“What, the red or the skin?”
“The skin.”
“What was she?”
“Sorry?”
She gave her head a small shake and turned her attention to the viscous contents of her glass. “Bad habit we Americans have, always wanting to sort people into tidy boxes. I don’t mean to be offensive, but Erica told me sometimes people will construe it that way.”
“You asked Erica what she was?”
Her shoulders rose, almost imperceptibly, then fell. “I was curious. Hispanic heritage seems to be such an amorphous thing, and I always wonder how people label themselves. I’ve got the typical English-Scottish mix. Nothing interesting.”
Was he supposed to say something? This was probably the longest conversation they’d had in twelve years, and he feared that perhaps talking would dilute the magic somehow. But, conversations were supposed to be two-sided, weren’t they?
“Uh.” Some of the hair he hadn’t found time or energy to have cut fell into his face as he leaned forward. He brushed it out of his eyes and tucked it behind both ears. “Not that anyone would ever mistake you for a lady,” Grant had quipped a day ago, “but the last time I had hair that long, Emma put little pink bows in it while I slept.”
His hair grazed his collar and brushed his jaw. He’d come a long way from cue-ball head. Bald had been far less of a hassle.
“My maternal grandmother was Ruska Roma. I—”
Meg’s eyes widened a touch.
“Uh. Romani?” he clarified.
“Gypsy?”
“Most would prefer you use another term. That one is what Americans call ‘loaded.’ I lived with her, moved around with her, until I was fourteen.”
“Is that when you moved to the US?”
“No, she died.”
Meg’s mouth formed a little O shape, but she recovered quickly and brought her glass to her lips, sipping.
There weren’t many people who knew much about his past. Curt had been his roommate since that first graduate student mixer when he was twenty-three, so he knew. Grant, the third leg of their little international student triangle and a bulldog of a historian, knew. He’d guessed, just based on some of Seth’s ingrained rituals.
“Hmm.”
And that was it. She leaned back against the padded bench and rolled her wineglass stem some more.
There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, curiosities he yearned to have squelched, but having her volunteer to be this close to him scared him a bit. He worried if he weren’t careful, she’d fly off like a frightened bird. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been as near. Briefly at Grant and Carla’s wedding when she’d dropped her cake and he’d scraped it up. When they’d applied for their marriage license upon arriving in Bermuda. Finally, on the beach when the officiant instructed him to kiss his bride.
He hadn’t expected fireworks, but the fact she hadn’t flinched—hadn’t drawn away when their lips touched—had driven him to claim more of her mouth. Their tongues had touched briefly as he’d woven fingers through the back of her hair, and she’d made a little noise he couldn’t quite parse. Was it pleasure? Disgust?
He’d let her go at that point, and they both turned to their witnesses and smiled for the telephoto lenses.
She’d gone cold after that, and him?
Well, he wished it’d been real.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Felt like one. And yet every time he stole a glance at Meg, like he did right then, he hoped Sharon was right.
Chapter 3
Everything Meg knew about Seth from the stories her friends regaled her with suggested he was a bit of a loose cannon. He was always keen on a good time and not too picky when it came to women. He could be loud and boisterous, and his style could use some polish.
Sharon had been cleaning him up over the past year—her pet project and greatest triumph, she’d said—and he cleaned up well. As tall as he was with those wide shoulders and all that bright hair, he was amazing to look at. But, left up to his devices like right then in that cabana, he couldn’t be bothered to fix up. He looked damned good in a pair of shorts, though, no matter that they were so stained and holey they shouldn’t have been allowed into the country. Maybe customs would confiscate them on the way out.
His legs were what set her mouth a-runnin’. He was buff for a geek.
“Look, Seth,” she said, wine fortifying her courage. “Neither of us is under any pretense that this thing will last longer than it takes for the ink on the marriage license to dry, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of the fringe benefits of being married.” She swallowed and pressed the remnants of the cork into the bottle.