Savour the Moment: Now the Big Day Has Finally Arrived, It's Time To... Read Online Free PDF Page B

light.”
    She stayed just where she was, waiting to get her breath back, waiting for things to stop throbbing. When he flicked on the foyer light, she shut her eyes against the glare.
    “Ah,” he said and cleared his throat.
    She lay sprawled on the steps, legs spread, wearing a thin white tank and a pair of red boxers. Her toenails were sizzling pink. He decided concentrating on her toes was a better idea than her legs, or the way the tank fit, or ... anything else.
    “Let me help you up.” And into a really long, thick robe.
    She waved him off, half sat up to rub at the back of her head. “Damn it, Del, what are you doing sneaking around the house?”
    “I wasn’t sneaking. I was walking. Why were you sneaking?”
    “I wasn’t—Jesus. I live here.”
    “I used to,” he muttered. “You tore my shirt.”
    “You fractured my skull.”
    Annoyance dissolved instantly into concern. “Did I really hurt you? Let me see.”
    Before she could move, he crouched and reached around to feel the back of her head. “You went down pretty hard. It’s not bleeding.”
    “Ouch!” At least the fresh ringing took her mind off the torn shirt, and the muscle beneath it. “Stop poking.”
    “We should get you some ice.”
    “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Stirred up, no question, she thought, and wishing he didn’t look so tousled, roughed-up, and ridiculously sexy. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”
    “It’s barely midnight, which, despite the term, isn’t the middle of the night.”
    He stared straight into her eyes, looking, she imagined, for signs of shock or trauma. Any second he’d take her damn pulse.
    “That doesn’t answer the question.”
    “Mrs. G and I were hanging out. There was beer involved. Enough beer I decided I’d just ...” He pointed up. “I was going to crash in one of the guest rooms rather than drive home with a buzz on.”
    She couldn’t argue with him for being sensible—particularly since he was always sensible. “Then ...” She mimicked him, and pointed up.
    “Stand up so I can make sure you’re okay.”
    “I’m not the one with a buzz on.”
    “No, you’re the one with a fractured skull. Come on.” He solved the matter by hooking his hands under her arms and lifting her so she stood on the step above him with their faces nearly level.
    “I don’t see any X’s in your eyes, no birds circling over your head.”
    “Funny.”
    He gave her that smile. “I heard a couple birds chirping when you backhanded me.”
    She couldn’t stop her lips from twitching even as she scowled. “If I’d known it was you, I’d’ve put more behind it.”
    “There’s my girl.”
    And wasn’t that exactly how he thought of her? she thought with a slippery mix of temper and disappointment. Just one of his girls.
    “Go, sleep off your buzz, and no more sneaking around.”
    “Where are you going?” he asked as she walked away.
    “Where I please.”
    She usually did, he mused, and it was one of the most appealing things about her. Unless you considered how her ass looked in short red boxers.
    Which he wasn’t. Exactly. He was just making sure she was steady on her feet. And on her really excellent legs.
    Deliberately, he turned away and walked up the stairs to the third floor. He turned toward Parker’s wing, and opened the door to the room that had been his as a child, a boy, a young man.
    It wasn’t the same. He didn’t expect it to be or want it to be. If things didn’t change, they became stagnant and stale. The walls, a soft, foggy green now, displayed clever paintings in simple frames rather than the sports posters of his youth. The bed, a gorgeous old four-poster, had been his grandmother’s. Continuity, he thought, wasn’t the same as stagnation.
    He pulled change and keys out of his pocket to toss them on the dish set on the bureau, then caught sight of himself in the mirror.
    His shirt was ripped at the shoulder, his hair disordered, and if