Propositioned by the Playboy: Miss Maple and the Playboy / The Playboy Doctor's Marriage Proposal / The New Girl in Town

As if it was that easy to read her mind! She hoped he wasn’t going to ask her about her interesting experiences again. She had nothing at all to offer a man intimately familiar with night swimming, silk and jumping out of airplanes.

“Have you ever gone swimming in the dark, Beth?”

She hoped she was not blushing. This was totally unfair. Totally. She couldn’t even sputter out a correction, that she wanted him to call her Miss Maple. Because she didn’t. She wanted him to call her Beth, and she wanted to swim in the darkness. And run out and buy silk underwear. And maybe sign up for skydiving lessons while she was at it.

The problem with a man like him was that he could make a person with a perfectly normal, satisfying life feel a kind of restless yearning for something more.

A restless yearning that had made her throw caution to the wind once before, she reminded herself. In her virtual romance with Rock, she had dared to embrace the unknown, the concept of adventure.

It had ended badly, and it would be worse if she let this man past her defenses, defenses which had seemed substantial until an hour ago.

Ben Anderson, conqueror of thousands ofhearts, she reminded herself desperately. Possibly more!

“No,” she managed to choke out. “I’ve never gone swimming in the dark.” It felt like a confession, way too personal, desert-island confidences, not swamp exchanges.

“Too bad,” he said, and looked at her, his pity real, as if it was written all over her she’d never swum in the dark.

She wondered, suddenly, horribly, if his nighttime swimming escapades had included swimming trunks.

Another thing she could add to the list of things she had never done, skinny-dipping. And would never do, either, if she had an ounce of self-respect!

Never mind that the thought of silk warm water on naked skin triggered some longing in her that was primal, dangerous and sensual.

“Though, I love to swim,” she said. “We always had a pool.”

“Ah, a pool,” he said, as if that sounded tame indeed.

“Couldn’t you have lived there?” she asked, wishing he had stayed there. “In Hawaii?”

“I guess I could have.”

“Then why didn’t you?” She didn’t mean it to come out as an accusation, but it did anyway. She felt as if her whole life could have remained so much safer and so much more predictable if he had made that choice. She certainly wouldn’t be sitting here, longing for sensuality!

Buck up, she told herself sternly, you canhave a bubble bath when you get home.

“I grew up here. My sister was here,” he said, softly. “And Kyle.”

She saw a nearby patch of rushes rustle, and realized Kyle had been that close all along, listening. He had heard every word. How had she missed that he was there?

Her eyes met the boy’s. “Why, Kyle,” she said. “There you are! We came here hoping to find you.”

She hoped she had not spoken too soon, that he would not get up and bolt away, not ready to be found.

But Kyle stood up awkwardly and made his way over the slippery ground toward them. Which was a relief, not just because he was safe, and found, but because she didn’t have to try and come up with something interesting to share with his uncle about herself.

As if she had anything that could compare to swimming in the dark in Hawaii!

Ben stood up then, and if he was affected by the long wait, crouched on his haunches, it did not show. Kyle came with no hesitation. Beth could see he was relieved to have been found, relieved his uncle was not angry with him. He had heard his uncle, and somehow his uncle had said exactly the right thing, exactly what that child needed to hear.

That someone had come back for him.

No man left behind.

Watching him watch his nephew, his gaze calm and measured, she understood Ben Anderson was a man who knew instinctively how to get the job done and, more importantly, how to do the right thing. He was a man who trusted his instincts, and his instincts were good, sharp-honed by the fact that he, unlike most men she had met, had relied on his instinct, his gut, for his survival, and for the survival of his brothers.

If ever there was a child who needed that, it was Kyle.

But the sneaky appalling thought blipped, uninvited and uncensored through Beth Maple’s brain, And if ever a woman needed that, it is me.

Wrong, she told herself. He was a man who could turn a swamp into a desert island. She was a woman who could turn a nonexistent person into her prince in shining armor.

She wasn’t risking herself. She’d learned her lesson. She was sticking to teaching school, giving all her love to the children who came to her year after year.

A rather alarming picture of her in her dotage: alone, white hair in a crisp bun, marking papers with a cat on her lap crowded into her mind. But she pushed it away and jumped to her feet. The damp had seeped through the jacket Ben had set so chivalrously on the ground for her.

“Well,” she said brightly, fighting an urge to swipe at her sodden rear end. “Child found. Emergency over. Goodbye.” Totally unprofessional. She needed to discuss the events of the day with Kyle. There had to be consequences for putting the frog in her desk. For uttering the threat. For running away from school.

Instead she waggled her fingers ineffectually at Kyle, and made the mistake of looking once more at Ben.

He was looking at her with those sea-green amused eyes, a hint of a smile turning up his way-too-sexy mouth, and she turned briskly away from him and did not look back.

Because she knew his amusement would only deepen when he saw the condition of her dress, and she could not handle his amusement at her expense.

She could not handle him at all. He was a little too much of everything—too good-looking, too good with his instincts, too charming, even, stunningly, too poetic.

Her world was safe, and a man like that spelled one thing, danger.

“Hey, Beth?” he called after her.

She turned reluctantly, planning to tell him it was Miss Maple, especially in front of children, but somehow she couldn’t. Somehow they had progressed beyond that, without her permission, when he had told her about swimming in the warm Pacific Ocean with the stars.

She hoped he wasn’t going to remind her of her responsibilities, that they needed to deal with Kyle.

Oh, no, it was so much worse than that.

“You should have a bubble bath when you get home. It will take the chill off.”

She was that transparent to him. He probably knew just how his tales of swimming in the dark had tugged at some secret place in her, too. She spun on the heel of her rubber boot so fast she nearly made her exit even more graceless than it already was by falling.

She heard the rumble of his laughter behind her, but she didn’t turn to look again.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_9898aecc-5259-52eb-a3bb-a2af84c3c17f)

The Top-Secret Diary of Kyle O. Anderson

BOY, people are dumb, even Miss Maple, who up until yesterday I thought might be one of the smarter ones. She was waiting for me when I got to school. I got the big lecture about saying things that can be misinterpreted. Is it so hard to figure out a kid who protects a frog isn’t likely to burn down the school?

Sheesh. I only said that because I had read it the night before in The History of Khan. Genghis Khan used to surround a city, and then he gave them the opportunity to surrender. If they didn’t surrender he’d burn it to the ground, until the streets ran with fat melting from bodies. Is that the scariest thing you ever heard? That’s where the expression “the wrath of Khan” comes from. Even Casper, who is really dumb, got it.