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“No, it’s you. Long red hair, slim little body, lots of warm smiles.”
She sucked in a deep, desperate breath. Laughing nervously, she tried to step back. “How do you know anything about me? You just met me.”
He released her slowly, and she could make out the intent look in his eyes even in the darkness. “You learn by watching and listening. I’ve done both.”
“Oh,” she said. She shook back the distracting hair, relieved to be out of his arms.
“Why are you managing this place on your own?” he asked.
“My uncle had a heart attack. I’m the only one he trusts.”
“But you don’t like it.”
That stopped her. “Does it show that much?” She sighed. “I teach first grade during the school year and head up the children’s programs for Pirate Island during the summer. Jasper’s heart attack caught all of us by surprise.” She shrugged. “I may not be a wonderful manager, but I think with a little help I can hold things together until he decides what he wants to do.”
“It’s a heavy responsibility.”
“Yeah.” Katherine grinned and picked up the tackle box. “But I’m tough.”
He put his hand on hers. “Let me take that.”
“I can handle it,” she insisted.
“I’m sure you can.”
Katherine stared at him to see if he was making fun of her. But his gaze was serious. “Okay. Just put it on the front porch, please.”
She set the barstool back in the kitchen. “See ya in the morning,” she whispered.
“That will be in about two hours,” Al said.
Katherine moaned. “Don’t rub it in.”
After she closed her door and settled into bed, Katherine stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure about Al Sanders. Too many things didn’t add up.
Who was he? Why was he staying on Pirate Island? Why did she care? She wrestled with the questions until she finally fell asleep.
Then she dreamed she danced in the dark. She couldn’t quite make out the face of her partner, but his shoulders were broad, his arms strong, and the music she heard touched a tender, vulnerable place inside her.
Chapter Two
Katherine hung up the phone and stared at it. She felt as if she’d just committed a murder.
It was the right thing to do, she told herself. After all, this was Jasper’s third heart attack. The doctor had warned Jasper to cut back on his level of responsibility. Even though her uncle wouldn’t admit it, he had no business managing the campground any longer. By putting the word out that they were interested in selling, she was just making it easier for him. Ultimately the final decision would be Jasper’s. But Katherine reasoned that if she took care of the legwork, selling the campground wouldn’t be so traumatic for him.
Then why did she feel so horrible? It was probably because Uncle Jasper and Pirate Island were the two most stable elements in her life. Since Katherine had turned six, she’d spent every summer with Jasper at the campground. On high school breaks she’d led the children’s programs.
Between her mother’s ventures in and out of matrimony and the corresponding upheavals in all their lives, Katherine had clung to Pirate Island as if it were a lifeline. Now, she was cutting it.
The thought made her sick.
From her disappointing relationship with her father to her publicly humiliating divorce, Katherine’s luck with men had been the pits. The only exception was Uncle Jasper, who’d taught her to fish, encouraged her to go to college, and taught her the value of honesty and stability.
She sighed, wishing there was another way.
“Bad news?” Al asked from behind her.
He moved closer, watching her turn away and give her cheek a surreptitious wipe. “Why didn’t you knock?”
“I did. You must not have heard me.” Alex hesitated, wondering what to do. He’d dealt with teary females before, but in his experience, women usually cried in order to get something. Specifically they cried when they found out he wasn’t going to marry them, and they weren’t going to be the next princess of Moreno.
Katherine, however, appeared genuinely upset, and that bothered him. “You’re upset. What do you need?”
She shook her head and forced a cheerful expression on her face. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “If it’s nothing, then why is your lip quivering?” He reached a hand to her face.
“You’re very observant,” she murmured, moving to the other end of the small office.
“Yes. You didn’t answer my question.”
She made a sound that was half exasperation and half laughter. “You’re also pushy.”
“Persistent,” he corrected. “What’s wrong?”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “It’s none of your business.”
He frowned. No one had ever said that to him. Not his mother, not even Isabella. Katherine Kendall was an irritating feminine puzzle. She’d reluctantly taken him in but kept her distance during the last week. And though she didn’t trust him, she was beginning to rely on him. He was making damn sure of that.
He was curious about her. The way the campground children followed her around as if she were the Pied Piper. She gave smiles away for free, hugs as if they were pennies.
To everyone but him.
He minded being excluded from her smiles, hugs and everything else. He noticed the way she used her petite body carelessly, as if she thought there was nothing sensual about the way she walked, but he sensed something simmering beneath the surface. Her slim waist and full breasts made him want to wrap his hands around her, touch her silky skin, learn her secrets. When she talked, sometimes he got hard just watching her mouth.
And if she knew what he was thinking, he’d be on the next ferry out of here. For the first time in his life Alex wanted something he’d never wanted from a woman. If only for the remainder of this month, he wanted possession of the mind, body and soul of Katherine. His obstacle was that the lady didn’t trust him.
Patience had never been his long suit. He moved forward. Katherine took a matching step away. He stopped. “Why do you do that?” he asked.
She curled her hands around the edge of the desk. “Do what?”
“Move away as if you’re afraid I’ll attack you.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Do I do that? I, uh, I didn’t realize.” She pushed back her bangs and jammed her hand into the pocket of her pink cotton shorts.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No! Of course not,” she said quickly, but the silence stretched between them.
“No?”
Katherine sighed, then said reluctantly, “This is embarrassing. I don’t know you, but I feel like I should. You remind me of someone, but I can’t remember who.”
For a second he froze, wondering if she’d seen a publicity photo of him. He forced a casual shrug. “Someone you knew when you were young?”
“No,” she admitted.
Alex wondered at the sudden color in her cheeks. “Is it my face?”
She looked trapped. “Yes, your face and your…”
“My what?”
“Your eyes.”
“And?”
Maybe if she said it out loud, the strange feeling would go away. “And your body. It’s ridiculous. I know. It’s insane, but I have this feeling that I’ve known you…” She lifted her hands, searching for the word she couldn’t bring herself to say. And there was no way on God’s green earth she’d tell him about the music.
Alex smiled. “Intimately.”
“But we both know it’s not possible,” she went on quickly, not liking the satisfaction she heard in his voice. “I’ve never met you. You’ve never met me. It’s just—”
He touched her, and her mile-a-minute denial cut off. Her vocal cords jammed. He cupped her chin, gently encouraging her to meet his gaze, and Katherine knew she was in major-league trouble.
“If I had met you, mon amie, I couldn’t have forgotten. Perhaps we met in another life.”
“I, uh, I don’t really believe in reincarnation,” she managed breathlessly.
“Neither do I.” His face grew serious. “But there are other ways—dreams, fantasies.”
Katherine squished her eyes shut, fighting his words and the images he provoked. “I don’t have a lot of time for dreams or fantasies.”
“Fantasies make time for themselves.”
He wrapped his warm hand around her waist, and she thought she’d faint. Oh, God, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. She’d done such a good job of it before. She clenched her jaw.
“I dreamed of you,” he said. “I dreamed I tasted your smile. I made love to your mouth for a day and a night, because I couldn’t stop. Then I brought you so close, there was nothing between us.”
Keeping her eyes closed, she felt him lower his head, felt his warm breath, got dizzy over his heat and strength. The melody began again, so sweetly it hurt. She waited, dreaded, wished.
His mouth barely whispered against hers in an openly erotic touch that coaxed and threatened and sent her pulse into triple time. She saw herself falling down deep into a well that never ended. No safety net. No coming back.
It scared her spitless. Katherine jerked back, her eyes flying open. “No!”
“No?” he repeated, as if he were unfamiliar with the meaning of the word.
“N-o-o.” She drew it out so he wouldn’t miss it, and she was beginning to think she needed some practice with that word herself. She was going to need ice for the burn marks where he’d touched her. “This weird feeling will go away,” she insisted. “It’s not real, and we don’t need to act on it.”
“Not real.”
Her insides still felt like a five-alarm fire. “Exactly. It’s good that we both understand. It’s perfectly clear.” Clear as mud, she thought. Without a hint of conversational finesse, she forced the conversation back to business. “Is there a problem somewhere on the campground? Or did you have a question?”
He paused, studying her, and she knew she hadn’t fooled him. Such dark, perceptive eyes Al Sanders had. She waited out the uncomfortable silence, hoping he’d relent.
“Do you know anything about a balloon battle?” he finally asked.
Katherine laughed in relief and nodded at his quizzical expression. “Yes.” She checked her watch. “Oops, we’d better hurry or we’ll be late. Wednesdays at two o’clock sharp, all the kids and some adults engage in a water-balloon battle.”
Grateful for something to break the spell, she grabbed some bags of balloons from a drawer and led the way out of the office.
“A game,” Al concluded.
“Sort of.”
“And what is the objective?”
Katherine came to a stop on the wooden front porch of the rec building and looked at him. “You’ve never been in a water-balloon battle?” When he shook his head, she made a tsking sound. “The objective of a water-balloon battle is to get everyone wet and to laugh a lot.”
“But who wins?”
“No one.”
“Then why?”
“For fun,” she said, wondering why the concept seemed foreign to him. “Like making mud pies when you were three.”
Alex looked at her blankly. Mud pies?
“Seeing who can do the worst belly flopper off the side of the pool?”
His German swimming instructor had allowed only perfect dives. He shook his head.
Katherine was determined to find common ground. “Who can blow the biggest bubble-gum bubble?”
Alex’s lips twitched at that. He could just imagine the appalled expression on his etiquette instructor’s face if the future ruler of Moreno had suggested a bubble-blowing contest. “Try again.”
“Okay. Last one. Little boys are famous for this. Who can spit the farthest?”
He laughed out loud. “You’re joking.”
Katherine smiled, liking the rare sound of his deep chuckle. “No. And if you’ve never done any of those things, you’re either an alien or you were raised in a bubble.”
He felt his grin fall, remembering the scandal that had rocked his childhood. “You could be right.”
The turbulence in his dark eyes tugged at her. Al obviously knew how to have the adult brand of fun. He was an expert at everything from sailing and charming conversation to seducing a woman. But he seemed lost when it came to carefree, silly, childlike fun. It made her wonder what he’d missed. It made her care. She deliberately kept her tone light. “An extraterrestrial. The kids’ll love it. Well, get ready for a new experience.”
About thirty kids, some of them over thirty years old, stood in the grassy area set aside for outside recreational games. They wore bathing suits and were screaming for blood.
