That was one awkward obstacle out of the way.

He certainly wasn’t a dork, if that manly swagger was any indication. Even from this distance, Sadie could see that the man carried himself with confidence, apparently not at all put off by finding himself on a blind date.

Sadie backed up to let her mother greet their guests, at the same time quickly smoothing her cuff over the hem of her glove, hoping to calm the butterflies now rioting in her belly.

Callum stepped through the door first, stopping in mid-stride to stare at Charlotte. “I swear, woman,” he said, his voice gravely serious. “You get prettier every time I see you.”

With that declaration, he swept Sadie’s suddenly flustered mother into a bear of an embrace and kissed her soundly on the lips. Charlotte, her face flushed red, pulled away and quickly turned her attention to smoothing down her clothes again. She tried fussing with her hair then, but Callum pulled her under his arm and turned them both to face Sadie, Callum grinning like a cat who had just polished off a large dish of cream.

“Sadie,” he said, “I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Morgan.” He turned slightly, moving a still flustered Charlotte with him. “Morgan, this is Sadie Quill.”

Sadie barely heard what Callum was saying. Her feet were lead weights stuck to the floor. Her vision had narrowed and dimmed, her heart was trying to pound a hole in her chest, and the loud buzz of pumping blood rang in her ears. She couldn’t work up a drop of moisture in her mouth, and a lump the size of a basketball was lodged in her throat.

She could only stare, open-mouthed, at her date.

The man stood just inside the kitchen door, his broad shoulders nearly touching the woodwork on both sides, his hands negligently thrust into his pants pockets, and his unforgettably familiar, forest-green eyes making Sadie think the butterflies in her stomach just might escape.

Her date wasn’t a dork. He was the madman from the lake.

And she was supposed to spend the evening with him?

He took a step toward her.

Acting on instinct alone, Sadie took an equal step back.

His eyes suddenly lighting with unholy mischief, Morgan MacKeage took yet another step forward. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and held it out to her.

The jerk. The silently laughing, defiantly challenging jerk was just daring her to put her gloved right hand in his.

Callum gave a deep cough into his fist. Sadie looked over to find him glaring at Morgan MacKeage with enough force to knock the man over. She looked back at her date from hell. He wasn’t paying any attention to his cousin. He was still staring at her, still holding out his hand.

Sadie looked at her mother then. Charlotte appeared horrified. But was her mother horrifiedfor her orat her for not politely greeting her date?

Anger suddenly came to Sadie’s rescue. Morgan MacKeage had been born a jerk and would likely die a jerk. But that didn’t mean she had to let him be a jerk to her tonight.

He had no right to toy with her this way. Even if she had caught him swimming naked, he didn’t have the right to continue punishing her for what was really no more than a minor indiscretion four days ago. It had been an innocent mistake that any person would have made given the circumstances. If their roles had been reversed, she’d like to have seen Morgan MacKeage simply turn his back on a naked woman swimming in a lake.

Which meant she had two choices here. She could shake the hand that he was still insistently holding out to her, or she could spit on that hand—if she could somehow get the glands in her mouth to work again—and run screaming up to her room.

Both choices made her stomach knot.

Lifting her chin and steeling herself for the feel of his grip, Sadie reached out with her right hand and firmly placed it in his. He gently closed his fingers over her glove and bent slightly at the waist.

“It is certainly my pleasure, Mercedes,” he said in a soft brogue, his polite tone a stark contradiction to his laughing eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Again,” he added in a soft whisper that only she could hear.

The right corner of his mouth turned up in a grin, and he looked at Callum. “You could have warned me, cousin, that she was beautiful enough to take a man’s breath away.”

Callum arched one bushy eyebrow. “I believe I did mention that fact,” he said, smiling tightly.

Sadie gently tugged on her hand, hoping to get it back sometime tonight. Morgan MacKeage shot her a mischievous wink that silently said he clearly knew her discomfort. Instead of releasing her hand, he moved one long finger past the hem of her glove and rested it on the inside of her wrist, directly over her racing pulse.

Sadie flinched at the intimate contact and shivered at the fire that shot up her arm and into the center of her chest. She tugged more frantically to free herself.

His smile now decidedly wicked, Morgan MacKeage refused to release her. He moved instead to stand beside her, tucking her arm through his, anchoring her to his side.

“Shall we go, then?” he said to the room at large. “I believe our reservations are for eight o’clock.”

“I need my sweater,” Sadie said. She made another attempt to free herself.

He started walking to the door as if she hadn’t spoken, her entire arm as well as her hand still entrapped. “You won’t need it,” he said as he all but dragged her along. “It’s a perfect late-summer night.”

He led her through the door and onto the porch, where he stopped briefly. “If you get chilled, lass, I’ll gladly warm you up,” he said in a lowered voice, for her ears only.

Sadie was already chilled, all the way down to her bones. She couldn’t possibly spend an entire evening with this man, considering what she’d done to him four days ago.

Especially considering that she knew exactly what Morgan MacKeage looked like without his clothes on.

A bead of sweat trickled between Sadie’s breasts. How was she supposed to spend an entire evening with this Adonis and not make more of a fool of herself than she already had? How did a woman smile and talk and share food with a man when she knew that his tie and jacket were merely a civilized veneer covering the body of a god?

Then again, how could she bow out on her mother now?

She was smartly trapped—in more ways than one.

Her arm still in his possession, he led her off the porch toward the monstrous four-door truck he and Callum had arrived in. He finally did release her, but only after he had opened the back door of the truck. He let go of her arm, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her into the seat. He then gently closed the door before she finished gasping in shock.

Sadie found herself sitting beside her mother. Charlotte quietly handed Sadie her purse, a bemused smile warming her face.

“Morgan seems to be one of those take-charge kinds of men,” Charlotte said, approval obvious in her voice. She patted Sadie’s knee. “Just what you need.”

Sadie smiled at her mom. “You mean the kind of man who puts his date in the backseat?” she asked. She waved at the still empty front seats. “What is this, 1955?”

Charlotte smiled back, shaking her head. “I told you Cal was old-fashioned,” she said.

“And it’s kind of sweet, when you think about it. Cal is always worried about getting into an accident when we go out and having the airbag hurt me if it deploys.” Charlotte leaned over and said in a whisper, “He saw something on the news about them being dangerous to small people.” She actually giggled. “Cal says I’m a tiny thing, and it worries him. Can you believe that, thinking me tiny?”

Sadie refrained from rolling her eyes. “You are small, Mom, compared with Callum.”

Sadie shot a look through the windshield to see their two dates now standing at the front of the truck, exchanging words. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but both men wore darkened expressions. It appeared that Callum was scolding Morgan. Good. The arrogant jerk needed a set-down. And since Callum was more of a size to do it, Sadie basked in the hope that her mother’s boyfriend was up to the task.