As they wandered, Missy, a haughty Siamese cat that belonged to no one but deigned to live with Nick, regarded them cautiously from her perch on the windowsill. Finally, she stood up and stretched lazily. To Nick’s astonishment, the cat then jumped down and rubbed her head on Dana’s ankle. Dana knelt down and scratched the cat under her chin, setting off a loud purring.
“That’s amazing,” Nick said. “Missy is not fond of people. She loved Ginny, but she barely tolerates me and Tony. Usually she ignores strangers.”
“Perhaps she’s just very selective,” Dana retorted with a lift of one brow. “A wise woman is always discriminating.”
“Is there a message in there for me?”
“Possibly.” There was a surprising twinkle in her eyes when she said it.
“You wouldn’t be trying to warn me away, would you?” he inquired lightly. “Because if you are, let me tell you something: I don’t give up easily on the things I value.”
Dana swallowed nervously, but it was the only hint she gave of her nervousness. She met his gaze steadily as she gracefully stood up after giving Missy a final pat.
Tension filled the air with an unending silence that strummed across Nick’s nerves. Flames curled inside and sent heat surging through him. Desire swept over him with a power that was virtually irresistible. For the first time in years he recalled the intensity of unfulfilled passion, the need that could drive all other thoughts from your mind. He gazed at Dana and felt that aching need. Dana, so determinedly prim and proper in her severely tailored brown skirt and plain beige silk blouse, was every inch a classy lady, but she stirred a restless, wild yearning inside him.
It was Dana who broke the nerve-racking silence.
“You can’t lose what you don’t have,” she said very, very quietly before moving on to the next room. Left off balance by the comment, Nick stayed behind for several minutes trying to gather his wits and calm his racing pulse.
By the time they found Tony, it was time to serve dinner. There was no time for a complete tour of the bedrooms. It was probably just as well, Nick told himself. The sight of Dana standing anywhere near his bed might have driven him to madness.
What caused this odd, insistent pull he felt toward her? Certainly it was more than her luxuriant hair and wide eyes, more than her long-limbed grace. Was it the vulnerability that lurked beneath the surface? Or was it as elusive as the sense that, for whatever reason, she was forbidden, out of reach? He’d been with her twice now, but he knew little more about her than the facts she’d put on her résumé. She talked, even joked, but revealed nothing. He wanted much more. He wanted to know what went on in her head, what made her laugh and why she cried. He wanted to discover everything there was to know about Dana Brantley.
Most infuriating of all to a man of his methodical, cautious ways, he didn’t know why.
During dinner, Tony chattered away, basking in Dana’s quiet attention, and Nick tried to puzzle out the attraction. Soon though, the talk and laughter drew him in and he left the answers for another day.
Saturday. Only five days and he would have another chance to discover the mysterious allure she held for him. Five days that, in his sudden impatience, yawned before him like an eternity.
Chapter 3
Dana spent the rest of the week thinking up excuses to get her out of Saturday night’s date. None was as irrefutable—or as factual—as simply telling Nick quite firmly: I don’t want to go. Unfortunately, each time she looked into Tony’s excited eyes, she couldn’t get those harsh words past her lips.
She searched for a word to describe the tumult she’d felt after her visit to Nick’s place. Disquieting. That was it. Nick had been a gentleman, the perfect host. On the surface their conversational banter had been light, but there had been sensual undercurrents so swift that at times she had felt she’d be caught up and swept away. Nick’s brand of gentle attentiveness spun a dangerous web that could hold the most unwilling woman captive until the seduction was complete.
Yet he’d never touched her, except for that one electrifying instant when she’d been accidentally trapped between him and the refrigerator. She’d anticipated something more when he walked her to her car, and her heart had thundered in her chest. But he’d simply held open the car door, then closed it gently behind her. Only his lazy, lingering gaze had seared her and made her blood run hot.
That heated examination was enough to get the message across with provocative clarity. Nick had more in mind for the two of them. He was only biding his time. The thought scared the daylights out of her. She’d been so sure she had built an impenetrable wall around her emotions, but in Nick’s presence that wall was tumbling down. She didn’t know quite how she’d ever build it up again.
On Friday she sat on her front porch rocking until long past midnight. Usually listening to the silence and counting the stars scattered across the velvet blanket of darkness soothed her. Every night since she’d come to River Glen, the flower-scented breeze had caressed her so gently that her muscles relaxed and she felt tension ease away. But tonight there was no magic. Cars filled with rowdy teenagers split the silence and clouds covered the stars. The humid night air was as still as death and, in her distraught, churning state of mind, just as ominous.
As a result, she was as nervous and tense when she went in to bed as she had been when she’d first settled into the rocker seeking comfort and an escape from her troubling thoughts. She tried reading, but the words swam before her exhausted eyes. When she turned out the light, she lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, first counting sheep, then going over the titles of her favorite books, then counting sheep again.
Although she waged an intense battle to keep the prospect of tomorrow’s date out of her mind, it was always there, lurking about the fringes of her thoughts.
It’s only one evening, she reminded herself. Tony will be there. So will half the town, for that matter.
But even one evening in the company of a man with a surprising power to unnerve her was too much. It loomed before her as an endless ordeal to be gotten through, even though it would drain whatever supreme courage she could still muster from her worn-down defenses. Nick was constantly at the center of her thoughts, and in these thoughts his casual touches branded her in a way that awed and frightened her at the same time.
In reality, he was doing nothing but flirting with her. But how long would it be before those touches became intense, demanding? How long before the pressure would start and the torment would curl inside her like a vicious serpent waiting to strike?
Finally exhaustion claimed her and she fell into a restless, uneasy slumber. Considering her state of mind, it wasn’t surprising that she awoke in the middle of the night screaming, her throat hoarse, her whole body trembling and covered with sweat. She sat up in bed shaking, clutching the covers around her, staring blindly into the darkness for the threat that had seemed so real, so familiar. At last, still shivering but convinced it had been only a dream, she reached for the light by her bed to banish the last of the shadows. Her hand was shaking and tears streamed down her face unchecked.
Oh, God, please, when will it end? When will I be free of the memories?
Tonight was the first time in months the nightmare had returned. In her relief, she had even deluded herself that her bad dreams were a thing of the past, that they’d been left behind in a Manhattan skyscraper. She should have known that