Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish Read Online Free PDF

“I’m sure she’d expect me to warm you up in a more old-fashioned way.”
    Before she could guess his intent, he’d leaned forward. His lips touched hers.
    The dock seemed suspended in space, and she put her hand on Luke’s shoulder to steady herself. This was crazy. She hadn’t bargained on this. The shape of his mouth felt firm against hers.
    Crazy. This whole charade was crazy, but at this moment she never wanted it to end. Tenderness and longing swept through her in equal measure with despair.

Chapter Three
    L uke frowned at his laptop the next morning. Chloe’s face kept appearing on the computer screen, overlaying the words—soft and vulnerable, with the moonlight turning her skin to ivory.
    He was trying to get down his impressions of the Caldwell Island area in a preliminary report. He’d settled in one of the rockers on the porch after breakfast, letting the herd of Caldwells scatter to whatever occupied them. He had to work, not think about Chloe.
    That kiss last night had been a mistake. He’d begun by teasing her, but he’d let himself be carried away by the charade. The next moment he was kissing her, and he’d known in an instant he shouldn’t have. You didn’t get involved with people who worked for you. Chloe was too valuable to him as an employee to risk ruining that.
    He had to concentrate on the job he’d come here to do. That was his ticket to success. His initial impressions of the island were favorable, but plenty remained to be determined. He’d focus on collecting the data he needed, not on how unexpectedly beautiful Chloe had looked in the moonlight.
    â€œHey.”
    He glanced up, startled to find Chloe next to him, and snapped the laptop shut. He’d have to tell her what he had in mind at some point, but not yet. Chloe, in denim shorts and a T-shirt, looked ready for anything but business.
    â€œHey, yourself.” He’d already noticed that everyone he met here used that word as a greeting.
    She glanced pointedly at the laptop. “Are you ready to go? We have a date with David and Sammy to go dolphin watching, remember?”
    Dolphin watching, as in…taking a boat out. The huge breakfast Chloe’s mother had forced on him turned to lead in his stomach. Or maybe it was the grits, gluing everything together. “Why don’t you go without me? I have some work I’d like to get done.”
    â€œWork?” She frowned at the computer. “I thought you were taking the weekend off. What are you working on?”
    He didn’t intend to answer that question. “Just keeping up with some reports. I don’t care much for boats.”
    Being on the water gives me the shakes. No, he wouldn’t admit that to her. He didn’t like admitting it to himself. His childhood hadn’t included a place like this, and there hadn’t been swimming pools in the back alleys that had been his playground.
    â€œCome on.” She held out her hand. “The Spyhop runs as smooth as silk. Besides, it’s the best way to see the whole area.”
    That was the only argument that would get him on a boat. She was offering him the chance to see just what he needed to, in an unobtrusive way. And he couldn’t keep refusing without having Chloe guess that what he really felt was something a lot stronger than reluctance.
    â€œOkay. I’ll put the computer away and be right with you.”
    Fifteen minutes later he stood on the dock with Chloe, wishing he’d stuck to his refusal. “Kind of small, isn’t it?”
    â€œThe Spyhop? She’s a twenty-six-foot catamaran. You should see the crowd they fit on her later in the summer, when the visitors are here. I’m sorry she’s riding so low, but the channel’s tidal. It’s not hard to get into the boat.”
    Chloe stepped from the dock down to a bench seat in the boat, then to the deck, balancing as lightly as if on a