Kitabı oku: «Swept Away», sayfa 3
She went back to Baltimore, hired a private detective and gave him the photo and other information about her father, including his status as a Vietnam veteran. Six weeks later, the detective informed her that he had found a man who acknowledged being her father and who offered as proof the birth dates of her and her mother and when and where he’d lived with them as a family.
“He lives with his adopted son in Tilghman, Maryland, on a little fishing peninsula. Has a great place a few steps from the Chesapeake Bay. Nice guy, too,” the detective informed her.
Her hackles shot up, and she could feel her bottom lip struggling to stay in place. How dare he desert his own child and adopt someone else’s? The bitter taste of bile formed on her tongue, and she couldn’t wait for the chance to tell the man who sired her how she detested him.
“Something wrong?” the detective asked. “Not to worry, Miss Overton. He’s an okay guy.”
She took control of herself. “No. No. Everything’s fine, and you’ve done a great job.”
She jotted down the address and telephone number that the detective gave her, paid him and turned a new page of her life.
It wasn’t a journey she’d ever thought she’d make, and she’d as soon not have to do it now, but she’d promised, and it couldn’t be done except in person. A travel agent reserved a room for her in the town’s only hotel. She rented a Taurus, packed enough for an overnight stay and set out for Tilghman. Ordinarily she tended to speed, but on that morning she lumbered along at forty miles an hour. Killing time, postponing the inevitable and annoying other drivers. She crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, took Highway 50 toward Easton and turned into Route 32, which took her along a winding two-lane highway past the yacht haven known as St. Michaels. From there to Tilghman, she could see the bay on either side of the winding route, but with the sharp and frequent curves of the road, she didn’t dare enjoy the view.
Tilghman’s quaint quietness took her aback. What kind of man would content himself to live in such a remote place, in the middle of a body of water known to be wild in a storm? She checked into the little wood-frame two-story hotel, and it embarrassed her that the innkeeper witnessed her astonishment at the attractiveness of the room.
“It’s lovely and bright,” she said in an effort to make amends. She asked the woman whether she knew her birth father.
“Of course. Everybody in this place knows everybody else. It’s walking distance, but you can drive if you want to. Keep on down the street ’til you see a traffic light, turn left and walk to the end of the road. That white brick house is the one you want. Take you about ten minutes walking.”
She talked herself out of going immediately. After all, he might not be at home on a Saturday morning. She got her copy of the book, Beyond Desire, and her gaze fell on the scene in which Marcus Hickson succumbed for the first time to Amanda Ross Hickson’s lure and kissed her in spite of himself. She didn’t want to read about any other woman’s passion in a man’s arms, so she flung the book aside. She’d seen a restaurant next door, went in and ordered a crab cake, but her stomach churned in anticipation of the coming confrontation with her father, and she couldn’t eat it.
“Quit procrastinating, girl,” she admonished herself, got into her car and drove to 37 Waters Edge. She parked and looked out at the bay. Beauty in every direction in which she looked. Leaning back in the driver’s seat, she contemplated the difference between her birth father’s evident life style and the condition in which she’d grown up. The big white brick bungalow with its red shutters and sweeping and well-tended lawn was beautiful and, she knew, costly. She thought of her life on Cook’s Road in Pickett, so named because so many of the women who lived there worked in private service as cooks. In the days of her youth, their house hadn’t been painted, and they couldn’t afford the seeds and tools with which to create a lovely lawn. Her stepfather had given them all that he could, had filled their lives with love, and had sacrificed so much in order that she could have a better life. She had never faulted him for their near-poverty. But when she looked at the wealth before her, she had to work hard at not hating the man she would soon meet.
She put the car in Park, got out and strolled up the winding walkway. She had to shake off the trepidation that almost made her turn back, but her fingers trembled nonetheless when she knocked on the door.
Chapter 3
Now who could that be? He put his felt-tipped pens in the holder he kept for that purpose, slipped his feet into his house shoes and took his time walking to the front door. He had to finish the design of his New Age cable TV channel descrambler before he went to bed that night, and he didn’t welcome an intrusion. He knew his dad wouldn’t go to the door, because he didn’t let anything, especially unexpected visitors, interfere with his work. The brass knocker tapped several more times, less patiently than before. He opened the door.
He stared. Something akin to hot metal plowed through his belly, and an indefinable gut-rearing sensation winded him as if he’d just run a mile. She stared back at him.
“What are you doing here?” they asked each other in unison.
“I live here,” he managed, groping for his sanity. Where had she come from and why was she here? But he didn’t ask her, because he didn’t trust his eyes.
“You…you live here?” She checked a piece of paper that she held in her left hand. “Is this 37 Waters Edge?”
A twinge of apprehension coursed through him. “Yes. This is number thirty-seven. Why are you here, Veronica?” His hope had already begun to dissolve into nothing, because he saw no affection in her manner, not so much as a smile. Rather, she seemed troubled, far more so than when they’d sparred in court. He didn’t like the aura of unhappiness that seemed to settle over her.
“Why are you here, Veronica?”
Her deep breath and eyes that suddenly glistened with unshed tears rocked him, but he waited, trying to ignore the pain that suffused his body, for he realized at last who she was. And he knew she wasn’t happy with what she’d discovered.
“I came to see Richard Henderson, my birth father. Don’t tell me; I’ve already guessed. You’re the son he adopted.”
He didn’t recognize his own voice, cracked and tired. “I’m Richard Henderson’s son.”
They stared at each other, stared for one poignant moment. As if she didn’t want to be reminded of the fire that had burned between them, she dropped her gaze. At that, he opened the door wider and beckoned her to enter.
“You’ve rattled my whole foundation,” he told her. “This takes some getting used to.”
She didn’t look at him but perused the foyer where they stood. “Tell me about it. Is my father home?”
Cue number two: she didn’t intend to be friendly.
Veronica closed her eyes as though in fervent prayer. “Are you related to Richard Henderson?”
Schyler backed up a few steps, symbolically distancing himself from her. “Related?” he asked, shaking his head as though denying the possibility. “By blood, you mean?”
She nodded, afraid of his answer, vaguely aware of a sense of foreboding. She didn’t want a relationship with Schyler Henderson, did she? So why was she afraid he’d say yes? And even if her heart skipped and hopped at the sight of him, even if her blood boiled thinking of him, wasn’t he the man who had self-righteously jimmied her world?
“Well?” she pressed him.
“Not to my knowledge,” he finally said. “He took me in when I needed him, and I’d give my life for him.” He closed the front door and began walking with her toward the rear of the house, but suddenly he stopped. “Why are you searching for him after all these years?”
His aura warmed her, but she didn’t want to respond to Schyler’s gentle but disconcerting charm and braced herself against it. “I promised my mother. The last words she said to me were ‘Find your father.’ Is he here?”
“Yes. But shouldn’t you have called to let him know you’d be here this afternoon? I doubt a man’s heart will stay a steady beat if he lays his gaze on a daughter he hasn’t seen in thirty years—suddenly and without warning.” His manner was gentle, but his voice stern, giving notice that he’d protect Richard Henderson from everything and everyone, including her.
He was right, but she’d acted partly on impulse. She’d also gotten the courage to do it and she didn’t believe in procrastination. Besides, if she’d asked for an appointment and waited for his reply, she could have gotten cold feet. Or, she’d reasoned, he could have refused to see her.
“I had no guarantee that he’d agree to see me,” she said, answering Schyler’s mild reprimand. “After all, he deserted us.”
His body stiffened, and the gray of his irises seemed to lighten as though glazed over with a coating of ice. She saw his jaw working and knew she’d angered him.
“I don’t believe it!” he spat out. “If you came here to cause my father distress, don’t fool yourself into thinking I’ll stand for it. I won’t!” He walked ahead of her. “My father’s back here.”
As they passed the dining room, her gaze took in the contemporary walnut furnishings and the crystal chandelier that dangled from the ceiling. She imagined that the beautiful carved breakfront contained fine linens, crystal, porcelain and silverware, and resentment of Richard Henderson threatened to choke off her breathing. She’d bet that chandelier cost more than her beloved stepfather made in months of grueling, back-breaking work.
She reflected on Schyler’s admonishment of minutes earlier. “I’ve seen the lion close up when he roared loudest; he can no longer frighten me, Mr. Henderson.”
She couldn’t let the pain she saw in his eyes soften her attitude. He’d had her father’s love; she hadn’t. Yet, something in her hurt for him, and because of him. He put a half-smile on his face, but it never reached his eyes, and she had to grasp her shoulder bag with both hands to prevent herself from reaching out to him. He opened the door to what appeared to be a small solarium. Sunny and homey with white rattan furniture and numerous green plants.
“Who was that at the door, Son?”
Son, indeed! For the first time in thirty years, she heard the voice of the man who’d sired her. And in spite of herself, excitement and anticipation shot through her.
How gentle his voice, she thought, when Schyler answered his father, and how solicitous. “Brace yourself, Dad,” he said, blocking her entrance to the room. “We knew she’d come sooner or later, and she’s here.” He stepped aside. “Come on in, Veronica.”
“Veronica? Veronica!” As she walked in, Richard Henderson bounded up from his desk and started toward her. “Veronica!” He pronounced the name as if it were sacred to him. “I despaired of ever setting my eyes on you again.”
He opened his arms to her, but she couldn’t walk into them, couldn’t make herself act the lie. She gave him as much as she could, extending her hand to him. After seconds during which tension crackled in the room and her blood pounded in her ears, he took her hand and held it, though only for a second.
He stepped back then, and she saw him as he was. Tall. Proud. Self-possessed. If she’d hurt him, he didn’t show it. “If you’re not glad to see me, Veronica, why have you come?”
She tried to shove aside the connection she’d instantly felt to him. An indefinable something that drew and held her, repositioning her center of gravity.
“I came because it was my mother’s last request of me. I promised her I’d find you.”
He gasped, held his head up and his flat belly seemed to jam itself against his backbone. He closed his eyes, large and almond shaped like hers. “Esther is dead? Your investigator didn’t mention it. She’s dead?”
She nodded, unwilling to believe the news would mean anything to him. “Just before my investigator located you.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Schyler move toward his father, but Richard walked over to the window, turned his back and gazed out. From the bend of his shoulders, she knew he’d gone there for privacy, to shield his emotions and to get a grip on them. She glanced at Schyler, but the dark expression that clouded his face as he gazed in the direction of his father gave her no comfort. She walked halfway to the window and paused, uncertain as to what to do. She thought she detected a quick, jerky movement of his shoulders as though a shudder had torn through him. But the man possessed dignity.
He turned and smiled at her. “At least you’ve come. I’d like us to get acquainted. Would you…would you…spend the night?”
She wasn’t prepared for a love-in, not after years of resenting this man who had rejected her, only to welcome another man’s child into his home and his heart.
“Thanks, but I’m staying at that little white, two-story hotel on Front Street. It doesn’t seem to have a name,” she told him, “and I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
Richard made a pyramid of his long fingers, propped up his chin and scrutinized her. She had the feeling that he judged her and found her wanting. But what could he expect from the daughter he’d left thirty years earlier?
He gazed steadily into her eyes. “If Esther told you to find me, what did she want me—or you, for that matter—to know?”
She’d wondered about that but couldn’t guess a convincing answer. “I…I don’t know. She didn’t get a chance to tell me.”
He knocked his right fist into his left palm as she’d seen Schyler do while he tried to sway the judge against her. “I see. In that case, we’ll have to spend enough time together to figure out what was left unsaid. So stay for dinner.”
A command if she’d ever heard one, and her good sense told her to obey it. She glanced at Schyler, who’d said nothing during her exchanges with his father. His guarded expression told her that she’d displeased him and that she was on her own.
“My housekeeper is usually here on Saturdays,” Richard explained, “but she’s at a church outing today. The food will be edible, though, because I cook about as well as anybody, and I’ve taught Schyler to do the same.”
He shifted his glance to Schyler. “Son, why don’t you show Veronica our little village while I get the meal together? We eat at six-thirty, Veronica.”
“Well I—”
Schyler had her by the arm. She didn’t think she’d find his fingerprints on her flesh, but he had certainly touched her with gentler fingers in the past.
“Finish your writing, Dad. There’s plenty of time before dinner. I’ll entertain her.”
He ushered her into the living room and pointed to a brown leather recliner. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Dark colors didn’t do a thing for her, and her green suit would die against brown. Feeling wayward and, in a way, trapped, she ignored his suggestion and sat on the huge cream-colored sofa.
“Thanks, but I’ll sit over here.”
He stood several feet away looking at her. And saying nothing. She resisted crossing her knee, or swinging her foot, or pulling her hair. And she was damned if she’d rub her nose. When she could no longer stand this scrutiny, she blurted out, “Are you being rude deliberately?”
His shrug was slow, nonchalant. “If I were, you’d probably know it, considering what an expert you are at it.”
She knew she deserved the reprimand, for she’d hurt Richard Henderson when she didn’t return his warm greeting. But she couldn’t explain it to Schyler, couldn’t expose herself by telling him what her youth had been compared to his.
Instead, she defended herself. “I’m honest, Mr. Henderson, and I’m not good at pretense. I was as gracious as I could be.”
He dug the toe of his house shoe into the broadloom carpet. “Yes. I suppose you were. But that’s not saying much. Did you plan to hurt him? Did you come here to get revenge for something he doesn’t seem to remember?”
She could feel her shoulders sag with a heavy weight that seemed to shroud her body. Weary in spirit. She knew it wasn’t the kind of fatigue that a tub of hot water could soak away. It seeped into her marrow and nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she replied, trying honestly to understand her motive. “I don’t believe I planned anything. This is a trial for you and for him, but what do you think this visit is doing to me? I looked at him, and for the first time, I saw myself. My eyes, hair, coloring, face and height. It’s as though I didn’t know myself until now. Don’t you think this is a shock for me? That it hurts? No. You’re too busy judging me. Both of you.”
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers, sat down with his legs spread wide apart and gazed steadily at her. After what she figured was a full minute, he rested his left ankle on his right knee and leaned back in the chair.
“And how do you think I feel, Veronica? You’ve taken up permanent residence in my head. A woman who turned me around. A woman who detests my dad and with whom I’ve had a rough legal battle. A woman who probably blames me for having done my job as honestly and competently as I knew how. But the worst of it is the fire between us, a fire so hot not even our attitudes toward each other can put it out.”
She jerked forward, ready to deny it, even as the woman in her yearned to touch him and to feel his hands hot on her flesh.
He waved a disparaging hand. “I don’t need your agreement on this. I’m thirty-six years old, and I know when a woman is attracted to me. We both felt that…” He threw up his hands as if in surrender. “Chemistry or whatever the minute we met.”
She opened her mouth to disown it and to accuse him of arrogance, but dancing lights suddenly twinkled in his eyes and a smile played loosely around his mouth, knocking her off balance. Her heart shimmied, frenzied, like a demon possessed, and in spite of herself, her hand clutched at her chest.
“Don’t worry,” he soothed, “the way things are going, I expect fate intends to keep a lot of distance between us. A pity, though. We could have danced one hell of a dance.”
She leaned forward, disappointment chilling her to the bone, yet fascinated with his cool acceptance that he wanted what he wasn’t likely to get or even to pursue. “How can you say that when we’ve never even tried to be friends?”
He flexed his shoulders in a quick shrug and strummed his fingers on the wide arm of the recliner. “Certain people can’t begin with a friendship.” Shivers coursed through her as desire blazed briefly in his gray-eyed gaze.
He shrugged again, seeming to downplay the importance of what he said and of what he’d felt. “With us…too many obstacles. Too many and too big when we met and even stronger ones now.”
“Right. The main one being all that energy you expended trying to get me convicted of a crime I didn’t commit.”
He flinched, and a stricken expression flashed over his face. Then he laid back his shoulders and looked her in the eye. She had to hand it to him; the man ruled his emotions.
“Do you want to reopen that matter? The judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence, vindicating you. Let’s bury it, shall we?”
She couldn’t believe he’d said it. “Don’t you realize you torpedoed my career? Let’s bury it, you say.” She snapped her finger. “Simple as that.”
He leaned forward, his eyes beseeching her. “I’m not callous, Veronica. I just can’t see the use of continuing the argument. If I’ve caused you any damage, you know I’m sorry, and I’ll do anything I can to repair it.”
She gave him the benefit of her sweetest smile. “A guy thing, huh? If you don’t see a reason, there isn’t one.”
His gray eyes widened in surprise. “Good grief, is that the way I come across to you?”
Don’t let him snow you, girl, she told herself, when crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Just cut it right out.” She slammed her hand across her mouth when she realized she’d spoken those words aloud.
Caught out, she jumped to her feet. “I’ll…I think I’ll see what’s going on in the kitchen.” She didn’t know why she’d said that; she didn’t want to be alone with her father because she didn’t know what to say to him.
Schyler saved her. “Uh-uh. Dad hates to have anybody in that kitchen with him when he’s cooking.”
She sat down. Trapped. She had to get out of there. Away from him and his mesmeric eyes and seductive smile. “In that case, I think I’ll go for a walk. You must have something you’d rather be doing.”
His teasing grin and the sparkles in his eyes couldn’t be taken for anything but frank deviltry. “Not another single thing,” he said and placed his right hand over his heart. “Just keeping you company, and it’s my pleasure.”
No sooner had he said it than Richard appeared in the door of the living room. “There you two are. I know you wanted to finish that descrambler, Son. So I appreciate your taking the time to get to know Veronica, because that’s important to me.”
As Richard looked from one to the other, Schyler put up his hands, palms out, in surrender. “Okay, so I lied. Truce?”
“I won’t ask what that was about,” Richard said and left them alone.
She didn’t realize her demeanor had changed until Schyler frowned. “How can you dislike him so much when you don’t even know him?” he asked her. “Is he kind, warm, gracious, honest and decent? Is he? Does he pay his debts, and does he help people who can’t do for themselves? Does he? You can’t answer, and that means you can’t judge him.”
She wanted to erase the pain reflected in his eyes, to hold him and…For a quick moment, her gaze went toward the ceiling. A father she’d been taught to despise inextricably tied to a man whose smile made her head swim and whose every gesture made her long for the feel of his arms hard around her. A man who made her dream dreams that kept her blushing for days. If she was being punished, she’d like to know what she’d done to deserve it. She wished her ambiguous feelings toward him would sort themselves out, that she could either despise Schyler Henderson and dismiss him from her life or let herself feel what her heart and body longed to experience. And while her conflicting feelings battled with each other, she searched for a gentle reply. Truthful, yet without the verbal tentacles that could pierce the heart.
“It’s best not to pry, Schyler—if I may call you that. There’s a well of hurt and misery that you apparently know nothing about. I don’t know anything about it, either, only what I’ve been told, what I had drilled into me ever since I’ve known myself. You said you’re not callous. Neither am I. Don’t dig deep. It’s enough that one of us carries the burden.”
He reached across the three feet of space that separated them and grasped her hand. “Don’t make that mistake, Veronica. All three of us feel the pain. Tell me why you’ve taken a three-month leave from CPAA and why you’ve hinted you might not return to your job.”
She shared with him her reasons for downplaying the importance of a job that had consumed all of her energies, thought and passion for the previous five years. Her proving ground. The place where she’d taught herself that she could do whatever she set herself to do and do it well. Her chest went out and her shoulders back.
“I had to get away from there, to find myself. I’d done a lot of things, covered a lot of miles and garnered my share of laurels, but…” she faced him fully, wanting him to understand what she’d never told anyone “…but I’d never lived. Never wrestled with a relationship slipping through my fingers, never argued and gossiped with girlfriends, never opened my arms wide and let the breeze blow me wherever it would.”
“Back up a minute,” he said, and she had the impression that he was putting events into their proper perspective. “That case wasn’t the only reason why you decided your office can get along without you for three months?? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Some of my reasoning was bound up with that, the fact that after so much acclaim, the community that I had served so selflessly could forget so quickly.”
“What do you mean, people forgot?”
She waved a hand in disdain. “Not one reporter asked me for an interview when that case was closed in my favor.”
His sharp whistle sliced through the room. “I never dreamed.”
“It’s okay now. I learned a lot from that.”
“So you went to Europe. Then what?” he asked.
“I think I’ve done more living in the weeks since I left CPAA than in the previous thirty-two years and five months of my life.”
He leaned toward her, an animated expression on his face, and squeezed her fingers. “You did something you always wanted to do?”
The mere memory of those few exhilarating days eased the harsh feelings that had beset her since she’d stepped across Richard Henderson’s threshold.
She nodded eagerly. “Yes. Oh, yes. I skied the slopes of the Jungfraujoch, hiked alone through the mountain terrain, spent the night with hospitable strangers and got a proposal of marriage from their six-foot-four-inch tall, blond and handsome elder son. Every single second of it exhilarated me. Free. Almost a part of nature. I’ll never forget it.”
Schyler felt her fingers soft and warm in his hand. He’d held them for all of five minutes, and she’d let him. He focused on her words. “A proposal? You sure you’re telling all of this?”
When had he last seen a woman wrinkle her nose in pure wickedness? He braced himself. Maybe she wasn’t as straitlaced as he’d thought.
“All except…uh…his…er request after I turned him down.”
“Wait a minute! Don’t tell me…you—”
She interrupted him, snatching her hand from his as she did so. “You think I’m crazy? The man was a gentleman. He asked. I said no to that, too, and he didn’t press me.”
Schyler let himself breathe. “I would have been surprised if your answer had been different.” He rubbed his chin, reflecting on some of his own temptations. “But when we’re under stress—and you certainly were—we sometime behave out of character.”
A softness seemed to envelop her. He wouldn’t have associated shyness with her, but he sensed it in her changed demeanor and saw it in her lowered gaze. Long lashes, half an inch of them, hid her large, almond-shaped black eyes—so much like his father’s—from him.
“Your eyes must be the most beautiful I’ve ever looked at. It’s a wonder they don’t get you into trouble. Every time you blink, it’s as if you’re flirting.”
She managed to look at something beyond his back. “I’ve been told that.”
Right then he made up his mind to get to know Veronica Overton. He’d seen her regal in her professional armor and arrogant with his father, but the woman before him at that moment was sweet and feminine. If he dug deeper…He stood and it seemed natural to reach for her hand. He did, and she grasped it.
“Come help me set the table for dinner. I can tell from the rattling in the kitchen that he’ll have it ready in five or six minutes.”
Being with her gave him a good feeling, he realized, but he didn’t fool himself. No woman would ever be important to him unless she showed genuine affection for his father. He eyed her as they set the table, and he liked the way she went about it. Unhurried. Self-assured. She might well have been in her own home. At the thought, his belly tightened, and whispers of air skittered through the hairs on his forearms and the backs of his hands, teasing his nerves. Warning him. No you don’t, man, he told himself. Don’t go there! Don’t you even think it. But an image of her in his home, belonging there, and filling it with warmth flitted through his mind.
He shook his head symbolically, getting his mind straight. “You could grow on a guy.”
She whirled around, her face wreathed in the warmest smile he’d ever seen on her. “Think so?”
“Yeah. You think you could handle it?”
Now she was flirting with him. He walked over to the china cabinet where she stood twirling a linen napkin. She grinned at him. “No doubt about it. I can catch anything you can pitch.”
He looked at her hands propped against her hips and couldn’t help laughing. “Anytime you want a demonstration, be glad to oblige you. I like a woman with guts, and you’ve got plenty.”
“Hmmm. You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
So she liked to challenge! Fine with him; he enjoyed a good jostle, and he saw in her a worthy opponent. “I’d better be. A tongue-tied lawyer and an insecure engineer might as well not leave home.”
She worried her bottom lip. “Engineer?”
“Yeah. That’s the other hat I wear.”
He yielded to the temptation to pull the strands of hair dangling in front of her left ear lobe, tugging on them much as he would have on the rope of a bell. “I’m confident. Yes,” he said recalling her comment. “You’re not lacking self-confidence yourself.” He watched her tuck the errant strands behind her ear and marveled at her ability to look over his shoulder at some object past him, but not into his eyes.
“A little boy in my second-grade class used to do that, pull my hair, I mean.” She still didn’t look at him.
He stepped closer to her. “If you don’t look at me, I’ll disappear. Is that what you think? You have to deal with me, Veronica, and I’m here to tell you it won’t be child’s play, either. Believe me!”
She looked at him, her long lashes sweeping up from her cheeks, and her expression was one of mild defiance. Figuring her out could be a full-time job. “I’m equal to the task, Schyler, so let’s not waste time outdoing each other.”
He had to force the smile, because he liked her too much. Or he would, if it wasn’t for her attitude toward his father. Wanting her had never bothered him too much; he could deal with that. But to like a woman who heated your loins every time you looked at her…He let out a harsh breath. Straighten out your head, man.
