in the year since her life in Bel-Air had been dismembered, buck by buck? Besides, she hoped the wine, like the salad, was going to be an afterthought later in the evening.
Much, much later.
She heard a vehicle slowing, and she leaned forward to see if it was Marsh’s pickup. Darkness was falling, but she could see he had parked at the beginning of the short drive that led up to her cottage, effectively blocking her in. If she wanted to run, she was too late.
She sprinted to the bedroom mirror to make sure her hair was still okay. She’d left it down, where it slid straight and sleek past her shoulders, and she pushed one dark lock behind an ear, studying the effect. As she turned to view the side, she realized the pearl buttons that marched from waist to neckline were gaping just the tiniest bit. She shouldn’t have washed the dress, despite what the label claimed. She shouldn’t have tried to save a few bucks.
She heard rapping on her front door, and she adjusted the bodice and hoped it would stay. Then she crossed the living room and flung the door open.
Marsh’s gaze traveled up and down before it came back up to rest on her face. “If I say you look like a million dollars in that dress, you aren’t going to keep it on all night just to impress me, are you?”
She gave him the same smile she had practiced in front of a mirror at sixteen, the one that had snagged CJ years later.
CJ!
She tossed her head and tried to toss her mother’s phone call with it. “What makes you think I’d consider taking it off?”
He leaned over and kissed her. Casually. No tongue, but warm and sweet anyway. “Well, you might say I’m forever hopeful. Those papers are all signed. Now we’ve got nothing between us except whatever that dress is made of, and a shirt and jeans I can be out of in ten seconds flat. And my son is safely playing video games for the night.”
She hooked the opening of his polo shirt with her index finger and tugged him close for another kiss, far less casual. He smelled faintly like lime and something deliciously masculine. She didn’t want to let him go.
“Ah, the papers,” she said, when she’d finished but hadn’t released him. “Effective libido dampeners, weren’t they?”
He pulled her closer and trailed a chain of kisses to her earlobe. “You think so? My libido’s been straining at the leash since pretty much the first time I saw you.”
The papers were an agreement between Wild Florida, the environmental organization for which Marsh was director, and Tracy. She had agreed to put the land she owned here on Palmetto Grove Key into a conservation easement. She and Marsh had wrangled over terms for months, but in the end, she thought they were both happy with the result.
They had put the physical side of their relationship on hold for the duration. Now maybe they could find some happiness on that score, too.
Reluctantly she stepped back, and he held out a bottle. Tracy leaned over to check the label. “Wow, that’s a really good Zinfandel. Too bad I just opened another bottle.”
“Save this for another time, then.”
“Let’s not stand in the doorway all night. We have better places to be.” She moved aside to let him in. She thought he looked yummy. The most casual man she knew, Marsh had still dressed up for her. The jeans were clean and appropriately faded, the dark green polo shirt looked new. He wore his sandy brown hair in its usual ponytail, but pulled back neatly. His perpetual Florida tan set off eyes the golden brown of his hair and a smile she could feel all over her body.
She smiled, too, and against all possible odds, her smile suddenly wobbled. She was nervous. She, Tracy Deloche, who, from the day she purchased her first training bra had been schooled in the fine art of leading men around by their noses. By the time she was sixteen, braces gone and ears flattened against her scalp, she’d graduated at the head of her class. Since then, she’d been fully confident she had a good shot at any heterosexual man in the universe.
And now Marsh Egan, Florida good ol’ boy, self-confessed Cracker, tree hugger and environmental gadfly, was making her nervous.
She tried to remember if she’d felt this way when she set out to get CJ in bed.