into him, snuggling. With a quiet satisfaction, Lars closed his eyes.
* * *
DIRK STARED AT the blinking cursor on the computer screen. Done. He’d dawdled around and done everything else he could possibly think of since he’d gotten back to his room. He’d even shined his boots. But this couldn’t be put off any longer. Merrilee would corner him tomorrow and harass his ass to make sure he’d actually sent the damn invitation. He should’ve just kept his big mouth shut. Now he was stuck.
Finally he’d plopped down and typed out the invitation he and Merrilee, mostly Merrilee, had put together. Now all that was left to do was to press the send button.
He ran his hand over his head. Shit. As long as he didn’t send it, she couldn’t say no.
Natalie, I hope things are good with you and your family. The weather is really nice in Alaska now. There’s a lot of fishing and hiking and other fun things to do. Plus it’s really pretty, if you like wildflowers and mountains and nature, which I think you do. There is also a nice spa here you might like, too. It is a great time to come if you haven’t already made vacation plans. So, do you think you’d like to come out for a visit? Your friend, Dirk.
Merrilee had said he had to flat out ask her if she wanted to visit. Damnation. And she’d told him to take out the part he’d written about the kind of fish that were biting and instead mention the spa. Spas just weren’t on his radar, but Merrilee knew the kind of things a woman would like.
He shook his head. He had to send the damn thing before the next morning so he might as well get it over with. He took a deep breath, stabbed the button with his finger and exhaled as it zipped through the internet.
He pulled off his jeans—he never could email Natalie when he was sitting around in his boxers; it just didn’t seem right—and pulled off his socks.
Dirk walked back over to the laptop to close it down and his heart started thumping hard and fast. Natalie had emailed him back. He stood there in indecision. If she’d said yes, he’d be too excited and wound up to sleep. If she said no, well, he’d be pretty wrecked. And if he didn’t open it and find out one way or another, the wondering would gnaw at him all night. Any way it turned out, he was screwed.
He opened the file. He read it twice, then once again for good measure. Natalie was coming. Here. To see him.
Holy hell.
11
DELPHI BURROWED CLOSER to the warmth. She felt him, smelled him, and memory and a measure of confusion crowded in on her. She blinked her eyes open. Lars was snoozing, his head on the pillow next to her.
She was missing something. The last thing she remembered, she was waiting on the shower. She looked down at herself. She was in her nightgown. Either she’d done a grand job of sleepwalking or he’d undressed her and slipped on her nightclothes. Since she’d never sleepwalked in her life, it was unlikely she’d started now.
She didn’t know why the notion of him undressing her was so disconcerting, but it was. They’d had a sexual encounter. In her job, she routinely undressed patients and thought nothing of it. However, there was an intimacy to being undressed by a man you’d had sex with and then sharing a bed when it wasn’t necessary. Perhaps that was what had her so off-center—finding him in her bed. He had a perfectly good room next door. There hadn’t been any “action” going on, so it had been fairly pointless for him to climb into bed with her.
She reminded herself that intimacy didn’t matter. He was still leaving at the end of the week, so there was nothing at stake. It gave her a sense of freedom. There was no power struggle, no opportunity for him to misconstrue anything she said or did. And if he did, well, his mistake wouldn’t get her fired and blackballed.
He was an interesting man, she’d give him that. A man who set off bombs and could dance like nobody’s business. A man who put his life on the line in his job, but was also vulnerable to his mother’s antics. And she’d watched and paid attention yesterday.
If you took impressions at face value, Liam came across as the serious twin. Even