AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead, she shuffled back, a new burn spreading across the nape of her neck. But her hand stayed glued to his chest and she stared at it, willing it to move, too. Now, she commanded. Stop touching him now.
The stubborn thing finally obeyed, but slowly, so that her fingertips took a lazy path down the hard plane of his abdomen. When they brushed his denim waistband, she jerked, and her hand dropped to her side.
They both let out a breath.
She whirled toward the refrigerator and opened it, staring at the shelves while the cool air wafted over her. Oh, it would be good to crawl inside right now, not only to bring her temperature down, but so that she didn’t have to face him again. What must he be thinking?
“It doesn’t matter what my body’s telling you, Juliet. I’ve got a job to do, and I’m going to do it.”
“Noah—”
“You know the general would expect me to check this out for you.”
“I can check this out for me.” And she definitely would, she decided. “Tomorrow I’m going back to the shop to find out more about the situation and the sisters.”
He touched her shoulder, and she turned. “For me, then,” he said. “Let me look into this as your friend, to set my mind at ease. There are people out there who might like to take advantage of you.”
And he was a soldier, under orders from the general. That part went unspoken, though she suspected a deal had been struck between the two men during the months Wayne lay dying. She could hear him now, officer to subordinate. Get Juliet settled, soldier. Make sure she stays safe and has everything she needs.
She’d understood that everything about Wayne—his upbringing, his personality, his career—had given him a great need to protect the ones he loved. Unfortunately, his illness had robbed her of the time to fully dispel the fragile flower image he had of her—and had apparently passed on to Noah.
She frowned at the younger man now, irritated by the thought. “Look—”
“Please,” he said with a smile—and oh, yeah, despite his denials he was no doubt a lady-killer, because she felt her irritation immediately start to seep away.
“Please,” Noah said again.
And he asked so nicely, too. “Okay,” she heard herself answer, but she grumbled it, trying to make clear she was no gentle geranium.
He smiled a second time anyway. “So tomorrow we’ll visit this business and these self-proclaimed relatives of yours together,” he said. “We’ll go to lunch first.”
“Fine.” She watched him head toward the door.
With his hand on the knob, he paused and looked over his shoulder. “Wear something pretty.”
Startled by the request, she let out an awkward laugh. “What? That sounds like a date.”
He flashed his lady-killer grin again. “You can call it what you like. By the way, how old are you, Juliet?”
Surprised again, she answered automatically. “Thirty-two.”
“I’ll be thirty on my next birthday.”
“August fourth.” Where had that come from? She knew his birthday off the top of her head?
“Yep.”
Apparently she did. “So…?”
“So stop thinking you’re older than me. Come next summer, we’ll be in the same decade darlin’, both of us over the age that anybody can trust.”
Then he left, which gave him the last smile and the last word. But not the last thoughts.
Those were racing through Juliet’s head as she stared at his retreating, half-naked form, the muscles of his strong back shifting as he walked away. She’d definitely failed at getting things back to normal, hadn’t she? Because normal for this lonely widow definitely wasn’t a lunch date with a virile, muscled young man who suddenly made her sweat just looking at him.
On the day they’d carried boxes into Juliet’s house on Mar Vista Drive, the movers had told Noah there were three kinds of people in Malibu: the beach people, the canyon people, and the view people. As he and Juliet ascended the road in the direction of the Pacific, it made sense to him that she’d chosen a hillside home. She’d always struck him as someone who stayed above the fray.
Composed and serene in her beauty, her feelings always seemed to be held carefully close. While her love for the general had been palpable and her grief over his death truly deep, she’d never betrayed any wild swings or passionate bursts of emotion. He’d never seen her less than graceful. Not once had she ever fidgeted in his presence.
Until last night, when he discovered she’d bumped into her butcher-block table and cut her hand.
Until now, when her fingertips were drumming a ceaseless percussion against her left leg. Letting his gaze linger on her a moment, he smiled to himself. She had dressed pretty. Not that she ever looked anything less than classy. Today she had on a pair of leg-hugging, biscuit-colored jeans covered by a V-necked tunic-y thing that was mostly the same color as the pants and splashed with vibrant blue, green, and gold flowers. She wore low-heeled strappy gold sandals on her feet.
