wrap her arms around his neck and return to that magical place they had found by the water’s edge. Instead, she nodded, then let herself into the house, feeling as if something fundamental had changed inside her, something she didn’t want to examine too closely.
As soon as she closed the door, Betsey rushed to her water bowl and took a healthy drink. Sam followed her example, turning on the tap and filling a large glass with cold water.
Instead of drinking it, she pressed it to first one flaming cheek and then the other.
Holy moly. The man could kiss.
She didn’t know when she had ever completely lost her head over a kiss.
Starry-eyed Sam. That’s what her mother used to call her, in a mocking voice Samantha had hated, because of what Linda perceived as her daughter’s tendency to fall in love at the drop of a hat.
That was her past, one she wasn’t particularly proud of.
This wasn’t her first time letting her emotions get carried away.
Even with the other men she had kissed, she didn’t remember an embrace ever leaving her so breathless.
Contrary to popular belief, she was not really an expert when it came to men. At least when it came to sex. She had gone all the way with only two guys. One was her high school boyfriend, who was married now and living in Shelter Springs with his wife and their three kids. He worked at a home improvement store in the larger town. Yeah, that had led to a few uncomfortable conversations when she had to go in asking about garden hoses and pipe fittings.
Another had been a guy she dated while finishing her degree in business in Boise.
She had lived at home to help her mother with the store after class and on the weekends so she hadn’t had much of a social life. She did manage to date occasionally and had gone out for about six months with an economics major who was a few years ahead of her in school, Craig Bothwell.
She told herself she was in love and thought he felt the same. She spent those six months dreaming about the adventures they would have and how she was going to tell her mother she was leaving the boutique to go with him when he graduated.
He had taken a job in Dallas a month before graduation. As he prepared to pack up his belongings and move, she waited for him to talk to her about going with him. He didn’t. Finally, a week before graduation, she had gathered her courage and brought it up.
She could still remember the devastation scorching through her when he had told her that while he’d had fun these past few months with her, he didn’t see a future for them and he certainly didn’t want her to go to Dallas with him.
Brokenhearted, she hadn’t dated anyone else seriously in college, too busy licking her wounds. Only after graduation, when she turned her full attention to the boutique, did she begin to realize how limited the dating options were here in Haven Point. She lived at home with her mother in a town where everybody always seemed to be watching her. She couldn’t just sleep with any random tourist without word trickling back to her mother.
She went on dates here and there and seemed to convince herself this was it...she was in love. This one would last forever.
They never did, though, and finally she’d gotten tired of trying.
She closed her eyes, reliving the kiss with Ian. Nothing in her past had prepared her for that kind of fast and furious response to a man. She still couldn’t quite catch her breath.
How ridiculous. She didn’t even know him. Not really. Yes, he seemed to be a good father. Yes, she was attracted to him. But the only thing she really knew for certain was that he would be leaving in a few weeks’ time. Even if he were interested in a fling, which he clearly wasn’t, she couldn’t do it. She wanted more. She wanted the kind of life Katrina had with Bowie, and Wyn had with Cade Emmett.
They each had found deep and lasting love. Bowie and Cade would both give everything they had for their wives. Being around the couples was both inspiring and depressing, reinforcing just how shallow her previous relationships with men had been.
No one she had ever dated had once looked at her with even a small portion of the tenderness she saw her friends