4, who wore turtlenecks all the time—what had he been hiding?
She recognized the alleged flaws for the excuse they were—to avoid making her plan a reality. But now there was this man, who was tall enough, had perfect ears, smiling eyes and a strong, suntanned neck.
He was perfect. Too perfect. He had to have a fatal flaw. And she was going to find it.
Okay, not voluptuous, Patrick decided. Too much of a political hot potato. Statuesque? He tossed that word aside, too, as Jasmine approached. The description didn’t fit, either, because it implied height, and she wasn’t tall, maybe just five foot five or so and, based on his experience with the opposite sex, he suspected she probably always complained about how she needed to lose ten or fifteen pounds. Not in his opinion, however.
He smiled at her as she set his salad and a basket of bread on the table.
“So, how did you end up here?” she asked, resituating the bread basket and moving the dish of butter closer to him, then shifting it again,
“Here in San Francisco or at the Carola?”
She fascinated him. She was obviously uncomfortable making small talk, seeming on the verge of running away, yet she continued to pry into his private life. He’d bet his newest fleet of cargo ships she didn’t usually have personal conversations with her customers. She hadn’t even introduced herself.
“Both, I guess,” she said.
“My daughter lives here in the city. Her husband arranged a temporary membership at the club while I’m here.”
Why did she keep doing that—smiling mysteriously over his answers, as if he was passing some kind of test?
Once again she patted the creases on the white linen tablecloth and kept her gaze lowered. “Your wife didn’t come with you?”
“I’m widowed.” It hurt to say the words. Even after twenty-five years it cut into him, a double-edged sword of loss and guilt.
Jasmine watched tension settle over him. Without thinking, she touched his coiled fist.
He opened his hand and captured hers, squeezing as if he were drowning and she was his lifeline. She felt the distinctive texture of calluses…and warmth—pure, masculine warmth. Then he released her hand and lifted his salad fork.
“Can I get you anything else? Another drink?” she asked, regretting that she’d shattered the mood with her nosiness, especially since he seemed embarrassed by his brief show of emotion. He must have lost his wife recently for his grief to be so fresh. She fought the image of taking him into her arms to hold and comfort. She understood grief. She understood it all too well.
“I’m fine, thanks,” he said, dismissing her by stabbing some lettuce.
She watched him for a second, then said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
He set down his fork. “It’s been—”
“Hi, there, honey. My name’s Magnolia. Is my sister taking good care of you?”
Jasmine watched as, in a blink, he changed moods upon the arrival of her younger sister, who was as different from Jasmine as borscht from chicken noodle soup.
“Magnolia,” he repeated with some humor, glancing at Jasmine. “Your mother must’ve liked flowers.”
“Our mama was a fine Southern belle who gave her girls respectable Louisiana names. ‘Course Jazz here prefers to leave her roots behind. She treatin’ you all right, is she?”
“Maggie,” Jasmine cautioned, fighting a grin at her irrepressible sister.
Bright blue eyes sparkling, Maggie tossed a triumphant look in her direction then spoke conspiratorially to Patrick. “You must be one mighty interestin’ man to get Jazz to carry on a conversation. She likes to keep business in its place, you understand.”
Jasmine put her arm