Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

as if her feet weren’t making contact with the pavement in quite the usual fashion. Mac Weaver—her brash American—had her hand clasped firmly in his as he propelled her up Whitehall and down Pall Mall in search of his mysterious pub.
    Not that she cared if they ever found the pub, mind you. At that particular moment, with her hand in his, she would have been content to spend the rest of her life simply following wherever he led.
    What on earth was happening?
    One moment she’d been Jane Townsend, practical, young Englishwoman, and the next she was Janie, the bewildered object of Mac Weaver’s attentions. Wouldn’t Leo Donnelly laugh if he could see her now, all tongue-tied and giddy as a schoolgirl? She had the reputation of being as peppery as a parsnip, not the sort a man fancied himself going all romantic over. Oh, she knew she was pretty enough. That wasn’t the problem. It was her attitude, her sharp tongue, the quick mind that put off as many men as it attracted. Maybe Mac hadn’t noticed. Maybe American men weren’t as cowed by strong women.
    Maybe it had to do with their cowboy heritage, all that roping and calfing and...
    He put his arm around her shoulder and led her into a dimly lit pub with lots of burnished wood and smoky romantic atmosphere. She had been in such a fog she hadn’t noticed what street they were on. No hail-fellow-well-met chums here, lifting mugs of ale between rounds of skittles or darts. This was the kind of pub a man brought a woman to when he wanted to romance her, charm her, woo her.
    Mac led her to a cozy round table near the back. His hand lingered along her spine as she took her seat.
    “Ale?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “Too early. Tonic water.”
    He disappeared for a moment then brought their drinks back to the table.
    She thanked him. “You should have let the serving girl do that for you.”
    “No.” He ignored the seat opposite her and claimed the one next to her instead. “We don’t need company.” Again that gorgeous grin. “Not yet.”
    She took a sip of tonic water. “You’re quite a determined man, aren’t you, Mac?”
    He lifted the mug of ale. “You don’t know the half of it.”
    His words resonated inside her chest. “You’re trying to seduce me.”
    Those green eyes of his met hers. “No.”
    “No?” Get a grip on yourself old girl! You sound disappointed .
    “Don’t get me wrong, Janie. Sooner or later, I intend to seduce you, but first things first.”
    Her chest was so tight she couldn’t take in a full breath. “Meaning what?”
    He leaned back in his chair. “A courtship.”
    She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Hearts and flowers?”
    He nodded. “Exactly.”
    She considered him closely. The long and narrow green eyes with the thick fringe of wheat-colored lashes. The strong mouth with the touch of sensuality. Prominent cheekbones and chiseled jaw. The slight bump on the bridge of his nose that saved him from being more perfect than he already was.
    “I wouldn’t have imagined you an old-fashioned man.” She took another trembling sip from her glass of tonic water. “I’d believed Americans to be more rough-and-ready.”
    A flash of white teeth in his tanned face. “All in good time, Janie.”
    She looked down at the scarred tabletop. When she was a little girl her father had taken her horseback riding. The groom had overestimated her abilities and seated her atop an animal far beyond her strength, and minutes later the horse had bolted, taking Jane on the ride of her life.
    That was exactly the way she felt right now, sitting there in the rear of a quiet pub, as if she were on the ride of her life with the wind in her face and the laughter bubbling up from a wellspring of delicious fear. That incredible sensation of being at the mercy of something, some force that was bigger and stronger and far more determined than she could ever be.
    She struggled with a wild and violent desire to give herself, body and