The Second Time (12 page)

When he finally had to stop for a breath, Slater inserted, “It’s late. If you two are going to get home in time for supper, we’re going to have to get under way pretty soon.”

“I’ll help,” Randy volunteered.

Dawn didn’t even make an attempt to move,
except to straighten her legs out and lie back to let the sun evaporate the salt water from her skin. When she heard the fore and aft anchors being raised, she smiled and settled more comfortably on the hard deck. With two males on board, her help wasn’t needed. She intended to simply lie there and soak up the sunshine.

The deck vibrated pleasantly with the purring throb of the engines. Her eyes were closed against the bright light of the sun. She was conscious of the boat’s movement and the warmth of the sun on her skin, tempered by the coolness of an eddying wind. For a time she’d heard Slater and Randy conversing back and forth, but now there was only the sound of the boat and the splash of the water.

Something—a sixth sense maybe—seemed to warn her that she wasn’t alone. She let her lashes raise just a crack and looked through the slitted opening. Slater was standing at her feet, silently looking at her. Her eyes opened a little wider.

A disturbing heat began to warm her blood. The way he was looking at her gave Dawn the uncanny feeling that in his mind, he was covering her. Without half-trying, she could feel the heat of his sun-warmed body against her skin and the pressure of his mouth on her lips, and the excitement building in her limbs.

It was a mental seduction, and all the more disturbing because of its intensity. It was like a spell being cast on her. Dawn knew she had to break it or it might cease to be mental.

She moved, shifting onto her side first to grab her beach jacket then rising to her feet. Without trying to make it seem deliberate, she turned her back to him while she turned out the jacket to locate the sleeves.

“Are we nearly there?” she asked to shatter the unbearable silence.

“About twenty minutes out.”

His hands touched her waist, then slid around to the front to draw her backward against his length. Her heart did a funny little flip against her rib cage as one hand slid low on her stomach and the other curved to the underswell of her breasts. Spontaneous longing quivered through her. He bent his head and nibbled at her bare shoulder, adding to the effects the arousing caress of his hands created. Her fingers curled onto his forearms and weakly attempted to pull his hands away.

“You swore off drinking, Slater,” Dawn reminded him in a voice that was all husky and disturbed.

“Yes, I swore off drinking,” he admitted, his mouth moving near her ear, stimulating its sensitive shell-opening. “But there’s no harm in caressing the bottle the wine comes in.”

She turned into him, using her arms to wedge a space between them. “What will that accomplish?” Frustration flashed in the blue of her eyes as she discovered it was no less stimulating to feel her hips arched against his hard, male outline.

“I don’t know.” He locked his hands together in
the small of her back and eyed her lazily. “But you’re going to ache almost as much as I will.”

His mouth skimmed her face but didn’t taste her intoxicating lips. She guessed he was testing his self-control and tried not to let him see that hers was stretched to the limit. When he finally drew away, she had the satisfaction of noting he was breathing no easier than she was. But there was also no question that he had aroused an ache that was slow to fade.

After they had docked the boat at the marina, they trooped to the car, none of them talking very much—not even Randy. He squeezed into the back of the Corvette and slumped tiredly.

“Boy, am I beat,” he murmured.

“After working all morning and swimming all afternoon, you should be.” Dawn knew she wasn’t far away from exhaustion as she slid into the passenger seat. She was running on nerves, alert to every movement of Slater. “You’ll have to get to bed early tonight,” she told Randy. “It’s work again in the morning.”

“Don’t listen to her, Randy,” Slater advised and inserted the key in the ignition. “You don’t have to work in the morning.” Dawn opened her mouth to protest this usurption of her authority. Father or not, he had no right to countermand her orders without discussing it with her in private first. “Neither do you,” he glanced at her, a small smile showing.

“I wasn’t aware you had the authority to give me the day off,” she replied a trifle stiffly.

“Let’s just say that tomorrow you don’t have to work in the yard,” he said as if that avoided a confrontation.

“And why don’t I?” Dawn challenged.

“Because while you two were getting cleaned up this noon, I took a crew of laborers over and had them finish the yard this afternoon.”

“You had no right to do that!” Her stunned surprise was giving way to anger.

“Maybe I had no right to do it, but it’s done,” he stated. “If I had known you were going to try to clear that underbrush yourself, I would have done it to start out with—before you ever bought the house.” He sliced her a short look. “I don’t like the idea of either one of you handling all those sharp knives and blades. One careless mistake and you could cut yourself open to the bone.”

“You could have discussed this with me first.” She didn’t argue against his logic, because she had been leery about Randy handling some of the sharper tools.

“I remember what it’s like to argue with you when your mind’s made up about something,” Slater said dryly and shifted into reverse gear. “It’s easier to have the discussion after the fact.”

“I’m glad you hired those guys,” Randy yawned from the back seat. “That was hard work.”

“And it didn’t hurt you a bit,” Dawn flashed.

“I never said it did,” Randy defended himself. “I’m just glad I don’t have to do it again tomorrow morning.”

“If you want to teach him work ethics, have him scrub floors or wash windows,” Slater advised.
“Going back to the basics is very noble, but there comes a point where it can be carried too far. A woman and a child clearing a jungle is taking it too far.”

“So maybe it was,” she admitted grudgingly, aware it had been a penny-pinching decision. “But since you took it upon yourself to hire those workmen, you can pay them, too.”

“I planned on it.” There was a trace of amusement in his voice. “You never did like letting go of your money, did you?”

“No.” She turned her head to look out the side window, subsiding into silence.

Her mother looked around the front room with an approving nod. “It’s looking so nice, Dawn.”

“It’s really beginning to look like a home, isn’t it?” she said with satisfaction.

Half of their personal belongings had arrived by truck the same day Dawn received the deed to the house. The furniture and linen didn’t arrive until the following week, and it took nearly the whole of another to get everything unpacked and organized.

In retrospect, it probably would have been best if she and Randy hadn’t moved in until after everything was done. But Dawn had wanted them to be on their own, even if it meant living in the house while she was still trying to bring order to the chaos. Trying to juggle meals, dishwashing, bedmaking, and daily cleaning with the uncrating of boxes had only prolonged the day when it would all be done.

“And it’s all going to look so much better when these drapes are hung,” Dawn declared, walking over to the green and white sofa to pick up a freshly ironed panel. “They look beautiful, Mother.”

“That material didn’t turn out to be the easiest to sew, but I think they turned out rather well,” she replied modestly.

The windows in the front room were odd-sized. After several fruitless shopping trips, Dawn had been finally forced to accept the drapes in the front room would have to be custom-made. She was spared the exorbitant price a decorator would have charged when her mother volunteered to make them.

“Those windows have been bare for so long.” Dawn held the drape up, picturing the soft green color against the white walls. She looked at her mother and smiled. “Just imagine, I’ll have privacy tonight. No one will be able to see in.”

“Are you going to put them up tonight? Do you want me to stay and help you?” her mother offered.

“No, I can manage. You’ve done more than enough,” Dawn insisted.

“If you’re sure—” She didn’t persist in her offer. “—I need to get home and start supper for your father. Randy’s helping him in the garage. He’s welcome to eat with us so you don’t have to stop to fix him anything.”

“No thanks.” If she let her mother have her way,,, Randy would eat with them every night.
“It’s time he learned he has to come home for supper.”

“I’ll send him home,” her mother promised reluctantly and walked to the door. “Call if you need anything.”

“I will.”

Her mother’s car hadn’t left the driveway before Dawn was hauling the small stepladder into the living room so she could hang the pleated drapes at the windows. The two small side windows were a snap, but the large front window proved to be more of a hassle than she expected.

That area of the floor was warped, which meant the ladder wasn’t balanced on all four legs so it rocked with each shift of her weight. Add to that, the drapes were wider by necessity and more awkward to handle because so much had to be held on her arm. She only had one hand free to fit the hook into its sliding eye-bracket, and to reach that she had to balance a knee on top of the ladder and stretch on tiptoe. It wasn’t a position that promoted security. Dawn wished now that the ceilings that gave the house so much character weren’t quite so high.

After much struggling, balancing, and stretching, she got one half of the front window set hung. There was still the other half to go. She moved the ladder over and observed how much it rocked. She debated waiting until Randy came home so he could hold the ladder steady, then decided to try it.

She tugged at the hem of her jean shorts and
gathered up the large panel, laying it over her arm. Her bare feet gripped the slatted steps of the ladder while it seesawed under her moving weight. Dawn took her time, testing the swaying rock of the ladder so she wouldn’t accidentally overbalance the wrong way.

Then the slow process began of stretching and aiming for the eye, trying to hook it before it slid away and not losing her balance when the ladder rocked to a different three-point stance. It was nerve-wracking. When she heard footsteps crossing the veranda, Dawn sighed with relief.

As soon as the front door opened, she called, “Will you come over here and hold this ladder steady so I can finish hanging these drapes?”

She expected a grumble of protest from Randy, but none was voiced as she fumbled one-handed with the next hook to hold it in a position of readiness. When she felt a hand gripping the ladder, she made the final stretch for the bracket.

Suddenly there was a hand stroking the back of her thigh. Her eyes widened in shock at such familiarity from her son. She let go of the hook and swung her arm around to knock away his hand, turning to look at the same time.

“Randy!” His name was out of her mouth before Dawn saw Slater standing beside the ladder. “It’s you!” She was almost relieved as her heart started beating again.

“I should hope it’s me and not our son.” There was something lazy and warm about the way he was looking at her. It did things to her pulse that still hadn’t recovered from her initial start.

Since they had moved into the house, Slater had dropped by unannounced a couple of times, but Dawn had been expecting Randy and simply hadn’t anticipated it might be anyone else. On his previous visits, Randy had always been at home. It was the first time they’d been alone since that night in his office.

“I didn’t hear your car.” Dawn noticed the way his dark hair gleamed with sun-burnished lights streaking through it. She wanted to reach down and smooth his unruly forelock the way she so often did Randy’s.

“That’s because I walked,” Slater replied.

“If you’re here to see Randy, he hasn’t come home yet.” Dawn turned back to the window and adjusted the drape material folded over her arm.

How many times had she seen Slater in the last two weeks? Easily more than a half a dozen times, sometimes on a matter related to the house and others when he’d come to see Randy. Even when the terms had been friendly, there had been a tension between them. It was difficult to be with him without wanting to touch and be closer.

“I suspected he wasn’t.” His voice was dry with amusement at her obvious announcement. Its tone altered when he added, “The drapes really make the room look different.”

“They look good, don’t they?” she said with smiling pride in the result, and grasped the hook she had dropped earlier to aim it for the eye bracket.

Just as she stretched for it, his hand trailed down the silken-smooth back of her leg. His touch
went through her nerve ends like liquid lightning. She missed the bracket.

“Will you stop that?” she demanded.

“You have nice legs,” Slater remarked with no remorse.

“Thank you.” The compliment was almost as awkward to handle as his wayward hand.

His playful orneriness was unsettling. Her task was a difficult one requiring concentration and coordination. Slater was affecting both. She started to reach for the bracket again, then paused to look over her shoulder at him.

“Don’t touch my leg. Okay?” she asked for his word, not liking the little silver light that danced in his charcoal-dark eyes.

“Okay,” he agreed smoothly. Satisfied that he meant it, Dawn focused her gaze on the target and made her move for it. “You do have nice legs,” Slater repeated. “Dirty feet, but nice legs.” He ran a finger down the ticklish sole of her bare foot.

It was like testing her reflexes—all movement was involuntary. Her knee jerked, changing the center of her balance and tipping her forward. She yelped and grabbed for the top of the ladder to keep from going headfirst through the window.

The momentary fright had her heart beating like a racing motor. Her breath was coming in little gasps. It wasn’t until her senses started quieting down that she felt his hand gripping the back pocket of her jean shorts. Obviously Slater had grabbed her to prevent her from pitching forward. But his efforts to save her weren’t appreciated
since he had been the cause in the first place.