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“If Rachel catches you up here, she’s going to kill me,” Dermot warned.
The old man grinned. “At my age, I can do whatever I want. I don’t take my orders from her.” He paused. “Although it seems that you do.”
“I work for her. She’s the boss.”
“You know what I mean. I can see that something’s changed between you. You two used to act like lovesick fools.”
“We were not—”
“Don’t think I didn’t know what was goin’ on,” Eddie said, wagging his finger at Dermot. “I may be old, but I’m not stupid. There was a spark there, somethin’ special. I don’t know what happened between you, but whatever it was, I expect the spark is still there.”
“We just decided it would be better if—”
“Don’t give me that bull. What the hell is better about this? The two of you mopin’ around? How is that better?”
Eddie had barely said more than five words to him before this and now he was lecturing him on his relationship with Rachel? This didn’t seem real, Dermot mused. But then, Eddie had known Rachel her whole life. Maybe he could offer some valuable advice.
“It’s the way Rachel wants it,” Dermot said.
“Oh, don’t be such a namby-pamby. Take control.” Eddie frowned. “I had a spark once. Shoulda married her, but I didn’t. Her name was Mary Ellen Duncan. I wasted too much time and some other fella caught her eye and that was the end of it for me. We coulda been happy. We coulda had a good life, but I was too dang polite to tell her how I felt.”
“Carpe diem,” Dermot murmured.
“What are we talking about now?”
“Carpe diem. It’s Latin. Seize the day. But what if I don’t know how I feel?” Dermot asked.
Eddie waved his hand dismissively. “Then figure it out. Take off your short pants and be a man. Don’t be a mouse. Because, I’ll tell you one thing. When she leaves this farm and goes back to the city, there’s goin’ to be all kinds of men who’ll come courting. And I’m not sure you’d be able to stand the competition. You’re not that good-lookin’.”
“Well, thanks for the advice,” Dermot said. “I appreciate it.”
Eddie shook his head. “Don’t just sit there. Do something about it. Carpe your diem.”
“Any suggestions?”
“I suggest you take her out for ice cream. Rachel likes ice cream. Buy her a cone at Ivy’s and sit yourself down and have a nice talk. It will do wonders, mark my words.”
“Ice cream. All right, I could do that. That’s about all I can afford right now.”
“Well, do it, then,” he said. “Climb down that ladder and make a date. Now. Before you lose your courage.”
Dermot groaned, then swung his leg over the ladder. “You better get down before she sees you up here.”
“I will,” Eddie said, grinning. “You have a good evening, now.”
Dermot grabbed his shirt from the porch rail and slipped into it as he crossed the yard. He found her surrounded by goats in the paddock near the milking barn. She held one of the kids in her arms, laughing as he nibbled at her hair.
At first, he was reluctant to interrupt her. She looked so pretty, so happy. She was dressed in a loose cotton sundress, her hair full from the humidity in the air. He clenched his fingers as he thought about the last time he’d touched her, buried his face in her hair, pressed his lips to her neck—he drew a ragged breath—and lost himself in the warmth of her body.
Dermot stood on the lowest rail of the gate and braced his hands on the top edge. “I see I’ve been replaced,” he called.
She turned and looked at him. “Hey.”
“I used to be the one who nibbled on your hair. Or have you forgotten already?”
She set the kid down and walked over to the gate. “Are you done for the night?”
He reached out and grabbed her hand. “I am. And I was wondering if you’d like to drive into town and get some ice cream. It’s a beautiful Friday night.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yeah, maybe I am. Things have been a little tense lately. Would you go out on a date with me?”
She studied him for a long moment then shrugged.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
He opened the gate for her and she stepped out of the pen. Dermot draped his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “What else is there to do in small-town Wisconsin on a Friday night besides watch goats?”
She thought for a long moment. “There’s a football game at the high school. And you can usually find a bingo game somewhere in town, at one of the churches or at the fire hall. And the stores on Center Street stay open late. We could go hang out at Meller’s Five-and-Dime or Big Jimmy’s Hardware.”
“All right,” he said, “we have choices.”
She reached up and grabbed his hand where it rested on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Let’s start with the ice cream.”
They hopped in the truck and headed off to Mapleton. There was only one place for ice cream, Ivy’s Drive-In. Dermot swung the truck beneath the overhang, and a minute later, a carhop put a tag on the windshield and stood next to the driver’s door, awaiting their order.
They both ordered a cone, then hopped out of the truck and walked around to the back. Rachel boosted herself up on the open tailgate, her slender legs dangling.
“I love nights like this,” she said. “So warm and so perfect. Makes me wish winter would never come.”
“I bet it’s beautiful around here in the winter,” Dermot said. “I’d like to see it.”
She bumped his shoulder. “You would not love the winters here. They’re cold and windy. And you don’t have to say things like that.”
“I’m not supposed to say something I really mean?” He grabbed her hand. “I don’t want to argue with you, Rachel. I think we should spend our last few weeks enjoying ourselves.”
The carhop appeared with their ice cream cones, defusing the tension between them. Dermot took a bite and smiled. “Raspberry twirl,” he said. “Good choice. What did you get?”
“I’m just a vanilla girl,” Rachel said.
“You are not vanilla,” Dermot said. He leaned close and dropped a kiss on her lips, licking his as he drew back. “Yum.”
“That’s about as exciting as it’s going to get,” she teased.
“I like kissing you. I could kiss you all night. Where do people go around here to make out? Maybe we could go see that place.”
“I never did that when I was in high school. I was a good girl.”
“Well, maybe you should give it a try now.”
“And maybe you could take me to the homecoming dance, too,” she teased.
“I never went to a high school dance,” he said. “That would be fun.”
She seemed surprised by his admission. “You never went to a dance? I find that hard to believe.”
“Kieran and I really didn’t do a whole lot at school. We spent most of our free time working at my grandfather’s boatyard. We built a racing sloop junior year of high school, and then senior year, we spent every weekend tearing up and down the sound.” He wove his fingers through hers. “Now, if you had gone to our high school, I might have asked you to a dance. Or taken you out on our boat.”
“You never would have noticed me,” she said. “I used to just blend into the walls. I was very plain and very shy. I was the girl with the pencil case. I used to carry all my colored pencils around in this plastic case with a little handle. It kind of became my thing. I was odd.”
“All right. Maybe I wouldn’t have asked you out.”
She reached over and dabbed a bit of ice cream on the end of his nose. “See. I like it when you’re honest with me.”
Dermot stared at her for a long moment. He’d been completely honest with her. She was the one who didn’t believe him. God, she was the most beautiful, exasperating, exciting woman he’d ever known, and every day that they spent together, she grew more beautiful. He lived for her smile and her laugh and the way her eyes lit up when they spoke.
“Would you like to hear another truth?” he asked.
“First you need to clean the ice cream off the end of your nose.”
“You do that,” he said.
When she leaned into him, he caught her by surprise, kissing her again. “Here’s a truth,” he murmured. “I like you a whole lot, Rachel Howe. And if I’m not careful, I might fall in love with you.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she stared at him, wide-eyed. “I like you, too,” she said.
It felt good to say those words out loud. And he didn’t care if all they shared was the occasional kiss from now until he left. He was satisfied just to sit next to her and talk.
He had eighteen days left to figure this all out. It didn’t seem like a lot of time, but for the two of them, it would have to be enough.
SLEEP WAS IMPOSSIBLE. Rachel stared at the ceiling of her bedroom and groaned softly. The heat made her skin sticky and her hair damp. Even the fan in the window didn’t provide any relief. But she knew it wasn’t the heat. It was Dermot.
Her mind was spinning, a tangle of thoughts she just couldn’t seem to sort out. She’d left him at the door a few hours before, determined not to let a few delicious kisses rock her resolve to put distance between them.
Was it so difficult for him to understand? She was only trying to protect herself from the hurt that would eventually come. Surely he could see that she was growing far too dependent on him.
It would be so easy to fall in love, to believe that he was some white knight come to rescue her from all her problems. With a partner, she could keep the farm, she could have time to do her work as an artist, she could honor the promise she made to her father. Everything would fall into place so neatly.
But was she idealizing what they shared because she needed him to make her life easier? Or was she feeling a connection that was meant to last a lifetime? Rachel had thought she’d found love in the past and she’d been proved wrong. So what made her think this was the real thing—and after only three weeks together?
With a soft curse, she sat up and raked her hands through her tangled hair. This was crazy! No matter what she did, she was going to get hurt. Even now, the thought of falling asleep without him brought a lonely ache to her heart.
He was a wonderful man, kind and compassionate, patient and concerned, so incredibly sexy. Exactly the sort of man she could see herself loving for the rest of her life. But was she in love or just caught up in the possibility of love?
Her stomach growled. Maybe if she made herself a snack she’d be able to sleep. Rachel rolled out of bed and walked downstairs. The kitchen was dark and she pulled open the refrigerator door and let the cool air rush out.
The pitcher of lemonade looked appealing and she set it on the counter, then pulled out a package of string cheese. She found a glass and a plate and added a few crackers, then carried the food out to the porch.
After living in the heart of Chicago, she was always amazed at how silent the world could be. It almost hurt her ears to search for a noise. A dog barked in the distance, the sound traveling in the still air.
“Can’t sleep?”
The sound of his voice startled her. He sat on one of the wicker chairs at the end of the porch. He was wearing just his boxers, his bare feet resting on the porch rail, a bottle of beer in his hand.
“You scared me.”
“Sorry. I came over to get something to drink. It’s so hot I can’t sleep.”
The sky flashed. “Heat lightning. I don’t think it’s going to cool down.”
She held out the plate to him as she sat down, and he took a piece of string cheese. “I have to get some of this to take home with me,” he said.
“You can probably get it in Seattle,” she said. “You just haven’t looked for it.”
He took a bite, then a sip of his beer. “You know what I’d like to do? For the next seventeen days, I’d like to forget that I’m leaving. I’d like to pretend that the bus ticket I have back to Seattle doesn’t exist. I’d like to just live each day without thinking about the next.”
“That might be difficult to do,” Rachel said.
“Why can’t we do what feels right?” he said. “Why do we have to deny ourselves?”
Rachel’s breath caught in her throat and she quickly drew another. Why? Was it really going to change anything? It wouldn’t lessen the loneliness she’d feel after he left, so why bother to protect herself?
He was right. She could deal with the pain when it came. But until then, she’d revel in the passion that this man had brought into her life. “All right,” she said. “But you have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” Dermot said.
“When it comes time to leave, you’ll just go. You’ll walk away and there won’t be any long goodbyes or promises that we’ll see each other again. You’ll just disappear and not come back.”
“Rachel, I—”
“Those are my terms,” she said.
He considered her offer, then nodded. “All right. I can live with that.”
Rachel set the snack down on the small table between the wicker chairs, then slowly stood. She walked to his chair and, straddling his legs, sat down on his lap. “I think I want you to kiss me now.”
Dermot stared up at her, then reached to touch her breast. He cupped her warm flesh, running his thumb over her nipple until it became a stiff peak beneath the thin cotton of her nightgown. He smoothed his hand along her hip, his fingers soft and teasing.
Rachel could feel his hard shaft between them, straining against the front of his boxers. When he was with her, it never took much for Dermot to get aroused. Rachel had never had that power with a man before. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that she could have Dermot whenever she wanted him, that he would be there, ready and willing to fulfill her every need. Dermot moaned softly as she reached between them and wrapped her fingers around his heat.
Already, his body was so familiar to her. She knew how he’d react to her touch, the way his breath would catch in his throat, the sound of his voice whispering her name.
“Three days has been too long,” she murmured.
Dermot grabbed her waist and stood, wrapping her legs around his hips. He backed her up against the wall of the house and kissed the curve of her neck and then moved lower, teasing at her breast with his tongue. “Your bed or mine?” he asked as he gently caressed her nipple.
“Let’s stay right here,” she said. “It’s too hot inside.”
