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And then she’d realized Carson had completely misunderstood, that he thought Duncan was hers!
“Duncan is my nephew! He’s Lachlan and Fiona’s. I would never—I’m engaged to you!”
A relieved grin had spread over Carson’s hard handsome face. “Well, that’s all right then,” he’d said cheerfully and looped an arm over Molly’s shoulders. “How come you’ve got him?”
“Fiona’s sculpting this afternoon. I said I’d baby-sit.”
He’d looked dismayed. “I thought maybe we’d go fishing.”
His reaction had definitely not been all that she had hoped for. But Molly supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Carson hadn’t been expecting to see her with a baby. But if she’d hoped the notion would grow on him, it hadn’t.
He’d been distracted, preoccupied with business, going back and forth to talk to Tom Wilson at The Lodge on the private island just south of Pelican Cay. They had “irons in the fire,” he told Molly. Something to do with another retreat center for burned-out execs in Savannah like the one Tom had already established at The Lodge. Carson had been helping him with the Savannah operation.
It was Tom, in fact, who had rung up the evening she’d actually tried to steer the conversation around to their engagement and—maybe someday—marriage.
But she’d barely got into it when Tom had rung. Carson had said, “Can’t talk now,” and had gone off to talk shop.
“We’ll do it later,” he’d promised Molly.
But there hadn’t been time.
Well, at homecoming there would be. Time for talk—and considerably more than that, Molly vowed as she scrubbed vigorously under the shower’s spray. Provided she didn’t die of mortification from Joaquin Santiago’s “seduction lessons” first.
He had told her he’d “be in touch,” when she’d left his room at the Moonstone.
“When?” she’d asked. Given a specific time, she figured she could gear herself up for the experience. Or think of a reason to chicken out.
“I need to think about it,” he’d said.
“Really?” She’d been surprised actually. “You mean it’s not instinctive.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” he’d said with that smooth, seductive voice that could send shivers down a woman’s spine.
She’d done her best to look indifferent. “I guess. But I’m going to the Grouper tonight if you want to do it there,” she said with what she hoped was more nonchalance than she felt. The minute he’d agreed she’d felt a frisson of panic, of having jumped into the deep end. And the feeling wasn’t going away. On the contrary it was getting worse.
Maybe she wouldn’t go to the Grouper tonight. Maybe she’d just stay home.
Or maybe he wouldn’t be there. Maybe, she thought with some degree of hope, he’d change his mind.
On that heartening note, she shut off the shower. Just as well, as the water was beginning to run cold. She snagged a towel and scrubbed at her hair when she heard a knock on the door.
“Oh, cripes.” She’d forgotten Fiona had said she might come by with Duncan. “Come on in,” she called through the high open window. “I’ll be right out.”
She rubbed her hair until it stuck out all over her head, ran her fingers through it to tame it slightly, then wrapped the towel saronglike around her and skittered down the stairs to see her favorite nephew.
“Hey!” she beamed, prepared to sweep Duncan into her arms.
“Hey yourself.” Joaquin was standing in the living room looking as if he’d never seen a woman in a towel before.
Molly wanted to drop through the floor. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, hot with embarrassment.
“Someone…you—” he clarified pointedly “—said ‘Come on in.’ So I did.”
“I didn’t mean you!”
“No? But then you must be in the habit of inviting unknown persons into your house while you cavort around in a state of undress,” he said.
“I thought you were Fiona and Duncan!”
“I’m not.”
“I can see that. Go outside.”
“I don’t think so.” He’d recovered from his astonishment and was eyeing her with considerable interest. It was making her even hotter.
“It’s rude to stare,” Molly said irritably.
A sudden grin slashed across his tanned face. “Not necessarily,” he said. “Not if I’m awestruck by your beauty.”
Molly snorted. “Pull the other leg while you’re at it.”
“Pull your leg?” He looked intrigued and moved toward her as if he were going to do just that.
Molly hopped back up on the steps. “Stop that! And don’t pretend you don’t know what it means. You know exactly what it means. You speak English perfectly. You even sound like a Texan sometimes.”
“My mother’s influence,” he agreed, still eyeing her, still moving closer.
Molly clutched the banister, refusing to allow herself to edge farther back up the stairs.
“Tell me,” He cocked his head and regarded her speculatively. “Have you ever greeted Carson in a towel?”
“Of course not!”
“Maybe you should. Solve all your problems.” His grin flashed.
Molly frowned. “Very funny. What are you doing here? I suppose you’ve had second thoughts.”
“I certainly am now,” he murmured so softly she wasn’t sure she heard him.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat and dragged his gaze from the length of her legs past the skimpy towel up to her face. “I came to invite you out for a drink.”
“What? A drink?” she said stupidly.
He nodded. “Will you come with me for a drink at the Grouper?”
“I already told you I was going to the Grouper,” she reminded him.
“Sí.” He smiled as if she were missing the point. “But now I am inviting you. For a lesson.” The smile took on a decidedly worrying aspect.
Molly swallowed. “I don’t know,” she said hastily.
“Do you want to seduce your man or not?”
“I already said I did! But I don’t see what inviting me out for a drink has to do with it.”
“No, you don’t. But then,” he said affably, “if you knew what you were doing you wouldn’t have asked me, would you, querida?”
Molly knew enough Spanish to know what querida meant. “Stop using endearments!” she snapped.
He made a tsking sound. “Ah, Molly. Are you perhaps the one who is having second thoughts?”
Heavy-lidded eyes so dark they were almost black bored into hers. There was an intensity in them she’d never seen in Carson’s. Or in any man’s, come to think of it.
Molly’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t look away. She pressed her lips together and shook her head fiercely. “No!”
He smiled, a supremely satisfied smile. “Then would you like to have a drink at the Grouper with me?” He paused a beat. A black eyebrow lifted as he waited. When she still couldn’t manage a word, her brain cells scattered like marbles, he prompted her. “Say ‘Yes, thank you, Joaquin.’ And smile. First lesson.”
Molly didn’t smile. She stood, grim-faced and desperate, wondering what she was getting herself into. She wanted to know what to do with Carson! She wanted a future with him and with little dark-haired blue-eyed babies. And yet somehow the old aphorism about the cure being worse than the disease kept running in circles around in her head.
“Molly?” Joaquin prompted. “It was your idea, no? If you don’t want to do it—”
“Yes! All right, damn it! I’ll have a drink with you.”
“Mm,” he murmured, a smile touching his lips. “And so very politely said.”
“Go soak your head,” Molly muttered.
But he didn’t go. He just waited patiently, watching her expectantly. For all she knew he’d stand there for the rest of the afternoon. He might still be there when Fiona and Duncan came. And she’d still be dripping in her towel.
“All right! Thank you,” she bit out. And she flashed him a fierce, insincere smile because if she didn’t do it, he’d probably wait for that, too.
“Well, it’s a start,” he allowed. “Next time, querida, combine the two—and mean it. Now, try it again.”
Again? “For heaven’s sakes!”
But, unfazed, he just smiled at her. Molly glared. He didn’t move. Damn the man. The sun would probably set and he would still be waiting.
“Oh, all right.” Molly bared her teeth in a semblance of a grin. “Thank you,” she said through it. “I’d like that.”
“See, I knew you could do it. And I can tell how completely thrilled you are,” he drawled sarcastically and screwed up his face in such an absolutely horrible expression that Molly burst out laughing.
And at the sight he nodded. “Ah, yes. Mucho mejor. Much better, querida. Like that. You have a beautiful smile. Truly. Now say, ‘Yes, thank you, Joaquin. I’d love to.”’
Molly tried to wipe the lingering smile off her face, but it wasn’t quite possible. That truly had sounded sincere. Did he mean it? Did he really think her smile was beautiful? Shaking her head in confusion, Molly repeated his words—all but his name. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say that.
Fortunately he didn’t insist. “Bravo,” he approved. “Very good. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”
“I can meet you there.”
Dark brows came down in a scowl. “No, you cannot meet me there. I am inviting you, Molly. I will escort you. This is not a negotiation. It’s a date.”
“But—”
“A date,” he said firmly.
“It’s a lesson,” she corrected him.
“A learning-by-doing lesson,” he retorted. “And now you say, ‘That would be very nice, thank you.”’
The battle of wills began again. Molly wondered how long she could make him just stand there waiting. Probably not as long as he could make her stand here wearing only a towel.
“That would be very nice. Thank you,” she grumbled, remembering to tack on a smile at the last second. And was annoyed to find she was pleased to see the swift grin of approval that replaced Joaquin’s frown.
“Bueno. I’ll see you at seven-thirty. Hasta entonces, Molly.”
“Um…hasta entonces,” Molly mumbled, then stood clutching her towel, feeling a mixture of relief and panic—what had she got herself into?—as Joaquin gave her a wink as he went on his way.
IT WASN’T A DATE.
It was not a date!
No matter what he’d said, Molly knew better. Joaquin Santiago might be taking her to the Grouper, but it was nothing like the way a real date with God’s gift to women would be.
So why were her palms sweating? And why was her stomach swirling? And why had she spent the last hour ransacking her closet for something attractive to wear?
It wasn’t as if something was going to miraculously materialize in her closet. Since she’d quit teaching and moved back to the island she hadn’t bought new clothes. She made do with Hugh’s and Lachlan’s cast-offs and a couple of swimsuits.
She did what she could, putting on the most respectable pair of shorts she owned—the only pair that had not been Hugh’s or Lachlan’s first—and a clean T-shirt without a beer or a junkanoo slogan on it. She even tucked it in.
It wasn’t as if she was out to impress Mr. Hotshot Latin Lover, after all. She was going with him to learn from him, not tantalize him.
He was her “teacher,” not her date.
Still, she felt a very unfamiliar unsteadiness when, at precisely seven-thirty, there came a knock on the door. Taking a quick—and she hoped, calming—breath, Molly jerked open the door.
Joaquin Santiago, in all his handsome glory, black hair flopping across his forehead, stood on her porch, shaking his head and saying mournfully, “I liked the towel better.”
Molly’s face flamed, but she said gruffly, “You almost got it. I only have shorts and T-shirts.”
“You wore a dress for Lachlan’s wedding.”
“I borrowed it from Carin, and you know it.”
“I thought you might have decided to buy one since you looked spectacular in it.”
Molly didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t used to having a man comment on her appearance or even, in fact, noticing her appearance. She shrugged awkwardly. “No place to wear it.”
“Maybe if you had one, Carter would think of someplace you could go.”
“Carson,” she corrected him sharply, and he smiled and nodded, and she narrowed her gaze at him, wondering if he’d given Carson the wrong name on purpose. It was hard to tell what Joaquin did on purpose—besides flirt and play soccer. And he wasn’t doing the latter anymore. “And Carson’s too busy for us to go anywhere.”
“Which we will have to change.” Joaquin offered her his arm. “Come along.”
Molly stood stock-still and looked at him, appalled. “I can’t take your arm!”
“No? ¿Por qué? Why not?”
“Because…because…” she sputtered “…everyone would think we were going out!”
“Sí. We are going out.”
“Not…like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like a…couple!”
“Tonight we are a couple.”
“We’re not! It’s lessons!”
“As in teacher and student, sí? Then you will take my arm as a part of the lesson, querida.” He smiled. The arm awaited her, raised a bit.
“I don’t—”
“Who is the teacher?” he asked her, his tone gently mocking.
She glared. “Carson wouldn’t like it.”
Totally untrue. Carson wouldn’t care at all. Carson wasn’t the least bit jealous. But Molly cared. Tongues would wag. Carson wouldn’t care about that, either. But she did. She did not want to have to explain to anyone why she was seen walking arm in arm with Joaquin Santiago.
“We can walk to the Grouper together,” she told him firmly. “But that’s all. We’re friends.”
Joaquin didn’t look convinced. But he shrugged. “Very well. If you are afraid that your reputation will suffer.”
His gallantry irritated her further. “I just don’t want people talking,” she explained.
“Perhaps you would like to walk five paces behind me?”
“Don’t be an ass. We’ll just walk together. I always walk with Carson,” she said even as she edged carefully past him down the steps.
He caught up with her and reached around her before she could open the gate and did it himself, then gave her a mocking courtly bow and waved her through. “After you.”
Molly slipped past, tempted to hurry on, but mastered her instinct to bolt and waited while he latched the gate again.
He smiled approvingly. “So,” he said. “We walk. Without touching? Do you and Carter walk without touching?”
“Carson,” she corrected through her teeth, knowing now that he was doing it on purpose. “He touches me,” she said defensively.
He often slung an arm over her shoulders or gave her a bone-crushing hug or grabbed her hand and hauled her wherever he wanted her to go. But something in her tone must have conveyed a certain hesitancy because Joaquin nodded.
“We’ll work on that,” he said. “And the clothes,” he added.
“Clothes?” Molly echoed warily.
Joaquin slanted her a grin. “It’s easier to seduce most men if they don’t think you’re one, too.”
“Very funny. But unnecessary. Carson knows I’m a woman.”
“Does he?” The question was mild but cut to the bone. And apparently realizing it, Joaquin reached out and took her hand. “The thing is, querida, you want the awareness to hit him squarely between the eyes. Men don’t understand subtlety.” He had pulled her to a stop in the middle of the road and was looking earnestly into her eyes.
The look hit her squarely between the eyes, that was for sure. Molly wetted her lips. “I can get something,” she said.
“We will go shopping.”
“You can make me a list.”
But he shook his head. “No. I have to tell you my reactions.” He started walking again, pulling her along with him, though whether he’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to be holding her hand or whether he intended to keep a grip on her so she wouldn’t run away, she didn’t know.
“Shopping where?” Molly said warily.
“Wherever you want. The boutique at the Mirabelle. Erica’s in town.”
Syd bought her clothes at Erica’s. It had lovely expensive stuff. The boutique was even pricier. Molly almost never set foot in either of them. “I don’t shop there.”
“You don’t shop.”
She lifted a defiant chin and jerked her hand out of his. “I haven’t needed to. I can. I will,” she vowed.
“And I’ll come with you.”
“Not to Erica’s!”
“Why not?”
“Because people would talk!”
He rolled his eyes. “So we’ll go to another island. We’ll go to Nassau. Or Miami.”
“Miami?”
“Why not? Surely they won’t talk in Miami.”
“No, but—”
“Stop arguing, querida,” he said and reached out and snagged her hand, this time lacing his fingers firmly through hers.
She jerked to a stop. “What are you doing?”
“Little things. Connecting things.” He met her gaze with a heavy-lidded one of his own. My God, he had beautiful eyes.
Molly swallowed. “Why?” she demanded and hated that her voice sounded shaky.
“So you can do them with Carter.”
“Carson!”
He shrugged. His eyes never left hers. They were mesmerizing. Molly tried to remember if Carson had ever linked his fingers with hers. She couldn’t. She tried to remember if she had ever tried it with him. She couldn’t.
But Joaquin was right—it certainly emphasized the connection!
“Right,” she said. “Got it.” She tried to unlace her fingers, but he didn’t let go. They were stopped in the middle of the street, staring into each other’s eyes as his thumb slid lightly over her fingers making them tingle.
How did he do that?
It made her so aware of him. She dropped her gaze—and found herself looking at his mouth. Would he kiss her? Molly ran her tongue over her lips.
Suddenly her hand was dropped. Joaquin stepped back, jamming his into his pockets and clearing his throat. “So,” he said brusquely. “You’ve got the point then, sí? Very well. Come on. Let’s go.”
THE WOMAN WAS A MENACE.
Molly McGillivray’s big green eyes could make a man forget his best intentions right in the middle of a public road!
He was crazy to be doing this. Insane. He should have told her it was a stupid stupid stupid idea—this business of “seduction lessons.” He should have his head examined for agreeing. In fact he’d turned up on her doorstep this afternoon to do exactly that.
It had been boredom that had made him say yes. And his perennial need to take on a hopeless challenge. And perhaps, he admitted, the memory of her at Lachlan’s wedding. But sanity had prevailed when she’d left.
He was no Henry Higgins. And she was sure as hell no Eliza Doolittle! And there were some things even he couldn’t manage. He’d gone to her house to tell her so.
And then she’d come downstairs in that towel.
All thoughts of telling her no went right out of his head.
Every time he shut his eyes, he could still see her as she’d been when she’d come down the stairs, lots of bare creamy skin with a bright yellow towel tucked just above her breasts and stopping well above her knees. Used to seeing Molly McGillivray in her brothers’ hand-me-downs, the sight of her on the hoof, so to speak, had very nearly welded his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It had certainly scrambled his brain.
He’d been mesmerized. Tantalized. Maybe, he’d thought, there was more Eliza Doolittle in her than he’d thought. Heaven knew there was certainly some raw material to work with.
But raw was definitely what it was.
Molly didn’t have a clue how enticing she was. She had no idea of her own ability to arouse a man. That little thing she’d done with her tongue, licking her lips when they were standing there just now was a case in point.
His whole body had gone on alert. In fact it responded so quickly and vehemently he’d taken a quick step back.
Of course Molly—gracias a Dios—hadn’t noticed.
But he’d have to watch his step. He was supposed to be teaching her how to be seductive, not allowing himself to be seduced by her.
Seduced by Molly McGillivray?
The thought wasn’t as bizarre as he might have wished. Another time—and another woman—he wouldn’t mind a little fooling around. But she was his best friend’s sister. Therefore she was like his own sister.
But he wasn’t thinking about her as his sister as he hurried to catch up with her. She was already inside the Grouper and about to sit at the bar when he grabbed her hand again.
“It is customary,” he told her, “not to share one’s date with everyone at the bar.”
“What?” Molly looked at him blankly, waggling her fingers at the bartender in greeting.
Joaquin turned her so she faced him. “A couple,” he instructed her, “must focus on each other.”
“But—”
He wasn’t listening. With her wrist manacled by his fingers, he towed her to a table in the back of the room. “Here. We will sit here.”
“But the music—”
“Is not the issue. The issue is to get to know each other.” He let go long enough to pull out a chair for her. “Sit.”
She gave him a mutinous look. “Carson and I already know each other,” she said. “And I like being where I can hear.”
“You can hear if you stay home,” Joaquin said which was only the truth. “Sit.”
He thought she might argue further, but finally, reluctantly, she sat. He had barely sat down opposite her, when she bounced to her feet again.
“Where are you going?”
“To get the beer. I think a pitcher—”
He caught her hand. “No.”
“You don’t want a beer?” She looked perplexed.
“Beer is fine. I’ll get it. You’re not waiting tables here. You’re on a date.”
She shifted restlessly. The skin of her wrist was soft under his fingers. He lifted her fingers and brushed his lips across them. She jerked but he held her fast.
“Sit down, querida,” he murmured. “Just sit. Enjoy. Don’t clean the tables. Don’t go visit your friends. Wait for me.”
Because, damn it, he wanted her to wait for him. He wanted to be the focus of her attention.
She looked doubtful, but finally gave a small jerky nod and sat down again dutifully, folded her hands, then gave him a beatific smile. It was such a sweet smile—so unlike Molly—that he gave her a narrow look, wondering what he’d forgotten to forbid her to do.
“Wait,” he said again. “I’ll be right back.” Then, giving her one last nail-her-to-the-chair look, he hurried to the bar. Another night he would have stopped to chat, to flirt, to tease, to charm the women in his way. Tonight he was on a mission. So he smiled and sidestepped them all, ignored Michael the bartender’s curious look, and returned with a pitcher and two glasses of beer in a matter of minutes.
Molly, he was relieved to note, was still there.
He poured the beer and pushed a glass across the table for her. She wrapped her hand around it and said politely, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He sat down opposite her and focused on her. “Now,” he said, “we talk.”
“About what?” She licked her lips again.
His gaze went straight to her mouth. He swallowed. “We get to know each other.”
“But we already do, Carson and I. I told you that.”
Forget Carson, he wanted to say. But he was the reason they were here, of course. So Joaquin raked his fingers through his hair and said, “There must be things about him that you don’t know. What makes him tick? What drives him? What matters most?” He was talking off the top of his head, just wallowing in the green magic of her eyes. “Do you know all that?”
“I—maybe not,” she admitted. “Or I wouldn’t be doing this, would I?”
“Exactly. So you focus. You pay attention to him. You ask questions. Yes?”
“Okay, yes.” She sipped her beer and did that quick tongue thing to her lips again.
Joaquin felt his blood run hot and did his best to distract himself. “So you try, all right?”
She touched her upper lip with her tongue. “You mean, ask about what he—you—most care about?”
“Yes.” And stop doing that thing with your tongue!
“All right.” Molly nodded, pressed her lips together and looked down into her glass a long moment, then she lifted her gaze and met his. “Are you afraid to come watch Lachlan and the kids play soccer?”