Snowflakes and Silver Linings

So, telling herself it was completely her choice, Casey didn’t move, not even when his hand drifted briefly to her hair and rested there for a deliciously suspended moment in time.

“Casey Caravetta,” he said, his voice gruff, his hand dropping away. “No, wait. I’m sure I heard it was Dr. Caravetta now. Congratulations.”

How was it that he had heard things about her when she had heard nothing about him? Not even a whisper.

She felt just like that young bridesmaid again. The geeky girl who had been noticed by the most amazingly attractive man she had ever laid eyes on.

His touch on the pulse at her throat had been soft, hardly a touch at all. Why did it feel as if a mark were burned into her skin?

This was what she was fighting, Casey reminded herself. And really, she was armed with the knowledge now that it was nothing but chemistry: serotonin, oxytocin, adrenaline, dopamine, a system flooded with intoxication. Attraction was the pure and simple science of a brain wired to recreate the human race, but of course, it was way more palpable to people if it disguised itself as romance. She was a scientist; she should know better. She was a scientist and science had provided more convenient ways to have children.

But somehow it was not a scientist that watched as Turner ran his hand through his thick, glossy hair. Snow had melted in it, and little drops flew off as he did so.

She never looked away from him, and was astounded again at the stern lines that bracketed a mouth she remembered quirking upward with good humor and boyish charm.

She had to gain control of herself! She had to remind herself—and him—about the painful past between them.

“Are you just going to pretend you didn’t ditch me at the Waldorf Astoria?” she asked. She hoped for a cool note, but could hear her own fury.

“I didn’t ditch you,” he said, genuinely perplexed. “You always knew I was going. I told you right from the beginning—three days.”

“And on the morning of the fourth day, I woke up in that huge suite by myself! You didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye.”

His eyes rested on her lips. “I said it the night before.” His voice was like gravel. Was it remembrance of that final kiss—the leashed passion in it—causing that slightly hoarse note?

“Humph.” Did she have to sound like a disgruntled schoolmarm?

“It’s not as if we were parting lovers, Casey. You were innocent then, and despite the showy underwear—”

He had seen! Casey could only pray the darkness of the porch would hide the fact her cheeks probably matched the underwear at the moment!

“—I bet not much has changed. I take back the remark about keys and chambers. Sheesh. I feel like I’ve propositioned a nun.”

She flinched, and he jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean that I don’t find you—”

“Stop!” she said. She did not want to hear all the reasons why she was not the girl for him. He’d already made that more than plain.

“I wasn’t offended,” she said quickly, her tone deliberately icy. Well, maybe she was. A little. But he certainly didn’t have to know that. “I’m just a little sensitive on the topic of nuns right now.”

His lips twitched. “That hasn’t changed. You have this way of saying things that is refreshing and funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” she said, annoyed.

Her annoyance had the unfortunate effect of deepening his amusement.

“I know you weren’t trying to be funny, but that’s part of what makes it so. I mean, who is sensitive on the topic of nuns? Right now? It would be like me saying, ‘I’m sensitive to the topic of Attila the Hun. Right now.’”

“The comparison only works if I mentioned Attila the Hun in reference to you. Which I didn’t.”

Rather than getting her point, he deepened his smile.

“Dr. Caravetta,” he said, “you are funny, even if unintentionally. And brilliant. So, what makes you sensitive to the topic of nuns? Right now?”

His lips were twitching, but his own amusement seemed to catch him off guard, as if he was not easily amused by much anymore. Was that why he contained it before it fully bloomed, or was it because he caught on she was not sharing his amusement?

“It’s a long story, and one I am not prepared to go into in the middle of the night.” Or ever.

“Okay,” he said. “Just to set the record straight, I wouldn’t have made that crack about the key to your chambers if I’d known it was you. Really. It feels as if you’re my best friend’s little sister.”

“Which I am not! I’m not even remotely related to Cole.”

“Logically, I know that. At a different level, you have this quality of innocence that makes me feel protective of you. Even after a glimpse of the flashy underwear. I mean you are, by your own admission, the kind of girl who is sensitive to nuns.”

Flashy underwear? Protective of her? Little sister? Casey was being flooded with fight-or-flight chemistry again, because she had a very uncharacteristic desire to smack that smirk right off his face!

Her memories of those days together were of electricity, of feeling like a woman for the first time in her life. Of acknowledging a deep and primal hunger within her that only one thing would fill. Her memories of those days were of being on fire with wanting.

For him. For this man.

Who probably set off that very same chemical reaction in every single female he came in contact with!

But for the entire three days they had spent together, he had stopped short, way short, of anything that would have fulfilled that wanting. Yes, they had kissed on that final night—the memory made it feel as if that pulse in her throat was hammering harder—but he, not she, had put on the brakes. It was Turner who had sent her into the other bedroom, on those rare occasions when they had given in and slept.

She felt they had connected so deeply on so many levels.

She had been convinced at a soul level.

While he’d been thinking it felt as if she was his best friend’s little sister!

No wonder, with the dawn of the fourth day, he had disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

Now, as well as seeing her as his best friend’s little sister, he was going to think of nuns when he saw her? Which, of course, was better than him thinking of flashy underwear. Wasn’t it?

“Don’t act as if you know anything about me on the basis of three days of acquaintance,” Casey said tightly, “because you don’t.”

If he mentioned the underwear, she was going to die.

Of course he mentioned the underwear.

“But I do,” he said softly. “I know that, despite the undies, the only thing wild about you is your hair. Or at least it used to be.” He lifted his hand as if he was going to touch her again, and then drove it into his pocket instead. “Now it’s not even that.”

“I’ll repeat,” she said, with a coolness she was far from feeling, “you don’t know anything about me.”

“I know I liked your hair better the way it used to be.”

“That’s about you,” she pointed out. “What you like.”