brushed past him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for conversation,” she said.
He caught the back of her shirt, halting her forward movement. “I want to help you out, Addy. Remember? I promised that at the bar.”
At the bar, when she’d turned to him, looking for a way out of Steve’s insistent offer. Though she’d known that guy for years, his avid interest had struck her as a little creepy, and she hadn’t wanted to accept—nor had she wanted to say that to his face. Some stupid instinct had made her glance toward Baxter, and he’d immediately stepped up with a promise of his own.
“Thanks for that,” she said now, without looking at him. “You helped me out of a tight spot, but I didn’t take you at your word.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
A grim note in his voice had her glancing back at him. He let go of her shirt, and used that hand to smooth his already-smooth golden hair. “But I meant it,” he said. “I’m volunteering my services.”
She shook her head. “I appreciate it, but I’m actually just on my way out. I’m going to hike around the cove this morning, scouting out locations used in the Sunrise movies.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You’re dressed for a board meeting, not a tramp down the beach and a scramble in the hills.”
He was already unbuttoning his cuffs. Then he loosened his tie and began stripping out of his dress shirt. As she watched his hands, the past reared up, image overlaying image. In the darkness, Baxter toeing out of his shoes. Baxter yanking his shirt over his head. Baxter’s hands at the buckle of his belt.
His delicious scent had been in the air, she remembered. It had already transferred to her skin during their heated kisses, a sophisticated sandalwood cologne that she’d breathed in while trying to steady her triple-timing heart. Her nervous trembling had seemed to shake the entire bed and her skin prickled with chill...until he’d lain on top of her, his bare chest against her now-naked breasts, his erection nudging the notch between her thighs. “Addy,” he’d groaned, the word hot against her ear.
“Addy,” Baxter said now, standing before her in his slacks and a V-necked white T. “Ready?”
She shook her head, trying to return that old memory to its usual high shelf. “You...” Her voice was so dry she had to try again. “You can’t go like that.”
“Of course I can,” he answered, his voice full of the confidence only the Baxter Smiths of the world could claim.
The kind of confidence that drew the Addy Marches of the world—and that clearly would be a waste of breath to argue against. She sighed. “C’mon, then,” she said, digging through her backpack as she led the way outside. Finding the tube of lotion, she tossed it over her shoulder to him, certain he’d make the catch.
“What’s this?”
“Sunscreen. You better use it. You look a little pasty.”
Addy didn’t pause to hear his response or stop to let him apply the stuff. However, a few moments later he tugged the backpack from her to stow the lotion. “Pasty, huh,” he said, slinging the strap over his own shoulder. “And I looked prissy just the other day.”
She didn’t glance at him as she took a path along the lower edge of the bluff. He wasn’t pasty or prissy, of course, but wallflowers developed a defensive edge. They didn’t always let it show—mostly never—but when their backs were too tight to the wall... Now Addy felt as if her shoulder blades were jammed against thick plaster.
Trying to ignore the sensation as well as the man who brought it on, she focused on her original plan. Her first stopping place was a short ten-minute walk. Once she found the vantage point she sought, she paused to enjoy the view. They were halfway up a footpath on the hillside that rose behind the beach. The surrounding grasses were knee-length and well on their way to going from spring-green to September-blond.
“I’ll take the backpack now,” she told Baxter. As she unzipped the largest compartment, she noticed the sand sprinkling the tops of his loafers. Their slick soles had slid on the path’s silty dirt. Pulling free her camera, she glanced up at him. “Really, Baxter, go back. You don’t have the right equipment.”
“Oh, I think you know I do,” he said.
The ocean breeze cooled her suddenly hot cheeks. Instead of responding to that, she dropped the backpack and brought the viewfinder to her eye. With