“You loved her.”
He stared ahead at the snow-lined road. “Very much. She was always there for me. She took terrible chances to keep me safe.” He drew in a long breath. He’d never spoken of these things, even to Rodney. There was something about Colie that drew his confidence. “I lost her when I was ten. I went to live with an adoptive family.” He forced a smile. “They were good, kind people. They had no kids of their own, so I was pretty much spoiled rotten.” His face hardened. “They died in a fire. I was just getting home from school. I got there just before the ambulances and fire trucks did.” He averted his eyes. The memory still hurt. “I couldn’t get them out. The whole structure was involved by then.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said gently.
The sympathy twisted something inside him, something he’d hidden for years. “I couldn’t get past the flames at the front door,” he gritted. “I tried. A neighbor pulled me back and sat on me until the fire trucks got the hoses going. They were good people.”
Her face contorted. She could only imagine standing helplessly by while people she loved died.
He glanced at her, saw the sympathy that wasn’t feigned. “You don’t push, do you?” he asked after a few seconds, his attention turning back to the road. “You just let people talk when they want to.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m not interesting,” she said. “I listen more than I talk.”
“I noticed that about you, when I first met you, that you listen more than most people do. Rod used to talk about his kid sister who sat and daydreamed and played guitar. You still play?”
“Not often. I don’t practice as much as I used to. I have a full-time job and I’m taking night courses in business two days a week.”
“You work for Wentworth and Tartaglia, don’t you?” he asked, naming a well-known law firm in Catelow.
“I do. I went to work for them just out of high school.”
“That was a while back, I guess,” he chuckled.
It was six months, but he didn’t know her real age, apparently. Rod must not have mentioned it. She wasn’t going to, either. If he knew she was barely nineteen, he might not want to take her out. He was thirty-two; Rod had told her. Just as well to let him think she was more mature than she was. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might not want to keep dating her.
“I guess,” she replied with a smile.
He settled down. He’d never asked Rod how old his baby sister was. He knew there were a few years between them, but not how many. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to get serious. He just wanted someone cute and responsive to spend time with. She didn’t seem the sort of woman who’d cling, and that suited him very well.
* * *
THE FISH PLACE was crowded, but J.C. found them a table that was just being vacated and captured it before another young couple. They laughed as he grinned at them.
“Wow,” Colie mused, letting him seat her. “That was a nice takeover.”
“Thanks. I can do it with enemy positions, too,” he chuckled.
She cocked her head and laughed. “You really do have a flair for it.”
“I’m hungry and the place is crowded. What do you see that you like?”
She wanted to say “you” but she was far too shy to flirt overtly. She settled down with the menu and made her choices.
* * *
THEY ATE IN a comfortable silence.
“Do you fish?” he asked.
She paused with her fork in midair. “Well, yes,” she said. “I used to go with Daddy. We’d sit on the dock for hours waiting for something to bite. Not much ever did.”
“Come spring, I’ll take you fishing.”
Her heart jumped. That was a long-term invitation. She was touched. “I’d love that,” she said, with her heart in the eyes that slid over his face like exploring hands.
“Me, too,” he said softly.
He held her gaze for so long that her heart ran wild and her fingers trembled. She dropped the fork into her plate with a clatter that stunned her. She dived for it, flushing.
He chuckled. Her headlong reaction to him was delicious. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman had appealed to him so much in ways beyond the purely physical. He hated the memory of the call girl who’d shattered his pride and his ego. But that was in the days before he became experienced and sophisticated. That was before he learned to turn the tables, to make women beg for him and then walk away from them.
His pale gray eyes narrowed on Colie’s face. Could he do that to her? Make her beg, make her do anything he liked, and then just walk away? The thought of giving her up was troubling, even at this very early stage in their relationship. Better not to dwell on it. Live for the moment.
He smiled at her. “How’s the fish?” he asked, to relax the tension.
“It’s great,” she said. “I love the French fries, too. They make them fresh. No frozen stuff here.”
“I noticed. I’m partial to a good French fry.”
“I make them for Daddy sometimes. He likes fish and chips.”
“Your father doesn’t like me.”
“It’s not that.” She struggled for words. “He’s protective of me. He always has been. I go to Sunday school and church, I sing in the choir, I teach primary classes in Sunday school.” She gnawed her lower lip. “I guess that sounds painfully conservative to someone like you, who’s traveled and is sophisticated. But around here, it’s pretty much the normal thing. Not everyone is conservative,” she confided. “We have people in our congregation who live together and aren’t married, we have people who do drugs, we have people who have babies out of wedlock, stuff like that. Daddy never judges, he just tries to help.”
His eyes fell to his plate. He wasn’t in the market for a wife. Did she know?
“I know you’re not the settling-down kind, J.C.,” she said out of the blue. “But I like going around with you.”
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