Suddenly a new emotion washed over her. It had been there, lurking on the edges of her mind, trying to get a foothold. Now she had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Guilt.
For the first time since Thomas’s death, she was enjoying the company of a man, and having a helluva good time at it. She felt guilty about it. The pencil rolled from her listless fingers.
“It’s perfectly natural, you know.”
She jumped and spun around. Hunter was standing close but had moved so silently she hadn’t heard his approach. “What?” she asked breathlessly.
“The guilt.” He didn’t touch her, but she thought that he wanted to. “It’s natural to grieve when someone we love dies, Kari. But it’s just as natural to eventually go on living, to enjoy life, to laugh again. Possibly love again.”
She doubted that she would feel guilty if she weren’t so attracted to Hunter. If he were older, chubby and bald, she doubted her conscience would be pricked at all. But he wasn’t. He was young and handsome and virile. If he were someone she could establish a comfortable, affectionate friendship with, she probably wouldn’t feel guilty at all. But she was thinking of him as a lover. And since the only man she had been intimate with was Thomas, she saw her passionate response to Hunter as unfaithfulness.
“I don’t intend to replace anyone in your life, Kari. I intend to make a place there for myself.”
“You said once that mind reading wasn’t one of your strong points. You lied.”
“That’s the only time I’ve lied to you.”
Both the subject and his ability to read her were disturbing. She turned back to her list. “Oreos or Nutter-Butters?”
“Why not both?”
“Remember that television camera and its cursed fifteen pounds? Oh, what the hell? Both.” She scratched across the paper with the pencil. “If Pinkie sends me to a fat farm, the television station can foot the bill. What else?”
“Tomato sauce, oregano, onion, bell pepper—”
He was peering over her shoulder at the list as she wrote. She turned to face him in the small space he allowed her between the cabinet and his equally unyielding frame. “What’s that for?”
“The spaghetti dinner I’m going to cook you one night.”
“You can cook?”
“Spaghetti. Can you cook?”
“Spaghetti,” she answered, laughing.
He shrugged. “So, we’ll eat a lot of spaghetti or eat out. Or overdose on Oreos and Nutter-Butters.”
They laughed together and finished their list. He insisted on taking his car. “I’m perfectly capable of driving on a mountain road,” she said as he unlocked the door for her.
“And I’m a male chauvinist. Shut up and get in.”
“Bossy.”
He drove as capably as he did everything else. She liked to watch his hands on the padded leather steering wheel. Naughty mental images of those hands on her naked body flickered through her mind. The motor of the sleek sports car throbbed beneath her. She was throbbing all over.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, catching her eyes on him.
“I was just thinking how much you and your car are alike.”
He cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Care to expound on that?”
She studied him, the lean symmetry of his body, the threat of a dangerous temper just beneath the surface, the power in every taut inch. “No. I don’t think I do,” she said saucily.
“Aw, come on.”
“Nope.”
“Then, I won’t tell you how sensational you look. I won’t tell you that until this morning I had a fairly good idea that your thighs would be just as perfect as your calves and ankles. Now I know for sure that they are.
“I won’t comment that your tush is even better in jeans than it is in a skirt. Or that I love the way your breasts looked under that T-shirt and the feel of them against my chest. Or that I like the color of your hair in sunlight, which is almost as pretty as it is in candlelight. Forget my even mentioning that your face is exquisite and as easy to read as a first-grade primer.
“Nor will I tell you that your eyes are the most bewitching pair I’ve ever gazed into. As for your mouth, suffice it to say, it has played a major role in my fantasies for months. Is there anything else I shouldn’t say?”
He swung the car into a parking lot and brought it to a jarring halt. He switched off the ignition and faced her. “Well?”
She swallowed. “No. I think that about covers all that you shouldn’t say.”
“One more thing.” He took her hand and met her eyes with his. “I’m glad to be here with you like this.” He smiled that heart-stopping smile that had convinced judges and swayed juries and seduced God knew how many women.