The car’s tires crunched
to a halt in her driveway. “Check one,” Eve muttered and stood up from the
couch, smoothing her top.
A car door slammed.
“Check two.” She picked up the full wineglass from the mantel where it had
been warming.
Determined footfalls
pulverized her shell footpath. “Check three,” she whispered, and her
heartbeats thumped in tandem with her steps down the hall toward her door.
Bang! Bang! Bang! “Check
four,” she said under her breath, and turned the lock.
The thunderous glower.
Check five. She smiled serenely and offered him the glass.
Conn gaped. What started
as a terrific frown slowly smoothed out into confusion. His eyes moved from
her face to the glass and back.
“Come
in. It’s cold.” Eve stepped closer, holding out the glass, and he had no
option but to take it. She ushered him in and closed the door. “Come down to
the lounge. The fire’s going.” She turned and walked down the hallway.
Doing her best to appear
unperturbed, she poked the fire, then picked up her glass off the mantel and
sipped the brackish red liquid. It was a full twenty, nail-biting seconds to
the beat of an old Pink Floyd song, before Conn appeared. He stood, dwarfing
the doorway, looking at her.
She took another big sip
and let it rest in her mouth for a few moments while she submitted to the rake
of his eyes. She had taken care dressing and was comfortable under his
scrutiny, even if her pulse thumped in her ears.
After a long perusal,
Conn raised his glass and sipped.
“Is the wine okay?”
He swallowed and
inclined his head.
She carefully let her
breath out and watched while he did a leisurely circle of the room. He
reminded her of a wild animal, marking his territory. He paused often,
studying every object: her four-foot wooden tiger, the burnished naked art
torso on the wall that seemed to move in the flickering firelight, a couple of
family photos. Once his hand reached out to smooth over a section of wall that
she had stripped and sanded for painting. He glanced at the candles on the
coffee table and again at the line of tea lights on the mantel. He stared for
quite a few moments at the platter of cheese and olives and dipping oils for
the little chunks of crusty bread.
Eve inhaled. If he was
going to lose it, it would be now.
Not once did he glance
her way until he had come full circle. Then he stopped by the couch, brows
raised sardonically in a pretence of asking her permission to sit.
Eve nodded.
When he was seated, he
took another sip of wine, then leaned forward and placed the glass on the
coffee table.
“You’ve gone to a lot of
trouble.” He pointed his chin at the glass. “Wine. Food. Candles.” He looked
up at her standing in front of the fire. You. The unspoken word danced
in his eyes as they flickered and glowed up and down her body like the
reflected flames.
“It was nothing.” Eve
stilled the fluttering hand that betrayed her nerves.
He tilted his head.
“Your column.”
She nodded. Her second
column was a surefire way to get his attention. Not that that was her sole
motivation, but someone had to make the move. It was five days since the kiss.
Reasonable people could not storm into her house, roar at her, kiss her silly
and then ignore her.
So much for resolutions…
