It spread in a swamping wave as she watched his gaze slide down to her mouth, hold there. She smelled honeysuckle. Moonlight and honeysuckle.

Yearning, she eased closer, imagining that first touch, that first taste, that first—

His gaze snapped back to hers, jolted her out of what seemed like some strange dream.

My God, she’d nearly—

“I need to get back.” She didn’t squeak it out, but she knew it was damn close. “I have the . . . the thing to do.”

“Me, too.” He stepped back like a man moving cautiously away from a live wire. “I have the thing.”

“Okay, well.” She got out, out of the room with its false moonlight and air that had so suddenly smelled of wild summer vines. “So.”

“So.” He slid his hands into his pockets.

Safer there, she imagined, or she might jump him again.

“I’ll play around with some ideas for the rooms I’ve seen.”

“That’d be great. Listen, I can let you have the binder. We have a binder with cut sheets and photos of lighting and furniture, bath fixtures, like that. The one here has to stay on-site, but I have one at my place you could borrow for a couple days.”

“Okay.” She took a breath, settled a bit more. “I’d love to look through it.”

“I can drop it off at the bookstore, or by your place sometime.”

“Either’s fine.”

“And you can come back, when you’ve got time, if you want to go through more of the space. If I’m not around, Owen or Ry could take you through.”

“Good, that’s good. Well, I’d better go. My mother’s going to drop the boys off at the store in a little while, and I still have . . . things.”

“I’ll see you.”

“Yeah.”

He watched her go, waited for the door to close behind her with his hands still in his pockets, and balled into fists. “Idiot,” he muttered. “You’re a goddamn idiot.”

He’d scared her so she could barely look at him, so she couldn’t wait to get away from him. All because he’d wanted—just wanted.

His mother liked to say, to him, to his brothers, they were old enough so their wants wouldn’t hurt them.

But they did. This kind of want left a jagged hole in the gut.

He’d stay away from her for a few days, until those jags smoothed out. And until she felt easier around him again. He’d have one of the men run the binder over to her—keep clear.

His wants might hurt, but he was old enough to control them.

He caught the scent of honeysuckle again and, he swore, the faintest whisper of a woman’s laugh.

“Don’t you start on me.”

Annoyed, he clomped upstairs to harass the crew.

Not ready to face the bookstore and her staff, Clare bolted to Vesta. Behind the counter, layering cheese on a pie, Franny, Avery’s second in command, shot her a smile.

“Hey, Clare. Where are my boyfriends?”

“With my mom. Is Avery here?”

“In the back. Is something wrong?”

God, how did she look? “No, nothing. Just . . . just want a minute with the boss.”

Striving for casual, Clare strolled around to the closed kitchen area where Avery cut fresh dough into tins for rising. Steve, the dishwasher, rattled around at the big double sink, and one of the waitstaff grabbed glassware from the wire shelves.

“I need to talk to you when you have a minute.”

“Talk. I’m not using my ears for anything right now.” Then Avery glanced over, saw Clare’s face. “Oh. Talk. Give me five. Go grab something cold out of the cooler for both of us. I need to get some supplies from downstairs anyway.”

“I’ll just go down and wait.”

She grabbed a couple of ginger ales and went out the door to the back stairwell. Outside again, and under the building—she could hear people talking and laughing on the porch above—and into the sprawling, low-ceilinged basement with its stacked cases of soft drinks, bottled beer, wine.

Cooler, she thought. Cooler here. And opened the ginger ale to drink long and deep.

Moonlight and honeysuckle, she thought in disgust. Just another fairy tale with her. She was a grown woman, a mother of three. She knew better.

But really, had she ever noticed, really noticed, how strong and wonderfully shaped Beckett’s mouth was? Gorgeous—she knew that, too. All the Montgomerys were, but had she ever noticed how deeply blue his eyes were in the moonlight?

“There wasn’t any moonlight, you idiot. It was an unfinished room crowded with paint cans and lumber and tarps. For God’s sake.”

She’d gotten caught up in the romance of it, that’s all. Buttery leather, blue ceilings, peacock feathers, and cashmere throws.

It was all so fanciful, so outside her own reality of practical, affordable, childproof. And it wasn’t as if she’d actually done anything. Wanting to for a minute wasn’t doing.

She paced, then whipped around when the door opened.

“What’s up?” Avery demanded. “You look like the town cops are hot on your trail.”

“I almost kissed Beckett.”

“They can’t arrest you for that.” Avery took the unopened can of ginger ale. “How, where, and why almost?”

“I went over to see a few more rooms, and we were in Marguerite and Percy—”

“Ooh-la-la.”

“Cut it out, Avery. I’m serious.”

“I can see that, sweetie, but almost kissing a very attractive, available man who’s got the hots for you doesn’t rate disaster status.”

“He doesn’t have the hots for me.”

Avery drank, shook her head. “I beg to differ, most strongly. But do go on.”

“It was just . . . There was all this stuff in there, and I bumped into something, tripped a little, and he reached out to steady me.”

“By which part?”

Clare tipped her head back, stared at the ceiling. “Why am I talking to you?”

“Who else? But really, which part? Did he take your hand, your arm, your ass?”

“My waist. He put an arm around my waist, and I . . . I don’t know, exactly, but then we were there, and his mouth was there, and that funny light, and honeysuckle.”

“Honeysuckle?” Avery’s face lit up. “You saw the ghost.”

“I did not, first because there are no ghosts.”

“You’re the one who smelled honeysuckle.”

“I only thought I did. I just got caught up. Romantic room—or it will be, the way he described it, the light, and I felt . . . I felt what I haven’t felt in a long, long time. I didn’t think, I just leaned in.”

“You said almost.”

“Because just before contact, he looked at me like I’d kicked him in the balls. Just stunned.” Even now, with Avery, mortification and that sneaky wave of lust flooded her. “And I stopped, and we both made excuses. After, he kept his distance, like I was radioactive. I embarrassed him, and myself.”

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think if you’d followed through, neither of you would’ve been embarrassed, and instead of running over here looking as if you’d mugged an old lady, you’d have danced over singing.”

Really, really, why was she talking to Avery about this?

“First, Beckett’s a friend, just a—No, first, I don’t have room for dancing and singing. My priorities are my boys and my business.”

“Which is as it should be, and which—as I’ve said before—in no way precludes what we’ll now call dancing and singing.” The teasing smile gone, Avery rubbed a hand on Clare’s arm. “Jesus, Clare, that part of your life’s not over. You’ve got a right to sing and dance, especially with someone you like and trust. You felt something, and that’s significant.”

“Maybe. But now that I’m thinking again, I really think it was just that false romance. The room in my head, the light, the imaginary scent, and being touched. It’ll be all right,” she decided. “Beckett’s not the sort to take it too seriously. It was all so quick, he’s probably already forgotten it.”

Avery started to speak, then decided to keep her opinion to herself. For now.

“Anyway, the rooms are going to be fabulous, and he’s lending me the binder with cut sheets and pictures. I’ll be able to pump it up to Hope when she comes up. Honestly, Avery, she’d have to be crazy not to jump at the chance to work there.”