Page 22 of Megan's Mate
Wouldn’t let herself be.
The only way to combat those intrusive gray eyes, other than to run like a fool, was conversation. “So, do you garden, as well as sail and quote the classics?” she asked him.
“I’ve an affection for flowers, among other things.” Nathaniel put a hand over the peony she held, and lifted it toward him so that he could enjoy its fragrance, and hers. He smiled at her over the feathered petals.
She found herself caught, as if in some slow-motion dream, between the man and the moonlight. The perfume of the garden seemed to rise up and swirl like the breeze, gently invading her senses. Shadows shifted over his face, highlighting all those fascinating clefts and ridges, luring her gaze to his mouth, curved now and inviting.
They seemed so completely alone, so totally cut off from the reality and responsibilities of day-to-day life.
Just a man and a woman among star-dappled flowers and moonlit shadows, and the music of the distant sea.
Deliberately she lowered her lashes, as if to break the spell.
“I’m surprised you’d have time for poetry and flowers, with all the traveling.”
“You can always make time for what counts.”
The fact that the night held magic hadn’t escaped him. But then, he was open to such things. There’d been times he’d seen water rise out of itself like a clenched fist, times he’d heard the siren song of mermaids through shifting fog—he believed in magic. Why else had he waited in the garden, knowing, somehow knowing, she would come?
He released the flower but took her free hand, linking their fingers before she could think of a reason he shouldn’t. “Walk with me, Meg. A night like this shouldn’t be wasted.”
“I’m going back in.” She looked back up just as a breeze stirred in the air. Wisteria petals rained down.
“Soon.”
So she was walking with him in the fairy-lit garden, with a flower in her hand and fragrant petals in her hair.
“I... really should check on Kevin.”
“The boy have trouble sleeping?”
“No, but—”
“Bad dreams?”
“No.”
“Well, then.” Taking that as an answer, he continued his stroll down the narrow path. “Does having a man flirt with you always make you turn tail and run?”
“I certainly wasn’t running. And I’m not interested in flirtations.”
“Funny. When you were standing out on the terrace a bit ago, you looked like a woman ready for a little flirting.”
She stopped dead. “You were watching me.”
“Mmm.” Nathaniel crushed his cigar out into the sand of a nearby urn. “I was thinking it was a shame I didn’t have a lute.”
Annoyance warred with curiosity. “A lute?”
“A pretty woman standing on a balcony in the moonlight—she should be serenaded.”
She had to laugh at that. “I suppose you play the lute.”
“Nope. Wished I did, though, when I saw you.” He began to walk again. The cliff curved downward, toward the seawall. “I used to sail by here when I was a kid and look up at The Towers. I liked to think there was a dragon guarding it, and that I’d scale the cliffs and slay him.”
“Kevin still calls it a castle,” she murmured, looking back.
“When I got older and took note of the Calhoun sisters, I figured when I killed the dragon, they’d reward me. In the way a sixteen-year-old walking hormone fantasizes.”
