“Yes, I caught you treating yourself to a stare. Tit for tat, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

He laughed. He hadn’t realized until this very moment how sexy humor was. “Thing is, Jilly, not only am I attracted to you, I actually like you.”

“Be very careful, Colin. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” Then she smiled at him.

He grabbed both sides of her throw and pulled. “Come closer,” he said, edging her toward him. He slipped a hand around to the back of her neck under her hair and leaned toward her, and gave her the briefest of kisses. A test.

“I’ve never kissed a man with a beard,” she said.

“You’ll have to let me know how you like it.” And he went after her mouth more seriously, moving over her lips until they opened and then sweeping the soft inside of her mouth with his tongue. She moaned and her arms came around his neck. He moved from her lips to her neck and whispered, “God, Jilly, you smell good.”

“Soap,” she whispered. “And you showered, too.”

“Were we planning this?” he asked her.

“I was planning to keep you from doing anything like this,” she said. But she’d been thinking about him all day, too. “The problem is, I thought about you, too. And if I’m honest, I wasn’t opposed to the idea,” she said, wiggling still closer. Because this isn’t a relationship, she thought. This is a kind of fling. This is different from anything I’ve ever experienced. And it was strangely unscary.

He pulled her even closer, onto his lap, kissing her hungrily, pulling her chest against his, eating her mouth, feeding her kisses that were deep, hot and consuming. Groaning. Sighing. When he slipped his hand beneath her T-shirt and fondled a na**d breast, she let her head fall back in a lovely moan. He repositioned her legs so that she straddled his lap. Her instincts took over; she pressed against him. She might think having a man in her life was impractical, especially this man, but he felt good way down where feeling good really mattered.

He lunged against her suddenly, his big hands on her waist, pulling her down against his erection. “Aw, God,” he said, pushing against her. “Damn, that’s good…”

Jillian loved the taste of his mouth; she plunged her fingers into his long hair, freeing it from the ponytail. God, all that thick, curly hair—what she’d give to have hair like that. What she’d give to feel it brushing against her belly. She couldn’t remember ever wanting like this, so hard, so fast. She had absolutely no intention of thinking it over. She was spiraling, falling, diving into him. And all she really wanted at the moment was him diving into her.

He lifted her shirt to look at her br**sts and she directed his mouth to her nipple. With a groan, he went there, licking, pulling it into his mouth where it immediately turned to a hard pebble, exactly the right size, and he sucked on her greedily, making little noises.

Colin felt the heat racing through him, and then she was grinding against him, moving her pelvis against him. He was really close to going completely out of his mind. He held both her br**sts in his hands and whispered against her open mouth, “Oh man, do I want you bad…”

“Hmm…”

“We can’t.”

“Can’t what?” she whispered back, gyrating deliciously.

“I don’t have anything. Protection.”

“Why not!” she pleaded in a desperate whisper.

“Because the last time I had sex was shortly before I was pulled out of a burning helicopter…. I’ll take care of it, though…. I wanted this to happen, but I didn’t know it would.”

She put her hands against his cheeks, looked into his eyes and said, “Take care of it now!”

“Easy, Jilly. Another day won’t kill us.”

“It might!”

He chuckled. “I didn’t know I’d make this kind of progress with you or I would have been better prepared. I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just… You know…” She sighed deeply. “Let’s just do something that doesn’t require protection.”

“Can’t,” he said. He pressed his lips against her throat. “If I get any closer to your skin, if I taste you, I’m going to lose my mind and get up inside you and blow my brains out. Whether I want to or not. I’m too hot. No control on this end.”

“Colin, you can’t really be doing this to me! You started this!”

“I know. I know. I wasn’t thinking, which happens a lot when I’m close to you. But I’ll be back, Jilly, and it’ll be worth the wait.”

“But I should be pushing you away!” she said.

He chuckled against her lips. “I love you this way. You’re just like you should be. But we have to stop…. In just a second…”

“Don’t you dare leave me like this.” Then she stroked his bearded face. “We’ll be all right. It’s a good time of the month to take a chance and there’s morning-after help….”

“Too scary,” he said, shaking his head. Too many issues, too much risk. “We should get it right the first time.” He gently moved her off his lap. “I have to go while I can still walk.”

She was almost panting, her breath was coming so hard.

He leaned down and touched her lips. “I’ll see you soon. And next time I won’t leave you. Go take a nice, warm, bubbly bath and… Well, you’ll be fine.” Then he smiled.

“If you leave me like this, don’t bother to come back!” she said meanly.

He lifted her chin, stared deeply into her eyes and said, “Oh, I’ll be back. And you’re going to be glad, I promise. This will never happen to us again.” He stood to his full height. “I didn’t mean for it to go like this, Jilly. I’ll make it up to you.”

“You’d better,” she said, but she said it more softly.

Seven

When Denny asked Jack what he wanted people to know about their situation Jack said, “It’s best to start off with the truth. That way there are fewer details to remember. Unless you’d like to keep it under wraps—so far only Mel and Preacher know.”

Under wraps? Denny shook his head. “I’m not embarrassed. The opposite, in fact. But now you…”

Jack put a strong hand on Denny’s shoulder and said, “As surprises go, this is one of the better ones I’ve had. If I have any regrets it’s that I never knew, that I wasn’t a father to you. I’m going to feel bad about that for a long time.”

“If we’re going to have a good relationship now, you’re going to have to let go of that one. I’m not upset about it. My mom did the best she could for me. She protected me whenever she could. She warned me—twenty years after the fact, even five years after the fact, that the Marine who is my father could be a very different man from the one she knew when she was twenty. We know all about that, Jack. There were wars and stuff—some guys can deal, some can’t. She said she thought it would be best if I’d just enjoy the knowledge that the guy she was with when I was conceived, the one whose DNA I have, was a stand-up guy when she knew him. Someone I could be proud of.” He smiled a little. “That was nice, knowing that. But I know it wasn’t part of her game plan that I go looking for you.”

“I’m going to have to call my dad,” Jack said. “He’s seventy-four now….”

“I think you told me that before…. Before you went to Sacramento over the holidays…”

“In perfect health,” Jack said. “But even with that, he has less time to get to know you as family than I have.”

Denny gave a laugh. “I never had much family, much less the number I’m related to now! I mean, I had grandparents when I was real little, but I barely remember them. What’s your family going to think of this? Of me? I mean, you totally get that I don’t want anything, right?”

“Of course, son,” Jack said. “Mel thinks we should verify all this with a blood test.”

“Sure. I can do that. When?”

“We’ll get to that. Right now I think we have more pressing issues. Even though we’re already friends, now we have to know each other on a completely different level.”

“How do we do that?” Denny asked.

“Do you fish?” Jack wanted to know.

Denny shrugged. “I dropped a line a couple of times….”

“That’s not fishing. When’s your next day off from the Jillian farm?”

“Any day I ask for,” he said.

“Ask for a day. That’s when I teach you real fishing. Fly-fishing. That’s the best place I can think of for a couple of men to get to know each other better.”

“Sounds good,” Denny said with a laugh.

“But I am gonna call my dad,” Jack said. “You think I’m finally old enough that he can’t ground me?”

Jillian had a date to have sex, but she didn’t know when or where.

After seeing Colin she spent the next day puttering around the property and every now and then she would feel the heat rise to her cheeks as she remembered that not only had she been close to doing the deed on her back porch, she had yelled at Colin for not finishing the job. Should a woman apologize for that? And what exactly would the wording be? “Sorry I was such a wild, demanding, easy woman?”

She’d never before in her life offered herself up like a main course. Never. And all that after stipulating she had no interest in a boyfriend or a relationship! Didn’t sex constitute a relationship? For the love of God!

She hadn’t had many partners, but she’d made each one work for her. She’d always had absolute expectations of it lasting, or she wouldn’t have gone that far. When Kurt was pursuing her she held out for a couple of months before she finally gave in and, really, she could have held out longer.

And yet with Colin? Arguably the hottest man she’d ever kissed and here she was with a different set of expectations—that they would have no expectations!

But then she’d never met a man like Colin before. Something about him made her want him wildly.

“You feeling okay, Miss Matlock? Jillian?” Denny asked.

“Huh?” she said, turning to look at him. He was hauling another flat of seed cups into the greenhouse. “What?”

“I asked if you were feeling okay. You look a little, I don’t know, flushed. And you’re awful quiet.”

“Sorry, I’m concentrating,” she said, marking more of her seed cups. “I feel fine, though.” In fact, she felt turned on. Every time she thought about Colin pulling her onto his lap, thought about straddling him and pushing against his erection, a new quivering jolt of electricity would flash through her panties. This was as confusing as it was exciting—Jillian had been around plenty of attractive men in her day and it was hardly the first time she’d felt the rising heat of desire, but never so much, so fast, so powerful. There was some crazy chemistry going on with Colin.

What if he decided it wasn’t in his best interest to come back? After the way she’d behaved?

This whole situation with Colin was not a world she was familiar with. In her world people exchanged phone numbers and if a man interested you, you gave him your business card, email address and office number. You didn’t go after him like a hungry cat on the back porch and then yell at him for not going all the way! She didn’t even know how to reach him or where he lived and the only way he could reach her was by driving to her house—without an appointment.

“I’m completely out of my mind,” she muttered.

“What’s that, Miss Matlock?” Denny asked.

“I’m completely out of my mind…. To think I can grow Purple Calabash. And, for the love of Christ, will you please call me Jillian! Or Jill!”

He laughed at her. “Sure thing, Jillian. And if anyone can grow it, I bet you can. You know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say.”

She turned toward him. “What’s that, Denny?”

“I don’t know how to say it. I like the work here—I guess that’s how you say it. I’m kind of into it. I hope you still need me when the seedlings sprout, when the fruit comes in.”

She smiled happily at that. “I like that. I’ll keep you busy as long as I can. It all depends on the plants.”

“I get that—if they don’t come in strong, it’s not working.”

“That’s about it.”

“So there’s this other thing,” he said. “I know I’m younger than you by about eight years, but—”

She stiffened. She got serious. “You aren’t going to ask me to adopt you, are you, Denny?”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner. Just to Jack’s, but it’s about the best dinner around.”

All of a sudden she had a cold feeling rush through her. “We can’t ever,” she said, maybe a little more harshly than she meant to. She took a deep breath; this young man was the furthest thing from a schemer she knew. “If we have dinner together at Jack’s, which I’d like to do, we have to go Dutch. You work for me. I would be exploiting you by dating you.”

“Seriously?” he asked with a laugh.

“As a heart attack,” she said.

“Whoa,” he said. “I wouldn’t see it as exploiting. I’d kind of see it as a miracle. But I wasn’t really thinking of it as a date, Jillian. I was more thinking of it as a thank-you. For the work, the job.”