Page 37 of Switching Places

“I love the beach,” Emma said, breathing deeply. “If I could, I’d live—”

Stopping instantly when she realized where her thoughts were leading, she glanced up at Logan. Had he noticed?

“Live here and never travel?” Logan asked.

“Right.”

“I thought you enjoyed staying in France several months a year. You said last summer that there was no city like Paris,” Logan said.

He kept an eye on the waves, making sure to keep away from the grasping reaches of the spent breakers.

“That’s certainly true,” Emma hedged.

Her best bet was to keep her mouth shut. And that wouldn’t be hard. Joy built as they walked silently along the deserted beach. The sky was crowded with faint stars, overwhelmed with the bright shining moon. It lacked only a day or two to fullness, its light coating everything with a silvery radiance.

“I feel like it’s magic,” she said softly. “Maybe I’m Cinderella.”

Logan spun her around in front of him.

“Cinderella needs a ball. May I have the honor of this dance, my lady?”

He bowed slightly, then released her hand to take her into his arms.

“Know any good slow tunes?” he asked whimsically, swaying without moving his feet.

Emma laughed softly, extremely conscious of his warm hand against the bare skin revealed by the low back of her dress. Her breasts pressed lightly against his chest, tingling and filling. She yearned for a closer contact, but couldn’t possibly initiate one.

“No songs come to mind. What do you suggest?”

Humming a familiar tune, Logan moved in time to the melody, dancing in and out of the spent waves, on the hard-packed sand. Up and down the beach, around and around they danced. Emma let her head fall back as she gazed at the velvet sky speckled with glittering stars. Logan’s voice and the sound of the sea mingled to provide a melody she’d never forget.

It was magic and she became enchanted. Dancing in the strong arms of the most handsome man she’d ever seen, the twoof them in a world of their own at the edge of the earth—nothing beyond but sky and sea and endless eternity. This was bliss.

Savoring every second, she knew she’d never felt so free or joyful, never so light and graceful. This was what she missed with David. This was the intangible something she felt as if she had been missing all her life. Glorious.

She’d never enjoyed herself so much, or felt so alive. Every nerve ending tingled with sensuous awareness for the man who held her. When her legs brushed his, she shivered. His hand never let her stray more than a few inches. Her own inclination kept her close.

“Happy?” Logan asked softly, indulgently, when the song came to an end.

“Yes. I’ve never danced in the moonlight by the edge of the sea. Maybe I’ll include it in my things to do from now on.”

Almost giddy with delight, Emma twirled around, and danced a few steps on her own. She wanted to embrace everything, hold it all close to her heart for all time. Stopping, she grinned at Logan.

“Do you think I’m totally nuts?”

He shook his head.

“What I think is that I’ve known you for two years and never had a clue about the real you. Which is the true Lily Rambeau? Rich and sassy jet-setter or a woman who likes simple pleasures like a walk on the beach?”

“Can’t I be both?” she asked, keeping her distance as the magic faded and reality returned. She didn’t want him to look too closely. Would he discover the fraud? She wasn’t her sister and it obviously showed.

But she didn’t care. Not for tonight. A spell captured her, held her in thrall as she reveled in the mystery of the evening. Time enough for reality when they returned to the real world.This fantasy would only last a bit longer. Maybe by midnight, the spell would end and she’d be herself again.

“A person isn’t only one thing. Not a jet-setter or a dutiful daughter. She can offer a different facets on different days, do things in the moonlight with abandon that might not be possible by daylight. Don’t you think?” she asked.

“Like being an enchanted princess dancing on the edge of the world?”

“Exactly—that’s what I feel like right now. Isn’t it wonderful?”

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