Dan All Over Again: Dan All Over Again / The Mountie Steals A Wife

“No.”

The bright sun directly overhead and the nearly cloudless sky crystallized the moment. She’d ruined him for marriage. It had been so bad being married to her that he never wanted to be in a relationship again.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she finally asked, unable to stand her silent recriminations. “I mean, I probably wasn’t the greatest housekeeper in the world, but what did I know, I’d never had my own place before, everywhere we lived belonged to someone else, or was I too flaky, that was it, wasn’t it—”

He reached over and wrapped his hand around her arm. “You’re doing it again. That skimble-scamble thing,” he added at her confused expression.

“Didn’t you hear what I was saying?”

“Cass, it wasn’t your fault.”

She met his gaze, seeing honesty, but knowing he had merely convinced himself of the fact. “Didn’t you ever try to figure out what went wrong in our marriage?”

“I wasn’t in it long enough to figure it out.”

“So that’s what killed you for marriage! I left too soon. I admit it, I panicked. Ran. Told you I was a flake.”

He anchored her chin with his fingers. “You were fine. You just didn’t want to be married to me, that’s all.”

“Don’t be so kind, Dan. It was me, plain and simple. All of a sudden I was married without even knowing who you really were. Or who I was. I looked in the mirror and I saw my mother, looking all in love and happy, just like she always did right after she got married. And I knew that in a few months, I’d get restless like she always did. I didn’t want to do that to you. We talked about buying a place of our own—”

“And I said something about having a kid someday. That’s what started it.”

“Not having a child, per se. I just remembered the way my mom dragged me around all my life, no roots or traditions, and if I was the same way she was, I couldn’t put my own child through that. Getting divorced made me evaluate my future for the first time. Made me make changes in myself. I even took The Supreme Seminar on Being Orderly.” She pulled her legs in tighter when he removed his hand. “Don’t you hate being divorced?”

He looked away. Why wasn’t he able to meet her eyes? Finally he shrugged, still keeping his gaze on a great blue heron stalking prey on the shoreline several yards away. “Divorce is no big deal. Happens a thousand times over every day.”

His words thumped against her heart, and she chomped down on the butter rum she’d been sucking. “So if divorce isn’t any big deal, then marriage must not be, either. Of course, how could I even think it was? We dated for, what, a month? And spent most of that in bed. Then we decided, for whatever reason, to get married. Total impulsiveness. I never want to go through a divorce again. Maybe I did make the decision too quickly, but believe me, I thought a lot about it later. I hate being divorced. I feel used and thrown out.” Her voice went all soft and mushy on her. “Like someone didn’t want me.”

“Cassie, wanting you was never a problem.”

That low, intimate voice rocked her. The impulsive side she’d killed off came alive and begged her to wrap her arms around him and tell him she’d never stopped loving him, never—What was she doing? the Supremely Orderly side of her asked. That was crazy thinking. Of course she was over him. “I’m going to make sure the next man I marry is the last man I marry.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I made a compatibility list.” Did he actually wince? She forced herself to go on. “I got the idea from a quiz in Cosmopolitan on how to tell if the guy you’re dating is right for you. Before I rush into marriage, I’m going to make sure my groom-to-be is well-suited for me, has the same interests and most imporantly, views marriage with a serious eye.” She pulled her notepad out of her bag. “I need to add that to the list.”

He picked up his fishing pole and sent the lure out toward the Gulf. She felt as though she were having a conversation with the rippling muscles and freckles on his back.

“Well, Cass, I hope you find that guy, I really do. But I’ll give you some unsolicited advice from a male point of view: Don’t tell the guys you’re dating that they have to live up to some list. Nothing’ll scare a guy away faster than a set of ideals he has to live up to.”

“What do you have against my compatibility list?”

“Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the next guy you meet will be jumping through hoops to put check marks on that list.”

She lifted her chin. “He will, and he’ll do it happily.”

“Sounds like a dog trick to me.” Sammy barked. “See, even he agrees.”

She picked up the dog. “He’s agreeing with me. He knows I’m on the verge of meeting the man of my dreams.”

Sammy barked and ran across the bench next to Dan. Dan lifted a triumphant eyebrow. “What do you think he’s trying to tell you?”

“It’s more than obvious. He has to visit the potty.”

5

“GIVE ME A NICE, SMOOTH stroke, Cassie. Oh, yes, perfect. Mmm-hmm. Doesn’t that feel good? Not too fast now.” An hour later Dan’s voice coaxed from behind her ear, sending chills down her neck even though it had to be eighty degrees out. His body was pressed up behind hers, pelvis moving back and forth against her. “Don’t slow down. Keep up that pace, smooth and steady. Oh, yes.”

She turned and gave him a pointed look.

“What?” He actually looked innocent, as though he had no idea what he was doing to her.

Maybe she was reading more into his instructions for reeling the lure than she should. Maybe abstinence was playing tricks on her, like when one was deprived of light and started seeing things.

“At least I’m not experiencing premature ejaculation anymore,” she said, trying to find anything to cover her look. Well, it was better than the hair ball comment, anyway.

“That’s always something to celebrate.”

She cast again, a nice, smooth one that landed with a satisfying plop. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

“You’re not bad. You gave up too early the time I tried to teach you to fish.”

“Gave up? Your friends gave me such a hard time, I was miserable.”

“They were just having fun on you.” He leaned against the side of the boat. “I didn’t realize it was that bad. I figured you were making a token effort to learn to fish and didn’t like it.”

“Maybe I was overly sensitive. I could tell they didn’t want me around, and to be honest, I didn’t enjoy their company either. I was learning to fish so I could spend time with you. Alone.” She reeled in the lure again. “But this is fun.” She turned to meet his gaze, held there by hazel eyes filled with something she couldn’t define.

“Maybe we should have gone alone.”

“That would have been nice.” She broke away from his eyes, waving her hand. “But it doesn’t matter now. What’s past is past.”

He paused for a second before nodding. “Let bygones be bygones.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“Yesterday’s catch of the day.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Something like that.”

DAN LET SILENCE REIGN as he ran those words through his head time and again. But he kept getting distracted by the throbbing pain in his rear. And another throbbing pain, this one in the vicinity of his heart. Cassie still had the ability to drive him crazy. They’d been together, what, less than four hours, and he’d been accused of fearing the demise of his masculinity, been dumped over the side of his boat and even at the cost of his pride, couldn’t help but grin at the thought of being hooked in the rear, and then her efforts at bandaging him.

The woman was an enigma to be sure. At least he’d kept her from reading that magazine. If she’d read the article about the young upstart who’d founded a tackle company, it’d be all over. He was sure honesty was (a), (b) or even (b-1) on that damn list of hers and he wasn’t ready to be honest yet.

She was sitting on the bench along the back, her legs tucked beneath her, going over her notes and lists. So, she’d become Miss Organization. She reached over and primped Sammy’s hair, and he caught himself smiling. There was a part of her, though, that defied logic, scoffed at sensibility and went with her impulses. That was the part he’d fallen in love with, the part that affected his impulses as well as getting them into marital bliss before they’d had time to pick the china pattern.

Hurricane Cassie was back, sweeping through his insides and flooding his cautions. Even if she was trying to be something she wasn’t: sensible. She still had feminine willies, that was for sure. He stretched, catching her glance up at the movement with a glint of appreciation in her eyes. Geez, when had he last felt so alive? Standing half-naked in the cabin with her, he’d been more than tempted to take her in his arms.