He looked at her for a long moment. “I’m not ready to concede yet, Tara.”

“Logan-”

“Look, I’m enjoying this town. I’ve been making friends with people who don’t bow down to me or want anything from me.”

“What you’re enjoying is the chase,” she said. “And being talked about every day.”

“Okay,” he admitted. “That too.”

Shaking her head, Tara rose. “Go home, Logan. Go back to your life.”

“I’ve never quit anything, you know that.” He rose too and snagged her hand, pulling her back around to face him. “And I’m not going to quit this. Not even for you.”

He was looking at her just as she’d always dreamed he might, warm and soft and open, and all she could think was too little, too late. “Logan-”

“No.” He set his finger over her lips. “God, not the pity. Smack me around, tell me I’m an ass, anything but the pity eyes.” He paused. “I will, however, take a pity f-oomph,” he said when she elbowed him in the gut. “Damn, woman.”

“Go,” she said. Relieved to feel suddenly guilt-free, she shoved him out of her kitchen.

The inn’s first real guests arrived as scheduled. A middle-aged couple on a West Coast road trip from San Diego to Vancouver, stopping at a different B &B every night.

Maddie and Tara checked them in together, and Chloe gave them a gift basket full of her natural products. The wife fingered through the items, cooing at the bath salts, the herbal teas, the…

“Massage oil?” the woman asked, lifting the bottle. She had to slip her glasses on to read the label. “Edible strawberry massage oil,” she said out loud. “Perfect for that special someone. Put it on your-Oh my.”

Mia gaped.

Maddie covered Mia’s eyes.

Tara looked at Chloe in horror.

Chloe laughed and reached for the oil. “Whoops, I was wondering where that went. Here, try this instead.” And she quickly replaced the oil with body lotion.

“Oh,” the woman said, sounding greatly disappointed. “Could I maybe have both?”

“Well, sure.” Chloe handed back over the oil. “Enjoy.”

The woman glanced at her husband and grinned. “We will.”

When the couple was safely upstairs in their room, Maddie and Tara rounded on Chloe, who held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, that was my bad,” she admitted.

“You think?” Tara asked.

Mia giggled. A real, honest-to-god genuine giggle, and then Maddie snorted. She slapped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late, and the sound of it sent Mia into a new fit of laughter. Chloe promptly lost the battle as well.

“It isn’t funny,” Tara protested. “They’re going to be up there doing… things.” But her daughter was still cracking up, and Tara felt the helpless smile tug at the corners of her own mouth at the sound of it, and the next thing she knew, they’d all slid down the wall to the floor, laughing like loons.

Together.

That night, with everyone tucked into bed all safe and sound, Tara sneaked out to sit on the marina docks. She was staring up at the night sky when she felt a tingle race down her spine. “Ford,” she said quietly.

His long legs appeared at her side. Then he crouched down on the balls of his feet to meet her gaze. “The guests?”

“In and settled.” She felt herself smile. “They like us, I think.”

“There’s not much not to like.” He had two beers dangling from the fingers of one hand and a pizza box in the other. “It’s not flowers,” he said, handing her one of the beers.

Throat tight, she accepted it, their fingers brushing together. “I don’t need flowers.”

“Do you need pizza?”

No. The calories would warrant a damn run in the morning, and she hated to run. But there was this gorgeous man hunkered before her, looking like everything she could ever want. “Actually,” she said. “I need pizza more than I need my next breath.”

Ford sat next to her, and they ate in comfortable silence. When they were done, he picked up the bottles and the empty box and disposed of them inside the marina building. He came back and again sat close enough that their arms and thighs touched. Around them, the insects hummed. The water slapped up against the dock.

Comfort sounds. “It’s a beautiful night,” Tara said softly.

“Yes,” he said, and she could feel him looking at her. He ran a finger over the strap of her lightweight, gauzy sundress, following the line over her collarbone.

Her nipples hardened. “You’re not looking at the night,” she pointed out.

“No.” Ford kept his fingers on her, stroking lightly back and forth until her thighs pressed together. In her high-heeled sandals, her toes curled a little bit. His gaze toured her body, ending at said toes, and a small smile curved his mouth. He knew exactly what he did to her. “Heard about the massage oil incident,” he said.

“Oh my god. Facebook?”

“Yeah. Look at it this way: people will be lining up to book a room now.”

She groaned, and he laughed. “It’s not that bad,” he said. “And it’s got to be better than having everyone think you’re constipated.”

“I was never constipated! And can you never bring that up again, please? Ever?”

He grinned, and something warm slid through all her good spots. She pointed at him. “Don’t you look at me like that, like you want…” Like he wanted to eat her up. Whole.

His soft laugh scraped at her erogenous zones. “Want me to tell you?”

“No!”

From somewhere far off, maybe the pier, maybe Lucille’s place down the road, came music. Something slow, melodic, achingly beautiful and just a little bit haunting.

Ford rose with the fluid grace that only the totally physically fit with good knees could accomplish and tugged Tara to her feet as well.

“What?” she asked, sucking in a breath when he pulled her in against him, gently rocking them to the music.

“Are we slow dancing?” she murmured as they moved together.

“Yeah. We’re slow dancing.”

And she’d accused him of not being romantic. He was warm up against her and strong. He had one big hand low on her back, nearly on her butt, leaving her with the urge to wriggle until his fingers slid lower.

“Keep squirming,” he murmured in her ear, still moving them to the beat of the music, “and I’ll tell you what I want.”

“What do you want?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

He put his mouth to her ear and told her. In graphic detail.

And she promptly, and purposely, squirmed some more.

Ford laughed, then kissed her just beneath her ear. And then touched his tongue to the same spot. When she shivered, he did it again as his hand stroked up and down her back. It was soothing, and also arousing, as it was when he slid a hand down and cupped her. She moaned, and he let out a rough sound of his own at the feel of her. “I can’t stop touching you. I think about it all damn day and all damn night, touching you, having you touch me back.”

She felt herself completely melt in his arms. The music came to an end, and they stopped swaying. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to tilt her head up and meet him halfway for a kiss.

“Dammit,” she said when he lifted his head.

“That’s a new reaction to a kiss,” he said.

“I mean this is… romantic.” She gave him an annoyed look. “And you have some serious moves, too. Good ones.”

“Yeah?” His eyes were dark. Intense. “Well then, here’s some more.” And he covered her mouth with his.

All thinking ceased. It was as if someone switched her brain to OFF, then opened the floodgates for desire. It hummed through her body, making her nerve endings twitch and tingle. A sound escaped her throat, horrifying in its neediness, but she didn’t care. She simply pressed herself closer to him, desperately, hungrily seeking more.

More, more, more…

He pulled her in and turned her, pressing her back against a wood pylon, freeing up his hands for other things. Tara wrapped her arms around him, beneath his shirt and up the bare, sleek skin of his back, and then down to his butt.