This Kiss

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He sighed, then looked at Ben. “Life isn’t as easy as a movie or a book—or high school,” he said meeting her gaze.

“High school easy? I prefer to think of it as the school of hard knocks,” she said.

“But Daddy—”

“Ben,” he said firmly, “this discussion is over. Hannah and I are going in the kitchen. You watch the cat clean up her babies. And don’t touch them,” he warned. “Mothers will do anything to protect their babies and she might scratch you if she’s afraid you’ll hurt them.”

“Mothers do that?” Ben asked.

“Yeah,” Dev said. “Except yours,” he added, too softly for the preoccupied boy to hear.

He pushed to his feet, then held a hand down to Hannah. She took it, letting him help her up. As surely as she felt the warmth of his palm enveloping hers, she felt Dev’s concern for his child. Whatever he asked, she would do. If it meant not hurting Ben, she was prepared to leave the ranch.

After dinner and the dreaded paperwork, Dev walked out on the front porch to clear his head. He stretched as he stared at the clear Texas sky sprinkled with thousands of twinkling stars. Was there a prettier sight anywhere? He doubted it. Unless it was the way the sun brought out the gold in Hannah’s hair.

Good Lord. She’d been there twenty-four hours and he couldn’t seem to control his thoughts about her. Especially her full, sensuous lips—a mouth made for kissing.

He recalled telling Ben that life wasn’t as simple as movies or books—or high school. Hannah remembered it as the school of hard knocks. But he disagreed. Back then, it was a whole lot easier to ignore Hannah. He’d never once thought about what it would feel like to kiss her. Since seeing her again, he’d thought of very little else. Now that was a hard knock.

As the refreshing evening breeze washed over his heated skin, he took a deep breath. His gaze wandered over the front yard and the outbuildings in the distance. As it swung in closer, he thought he saw movement in the white-painted gazebo that sat about a hundred yards from the house. Looking closer, he spotted a lime-green shirt.

Hannah.

She’d disappeared as soon as she’d helped Polly clean up the dinner dishes. If she was trying to hide, she’d have to do better than neon green. He was a fool three times over for even considering it, but decided it would be less than Texas neighborly to ignore her. He walked down the steps and crossed the length of the sidewalk, then into the shadowed interior of the small, intimate structure.

“Evening,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Nope.”

He sat down in a spot he gauged to be a safe distance across from her. Unfortunately she was upwind. A sweet, flowery, feminine fragrance he somehow knew he would always connect to Hannah drifted to him on the breeze. Her hair was loose and caught behind her ears, held there by a headband that matched her shirt. The moonlight turned the silky strands to silver. Sitting ramrod straight, she held her knees together, hands on her slender thighs. Her eyes looked enormous in the soft, romantic light.