Family Merger - By Leigh Greenwood Page 0,60

did. He had to be deranged. If they hadn't been thrown together by Cynthia's running way, he'd never have given her five minutes of his time. Yet now he couldn't stop thinking about her.

He'd dated women with more spectacular bodies, more beautiful faces, more sophisticated senses of style, yet he'd felt a strong physical attraction for Kathryn from the moment he set eyes on her. She was pretty, had plenty of style, and thinking about her body caused his temperature to rise. Maybe the simplicity of the way everything about her came together in a way that said there was nothing fabricated about her, nothing pretentious, nothing to hide, was the key. She was exactly what you saw, and that's the way she intended to remain.

He liked her intensity. Or maybe he meant her strength of character. She knew what she wanted, what she didn't, and she didn't equivocate. And she'd managed to tell him she disapproved of just about everything about him without making him feel she thought less of him as a man. She conceded to him the right to make his own choices at the same time she made it clear she didn't agree with them.

But he was most impressed she cared enough about the girls to devote her time and financial resources to make sure their mistakes did as little damage to their lives as possible. The emotional strain of dealing with teenagers under those circumstances must be tremendous. And then she had to deal with the parents as well. Even with the help of the experts she hired, he didn't see how she managed it.

He kept his temper with his clients because he was well paid to do it. She voluntarily put herself in the way of the anger of a lot of people because she wanted to help girls she'd never seen before they walked into her shelter. He had more money and more resources, but he'd never thought of doing anything like that. It ought to make him feel ashamed.

But all of this brought him back to the original question. Why had he asked her to go to Geneva with him? What did he expect - no, what did he hope to get out of it? He knew it wasn't just a thoroughly satisfying tumble in the bed. He wanted that and had told her so. He wouldn't turn it down if she offered, but there was something else.

She was vulnerable, but she had learned to cover it up. Maybe even deny it. Yet he could sense it lurking somewhere way down deep, maybe so deep she didn't realize it was there. At some level she still ached, yearned for what she couldn't have, couldn't find, maybe couldn't even identify. He'd promised himself he'd find it and fix it - just as he'd promised he'd fix his relationship with Cynthia - but he hadn't come close to figuring out what it might be.

He had figured out one thing: Kathryn had made him realize he was lonely, that he needed more than his work to feel fulfilled. Even more than his daughter and his future grandchild. He was a man with the physical and emotional needs of any other man. He'd ignored those needs far too long.

"Are you sure you don't mind watching this movie?" Ron asked her for the tenth time.

"I can't say I would have chosen Chariots of Fire if I could have found A Room with a View or Shakespeare in Love, but it's better than a clutch of Terminators or any of those action-adventure movies. Besides, it's kind of romantic in its own way."

If she was completely honest she wouldn't have cared if they'd watched one of the sweaty-muscles epics. She'd spent the last hour wrapped in Ron's embrace. Every so often he would whisper something, an excuse apparently to kiss her ear. She'd asked him once if he shouldn't be working. He'd said he still had time, so she didn't mention it again. She was hoping he wanted to kiss more than her ears.

"Are you glad you decided to come with me?" Ron asked.

That was a little more direct than she wanted to be. "I still can't believe I'm here. I don't want to think about what people are going to say when they find out."

"You're an adult. You can make your own decisions."

"That sounds exactly like what a man would say when he's trying to talk a woman into doing something she knows she shouldn't."

"Is that how you