Emily and the Stranger (7 page)

"What are your instincts telling you right now?"

Swallowing, Emily held back the first response that came to mind. She'd nearly said her instincts were telling her that she should give herself to him, that she was meant to belong to him. Lord help her, had she lost her mind? "My instincts are telling me to be very careful where you're concerned."

When she gazed up at him, she was shocked by the look of pure lust she saw in his eyes. This man wanted her. The thought sent pinpricks of excitement rushing through her. She couldn't let this happen. She had no idea who he was. He was a stranger. She didn't even know his name.

Mitch told himself to get up and walk away. The last thing he needed was a relationship with a woman who would feel only hatred for him if she knew his name. He was having a difficult enough time trying to rebuild a life that his own stupidity had destroyed, without succumbing totally to his desperate need for Emily's forgiveness.

Mitch lowered his body onto the quilt, lying down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow.
Run, you damned fool. Run now!
he told himself.

Emily drew in a deep breath. This man was a stranger, perhaps a dangerous stranger. Why didn't she tell him to go away? Why didn't she gather up her belongings and return to her cottage? Staying here, so close to him, was bound to lead to trouble. As ridiculous as the notion was, she wanted him to kiss her … this man she didn't know. She longed to feel his lips on hers.

He leaned toward her, his face so close that she tasted his breath. "I—I don't think this is such a good idea," she said. "We're strangers."

"Are you always so friendly to strangers on the beach?" he asked, somehow knowing she had never reacted this way to any other man.

"No," she admitted, closing her eyes, wanting to escape the nearness of his body, the smell of his musky aftershave, the feel of his breath mingling with hers. "Strangers don't usually intrude on my privacy."

"Why didn't you ask me to leave when I first approached you?"

"Because I… You're my neighbor. I didn't want to be unfriendly."

"I've been watching you for weeks now," Mitch told her. "I'm no good for you, pretty lady, but I couldn't stop myself from coming out here to meet you."

He'd been watching her? Emily's heart skipped a beat. All the while she'd been spying on his privacy, he'd been doing the same thing. "I've watched you, too, and wondered about you."

"You're as lonely as I am, aren't you?" Why would a woman with so much charm and beauty and intelligence not have a man in her life? Mitch wondered. It didn't make sense. Was it possible that she was still in love with her dead husband?

"Yes, I'm lonely. My husband died five years ago, and there's been no one…" And there never can be anyone, she told herself. No man would want such an imperfect woman.

"I'm sorry about your husband. I lost someone about five years ago, too." Had he ever really loved Loni? he wondered, or had she just been a part of his big plans to get rich, to be important, to once and for all prove to himself and everyone else that there wasn't any
Mississippi
red clay left under his fingernails?

"She died?" Emily asked.

"No." Mitch chuckled, admitting to himself that losing Loni wasn't the worst thing that had happened to him. "My fiancée ran off with my former business partner."

"Oh." His business partner? How could that be? She'd assumed he was a manual laborer—had he once owned his own business?

"I think it's about time we introduce ourselves, pretty lady, don't you?" He held out his hand. "I'm Ray Mitchell. My friends call me 'Mitch."' He gave her the same name he had decided to use at work. He'd chosen it hoping that if he'd ever worked with any of the laborers in the past, no one would recognize him.

His common sense told him he was a fool to lie to Emily, to hide his true identity from her. But his heart told him that there would be time enough to tell Emily who he really was. Later. When they knew each other better.

Watching the play of emotions on Mitch's face, Emily wondered what he was thinking. He was a million miles away.

Somewhere she couldn't reach him. Someplace he obviously didn't want to be.

She touched his arm. He turned to her. "I'm Emily Jordan."

Emily. He repeated the name in his mind as he had done countless times in the past. The name suited her. Old-fashioned and ladylike. "Would you go out to dinner with me sometime, Emily?"

She wanted to say yes, to scream her acceptance, but she couldn't. It was obvious that Ray Mitchell was the kind of man who would expect a physical relationship. She could never offer him her body. Her scarred, imperfect, ugly body.

"If you're looking for a friend … someone to ease the loneliness, then … well, I'd like to be your friend," she said.

"I need a friend."
I need for you to be my friend.

Emily wanted to touch Mitch, to run her fingers down his craggy, beard-stubbled face. There was so much pain in his eyes, so much loneliness. Perhaps that was why fate had thrown them together. Perhaps she could ease Mitch's pain and end his loneliness, and he could do the same for her.

She had lost so much, suffered so greatly, that she often wondered why she'd been severely punished for sins she'd never known she committed. She and Stuart had been so happy in their new apartment at Ocean Breeze. She'd been five months pregnant and they had already begun decorating a nursery for their baby boy. And then their apartment building had collapsed. Fire had broken out, spreading quickly throughout the expensive, newly constructed complex. She and Stuart had been trapped. Stuart had died. And when she'd awakened to learn of his death and the loss of their child, she had wished she'd died with them.

But she'd lived to suffer endless agony as her severely burned back healed, and then more pain when she endured eight operations on her seared flesh.

Emily had lost her husband, her child and any hopes of ever loving and being loved again. And all because an unscrupulous construction firm had been more interested in saving money than in people's safety. Even though she'd been too ill to go to court, to face the monsters responsible for the destruction of her life, she would never forget their names. Randall D. Styles and M. R. Hayden.

"Are you all right, Emily?" Mitch asked.

"Sorry. I was just remembering … things I'll never be able to forget."

"Yeah.
I understand. I have a few demons chasing me, too."

Emily smiled at Mitch, accepting him into her life, telling herself that he needed her friendship as much as she needed his. "Why don't you stop by the Paint Box tomorrow after work. We can pick up some fresh seafood and a bottle of wine. I can cook dinner for us at my house."

"Pretty lady, you've got yourself a deal."

Chapter 4

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T
he morning had been hectic for both Emily and Nikki. Emily taught classes for senior citizens on Monday mornings, and today she'd also tried to help Nikki with the inventory. Her partner had been tied up with the distributor who provided the store with their art books, and with a disgruntled customer, Mrs. Hendricks, who came by at least once a week to complain.

Emily checked her small diamond-studded gold watch, the last birthday gift Grammy had given her.
Twelve forty-five
. Emily noted the number of children's watercolor sets on the shelf, recorded it on the inventory sheet, then slipped her pencil into the breast pocket of her yellow, paint-smeared smock. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she'd skipped breakfast this morning, something she often did when she overslept and had to make a mad dash to arrive at the store on time.

This morning she'd overslept by nearly two hours, and arrived for work thirty minutes late. She'd been unable to go to sleep last night. Her mind had been filled with Mitch. Mitch with the sexy, ice-blue eyes. Mitch with the Viking-warrior body and golden hair. Mitch who had brought to life the sexual urges she'd laid to rest with her husband.

And tonight she was cooking dinner for him. He'd said he'd drop by the store, pick her up, help her shop, then run home for a shower before supper. All morning she'd kept picturing Mitch in the shower, rivulets of warm water caressing his big, hard body. Emily ached with wanting, and that was something she hadn't experienced since Stuart's death.

But what frightened Emily even more than the passion Mitch had brought to life within her was the fear of allowing herself to get too close to this man, to want too much, to build castles in the air. Had she been foolish to offer him friendship, to think that they could settle for a nonsexual relationship? And was she crazy to trust a man she didn't know, to believe in her instincts that told her he wasn't the man harassing her?

Mitch was a man in pain, one who, by his own admission, was being chased by demons. She understood what that felt like, what it meant to be haunted by the past, to live with a heavy weight of sorrow surrounding your heart.

If only she weren't hideously scarred. If only she could go to him beautiful and perfect and unblemished. But she couldn't. Nothing and no one could ever erase the damaged flesh that covered her back. Lord knew that the doctors had tried.

"Food!" Nikki shouted from behind the checkout counter. "I'm starving. Let's eat now while no one's here but the two of us."

"Good idea." Emily dusted off her hands on her smock. "Today was your day to bring lunch, wasn't it?"

"Yes, today was my day." With her bright hazel brown eyes open wide, Nikki gave Emily a what's-up-with-you? look. "Something's going on. You haven't been yourself all morning. Even Mr. Daily noticed in class, and asked me if you were sick or something."

"Just because I wasn't sure if today was your turn to bring lunch or not, you're accusing me of—"

"Hold it right there." Nikki rounded the corner of the counter and headed toward Emily. "I know what it is. I know what it is!"

"You know what what is?" Turning away from her friend, Emily walked toward the back of the store to the rest room.

Nikki followed, and the two women shared the sink to wash their hands. "You've met him, haven't you?"

"Met who?" Emily dried her hands on the soft, seafoam-green towel hanging from the round brass rack on the wall.

"Your neighbor, the golden god." After drying her hands, Nikki grabbed Emily by the shoulders. "Tell Aunt Nikki everything. Did he confess? Is he the man who's been writing you love letters and doing all that heavy breathing over the phone?"

Emily rolled her eyes upward and sighed. "Let's eat lunch." She went out of the bathroom and into the storage room, where a makeshift kitchenette had been put together along the back wall. "What did you bring today?"

"Tuna salad sandwiches, dill pickles and cherry vanilla yogurt for dessert." Nikki opened the compact refrigerator and retrieved the items, one by one, then placed them on the small, wooden table near the lone window in the storage room. "You can change the subject a dozen times, but it won't work. You are going to tell me about meeting
him
and we both know it."

"Did you make some fresh tea?" Emily asked.

Nikki pulled a large pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator. "What's his name? What did he say? Where's he from? What does he do for a living? Did you speak first or did he?"

Emily seated herself and arranged the pink napkins, plastic spoons and paper plates that Nikki had laid on the table. "I wish I'd never told you about him."

"The first man since Stuart that you've been attracted to! Of course you had to tell me about him." Nikki sat down, then tucked her feet back on the bottom support round of her chair. "Weeks of watching him, and now you've met him. It must have happened yesterday because you didn't say a word about it Saturday."

"I was on the beach yesterday afternoon, doing some sketches, when he just came walking along." Emily unwrapped her sandwich and pulled the two cut halves apart. "He watched me for a while, then came closer and closer."

"Does he look as good close up as he did at a distance?"

"Better."

"Better!" Nikki's expressive hands waved about in the air, slamming into the pitcher.

Emily grabbed the iced-tea container, sighing when she realized she had avoided a minor disaster. "I'll pour the tea."

"Forget the tea. Tell me more about our muscle-bound blonde. Is he or is he not your mystery man?"

"I really don't think he is," Emily said. "He doesn't seem the type. I doubt he knows anything about poetry and the letter I received quoted Byron and Shelley. Besides, Ray Mitchell could probably have any woman he wanted without resorting to secret phone calls and letters."

"Any woman?" Nikki asked. "Does that include you? Just what happened between y'all?"

"We talked for a while. That's all."

"You're holding back." Nikki bit into her large dill pickle.

"We have a date for dinner tonight. I'm cooking."

Nikki choked on the pickle. She spit it out on her napkin, her watery eyes opening wide. She stared at Emily's smiling face. "You have a date with a stranger? You, Emily McLain Jordan?"