"Sure," Kate said as the corner of her lips twitched.

"How long are the poems?" Rob asked.

"Oh," his mother answered, "fifteen or twenty minutes."

He groaned inwardly and Kate cleared her throat behind her cloth napkin.

When the meal was over and everyone had pushed their plates away, Kate offered to help his mother clear the table.

"No, you stay out here and keep your grandfather company," Grace insisted. "Rob will help me."

Rob was leaving for Seattle in the morning, and he figured his mother wanted to talk in private about his trip.

"What's going on between you and Kate?" she asked instead.

"What?" He looked at her and set the plates in the sink. He hadn't seen that one coming, but he wasn't all that surprised.

"Don't play games." She placed a serving dish on the counter, then reached into a cabinet and pulled out a can of decaffeinated coffee. "I see the way you look at her."

"How do I look at her?"

"Like she's special to you."

He opened a drawer and took out several plastic bowls with lids. "I like her."

"You look at her like you more than like her."

He spooned red potatoes into a bowl and didn't comment.

"You weren't fooling me. I know you were playing footsies with her under the table."

Actually, his feet hadn't been that close to her, but his hand had been on her thigh most of the evening. Nothing sexual, just touching her. He shrugged. "So, I like her a lot."

"You're thirty-six." She filled the carafe with water then said, "In three weeks you'll be thirty-seven."

"And next year I'll be thirty-eight. What's your point?" he asked even though he knew.

"Just that Kate's a nice girl. Maybe someone you could get serious about." She paused, and he didn't have to wait long for the rest. "Maybe marry."

"Maybe not. I've done that, and I sucked at it."

"You got married because Louisa was pregnant."

"Doesn't mean that I didn't love her." He looked at his mother and asked, "Where's the pie?" Subject closed.

There was nothing that could mess up a good thing like talk of marriage. Thank God Kate wasn't pushing him in that direction. She never asked where he was going or when she would see him again. She didn't get jealous when he talked to other women or paranoid when he had to work late and couldn't see her. She didn't get all girly and want to talk about their "relationship."

As far as he was concerned, that made their relationship just about perfect.

Rob's trip to Seattle turned into the trip from hell. Since his last visit, Amelia had decided to take up permanent residency in terrible-twos town, and she regularly threw fits like she was possessed. The first hint that she'd turned to the dark side happened the day he took her to play with his former teammate's, little girl, Taylor Lee. They'd only been at Bruce Fish's about half an hour when Amelia strong-armed Henry the Octopus from Taylor Lee, then whacked her in the head with it.

The fit at Fishy's was tame in comparison to the spectacular fit she threw his last night in town when he took her to the Old Spaghetti Factory. She was perfectly fine during dinner—well, as fine as a two-year-old could be—but on the way out, he told her she couldn't have the Lifesavers she knew he had in his pocket. She threw herself on the ground and beat her heels on the floor, and all he could do was watch, for fear that if he picked her up, she'd nail him in the nuts with her little pink boots.

His sweet baby girl had turned into a demon child, and to top it off, Louisa had clearly lost her mind, too. Just as he was leaving for his return trip, she mentioned that she and Amelia should come and stay with him in Gospel. Not permanently, just on the weekends.

During the summer months, business kept him from seeing as much of Amelia as he'd have liked, and he wasn't opposed to seeing more of her. But he didn't want Louisa staying with him. If she brought the subject up again, he'd give her the names of local real estate agents.

By the time his plane landed in Boise around noon, he was exhausted and not looking forward to the long drive to Gospel. An hour from town, he called Kate on his cell phone. She arrived fifteen minutes after he got home, and seeing her standing on his porch was like looking at sunshine.

The second the door shut behind her, she pushed him up against the hard wood. A surprised oomph left his chest, and she grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head. The gold Rolex he'd been given when he'd signed with the Seattle Chinooks slammed into the door and dug into his skin. He didn't mind. "What are you planning?" he asked.

"An assault."

She kissed his neck, and the touch of her wet mouth sent shivers down his spine, working out the tension he'd felt for days. "Are you going to hurt me?"

"Yeah, but I don't think you'll complain."

He closed his eyes. "Does this mean you missed me?"

"No," she said, but her actions attested to the lie. "I was too busy to miss you." She let go of one of his wrists and slid her hand down his chest. "Mmm," she murmured as she softly sucked his throat. She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from the waistband of his pants. Then she cupped his crotch and gave him a gentle squeeze. "Does this mean you missed me?"

"God yes," he said through a tortured breath.

She laughed and kissed her way down his chest and scar. She knelt in front of him and pressed her face into his belly as she unbuttoned his pants. She looked up at him and took him into her hand. Then she kissed the head of his hard dick, and he spread his feet to keep from falling. She sucked him into her hot, wet mouth and she stayed with him through his climax.

When it was over, she pulled his underwear and pants back up. "I think I'm in love," he said, totally relaxed.

She reached for his fly and buttoned it. "No, you're not. That's just your afterglow talking."

She was probably right, but there was a little part of him that wished she wouldn't have dismissed what he'd said so quickly, as if he couldn't possibly mean it. He didn't know why it should bother him, but it did. He liked her a lot. Liked having her around. He loved how she made him feel. He loved having sex with her, but that wasn't love. Love didn't feel this relaxed. This good.

His life here in Gospel was turning out to be just about perfect. Why would he want to mess it up with love?

Eighteen

Kate pulled her CRV to a stop at the only traffic light in town. On the passenger seat next to her sat a little Tiffany box with an Egg Sucking Bugger inside. For the past week, she'd worked on tying the fly for Rob's birthday. It wasn't near as good as anything he could tie. She'd worked hard on it, though, and she wondered if he'd appreciate the effort. span

She shifted in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. The rhinestone thong she'd ordered from Frederick's of Hollywood was uncomfortable as hell and cut into her hips, not to mention other places. It was made of hundreds of clear glass stones, all strung together to form a shiny triangle. The matching bra itched her nipples, and the center clasp dug into her left breast. She looked like an escaped showgirl from the Rio. She didn't have to wonder if he'd appreciate her underwear.

The light turned green and she took off from the intersection. She reached for the sunglasses clipped to her visor and slid them on her face. It was seven in the evening and the June sun was starting its descent. She'd never just shown up at his house unexpected before. She didn't think he'd mind.

He'd mentioned his birthday in passing a few weeks ago, but she'd avoided the subject so she could surprise him. She had plans for him that he wasn't likely to forget anytime soon.

She hadn't seen Rob all day, but it wasn't the first time. He'd gotten so busy lately that he'd hired two people to work for him in addition to the little boys he paid to clean camping gear. She figured he'd probably been at the marina.

The thin rhinestone halter dug into her shoulder, and she ran a finger beneath the collar of her wrap dress and adjusted the strap. Since the night Rob had returned from Seattle, she'd noticed a subtle change in him. His touch seemed more personal. More possessive, as if he was trying to pull her closer. He'd made her a fishing vest and given her some of his most prized flies. The day he'd given her a book on how to become an entrepreneurial genius had been the day she'd no longer been able to keep him at arm's length. She hadn't been able to tell herself that he was just her fantasy man. She'd looked up into his smiling face, and she'd done the one thing she'd told herself never to do.

She'd tried to keep her emotions at a safe distance, but her heart hadn't gone along with the plan. She'd fallen in love with Rob. Truly, madly,full tilt in love. The kind of love that snatched your breath away, and it scared the hell out of her.

She turned up his long drive and pulled to a stop in front of his garage. She grabbed the Tiffany box off the passenger seat and shut the car door behind her. The heels of her silver sling backs tapped on concrete as she made her way across the driveway. The rhinestone string of her thong pulled, and she walked very carefully up the steps to his front door. She rang the bell and had to keep her hands purposely at her side. She didn't want to get caught picking at her backside when Rob answered the door.

The door swung open, but it wasn't Rob. A short blonde in a red tube dress stood in the threshold. She had blue eyes and perfect skin, not a mole or blemish or enlarged pore to be seen on her beautiful face. An alarm bell rang in Kate's head.