With an exclamation of disgust, she stalked back into her bedroom, snatched up her prettiest robe, an apricot silk with a border of deep green laurel leaves at the hem and sleeves, and jabbed her arms into it. She was a physicist, for goodness sakes! A successful professional woman! Since when did she decide to measure her self-worth in terms of her hip size?
And since when could she respect a man who viewed her as only a body? If her measurements didn’t meet Cal’s standards, then it was long past time she found that out. They couldn’t have a lasting relationship if the only thing that kept him interested in her was the mystery of what she looked like naked.
She wanted a real relationship more than she’d ever wanted anything. It hurt too much to be afraid all the caring was one-sided. She needed to stop procrastinating and find out if anything lasting existed between them, or if she were merely another touchdown for Cal Bonner to score.
She heard the faint whir of the garage door sliding open, and her heart jumped into her throat. He was home. Misgivings shot through her. She should have picked a more convenient time, a day when he wasn’t getting ready to fly halfway across the country to a golf tournament. She should have waited until she was calmer, more sure of herself. She should have—
Her cowardice disgusted her and she resisted a nearly irresistible urge to grab every article of clothing in her closet and stuff herself into all of them until she was the size of a polar bear. Today she would begin the process of discovering whether she’d given her heart away in vain.
Taking a deep breath, she secured the robe’s sash in a bow and padded barefoot into the hallway.
“Jane?”
“I’m up here.” As she stopped at the top of the stairs, the thudding of her heart made her feel light-headed.
He appeared in the foyer below. “Guess who I—” He broke off as he looked up and saw her standing above him at one o’clock in the afternoon wearing nothing but a slinky silk robe.
He smiled and tucked the fingers of one hand in the pocket of his jeans. “You sure do know how to welcome a guy home.”
She couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to. Heart pounding, she lifted her hands to the robe’s sash while her heart whispered a silent prayer. Please let him want me for myself and not just because I’m a challenge. Please let him love me just a little bit. Her clumsy fingers tugged on the robe’s sash, and her gaze locked with his as the frail garment parted. With a shrug of her shoulders, she let it slide down her body and fall in a puddle at her feet.
Warm sunlight washed her body, revealing everything: her small breasts and rounding belly, her huge hips and very ordinary legs.
Cal looked dazed. She rested one hand lightly on the banister and moved slowly down the steps, wearing nothing but a fragile veil of almond-scented lotion.
Cal’s lips parted. His eyes glazed.
Her foot touched the bottom step, and she smiled.
He licked his lips as if they had gone very dry and spoke in a voice that held a slight croak. “Turn around, Eth.”
“Not on your life.”
Jane’s head shot up. With a gasp of dismay, she saw the Reverend Ethan Bonner standing in the archway just behind Cal.
He studied her with undisguised interest. “I hope I didn’t show up at a bad time.”
With a strangled moan, she spun around and dashed back up the stairs, all too aware of the view she presented them from behind. She scrambled for her robe and, crumpling it in front of herself, fled to her bedroom, where she slammed the door and sagged against it, more mortified than she had ever been in her life.
It seemed as if only a few seconds passed before she heard a soft rapping. “Honey?” Cal’s voice held the tentative note of a man who knew he only had a few minutes to disarm a ticking bomb.
“I’m not here. Go away.” To her dismay, tears stung her eyes. She had thought about this for so long, placed so much importance on it, and now it had ended in disaster.
The door bumped against her. “Step back now, sweetheart, and let me in.”
She moved away, too dispirited to argue. With the silk robe still crumpled in front of her, she pressed her bare back to the adjacent wall.
He entered gingerly, like a soldier expecting land mines. “You all right, sweetheart?”
“Stop calling me that! I’ve never been so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be, honey. You made poor Eth’s day. Hell, you probably made his whole year, not to mention mine.”
“Your brother saw me naked! I stood there on the stairs, naked as the day I was born, making a complete fool of myself.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong. There was nothing foolish about the sight of you naked. Why don’t you let me hang that robe up for you before it gets ruined.”