“Cookies and milk?” she asked. “Or...I just happen to have a very good bottle of wine.”
He laughed. “The cookies and milk sound great. By the way, my dad enjoyed the ones you baked. I told him he should thank you himself, but—” Jase shrugged. “Parents aren’t any easier to control than kids.”
She supposed that was the truth all children came to face, as well as parents.
After they were seated on the sofa, she opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. There were six pieces of photographic paper with two prints on each. Underneath those, she found the article that had appeared in the paper. That, she set aside for the time being. She couldn’t wait to see the prints.
Immediately she was entranced by them. Amy’s expressions were priceless as she played hopscotch, ran in the spray of the hose and grinned up at Sara as if she were the best mother in the world. “Oh, Jase, these are beautiful.”
“They did come out well, didn’t they?” he said with some self-satisfaction. “I guess I haven’t altogether lost my touch.”
“You haven’t lost your touch one little bit, and you know it. You take wonderful photographs of scenery, but people and especially children are your specialty.”
“I have more of you and Amy. I’m going to send the whole batch to the printing house I use. Then you can start a new photo album. You’ll have to get a point-and-shoot camera so you can add to it.”
She studied the photographs again. They all meant so much to her. “You are a kind man.”
“Maybe, or maybe I have an ulterior motive.”
“Such as?”
“Not what you’re thinking.” His smile was rakish. “If we ever do go to bed together, it will be because we both want it. I guess I just want to give you back something you lost, the way you gave me back something I lost. You’ve got a great smile, Sara. I see it with Amy all the time. But other times, I just sense sadness.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I don’t think I am. You not only regret what happened in your marriage, I think you regret your marriage.”
“I loved Conrad. We had Amy. How could I regret that?”
“Maybe that was a bad choice of words. But don’t you wonder what might have happened if you’d married someone else?”
She looked away and shrugged. “The grass is always greener.”
“Sara, it’s not a sin to wonder what you could have done differently.”
She looked back to him. “No, it’s not, but I can’t change my history. So the best thing to do is learn from it and move on.”
“Are you moving on?”
They stared at each other for at least ten very long seconds. She felt battered by his conclusions and questions as if she’d been tossed in a storm of wrong decisions...wrong moves...wrong choices.
And if she’d been wrong before, she could be wrong again.
“Did you come over tonight to ask probing personal questions or to give me the pictures?”
“I came over because I wanted to see you...because I wanted to do this.”
He moved so fast and took advantage of her surprise so masterfully that she didn’t even know she was responding until she heard herself moan, until his possessiveness claimed her, until his kiss became deep and hungry and totally consuming.
Jase was more than temptation. He was passion, excitement and everything she’d ever longed for and hadn’t known. That’s why he was so hard to resist. That’s why she was kissing him back, responding as if her life depended on it.
When Jase ended the kiss, she tried to clear her head but he nuzzled her neck and she was still caught up in his touch.
“The earth shakes when you kiss me,” she finally managed to murmur.
“And fireworks explode?” he asked with a throaty, sexy chuckle.
She didn’t answer and he stopped nuzzling her neck. Hooking his thumb under her chin, he turned her face toward his. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering where we go from here.”
“Do you always need a plan?”
“I have a daughter.”
“I’m not forgetting that.”
Jase ran his hand over his face as if he needed a moment. Then he said, “I did come over for another reason. Have you considered letting me interview you?”
“I’ve been thinking about it all evening. I saw the comments on the newspaper’s website.”
“Marissa still won’t budge. Kaitlyn is on the fence. I do have another mother of two, Ann Custer, whose husband is in Afghanistan. I’m doing her interview tomorrow.”
Sara thought about it a last time. “We can stick to the fire and moving into the cottage here?”