Nine

      He was lost. Months of celibacy combined with the uncertainty of whether his body would be the same after his attack walloped him like a sucker punch. In his brain he repeated a frenzied litany. Just a kiss. Just a kiss, just a kiss...

      His erection was swollen painfully, the taut skin near bursting. His lungs had contracted to half capacity, and black dots danced in front of his eyes. Phoebe felt like heaven in his arms. She was feminine and sinfully curved in all the right places, but she wasn’t fragile. He liked that. No. Correction. He loved that. She kissed him without apology, no half measures.

      Her skin smelled like scented shower gel and baby powder. This morning her hair was again tamed in a fat braid. He wrapped it around his fist and tugged, drawing back her head so he could nip at her throat with sharp love bites.

      The noise she made, part cry, part moan, hit him in the gut. He lifted her, grunting when her legs wrapped around his waist. They were fully clothed, but he thrust against her, tormenting them both with pressure that promised no relief.

      Without warning, Phoebe struggled to get away from him. He held her more tightly, half crazed with the urge to take her hard and fast.

      She pushed at his chest. “Leo. I hear the baby. He’s awake.”

      Finally, her breathless words penetrated the fog of lust that chained him. He dropped her to her feet and staggered backward, his heart threatening to pound through the wall of his chest.

      Afraid of his own emotions, he strode to the door where his boots sat, shoved his feet into them, flung open the door and left the cabin, never looking back.

      * * *

      Phoebe had never once seen Teddy’s advent into her life as anything but a blessing. Until today. Collecting herself as best she could, she walked down the hall and scooped him out of his crib. “Well, that was a short nap,” she said with a laugh that bordered on hysteria. Teddy, happy now that she had rescued him, chortled as he clutched her braid. His not-so-nice baby smell warned her that he had a messy diaper, probably the reason he had awakened so soon.

      She changed him and then put him on a blanket on the floor while she tidied his room. Even as she automatically carried out the oft-repeated chores, her mind was attuned to Leo’s absence. He had left without a coat. Fortunately, he was wearing a thick sweater, and thankfully, the temperature had moderated today, climbing already into the low fifties.

      She was appalled and remorseful about what had happened, all of it her fault. Leo, ever the gentleman, had done his best to be levelheaded about confronting their attraction amidst the present situation. But Phoebe, like a lonely, deprived spinster, had practically attacked him. It was no wonder things had escalated.

      Men, unless they were spoken for—and sometimes not even then—were not physically wired to refuse women who threw out such blatant invitations. And that’s what Phoebe had done. She had made it abysmally clear that she was his for the taking.

      Leo had reacted. Of course. What red-blooded, straight, unattached male wouldn’t? Oh, God. How was she going to face him? And how did they deal with this intense but ill-timed attraction?

      A half hour later she held Teddy on her hip as she put away the abundance of food Leo’s chef friend had sent. She decided to have the chimichangas for lunch. They were already prepared. All she had to do was thaw them according to the directions and then whip up some rice and salad to go alongside.

      An hour passed, then two. She only looked out the window a hundred times or so. What if he was lost? Or hurt? Or sick? Her stomach cramped, thinking of the possibilities.

      * * *

      Leo strode through the forest until his legs ached and his lungs gasped for air. It felt good to stretch his physical limits, to push himself and know that he was okay. Nothing he did, however, erased his hunger for Phoebe. At first he had been suspicious of his immediate fascination. His life had recently weathered a rough patch, and feminine companionship hadn’t even been on his radar. That was how he rationalized his response to Phoebe, even on the day they’d met.

      But he knew it was more than that. She was a virus in his blood, an immediate, powerful affliction that was in its own way as dangerous as his heart attack. Phoebe had the power to make his stay here either heaven or hell. And if it were the latter, he might as well cut and run right now.

      But even as he thought it, his ego and his libido shouted a vehement hell, no. Phoebe might be calling the shots as his landlady, but when it came to sex, the decision was already made. He and Phoebe were going to be lovers. The only question was when and where.

      His head cleared as he walked, and the physical exertion gradually drained him to the point that he felt able to go back. He had followed the creek upstream for the most part, not wanting to get lost. In some places the rhododendron thickets were so dense he was forced to climb up and around. When he finally halted, he was partway up the mountainside. To his surprise, he could see a tiny section of Phoebe’s chimney sticking up out of the woods.

      Perhaps Luc had been right. Here, in an environment so antithetical to Leo’s own, he saw himself in a new light. His world was neither bad nor good in comparison to Phoebe’s. But it was different.

      Was that why Phoebe had come here? To get perspective? And if so, had she succeeded? Would she ever go back to her earlier life?

      He sat for a moment on a large granite boulder, feeling the steady pumping of his heart. Its quiet, regular beats filled him with gratitude for everything he had almost lost. Perhaps it was the nature of humans to take life for granted. But now, like the sole survivor of a plane crash, he felt obliged to take stock, to search for meaning, to tear apart the status quo and see if it was really worthy of his devotion.

      Amidst those noble