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Some undertone in her voice puzzled him. She sounded surprised. Or even disbelieving.
“You’re beautiful,” he said simply.
His mystery redhead snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s me.”
Oh, yeah. Definitely disbelieving.
He grinned at her. “You think I’m full of hot air.”
The pretty mouth was mulish and not smiling. “I know what I look like.”
He was tempted to end the argument by kissing her, but he didn’t make a habit of grabbing women he hardly knew. And anyway…she wasn’t being coy. The words had been pained, as if pushed through a throat that was raw.
“Did somebody insult you?” Will asked gently.
She took a long swallow of her drink, swayed and clunked it down on the railing beside his. Liquid splashed.
“You could say that,” she said in a small, tight voice.
He was hardly aware of his hands tightening into fists. Partly to keep them off her, and partly because he wanted to slug the bastard who’d hurt her feelings. “Who?”
She blinked at him again.
“Who?” he repeated.
“Oh, it was my own stupid fault,” she said finally. “I guess I was supposed to get the message when he let me know he wouldn’t be bringing me tonight.” She heaved a sigh. “The part I missed was that he was bringing someone else.”
“He thought you wouldn’t come.”
“Bingo.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “So he’s here.”
“Yes. With Graziella.” She grimaced. “Of course she couldn’t have a name like Ethel.”
Not many women in their twenties or thirties were named Ethel, Will thought with a trace of amusement. But he liked the way she said it, and the way she spit out Graziella.
“I’ll bet you’re nothing as plain as Ethel, either.”
“No,” she mumbled, “I’m Moira.”
“As Irish as your hair.”
She reached up and touched the skillfully tumbled mass of red curls atop her head as if to remind herself what was up there. “I suppose.”
“I’m Will,” he said, and held out his hand. “Will Becker.”
She laid hers in it and they shook with an odd sort of solemnity. “Good to meet you, Will Becker.”
She sounded as if the booze was starting to go to her head, as if she was having to form words carefully. He hoped she’d forget she still had most of a drink.
“Having a good time anyway?” he asked.
Moira sighed. “Not especially. You?”
“No. I’m not a real social guy.”
She stirred. “You probably wish I’d leave you alone.”
“No.” He clasped her wrist loosely. “No. Don’t go.”
After a moment she said, “Okay.” She didn’t seem to notice he was holding on to her. “I kind of wish I could go home, ’cept…except I don’t want him to catch me slinking out. You know?”
“Is he really worth the heartburn?”
“I thought so,” she said sadly.
“Have you been seeing him long?” Will didn’t actually want to know; he didn’t want to talk about the scumbag at all. But he also didn’t want her to go back in, and he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Sure as hell not the local building trade, since as of Monday morning he was no longer president of Becker Construction.
“I don’t know,” she said in answer to his question. “A month or six weeks.”
Will slid his hand down and laced his fingers with hers. It was almost more intimate than a kiss, he thought, looking at their clasped hands. There was something about being palm to palm.
She didn’t seem to notice that they were holding hands now.
“I just want to forget about him,” she declared. “And Graziella.”
There it was again, the name as abomination.
Will laughed. “Definitely forget them. Talk to me. Did you grow up around here?”
She turned to look at him instead of the ballroom. “Uh-uh. Montana. Missoula. You?”
“I’m a local boy.”
“So your family is here?” She seemed bemused by the idea.
“Yeah. Not my parents, they’re gone. My mother when I was a kid, and then my dad and stepmom in a plane crash when I was twenty. One of those freak things, a sightseeing flight—” He stopped. Sharing long past tragedy wasn’t the way to get the girl.
Not that he was trying to get her. Not when he’d be winging to Africa a week from now. He just wanted to enjoy her for a little longer.
“But I have two brothers and a sister,” he continued.
“From Dad’s second marriage.”
She nodded her understanding.
“The youngest just graduated from college. My sister, Sophie. She’ll be going to grad school come fall.” He smiled. “And that’s more than you wanted to know, I bet. Do you have sisters or brothers?”
Moira shook her head. “There was only me and my mom. I didn’t really even know my dad. My parents split up when I was two.”
And her father was a jackass who hadn’t bothered to make time for his daughter, Will diagnosed. He really, really wished he could see her face better. Once again, she sounded a little sad, but he might be imagining things. He was surprised to realize that, for the second time tonight, he was feeling protective and angry on her behalf. He thought he’d worn out all those instincts getting his siblings safely raised.
“Have you ever been river rafting?” he asked, at random, determined to lighten the conversation.
She made a little gurgle of amusement. “I can’t swim. So no.”
“You can’t swim?” Will repeated. “How is that possible? Doesn’t every kid take lessons?”
“Not this one.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. “And I’m not about to start now,” she finished with a hint of defiance.
“So, is taking the ferry across the Sound your worst nightmare?”
“No, the ferry is okay. I keep a close eye on the lifeboats. Now, those I wouldn’t like, but it’s a comfort that they’re there. My worst nightmare…hmm. Sailing cross the Atlantic.”
“The Perfect Storm wasn’t your favorite movie?”
“I never have liked horror movies.”
He found himself smiling at the description. Standing here this way felt good. Somehow they’d come to be closer together than they had started. His much larger hand enveloped hers. Their voices were low, as if they were lovers murmuring secrets to each other.
“What’s your worst nightmare?” she asked.
Will had to think about that. He didn’t have any phobias, per se. He guessed he might be a little claustrophobic; he’d had a construction site injury once and when the doctor sent him for an MRI he’d found the experience hellish. Given the breadth of his shoulders, he’d been crammed in that damn tunnel as if it were the skin of a sausage and he was the innards. And he’d had to lie there for an aeon. Yeah, being buried alive wouldn’t be high on his list. But it wasn’t the worst thing, although it was oddly akin.
“Being trapped,” he finally said quietly. “Any freedom of choice taken away from me. Spending my entire life doing what I have to do, no matter how desperately I chafe at it.”
Now where had that come from? It was true, every word of it, but he didn’t think he’d ever spoken the words aloud. God help him, that’s what his life had been like since the day he’d taken the phone call in his college dorm telling him his parents were dead. He hadn’t known what he wanted to do with his life yet, but it wasn’t going to be construction. He’d worked summers for his dad for the past five years, and that was enough.
Until all choice had been yanked from him when he realized his brothers and sister had no one else.
He couldn’t regret the decisions he’d made then. He loved Clay, Jack and Sophie. But these past couple weeks, knowing the end was in sight, he’d felt like a kid who’d suffered through his school years looking toward high school graduation.
Free at last.
He felt Moira’s scrutiny. Finally she nodded, but said softly, “Life’s made up of obligations, though, isn’t it?”
“But we ought to be able to choose the ones we take on, don’t you think?”
Her head tilted, reminding him of a curious bird. Perhaps the owl he’d likened her to earlier, with downy, unruly feathers around the enormous, unblinking eyes.
With that tilt of the head, enough light touched her face that he thought, green. Her eyes were green.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m a big fan of free choice.” Her fingers wriggled in his, and she glanced down in apparent puzzlement.
So she’d finally noticed that they had been holding hands for the past ten minutes. Although reluctant, he released hers.
“If you’ll excuse me, my feet are killing me and I think I had too much to drink. I’m about to conk out.”
“You’re not planning to drive, are you?”
She shook her head. “I think I’ll get a room.”
Will smiled at her. “I’ll walk you down.”
“You don’t have to—”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said with a formality unusual to him.
After a moment, she murmured, “Then, thank you.” She started toward the open doors, and he strolled at her side.
When they reached the ballroom, he could hardly tear his eyes from her face. She was indeed pretty, but in a way that contrasted with her curvaceous, seductive body. Her cheeks were round, her forehead high, giving her an unexpected look of vulnerability, and her milk-pale skin was dusted with pale gold freckles. Her eyes were green, but flecked with gold, too. And her eyebrows, like the hair on her head, were the pure color of copper.
She looked…innocent, which made him feel guilty for wondering if the rest of her body was freckled, too, if the nipples crowning her generous breasts were pink or dusky brown, whether her pubic hair was copper bright, too.
He almost groaned. Yes, of course it was. And, damn it, he had no business thinking this way when he couldn’t start anything with her. He was tying up the last strands of this part of his life, not opening any new packages. However enticing this one was.
Moira greeted a couple of people, and he did the same. They even had a few mutual acquaintances, none of whom seemed to think anything of the fact that they knew each other. He wondered what she did for a living, but decided he didn’t want to know. He’d prefer to remember her as his mysterious redhead.
Then she stiffened. Raising his eyebrows, Will saw the couple directly in front of them. Good-looking guy, beautiful woman if you liked hip bones sharp enough to draw blood and thought counting ribs was an excellent postcoital activity.
The scumbag, clearly, and Graziella. Feeling Moira’s tension, Will wasn’t nearly as amused as he’d been when she last said the name.
“Bruce,” she said coolly.
Some instinct made Will lay his hand on Moira’s back in a way any other man would recognize. Mine. He nodded, making plain his disinterest, and steered her around the other couple.
“Aren’t you Will Becker?” the other guy said.
Will nodded. “Yes.” And kept going.
Moira gave another of those little gurgles of laughter that sounded like a small brook tumbling over rocks.
“Well, that was rude.”
“Yeah, and I enjoyed it,” he said truthfully.
She turned that laughing face up to him, her eyes sparkling, and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” He kept his hand on her until they reached the front desk, at which point he stood back and let her take a credit card from the small, sparkly bag she’d carried over her shoulder. When eventually she turned around, he asked, “All set?”
“Yes. You don’t have to walk me up, Will.”
“Yes, I do.”
She bit her lip and studied him for a moment, her eyes curiously vulnerable in a way that gave him a pang.
Twice now he’d thought of her as such, which had to mean something.
