About the Author

Multi-award-winning, bestselling authors Lori Schlachter Karayianni and Tony Karayianni are the power behind the pen name TORI CARRINGTON. Their over forty-five titles include numerous Blaze®mini-series, as well as the ongoing Sofie Metropolis comedic mystery series with another publisher. Visit www.toricarrington.net and www.sofiemetro.com for more information on the duo and their titles.

Private Affairs

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

First loves, second chances; there’s just something thrilling about this popular theme, isn’t there? We thoroughly enjoyed revisiting it in this second book in our PRIVATE SCANDALS series … stamping it, of course, with our own sizzling-hot brand!

In Private Affairs, sexy Palmer DeVoe returns to Earnest, Washington a different man than he was years before. Only one thing remains the same: his bone-deep need for first love Penelope Weaver. And it appears absence only makes the sex grow hotter. Despite all the heartache Penelope has endured, Palmer is the one who introduced her to white-hot sex and heart-pounding love … and proves he’s still more than capable of providing and stirring both. Her physical reaction to him gives her away every time their paths cross. But can she handle it if he leaves again …?

We hope you enjoy Palmer and Penelope’s sizzling and sometimes heart-wrenching journey toward sexily-ever-after. We’d love to hear what you think. Contact us at PO Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, USA (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the web at www.toricarrington.net.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and HOT reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni aka Tori Carrington

We dedicate this book to our online friends everywhere: you know who you are!

Interested in joining the fun? Check us out at www.

facebook.com/toricarrington or www.twitter.com/toricarrington.

And, as always, to Brenda Chin, a warm and wonderful constant in an ever-changing world.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Copyright

1

HOT. SO VERY HOT …

She lay against the picnic blanket and restlessly watched as he fanned his hand across her trembling belly, taking in her nakedness after he’d popped the buttons down the front of her dress. The material glided from her skin. She wasn’t wearing a bra, which left him to concentrate on the scrap of pink cotton that kept her from being completely at the mercy of his hungry gaze. He slid his thumbs under the thin straps at her hips, slowly, ever so slowly, sliding her panties down until she was finally free from them. She moved to close her legs and he made a small sound of objection, instead coaxing her to open to him. She wriggled as the summer sun and his attention warmed her delicate flesh.

Then he was touching her …

Fingers stroked, probed, invaded, bringing her a pleasure that surely couldn’t be real …

He leaned in, covering her mouth with his.

Too wet … too cloying …

She turned her head and he licked her ear instead.

No, no, she wanted to whisper. Down … there …

Penelope Weaver awakened with a start. Panting. Only it wasn’t she who was out of breath. Or even the man that had been featured in her dream, as he was so often lately.

Instead, she stared at the blurry outline of her golden retriever/border collie mix and blanched away from his awful breath.

“Thor!”

Penelope sat up. It took a few moments to gather her wits about her. She wasn’t lying on a picnic blanket in Old Man Benson’s field just outside town, but was rather in her own bed in her room in the house on Maple Street. The summer sun cut a path across her body, but it was early evening and she was fully dressed.

And the too wet kiss hadn’t come from her fantasy man, but rather her eight-year-old dog.

Bleech.

She picked up the wind-up alarm clock from the nightstand. Just after 7:00 p.m.

Just after seven!

Barnaby Jones would be there to pick her up any minute.

She sprung from the bed and rushed to the shared bathroom in the hall. She must have fallen asleep when she’d gone in to stretch out on the bed. It had been a long day at the small café she owned and ran on Main Street and she’d needed to rest her feet for just a few moments.

The café. Even now it seemed odd to refer to her shop as such. She’d originally opened the place to sell her tapestries and called it Penelope’s Possessions, but when the lumber mill had closed down four years ago it had taken much of what made downtown Earnest a draw for visitors with it. Businesses had closed, storefronts were empty. She’d adapted, offering her wares on the internet, but the shop itself had gradually become a coffee shop. Not a difficult transition seeing as she’d always made a good cup of coffee and thanks to her grandmother and great-aunt, there was an endless supply of baked goodies.

Now it was simply known as Penelope’s.

She considered her curly dark hair in the mirror, fluffing the flattened back, and checking the liner around her brown eyes. Aside from a slight crease in her right cheek, she didn’t look any the worse for wear. She took a deep breath and straightened the front of the dress she had on. A dress not unlike the one featured in her picnic dream. Only it really hadn’t been a dream, had it? It was a memory. A recollection of a time that had passed long ago. Yet still had the power to steal her breath away.

She turned to hurry back out into the hall and nearly tripped over Thor.

“You’re going to be the death of us both,” she murmured, edging around him.

Of course, the reason he was shadowing her every move was because there was no one else home to bother. The quiet was almost deafening. She walked into the living room, where the only sound was the hum of the laptop her grandmother had left on in the corner. The house’s silence reminded her that the reason why no one was home was that the other inhabitants hoped she would get laid tonight.

Penelope groaned inwardly. Her grandmother and great-aunt were her roomies as well as two busybody, interfering old women whose sex lives were far more interesting than hers.

Interesting? That would require that she actually had a sex life to be uninteresting. But she hadn’t had one of those since …

She swallowed hard. Well, since around about the time of the dream she’d just had.

With quick jerks, she powered down the computer and closed the offending monitor, smoothing her hand over the top where it sat on an antique, accordion-front desk. From inkwells to laptops. There was a story in there somewhere. Perhaps on the different mediums meddling family members employed when trying to matchmake for younger family members.

It was summer in Earnest, Washington, and the sun wouldn’t fully set for another two hours or so, but the mature trees that surrounded the quaint Victorian house filtered the light, making the house dim. She switched on a lamp and then moved back toward the hall and the kitchen, incapable of sitting to wait for the man who would arrive to take her out for their fifth date.

She frowned as she checked the dishwasher. Barnaby Jones wasn’t so bad. He was even cute in a Vince Vaughn kind of way. Tall, broad-shouldered, easy going. But the town sheriff had yet to make her feel a twinge of what her dream had conjured up. There was a time or two when she’d actually orgasmed while asleep, the memories were so powerful.

Either that, or she was an inexcusably sorry individual.

At any rate, the good-night kiss Barnaby had given her at the end of the past two dates had left her feeling curiously … sisterly to him. And not in the Nietzsche way, either.

She hated to break it to her grandma Agatha and her great-aunt Irene, but there wasn’t going to be any sex had in this house tonight, no matter how quiet and available.

She did appreciate the clean set of sheets Aggie had put on her bed in preparation for “the big event,” however. The fresh scent of line-dried cotton was likely responsible for her drifting off.

As for the dream …

Well, she wasn’t going to think about that now. Or connect the current frequency of them to the fact that the man in question had been spotted back in town. And forget his possible nearness having anything to do with her mixed feelings about Barnaby. She hadn’t seen him in nearly fifteen years. He no longer influenced anything she did or thought or felt.

Thor whined at her feet.

Penelope twisted her lips. “What is it, boy? You have water. Food …”

Probably he wanted to go outside.

She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t such a bad idea. She could check her roses and the vegetable garden while she was out there with him.

She opened the back screen door with a muted squeak and Thor bounded out, her following on his heels. The door clapped shut and she stood looking at a garden that had changed very little in the thirty years she’d lived there. Oh, the trees might have grown a little taller, and the wooden privacy fence at the back of the property was only a few years old. But the same perennials dotted the landscape, the vegetable garden was in the same spot as it always was. And the enclosed, intimate gazebo at the far end of the yard was exactly the same but for a couple of coats of white paint.

She found herself drawn to the structure in which she’d spent so much of her teenaged years, bypassing her roses and not stopping until she stood in the arch looking in at the overstuffed cushions that had supported her while she read countless books … and had also been the setting for many of her dreams.

Her hand went to the side of her neck, feeling oddly exposed at that one moment. It was almost as if someone was watching her.

“Hello, Penelope.”

She swiveled so quickly she nearly lost her footing on the wooden steps.

And Palmer DeVoe reached out to steady her …

BEAUTIFUL …

No matter how many times Palmer had anticipated this moment, this particular point in time when he’d finally come face to face with Penelope Weaver after so many years, he could never have imagined the completely visceral feelings that would roll through him like a thousand rippling Pacific waves. Need, want, fear emerged one by one, then were washed away by the next emotion.

In his mind’s eye, Penelope was still the fresh-faced young woman with the warm smile and deep dimples and slender body. His first sexual encounter, his high school sweetheart, and yes, he admitted, his first love.

Now she was an earthy, sexy, curvy woman who somehow reached even deeper inside him, searching for something he was afraid wasn’t there for her to find.

Her curly hair was a little shorter. Her face a little fuller. But her smile was just as warm. Her dark eyes just as probing.

Palmer still held her arm where he’d steadied her. They both looked down at where their skin connected. He lingered a bit longer, marveling at her softness.

Then, as if by mutual agreement, he removed his hand and she stepped beyond his grasp at the same time.

“I heard you were in town,” she said quietly.

Rarely in his memories of her did she speak. Instead, her image was like a series of snapshots of her in various poses, most of them under him.

Now, her voice flowed over him, intoxicating.

He nodded toward the gazebo behind her. “Now that’s a familiar place.”

She glanced over her shoulder and blushed. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that she’d been thinking about him, about them, when he’d walked up.

He hadn’t planned to stop; he’d merely been walking by—as he’d had on several prior occasions—when he’d spotted her standing there like a ghost from the past.

Penelope moved through the yard toward the back door of the house and he watched her go, the material of her dress hugging her in all the right places.

He’d known running into her at some point was inevitable. While he’d visited his hometown a couple of times in recent weeks, he was now living here. At least for the foreseeable future. Which meant facing a great number of people from his past.

“This isn’t a good time, Palmer,” she said quietly.

He squinted at her through the waning light. “I would have called, but …”

A sad attempt at humor that fell flat on its face, where it belonged.

He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t meant to stop. I was walking back from Main on my way to Foss’s bed-and-breakfast …”

She nodded. “I guessed as much.”

She looked at him in a way that made him feel she was sizing him up and that he came up short.

“You look good, Palmer,” she said simply.

“So do you.”

Her smile was self-conscious. “I don’t mean … physically.” She made a small sound. “It looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”

And he had, hadn’t he? He’d accomplished everything that he’d hoped to when he left Earnest for Boston. More.

Why was it, then, that he suddenly sensed he’d achieved nothing?

“Hello?” a man’s voice called from inside the house.

Penelope looked in that direction, apparently surprised.

Palmer grimaced. While he hadn’t asked for the information, many townspeople that he’d encountered seemed to deem it important to fill him in on Penelope and her actions. He’d learned that she was still single. That she owned a small shop down on Main, one of the few that had managed to stay open in the struggling town of four thousand. He’d walked by it a few times after closing and had stood staring inside at the colorful tapestries on the walls and displayed on easels.

In all the conversations he’d had, not a one of them had mentioned a man being in the picture.

But of course there would be. Why would he even think differently?

“Have you visited your father yet?” she asked, speaking to him rather than the man seeking her out.

He suspected she knew the answer to that. Just as he knew many secondhand details about her, she’d probably plucked the details of his movements since he’d been back from the same grapevine. Not that it was a state secret, but he was pretty sure that everyone knew he had yet to see his old man.

The back door opened and a familiar guy walked out. A guy who towered over him by several inches and had made it his business to stop by the industrial trailer that currently served as his offices. Sheriff Barnaby Jones had let him know in no uncertain terms that he intended to keep an eye on what was going on.

At the time, Palmer couldn’t help sensing that there was a certain trace of animosity in the sheriff’s attention.

Now he knew why.

Penelope hurried toward the man. “Barney! Hi.”

The sheriff’s gaze seemed a little too intimate for Palmer’s liking as he took in Penelope and complimented her on her dress. Then his attention fell on Palmer where he stood just inside the side garden gate. His expression changed.

“Barnaby, I’d like to introduce you to … an old family friend,” Penelope said. “Palmer DeVoe, this is Barnaby Jones.”

Palmer crossed to shake the other man’s hand. “I believe we’ve already met.”

“Yes, we have.” The sheriff seemed to say it in warning.

Penelope appeared to pick up on the undercurrents passing between them and stepped in.

“Barney and I are attending the fair in Lewisville,” she said, and then looked confused, as if she couldn’t understand why she’d shared that. “It was … nice to see you, Palmer. I hope you enjoy your visit. You haven’t been home for a while and I know everyone is happy to see you.”

Palmer squared his shoulders under the scrutiny of the sheriff and turned a full-wattage grin on Penelope. “Visit? I’m not visiting, Penelope. I’m back.”

2

THE INACCURATE COMMENT had earned exactly the response Palmer was looking for. But that meant little when Penelope had walked inside the house with Barnaby, leaving him alone to see himself back out the garden gate.

“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”

The quote from Confucius that his mother had liked to parrot trailed through his mind as he walked toward the B and B. He slid his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, considering the words of the other woman he had loved and lost. But this time to death.

Janice DeVoe had been so sweet that his father had once remarked that a body didn’t need sugar in his coffee when she was in the room. Of course, that had been long before things had turned sour. And before she’d gotten sick with an illness that she’d denied until it was too late.

She’d been fond of telling stories about her only child, the unchallenged sunshine of her life, of how he proclaimed nearly from the instant he could speak that he was going to be someone important, the richest man in the world and, if he could fit it in, president. And she’d encouraged him in whatever direction he wanted to go.

Until she lay near death, considering the son she’d loved so dearly … and the father that had initially been amused by the special mother-and-son bond, and then increasingly jealous of it.

That’s when Janice had spoken the quote one last time, calling on both of the men in her life to reconcile their differences and come together. Told them they would need each other now.

Then she was gone and he and his father had stared at each other, virtual strangers.

Shortly thereafter, Palmer had left. And aside from brief phone calls around the holidays and on birthdays, they’d barely spoken since.

Now, Palmer neared the corner of Maple and Elm streets and he stopped before crossing. Not because of traffic. There was none at this time on a Friday night. But because instead of walking straight toward the B and B he could turn right and within three blocks be on the street on which he’d grown up and had not been back to since he was nineteen.

“I’ll be in the area next week,” he’d said to his father during a recent phone call.

Thomas had made a sound. “I’ll alert the media.”

There had been no invitation to visit. No indication that he’d like to see him. Just a sarcastic remark that Palmer had left hanging in the air between them.

Before he knew that’s what he was going to do, he made that right and took the route he had taken so very many times before. Within minutes he stood in front of the house his mother had taken such pride in. A place he might not have recognized if not for the tilting, rusty mailbox at the unpaved curb that bore the family name.

The simple, one-story clapboard house had at one time been painted a brilliant white with powder-blue shutters. The flower beds had been full of color, the shrubs neatly trimmed, the grass mown. Now everything looked abandoned, as if the only owner had been his mother and no one had lived there since.

Palmer opened the gate that hung half off its hinges and stepped slowly up the weed-choked gravel path. The shrubs had grown unevenly to nearly halfway up the front windows and a newspaper sat on the cracked concrete front steps. He picked it up, verifying that it was today’s, and then leaned forward to knock. The screen door was so grimy that he hadn’t noticed the front door was actually open until he heard his old man’s gravelly voice as clearly as if he were standing next to him.

“What the hell do you want?” he called. “If you’re selling something, I ain’t buying.”

More words followed but they were said quietly and apparently not meant for whatever visitor stood outside the door.

How easy it would be just to turn away. To leave and pretend he’d never visited.

Palmer reached for the door handle only to find it was locked.

“I asked what in the hell you want.”

The old man stood directly on the other side of the screen door now, staring out at him.

Thomas DeVoe didn’t recognize him.

And Palmer wouldn’t have recognized him if not for the fact that he knew he was at the right house.

While his father had been tall, he seemed to have shrunk a few inches. Or maybe it was the way his shoulders curved forward as if unable to hold himself completely upright anymore. The three-day stubble on his face made it look even more haggard than it probably was, and his graying hair spoke of the fact that he was at least a month late for a visit to the barber’s. He wore a tank T-shirt that was more gray than white and his slacks would have fallen from his thin hips if not for the belt pulled tightly around them.

Palmer lifted the paper to wave at him. “Hi, Pops.”

Thomas squinted at him, the stench of liquor seeming to emanate from his every pore.

“I only have one son and you’re not him,” he said, and then reached to close the door.

No matter where you go, there you are …

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Barnaby asked Penelope for the third time in an hour.

Penelope slid her hand into the crook of his arm as they walked the fair paths, the scent of corn dogs and cotton candy filling the air along with the happy shrieks of children enjoying the carnival rides.

“I’m fine,” she assured him.

Which was a bald-faced lie. She wasn’t fine. Her mind was still on the scene in the backyard before her date had arrived. And her body still hummed as if Palmer had touched her with more than his gaze.

She suspected the dream she’d had before encountering him hadn’t helped. But it was more than that. Putting together the Palmer of her past with the man of the present hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she’d thought it might be.

So many people she’d attended high school with had changed dramatically. Facial features had broadened or narrowed, grown fuller or thinner, some so much so that she often didn’t recognize them. Not Palmer. She could have picked him out instantly. Even in a crowd like tonight’s, her gaze would have immediately homed in on the man who was even more attractive now than he had been then.

Damn him.

“Would you like an elephant ear?” Barnaby asked.

Penelope squinted at him. “Pardon me?”

He pointed to a nearby food booth.

She laughed quietly in understanding, then looked down at where she absently rubbed her abdomen. She already felt as if she had a real elephant ear in her stomach and it was furiously trying to flap its way out.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Penelope faltered. “I’m sorry,” she said with genuine affection. “But I guess I’m not. I must have eaten something earlier that didn’t agree with me …”

“The corn dog?”

“I don’t think so. This goes to before we got here.”

Began the instant she looked into Palmer’s eyes.

“I really hate to ask, but do you think you can take me home?”

He searched her face, but if there was any answer to be had there, apparently he didn’t find it. “That bad?”

She nodded. “I really hate to ruin the night, but all I can think about is going home and lying down.”

And flipping through the scrapbook of her memories.

Of course, she didn’t tell him that. Would never admit that Palmer’s appearance had had such an unexpected impact on her. Not to Barnaby. Not to anyone.

So much of what had transpired between her and Palmer had been unbearably private. There had really been no one to talk to back then. Or now.

Should she take it into her head to mention the visit to her grandmother, she could just imagine the reaction. The frowns. The head-shaking. The questions.

“Would you like one to go?” Barnaby asked. She smiled. “Yes, yes. That would be nice. Thank you.”

PENELOPE STOOD ON THE FRONT PORCH, a wrapped elephant ear in her hands as she faced Barnaby.

“Would you like me to come in?” he asked.

She looked down. Well, that was a first. Usually Barnaby was comfortable allowing her to set the tone. She shook her head. “No. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company.”

Night had fallen, day little more than a purple smear against the western sky. She’d left the porch light on and it threw Barnaby’s handsome features into soft relief.

“Thank you for taking me to the fair. And for this.” She lifted the sweet.

“You’re welcome, Penelope.”

He moved up the last step. She knew he was preparing to kiss her and she mentally scrambled for a way to avoid the awkward meeting.

“Goodnight, Barnaby,” she said and turned. “I really must take something for this upset stomach.”

“A soda always works wonders for me,” he said.

She quickly unlocked the door and went inside. “Thanks. That may be exactly what I need.”

Before he could offer to get one for her, she closed the door with a clap and then stood for long moments, listening for sounds that he was leaving. Realizing that he might be waiting to see that she was safe inside, she leaned over to switch on a lamp, and then peered through the curtains. He still stood where she’d left him.

She gave a little wave and then closed the door curtains again.

Finally, she heard the sound of his footfalls as he walked back to his car, and then the crank of his truck engine.

Penelope let out a long sigh, unaware that she’d been holding her breath.

She stepped toward the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went. It wasn’t fair, really. On paper, Barnaby Jones was the perfect man for her. Beyond being great looking and single, they’d attended the same schools, knew all the same people, and enjoyed doing the same things.

Maybe that was the problem: they were too well matched.

She put the elephant ear down on the counter, inwardly cursing her meddling grandmother and aunt.

Of course, Barnaby was worlds better than some of the other men they’d fixed her up with. There had been the divorced car mechanic who’d liked to flex his muscles for her expected enjoyment every five minutes. And the nerdy bank vice president who pushed his glasses up constantly and rarely met her gaze, and then grabbed onto her so tightly when she’d kissed him good-night that she’d been half afraid he wouldn’t let go. She’d nearly pushed him down the stairs just to get him to disconnect.

So on the date scale, Barnaby was the best match yet.

If only kissing him wasn’t like kissing her grandmother.

She made a face at the comparison and then realized that the house was too quiet. And it wasn’t just the absence of the two old biddies who had gotten her into her current mess either.

“Thor?” she called out.

No response. Which wasn’t all that unusual. If he was curled up sleepy somewhere, he’d likely stay exactly where he was.

She opened the pantry door and took out the bag of his favorite dog treats. Still no Thor.

That was odd. By now he would be panting at her feet.

She shook the bag. “Who’s been a good boy?” she called out in a lilting tone. “Who thinks they’re deserving of a goodie?” She shook the bag again.

Nothing.

Huh.

Then it dawned on her that she might have left him out back.

She unlocked the door and pulled it open. Nothing. She flicked on the back light.

“Thor?” she called into the night.

A single bark somewhere in the yard.

She grimaced and stepped onto the back porch. Please don’t let him have cornered another badger. Or, worse, another skunk. She’d bathed him three times, once in tomato juice, another in lemon juice, but nothing but time had seemed capable of ridding him of the god-awful stench. They’d kept him locked outside for two miserable days with him whining the whole night through.

“Thor, come here,” she ordered, giving an experimental sniff. Nothing but the fragrant scent of her rosebushes.

Another quiet bark.

Penelope navigated the stairs and walked up the pathway. She heard his panting before she saw him. Or, rather, saw his tail wagging where he sat inside the gazebo.

“What are you doing there?” she asked, coming up behind him.

He turned and licked her outstretched hand, then sniffed animatedly at the bag she still held.

“I have half a mind not to give you a treat because I don’t think you’ve been a very good boy.”

His tail was now little more than a blur as he picked up wagging speed and began doing his crouch and bark and run in circles treat-dance.

She laughed. “Oh, all right. Maybe just one.”

A shadow moved in the gazebo. “How about this bad boy?” a familiar voice asked. “Do you think he’s entitled to any treats?”

3

PALMER HADN’T EXPECTED her to return so soon. Had even feared she might not be alone when she did. But here she was, and there was no suspicious sheriff in tow. Which made him much luckier than he’d been earlier in the evening when he’d paid his surprise visit to his father.

“Palmer!” she whispered. “What are you doing in there?”

He grimaced. What was he doing in there, indeed? “Sitting.” He went for the obvious.

There was a long silence as the summer night sounds penetrated the thin walls of the gazebo. The structure smelled of wood and flowers, the cushions on the bench soft and accommodating.

How many times had the two of them met secretly in this very place, concealed by the shadows? A dozen times? A dozen dozen?

“Have you been here since I left?”

“No.”

Although he wished differently. His father’s reaction had hit him hard. Harder than he would have imagined it might. What man turned his own blood away from the door? Especially considering that man didn’t appear to have anyone else.

To his surprise, Penelope came inside the gazebo and sat opposite him. She was little more than a warm blur and quiet breathing, the subtle scent of jasmine tempting his thoughts … elsewhere.

“That was a short date,” he commented.

He heard her soft laugh. “Yes. It was.”

“I hope I didn’t ruin things.”

She shifted, leaning back against the cushions. “Why is it that I doubt that?”

“Maybe because you always did know me better than I gave you credit for.”

He heard her swallow. “Not as well as I’d hoped, it appears.”

The words were said so quietly he nearly didn’t hear them.

While years separated tonight from the last time they’d shared the gazebo, it seemed as if it could have been yesterday. Not because of what he said, or she did. But because of the way he felt.

Palmer planted his forearms on his thighs and joined his hands between his knees. The movement put him within touching distance of Penelope. He waited to see if she’d move away or stay put. He knew a little thrill when she stayed put.

It was odd, the … need he felt for her. Even now. Time and space and maturity had made him believe that what he remembered was kid stuff. A major crush. A hormonally induced love.

But that theory no longer held water. Because right now he felt just as needy as he had back then. Perhaps even more so. All he wanted to do was reach over and haul her into his lap. Claim that mouth of hers with his. Lay his hand against her soft breast. Hear her sigh in his ear.

He cleared his throat. “I went to visit my father tonight.”

He swore he could feel her gaze probing his face in the dark.

“I know I should have gone before now … He’d heard I was back …”

He ran his hands through his hair and then returned to clutching them between his knees.

“He pretended not to know me and closed the door.”

She made a small sound he interpreted as surprise.

Palmer squinted in her direction although he couldn’t really see her. “Is it possible that he didn’t recognize his own blood?”

Penelope knew of his awkward at best, animosity-filled at worst, relationship with his father going way back. In fact, she was the only one who’d known outside his own mother. He’d told her all about it. Well, not everything.

“I knew who you were instantly,” she whispered.

Thank God for that, he thought. He didn’t know what he would have done had he faced rejection twice in one night.

Then again, if it weren’t for Penelope’s suggestion that he see his father, he might never have gone over there.

“So why do you think he did it?” he asked.

She made another small sound, but this time not because of what he’d said, but because he’d stretched his fingers and the tips were touching her knees. The hem of her dress fell just above, leaving him free to feel her warm skin.

And she was warm … And soft … And inviting …

God help him, but he wanted her so badly he hurt.

“Palmer … please …”

His hands drifted upward as if on their own accord, tunneling under the material.

Penelope gasped and trapped them with hers.

He was close enough to kiss her. Close enough to smell her skin. Close enough to feel her breath against his face.

“When I first saw you tonight,” he whispered, his voice ragged, “I thought I’d traveled back in time. Back to when we were both kids. When the world was nothing but a big question mark outside that gate. And where nothing existed but my need to kiss you.”

He was surprised by his words. It was one thing to privately acknowledge them. Another to put them out there where she might rebuff them. Might rebuff him.

“When I agreed to come back here to see to this business venture … I’d hoped I might see you.” Her hands were still on his. “But I never expected to feel this … way for you. Again.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

“I understand that you may not feel the same …”

Long heartbeats passed. Palmer didn’t speak. And neither did Penelope. They merely sat there practically forehead-to-forehead, him with his eyes closed.

Then, finally, she spoke.

“That’s the problem.” She paused. “I feel exactly the same …”

AND IT WAS A PROBLEM for Penelope. A monumental dilemma. Because whereas Palmer seemed glad to be feeling the way he had way back then, she was heartbroken to find herself in a place she never expected to be again.

So much time had passed …

Yet it amounted to a little more than a drop in a bucket …

She tried to think of Barnaby. To hold desperately onto all of the reasons why she shouldn’t let Palmer kiss her. But as he leaned even closer to her, all reason fled, leaving only acute awareness in its wake.

When his lips finally met hers, a moan years in the making wound up and around her throat, exiting softly. She released his hands and snaked her arms over his shoulders. How could he taste the same? How could his hair still be thick and coarse against her fingers? How could that longing that she hadn’t experienced since he’d left emerge as if he had never disappeared?

Palmer groaned, his freed hands sliding even further up under her dress. When the back of his fingers skimmed the front of her damp panties, she nearly jumped from the seat.

“God, I’d forgotten how responsive you were.” He kissed her long and hard. “I could always count on knowing exactly how you felt about me, Penelope. That you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

She bit her bottom lip, hating the hot tears that flooded her eyes.

That’s not true, she wanted to say. If you’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted you, you would never have left.

But before she could truly consider the weight of her words, he was shifting her weight from the other side of the gazebo to across his lap. Penelope gasped and held onto his shoulders for balance, surprised by the move. Before she could regain her balance both physically and emotionally, he cupped the side of her face, holding her still while he launched a fresh assault on her trembling mouth.

Having him this close, his heat permeating her every cell, his chest against her side, his lap under her bottom, it was impossible to think about anything beyond her growing need. As his breathing grew more ragged, hers did, too. And her hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own. They tunneled into his hair, dove down his back, exploring the long, hard length, then circled to press against the hard wall of his chest. He felt good. Solid. A far sight better than what she’d experienced in her dreams. He was there. Present. And she intended to take every advantage of that fact.

Shifting around, she straddled him, adjusting her skirt so that the only things separating them were the thin wall of her panties and his slacks.

She stilled. Not because she knew a moment of hesitancy. But because she cherished the white hot heat flashing through her.

She’d forgotten what it felt like to think nothing at all. To give herself over to sheer emotion. To surrender to something that was bigger than her.

“Christ, you’re even more beautiful now than you were then,” Palmer murmured.

Penelope pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh. Please. Don’t speak …”

At least not with words. She wanted him to communicate with his body. Wanted him to touch her. Everywhere.

And he did.

Penelope gasped when he fanned his hands against her bottom and then budged them ever so slowly downward until his fingers were under the hem of her bunched up dress. Skin met skin, sending shivers down her back, causing her to arch her body, seeking a more intimate meeting.

And he gave it to her …

His fingers burrowed under the elastic of her panties and cupped her bottom. Then his fingertips followed the shallow crevice inward until they pressed against her swollen folds.

Penelope tugged her mouth away from his, breathing heavily against his cheek as his fingers found their target.

Yes …

She heard Palmer mumble something then curse.

“I don’t have protection,” he said into her ear.

Penelope’s throat refused the swallow she tried to force down it, his words too familiar.

She went still for long moments, trying to gather her scattered emotions into some sort of order. Then she slowly drew away from him, forcing him to release his hold on her both literally and figuratively. Moments later, she sat with her legs tightly closed, her dress back in place, next to him.

“I wasn’t expecting … this,” he said quietly.

Neither had she. Not that she usually traveled with condoms anyway. But it was somewhat reassuring that he hadn’t whipped a ready one out of his back pocket.

Reassuring and disquieting.

He skimmed the back of his knuckles along her jaw and kissed her again, long and hard, stretching open the gulf of sensation that she was trying desperately to close.

He cursed once more.

She smiled.

“Tell me we’ll be here again, Penelope.” He stared into her eyes.

She looked away and bit hard on her bottom lip, unable to answer.

“I didn’t expect to be here now,” she whispered.

He drew away and sat back against the cushions. “That sounds a little too much like a no to me.”

“No,” she said. “It sounds like a maybe.”

4

“SHH, YOU’LL WAKE HER.”

“Shush, yourself. You’re the one making all the noise.”

Penelope easily identified the two voices coming from her open bedroom door even as she fought to hold onto sleep. She’d gotten so little of it. Hadn’t she just finally dropped off? She pried open one eye and read the clock. After eight a.m. The last time she’d looked, it had been after four. And her mind had still been racing with images from the night before. Her ears still filled with the sounds. Her body still reeling from the shock of emotions.

“Can you tell whether or not he was in there with her?” Her grandmother’s stage whisper was louder than her regular speaking voice. It was a well-known fact, but no one seemed to have the heart to tell her.

“How would I know?” her great-aunt asked, just slightly quieter.

“Come on, let’s go before she wakes up.”

Penelope rolled over and eyed the two busybodies who were also her roommates. “Too late.”

Her grandmother made a face even as she sharply elbowed Irene. “I told you you’d wake her.”

Her aunt gave her a long look and then entered the room fully. “That’s all right. Now that she’s up, we can ask her.”

Penelope’s right arm was still curled around the guest pillow on the double bed. Her great-aunt tugged it from her grip and gave it a thorough inspection.

“What are you looking for?” Penelope rose up on her elbows.

Irene plucked at something and then held up what appeared to be a single hair. She frowned. “What color is his hair?”

“Blond.”

“This is dark.”

Penelope gave an exasperated eye roll. “Probably it’s Thor’s.”

Her aunt sighed and then dropped the hair, brushing her hands together.

“Well, whose did you expect it to be?” Penelope asked with a raised brow.

Her grandmother came up the other side of the bed. “Don’t play coy with me, little girl. You know perfectly well who. I changed the sheets yesterday special for the occasion.” She considered Penelope through narrow eyes. “The question is, did you make good use of them?”

Penelope swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. It was far too early for this. “Of course, I made good use of them. I slept on them.”

She dragged her robe from where it lay over the wicker chair in the corner and put it on, weaving her way around the two old women planted in her room. Unsurprisingly, they gave chase, following her to the kitchen where she took a cup out of the cabinet and poured a hefty dose of coffee from the maker.

“So we went to Seattle for nothing, then,” her aunt said with a deep sigh.

Penelope remembered what had transpired in the gazebo and silently told them they hadn’t wasted a minute. She took a deep sip of coffee, only to nearly spit it out.

“What is this?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Her grandmother smiled. “Gourmet stuff we picked up last night. Double chocolate mocha almond amaretto something or other. What, don’t you like it?”

Penelope poured the cup’s contents down the drain.

“Hey, that cost four times what our regular stuff does,” her aunt complained.

“Yes, well, then you got ripped off.”

To Penelope, coffee was coffee, straight, no special flavorings or additions or fancy names. Good ole Juan Valdez beans freshly brewed was all she desired and needed.

Funny that emotionally she went for the complicated stuff.

She grimaced and put a cup of water in the microwave and nuked it so she could have some green tea instead. Plain. No lemon or honey. Just simple green tea.

She sat at the table, dipping the bag into the steamy water.

“Who drinks hot tea in the summer?” her great-aunt asked, putting a plate of muffins on the table.

“How is it different than drinking hot coffee?” her grandmother wanted to know, sitting down.

Penelope ignored them as she squeezed the liquid from the bag and put it on the table. She took a long sip. That was more like it.

Finally, she looked up to find Agatha and Irene staring at her.

“What?” she asked, and then groaned. “Not that again.”

“And again and again and again,” her grandmother promised. “Penny, girl, you need to get laid.”

Her aunt nodded her head several times, barely disturbing her tight gray curls. “Yes, you do.”

“But how are you going to do that if you keep your thighs glued together?”

Penelope gasped and quickly raised her hand to ward them off. “Please, don’t. It’s much too early in the morning for me to contemplate talking about sex with my grandmother and great-aunt.”

“Well, you should have thought about that last night. If you had done what you were supposed to, we wouldn’t have to talk about it at all.”

Penelope narrowed her eyes. “Hmm. Somehow I doubt that.” She put her cup down on the table. “I get the feeling that you two would want detailed descriptions.”

“God, girl, why would we want those?”

Her aunt put a muffin on a napkin and pushed it toward her. “We have sex lives. You don’t.” She waggled a brow. “Now if you should want details …”

“Oh, God, please. Spare me.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” her grandmother said. “Maybe it will remind her what she’s missing.”

“And maybe the images you burn into my brain will scar me for life, and leave me unable to ever have sex again.”

Both their mouths closed with a snap.

That was better. Much better.

Penelope ignored the muffin and enjoyed her tea.

It was hard to imagine a time when she didn’t have these two feisty, witty women in her life. In fact, very little had changed since she was five and her own mother had taken off for parts unknown with her latest boyfriend, an occasional visit or phone call to let them know she was still alive Penelope’s only contact with the woman who had birthed her.

Agatha and Irene had raised her, although at times it had been difficult to tell who was the child and who the adults. While there had always been freshly baked and cooked food in the house, so had there been parties and a seemingly never-ending trail of paramours, the reputation of the two sisters in their younger years following them well into the autumn of their lives. More often than not it had been Penelope who had picked up beer bottles from the floor and cigarette butts from the plants after a particularly rowdy night.

She had hoped that one day they would settle down. That her grandmother and great-aunt would finally mature. But it appeared that might not ever happen.

“So how was Seattle?” she asked, idly pulling apart the muffin and popping a piece into her mouth.

The two sisters grinned at each other. And Penelope sat back, readying herself for another example of exactly why neither of them would ever qualify for a spot in a Norman Rockwell painting …

PALMER STOOD AT THE FRONT DESK at Foss’s B and B and stared at the bell after looking at his watch. The scent of fresh coffee and something baking came from the direction of the kitchen, but seeing as he was the only guest in the seven-room inn, he didn’t feel comfortable just walking around the place as if he owned it. Especially since from the moment he’d checked in, he’d gotten the impression he wasn’t exactly welcome. The second afternoon of his stay, he’d returned to find his suitcase on the front porch, his room locked up.

“I didn’t realize you were staying for more than one night,” Debra Foss had said when he’d finally tracked her down in the back garden.

He knew differently. He’d told her when he’d checked in to what basically amounted to the only temporary accommodations in town, that he would be staying indefinitely.

But he hadn’t bothered to remind her. He could tell by the look on her face that she understood what the score was, and nothing he could say would sway her.

So he made it a point of stopping by the front desk to reinstate his intention to stay and pay for another night before leaving for the day, lest he return to find his suitcase in a garbage can.

He rang the bell.

He wasn’t altogether sure why he’d received the cold shoulder upon his return to his hometown. He certainly hadn’t left on bad terms with anyone. Well, outside of his father, anyway. So why the cold reception?

Mrs. Foss popped up behind the desk, startling him. She didn’t wish him a good morning or offer him a cup of coffee, she merely accepted his money, showed him where to sign—again—and then disappeared to wherever she’d emerged from.

Not the best way to start the day.

Palmer stepped out into the summer morning, blinking against the strong sunlight. He couldn’t remember it being this hot here. Many summers it had barely gotten warm enough to set up the sprinkler in the back yard, yet now his shirt immediately stuck to his back, and he wanted to loosen the tie he’d just tightened.

He walked across the arched gravel drive and unlocked the door to his leased Mercedes, draping his suit jacket over the back of the driver’s chair before getting in and starting the engine, counting to ten as he waited for the air conditioner to kick in.

Ah, yes. That was more like it.

He understood the entire state was experiencing a fluke heat wave unlike any they’d seen before. Up in Seattle, the temperature had broken a hundred for the first time in … well, recorded history. And it hadn’t rained in at least a couple of weeks, which was strange in and of itself.

The thought brought the image of Penelope in the gazebo last night to mind. She’d smelled of summer and made him hot just looking at her.

Palmer rubbed the back of his neck. The last thing he’d planned was trying to seduce her in the backyard of her grandmother’s house. But there you had it. Seemed the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. He wanted her even more than he had back then. Then again, perhaps time had dulled the old memories. And now reality had honed them to an aching point.

He couldn’t help looking around Earnest as he drove through the few blocks that comprised the downtown on his way south to the construction site he’d chosen. It held little more than the trailer that served as his offices for the time being.

He eased his foot up off the gas, spotting someone walking across Main Street.

Penelope.

He stopped altogether.

She was wearing another dress, this time tan with what appeared to be—were those cherries?—printed all over the light material. A wide-brimmed hat protected her dark head from the morning sun and she reached up to steady it as a breeze threatened to take it from her.

A car horn beeped behind him. Penelope looked over her shoulder in his direction.

Palmer grimaced and gave a brief wave. “Hey, how are you doing? Me? I’m pissed my discreet moment of watching you was so rudely interrupted.”

He glanced in the mirror to see who the perpetrator was. Why wasn’t he surprised to find Barnaby in his sheriff’s car?

He flashed the red-and-white strobe lights on top of his official county vehicle.

Palmer gave him a wave, as well, rather than the finger he would like to have flashed, and put the car back in gear, the moment broken.

Within five minutes, he turned into the narrow unpaved road that led to the trailer. A pickup kicked up dust as it raced toward him at high speed.

What the hell?

At the last moment, Palmer pulled into the brush and the pickup roared by, momentarily blinding him with the dirt cloud it left behind.

If he hadn’t felt unwelcome before, that little stunt certainly would have clued him in.

He continued on to the trailer and got out, walking toward the construction foreman he’d hired the week before.

“Morning,” he said, shaking John Nelson’s hand. “What was all that about?”

“You tell me.”

Palmer squinted at him. “Excuse me?”

“If you had waited a minute longer, it would have been me coming at you head-on on that road.” John slapped a file he was holding against his chest. “And I wouldn’t have missed.”

He began stalking toward his own truck.

“Hey, what’s up, man?” Palmer asked, grabbing his arm to stop him.

“You might want to try asking the man in there.” John jabbed a thumb toward the trailer. “He just fired us all.”

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