Suddenly Last Summer. Sarah Morgan
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she hadn’t started the conversation, Élise rose. “Would you like cheese?”
“No, thanks. How are you feeling? Dizziness gone?”
“Yes.” All she was feeling was sick, but thinking about Pascal always did that to her. “It was a stressful day. Thank you for listening.”
“Exercise is good for stress.” Sean stood up. “I’d suggest sex, but I’m guessing you’d say no, so why don’t we go for a walk instead?”
Distracted by the mention of sex, Élise stared at him. “Walk?”
“You’d prefer sex?” His lazy gaze was loaded with humor and she felt some of the tension ease.
“I should go to bed.”
“You won’t sleep with all that adrenaline rushing around your veins. Show me what you’ve done with the boathouse. Last time I saw the place it was nothing but splintered planks and cobwebs.”
“Now? It’s dark.”
“I’ll be fine if you hold my hand.”
It was impossible not to smile. “All right.”
Why not? Deciding that fresh forest air might stop her from thinking of Walter and her past, she walked back into her lodge and picked up a thin sweater and a flashlight.
It was just a walk. Just two people enjoying some fresh air.
Where was the harm in that?
HIS PLAN HAD been to give her a report on his grandfather and leave. What hadn’t been part of his plan was lingering and eating a meal, but when he’d arrived she’d looked so shocked to see him he’d thought she was going to pass out at his feet.
There was no way he was leaving her on her own until he was sure she was all right.
“I’m ready, but I warn you it isn’t finished so you’ll need to be careful where you tread.” Switching on the flashlight, she took the steps to the lake path that wound through trees to the almost finished café. “We’re finishing off the interior over the next few days but opening will be delayed because of the deck.”
He wondered why she was so agitated about it. “What difference does a few days make? It’s a café, not a matter of life or death.”
She turned, almost dazzling him with the beam of light. “It could mean life or death for Snow Crystal. Don’t you care?” In the seconds before he was temporarily blinded, he saw the blaze of anger in her eyes.
It didn’t surprise him.
Élise was emotional and passionate about everything. He’d witnessed the intensity of that passion once before, on that night when both of them had ceased to pretend their mutual attraction didn’t exist.
“This place has been in my family for four generations. Of course I care.” His emotions were much more complex than that simple statement suggested, but he had no intention of sharing that.
The light wobbled. “But what we do here is not really important?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You are saying it has to be a person’s life before it matters? Well let me tell you something, Sean O’Neil.” She advanced on him, her green eyes the only color in her pale face. “This place is like a person to me. And the people who live and work here matter more than anything. And if Snow Crystal doesn’t survive, then that will make a huge difference to people’s lives. You might not want to be involved with what is going on here, but don’t ever dismiss it as irrelevant.”
She was wild. Furious. Uncontrolled. She’d also switched to French without realizing it.
He knew her exaggerated response was fallout from the intense emotion of the day. He saw the same thing happen all the time in his working life.
It made perfect sense.
What made less sense was the fact that he wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to slide his fingers into her hair, cover her mouth with his and kiss her until the fire in her eyes turned from anger to passion. He wanted to taste that passion again, feel it slide over his tongue and into his veins.
Disturbed by how badly he wanted to grab her, knowing that the last thing he needed in his life was a romantic entanglement, he stepped back. “I never said it was irrelevant. You’re worried about opening late. I was trying to put it in perspective.”
“Your perspective and mine are different.” She turned and walked away, the beam from the flashlight bouncing angrily across the path.
While he was waiting for his vision to adjust, Sean breathed in the scent of the trees and the water and was immediately transported back to his childhood.
He was back in a place that made him feel as if he were being suffocated. And now, to complicate things, he was with a woman who made him think of nothing but sex.
A woman who had walked off with the flashlight. He followed her down the path, making his way, barely able to see where he was going, cursing fluently as his feet crunched on twigs and sank into something soft and unidentifiable.
“That’s a perfectly good pair of shoes ruined. I should have followed Gramps’s orders and driven straight back to Boston.”
She turned, almost blinding him with the beam of the flashlight. “So why didn’t you?”
“Because I’ve had a long day.” And because the sight of his grandmother’s pale face had been enough to weld his feet to the floor. “And the food is pretty good around here. I’m planning on hanging around for a while.”
“Good. Because whatever Walter says, your family needs you.” She paused, her shoulders stiff. “I apologize for shouting. You made me angry.”
“Yeah, I got that. Still, at least you didn’t smack me over the head with the flashlight. I should probably be grateful for that. Any chance you could shine it at my feet so I can see what I’m stepping in?”
“It’s a forest! How did you ever survive growing up here?”
“I didn’t wear expensive shoes.” He contemplated wiping them on something but decided it would make it worse. “We used to play down here when we were kids. Mom would send us out with a picnic and we played pirates on the lake and built a camp in the forest. We smeared ourselves with mud to camouflage ourselves and then hid when Gramps came looking for us.”
She eyed his suit. “I cannot imagine you filthy and covered in mud.”
“Take a closer look and you’ll see it now.” He cursed again as his foot slid. “These shoes are Italian.” Giving up on his feet, he glanced up though leaves and branches. “Tyler fell out of this one. He never could keep quiet. He was wriggling, fell and broke his arm. That was the first time I saw what bone looked like. He screamed himself hoarse. Jackson was white and rushing around trying to remember the first aid we’d been taught while I stood there thinking, it would be so cool to know how to fix that. The following winter Jackson broke his arm snowboarding and that was when I knew for sure I wanted to be a doctor. I was seven years old.” He grinned at her. “Of course, I also thought it would be a great way to pull women.”
She glared at him. “You don’t charm me. I’m still angry with you.”
“There’s no justice in the world.”
“You think women are impressed by the fact you’re a doctor?”
Plenty were, but he decided this wasn’t a good moment to mention that. “Obviously you’re not.”
“Maybe you should have chosen something impressive like brain surgery.”