Moonlight and Shadows (6 page)

Jack sensed her embarrassment turning to
confusion and then pain, and he knew he needed to do something, and
quickly. So he spoke in an attempt to give his mouth an alternative
to touching hers again in a comforting caress. He spoke before he
became completely lost in the soul-deep darkness of her eyes,
before he’d actually given sufficient thought to his words.

“I could kiss you all night long.”

His voice was husky and sincere enough to
singe Lila’s sensibilities with another wave of heat.

“It’s . . . it’s just a physical thing,” she
stammered, trying and failing to discount the emotions swamping
her.

“Very physical,” he agreed, his grin
broadening.

“A purely chemical reaction,” she
continued.

“No, I flunked chemistry. I think this is
something else.”

“You flunked chemistry?”

“Among other things.”

“Oh.” Disappointment softened her voice, and
Jack suddenly wished he’d done better in school, a thought that
hadn’t crossed his mind in fifteen years. Maybe if he’d known he’d
someday fall for a college professor, he’d have tried harder, even
though at the time it had seemed as if he were trying his hardest
and getting damn little to show for it.

“I do have my good points,” he said, only
half teasing.

“I’m sure you do.” She glanced away, but he
wasn’t ready to lose her for the night.

He brushed her cheek with his hand, urging
her to meet his gaze. “I’ve been in business for ten years, and
you’re the first disaster I’ve had. I’m beginning to think it’s the
best thing to ever happen to me.”

Her blush deepened, and she looked away
again.

“I coach Little League,” he added in a
coaxing tone. “My mother loves me, and my ex-wife doesn’t hate me.”
A true testimonial if he’d ever heard one, but its effect wasn’t
what he’d bargained for either.

Her head came up sharply. “You’re
divorced?”

Not the crime of the century in his book,
but she made it sound like a federal offense. “Only once,” he
teased, but he could tell by the look on her face that he’d dug
himself into a hole. He wasn’t sure exactly why or how he’d gotten
off on such a cockamamie subject with a woman he wanted to kiss
again as soon as possible.

Lila shook her head. “I’d like you to
leave.” It was a lie, she admitted, but only half of one. Part of
her did want him to leave, desperately, while the other half of her
wanted just as desperately for him to kiss her once more.

“And I’d like to take you out tomorrow
night,” he said.

“I don’t date.” The statement sounded
ridiculous now, even to her own ears, but she held by her
credo.

“You don’t date,” he repeated after a long,
tense pause, and she detected a note of anger in his voice. “But
you’ll kiss to the point of spontaneous combustion. I’m not
complaining, mind you, but you might be
safer
dating, Dr.
Singer.”

Unwittingly, on a surge of adrenaline, she
lifted her hand to slap him. Just as quickly, though, she curled
her fingers and dropped her hand, abashed and confused.

“Okay,” Jack said calmly, angry at himself
for saying such a stupid thing.

“You don’t understand.” Her face was white,
and she’d clenched her hands together so tightly, each knuckle
stood out in stark relief.

“I’d like to understand.” He reached for
her, but she backed away.

“I’m sorry, really. I’d like you to
leave.”

“If you want to talk, I’m a good
listener.”

“No, thank you.” She took another step
backward, and Jack conceded defeat.

He turned and walked over to the stack of
lumber where he’d left his lunchbox. Before he let himself out the
French doors, though, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
“You know, Lila,” he said, a slight smile curving a corner of his
mouth, “not even my mother got that upset about my flunking
chemistry.”

It was a second-rate attempt at humor, but
Lila grabbed for it, partly out of appreciation for the attempt,
partly out of contrition for the dreadful act of almost slapping
him. He hadn’t deserved to take the brunt of her anger, especially
since it had been directed at herself more than at him.

“I’ll get over it,” she said with a weak
smile of her own.

It was more than Jack had expected, but
then, she was turning out to be more than he’d expected. Back in
September he’d thought her all sweetness and serenity. Tonight
she’d shown her fire, and he found himself drawn to the heat of her
flames with an even greater force than he’d been drawn to the light
of her sweetness.

* * *

Lila knew she had to forgive herself, but
she wasn’t sure how or where to begin. Time helped, and Jack gave
her a week of it. Twice he left messages on her answering machine
to explain his absence and to confirm his return on Friday.

Twice she listened to his rich, deep voice,
the western drawl slow and easy, the timbre soothing like a river
of honey. Twice she listened to him call her Lila, not Dr. Singer.
She tried not to think about it. They obviously had nothing in
common, which was her preferred standing for their
relationship.

Nothing in common except those kisses.

The wayward thought intruded Friday evening
as she stared out the sitting room window at the midnight-blue
winter evening, her fingers tight around a heavy white
envelope.

Piles of books and papers were spread out on
the desk she’d moved back into the sitting room. Curriculum notes
covered her end tables—British fiction on the one next to the
fireplace, myth and Bible on the one between her brocade love seat
and chair. Someday she hoped to teach Shakespeare, but she was in
no position to make requests. In truth, she was grateful just to
have her job. Even with her tenure, the university had been under
enormous pressure last year to force her resignation.

She’d been such a blind, stupid fool. She,
who’d always prided herself on her intelligence, had fallen for a
handsome face and the oldest trick in the book.

With a small sound of disgust she turned
away from the window, then whirled back around. It was Jack. Her
heart started racing as she watched his truck round the corner into
her driveway. Her gaze dropped to the envelope.

Coward
, she accused herself, but
there was nothing she could do. She didn’t have the courage to face
him, and for whatever reasons, she’d dawdled and revised the letter
until it was far too late to mail it.

Before she could change her mind, she walked
swiftly into the office and laid the letter on the stack of lumber
where Jack always put his lunchbox. She’d written plainly and
concisely. He couldn’t fail to understand. She’d informed him that
their contract, oral as it had been, was terminated. He’d done
sufficient work to compensate her loss. She would hire the finish
work out and still feel she’d gotten the best of the bargain. His
building expertise had far surpassed her expectations. He’d built
her office as if it were meant to last a thousand years. Then she’d
thanked him and signed off with “sincerely,” and somewhere between
the salutation and the closing she’d worked in a brief but
heartfelt apology for almost slapping him. She hadn’t mentioned
their two “misunderstandings,” and she certainly hadn’t referred to
them as kisses.

Kisses
. . . The word slipped across
her mind like a silent whisper, and her fingers slowly curled into
a fist. Lord, the man knew how to kiss . . . remarkably.

The sound of a slamming truck door jerked
her out of her reverie, and Lila quickly disappeared back into the
main part of the house.

* * *

If the lady won’t go out on a date, bring
the date to her, Jack thought, juggling a floppy pizza box, a
six-pack of beer, a container of salad, and a smaller container of
Rudi’s Pizzeria’s famous thick and creamy gorgonzola dressing.
Being a connoisseur of pizza by necessity, he knew Rudi’s was
good.

The beer was imported and expensive. But the
salad was the piece de resistance: lettuce, tomatoes, cherry
peppers, salami, pepperoni, provolone, big chunky croutons, black
olives, and the gorgonzola dressing. No woman could resist Rudi’s
salad. It had the acceptable cachet of being a salad, but it was
richer than sin.

Dessert was richer than double sin, a Kahlua
truffle torte that was no torte at all, but a melt-in-your-mouth
concoction of bittersweet chocolate and mystery. Irresistible.

He let himself into the office and walked
across the cold plywood floor to set the pizza on the space heater.
Then he carried the heater closer to the door leading to the rest
of the house and knelt down to turn on the heat. If he’d had a fan,
he would have used it to waft the tantalizing aroma in her
direction. It was all part of his plan.

The lady did not want to be pushed. He’d had
all week to figure out and digest that particular piece of
information, so he’d decided to pull instead. He would be low key,
easygoing, and available. Very available. He’d be there if she
needed a friend or a shoulder to lean on. He wouldn’t make any more
passes that ended up with him becoming so aroused, he forgot to
think and nearly got his face slapped. Yet she’d been so hot and
sweet in his arms, even the memory of their kisses sparked a
physical reaction in him.

He stood abruptly, ran a hand through his
hair, and reminded himself that patience was a virtue. Pizza was
the bait that night, not the incredible fireworks they made when
their mouths and bodies rubbed up against each other.

Lord knew he was no saint, he’d never
claimed to be, but he’d always been discriminating when it came to
women, love, and making love. His response to Lila Singer made him
wonder if he’d lost the ability to distinguish between lust and
longing, love and desire, wanting and needing, between the woman
herself and what she did to him with each kiss.

He remembered loving and wanting Jessica
Daniels in the eleventh grade until he’d thought his manhood and
his heart would both break into a thousand pieces if he didn’t have
her. He’d been wrong. Jessica Daniels had never realized he was on
the planet. He’d followed her into and flunked out of chemistry for
nothing, and he’d remained intact for the next love down the
line.

Marriage had been different in every way. He
still missed a lot of things about marriage: having someone sharing
his home, someone special, an ally through good times and bad—until
things got really bad. And without admitting to being a chauvinist,
he missed a woman’s cooking. He missed it a lot. Women cooked
differently from men. They put more love and less ego into it, and
they actually followed recipes. It was a noticeable difference.

Lila Singer was a noticeable difference too.
Being in love with her was out of the question. Love took longer
than two kisses, three months of fantasies, and a week of
unanswered phone calls. He was definitely fascinated, though,
definitely intrigued, and he definitely wanted her. He felt
possessive and protective. She touched him in places he hadn’t
expected and in ways he hadn’t experienced, and with only her kiss.
She’d shown magic for her husband. Without knowing what it was at
the time, Jack had felt the remnants of that magic under a harvest
moon, and he couldn’t help but want, or need, to bring it back to
full power.

He also needed to eat some pizza before the
smell drove him crazy. He turned around to drop his gloves on the
lumber he’d been using as a makeshift table, noticed the envelope,
and his enthusiasm for the evening did a steady nosedive. Letters
were not his favorite form of communication, especially when they
came from someone he’d been looking forward to seeing all week.

He picked up the envelope and studied the
letters looped and swirled across the front. It was his name all
right, Jack and Hudson, which was barely a step above Mr. and
Hudson. With a short sigh he shoved the envelope into his shirt
pocket.

“Dammit.” The word slipped out between his
teeth. What was he supposed to do now?

* * *

Pizza? Lila turned her face toward the door
of the sitting room and sniffed. Definitely pizza, pepperoni pizza,
probably with green peppers and black olives. She checked her watch
and wondered if she had any more of those microwave things in the
freezer. Of course, even if she did, it wouldn’t be hot, fresh
pizza dripping with melted mozzarella and with sizzling slices of
pepperoni scattered over the top. Her stomach growled, and she
mentally told it to shut up and get ready for one of those frozen
microwave things.

Why, tonight of all nights, did he have to
bring a pizza to work? Not only was the smell bound to linger and
make her own dinner even less appetizing, but as soon as he read
the letter he would leave. That great-smelling pizza would be cold
by the time he got home or wherever he went—which was no business
of hers. The man had an ex-wife and probably a little black book of
paramours, and why not? He had a lot of appeal. He was clean-cut,
and good-looking in a sexy, outdoorsy kind of way. He ran a
successful business with the free, independent streak of the
self-employed. He worked hard and maintained high standards. He
responded to ethical and moral obligations above and beyond the
call of the law. The man was a paragon. There were probably a
thousand other things he usually did on Friday nights, things he
would prefer to do besides work on her office.

Darn it.
She should have ordered her
own pizza. Why didn’t she think of these things in advance? And
what in the world had she been working on before he’d disrupted her
concentration—as he always did. She flipped through her legal pads
and darned him again for being the cause of her computerless
status. She wished he’d hurry up and read the letter and leave, so
she could get on with her own boring dinner and boring evening.