Page 85 of A Legal Affair
“You’d be surprised,” Daniela murmured, wondering if her face could possibly get any hotter.
Ruth slid a teasing look at Caleb, who had remained inconspicuously silent throughout the entire discussion. “Are we not sitting at a table with a confirmed bachelor?” she pointed out to Rita.
Rita guffawed. “Caleb’s not a confirmed bachelor,” she argued. “He’s just waiting for the right woman to come along, and then you watch and see how long he stays single. Ain’t that right, Caleb?”
The hushed silence that fell over the table was deafening. Silverware stilled, glasses stopped tinkling, even the eaglessoaring above the treetops seemed to grow silent as all awaited Caleb’s response.
With calm deliberation, he raised his wineglass and took a leisurely sip of Bordeaux before setting the glass back down. His deep voice was laced with lazy humor as he said to Rita, “Far be it from me to argue with the woman who covered for me when I got in trouble at school.”
As laughter erupted around the table, Caleb’s eyes met and held Daniela’s for one heart-stopping moment. Crazy as it was, she felt as if he were silently communicating a message to her, though she couldn’t begin to fathom what that message might be.
Only when his heated gaze slid away from hers did she dare breathe again.
“Wait a minute. What’s this about you getting in trouble at school, boy?” Crandall gruffly demanded, and the conversation soon evolved into humorous anecdotes about Caleb’s childhood exploits as a prankster who frequently got away with murder because his teachers, who were so enamored of him, seldom suspected him of any wrongdoing.
Daniela laughed, drank good wine and couldn’t remember the last time she’d so thoroughly enjoyed herself.
As the evening progressed, she found herself revisiting her previous opinion of Crandall Thorne. Observing the way he interacted with Caleb, he seemed less daunting, less austere, than she would have expected. He struck her as a man who was deeply devoted to his son, a proud, loving father who would do anything to protect him, just as Pamela Roarke would do for her own children. As Daniela watched Crandall tease Caleb, and get teased in return, she knew she was seeing a side of the shrewd, formidable business mogul few people ever witnessed.
Was it possible Crandall Thorne wasn’t as bad as she—and her brothers—had thought?
It was an unsettling prospect.
As the sun slid toward the distant hills, ushering in nightfall, candles were discreetly produced and lit along the table. After lingering over coffee and sinfully rich hazelnut cheesecake, the party began to break up. Crandall announced that he was tired; the four-hour dialysis treatment he’d undergone earlier had taken its usual toll on him, he grudgingly admitted.
Bowing gallantly over Daniela’s hand, he smiled at her. “It was a pleasure spending time with you this evening, Miss Moreau. I’ll be in touch after Labor Day.”
Daniela felt an immediate kick of guilt. “Thank you for inviting me into your beautiful home, Mr. Thorne,” she said warmly. “I had a wonderful time, and I look forward to hearing from you again.”
Shortly after Crandall departed, Ruth and Rita—offering vague excuses about needing to finish certain tasks before bedtime—wished Caleb and Daniela a goodnight and quickly retreated inside the house.
Before Daniela realized what had happened, she and Caleb were all alone.
25
Gazing across the candlelit table at Caleb’s mesmerizing face, Daniela was struck by a sudden attack of shyness. “I guess you can take me home now,” she said, hearing the reluctance in her own voice.
She hadn’t fooled Caleb, either. “You don’t want to go home yet,” he told her, his voice like the stroke of velvet on her skin.
Her belly quivered. “I don’t?”
He shook his head, keeping her gaze trapped in the banked heat of his own. “At least not until you’ve watched the sunset. It’s an amazing sight from here, one of those simple pleasures everyone should experience at some point in their lives.”
Daniela chuckled softly, recognizing her own words to him. “Like coffee and ice cream?”
He smiled, slow and sexy. “Exactly.”
As she watched, breath trapped in her throat, Caleb glided to his feet and came around the table to claim the chair beside her. As he scooted closer, the sides of their shoulders and thighs brushed. Daniela trembled, sensation passing from one nerve to another like a flow of warm honey.
“I really had a great time tonight,” she told him, somewhat breathlessly. She felt like a shy virgin on her first date with the hot star quarterback of the high school football team.
“Glad to hear it,” Caleb murmured, his gaze searching hers in the approaching dusk. “Did you mean what you said earlier, about men going out of their way to avoid commitment? Has that been your personal experience?”
“Pretty much.” She smiled wryly. “To be fair, it’s not like I’ve ever met anyone I’ve seriously contemplated settling down with.”
Until now.
Shaken, she promptly shoved aside the dangerous thought and looked out across the valley.
