The Marine and Me Page 6

  “Yeah, well you and I might not be as tight as you and your twin are, but I’m telling you, there’s more to these bookworms than meets the eye.”

  “Yeah, I’ve already discovered that much,” Steve noted, remembering his heated reaction to Chloe last night.

  “I rest my case.”

  “Fine, I’ll be on high alert, and won’t let my guard down.”

  “You do that and you won’t have much fun.”

  “Since when have you become the fun brother?” Steve demanded. “I thought that was Tom’s job.”

  “Hey, Serena told me she was attracted to that wicked gleam of humor in my brooding eyes.”

  “Was she drunk at the time?”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m certainly more humorous than you’ll ever be.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Wanda demanded, having entered the kitchen in time to hear his last comment.

  “Your dumbest grandson. Rad.”

  Wanda clucked her tongue at Steve even as she took the phone he handed her. “Ah, Rad, it is good to talk to you. Yes, I am fine. No, Steve isn’t giving me too much trouble. I’m glad to have him here for a visit. He’s met the nicest girl, did he tell you? No? You men never talk about the important things. How is Serena doing? Any more book signings with Sexual Goddess, Amelia Smith? No? That’s too bad. Maybe you should have Serena ship a copy of that book up here for your brother.”

  Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Fine, thank you Rad. I love you. Give Serena a hug from me.”

  “What was that all about?” Steve demanded.

  “Ah, were you jealous? I love you, too.” She patted his cheek fondly.

  “I wasn’t talking about that.”

  “Then what?”

  “You telling Rad to send me a book written by some sexual goddess.”

  “The author is much too old for you.”

  “I’m not interested in the author. I’m interested in knowing why you’d think I’d need such a book.”

  “I have read it, it’s good.”

  Steve didn’t even want to think about traveling down that road of discussion.

  “Ah, look at your face. Rad looked just as stunned when I told him. You two.” Wanda laughed and shook her head. For such a small woman, she had a huge laugh that filled the kitchen. “You’d think I knew nothing about sex.”

  “This is all Rad’s fault,” Steve growled.

  “My knowing about sex?” Wanda laughed again. “No, I knew about it way before any of you were born. Before your father was born. But it is always interesting to pick up additional information by reading, don’t you think?”

  Steve didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say.

  Wanda then added, “Chloe loves to read, you know.”

  Was Chloe reading those kinds of books as well? Sex manuals? Suddenly the concept of her reading for fun got an entirely new twist.

  “You should see your face.” Wanda wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

  “You’re just yanking my chain.” Steve wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed about Chloe’s choice of reading material.

  “Am I?”

  “Chloe’s not like that.”

  “Like what? Sexy?”

  “She’s a librarian.”

  “She’s a woman. And don’t you forget it.”

  At this rate, Steve wasn’t likely to.

  Bells. Chloe heard ringing bells. She groggily hit the button on her alarm clock before realizing it was the phone ringing.

  It was barely eight in the morning. It felt much earlier because of her restless night, consumed with outrageous dreams about a half-naked Steve draped over the hood of a car, with her right there beside him. His hands beneath her demure T-shirt, her legs wrapped around his lean hips, her hands sliding into the back pockets of his jeans to tug him closer…

  She blinked, forcing herself to erase all memory of those forbidden thoughts as she grabbed for the phone.

  “Hello?” she said huskily.

  “Be ready in fifteen minutes.” Steve sounded wide awake, his deep voice authoritative.

  “Ready for what?”

  “For me.”

  It would take her hours to get ready for him but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Despite his assurances during their dinner last night, a tiny part of her had expected him to make a move on her when they’d gotten home. But he hadn’t.

  Which was a good thing. It proved they were a team, not a couple. There was no grand passion here. At least not on his part. And not on hers, if she knew what was good for her.

  “Put on some jeans and a T-shirt,” Steve was telling her. “We’re headed for the open road.”

  “What are you talking about—”

  “Fifteen minutes,” he warned her. “The clock is running.”

  She opened her front door in exactly fifteen minutes to find Steve perched on his Harley. Flashing her a sexy grin, he patted the passenger seat behind him. “Hop on.”

  Chapter Five

  “You want me to get on your motorbike?” Chloe’s initial reaction was something along the lines of Are you nuts?

  But then she reminded herself of her goal to live a more adventurous life.

  “Motorbike?” Steve sounded outraged. “This is no mere motorbike. This is a Harley.” His voice was reverent now. “This baby is a work of art with the sweetest 1450 cc twin cam air-cooled pushrod engine anyone could imagine, not to mention the constant velocity carburetor or the dual rear shock absorbers. And we’re not even talking about the laced wheels or whitewalls.”

  As she got closer, Chloe was more impressed with how good Steve looked wearing jeans, a simple white T-shirt and a worn brown leather bomber jacket. He had such a powerful presence, more powerful than any mere Harley could be.

  “Look, I’ve even got an extra helmet for you.” He gently plunked it on her head. “Okay, we’re good to go. Hop on.”

  “But where are we going?”

  “On an adventure.”

  She couldn’t hear so well with the helmet on. That became less of a problem once he turned the Harley on. Chloe had no idea how “sweet” it was, but it was certainly loud.

  Chloe took that leap of faith, slinging her leg up and over the bike so that she was in the passenger seat. A roar of the throttle had her nervously clutching onto Steve as they started moving.

  Fast.

  Or so it seemed to Chloe, who watched bungalows whiz by before closing her eyes and clamping her arms around his waist to prevent herself from falling off.

  “Sweet, huh?” he shouted.

  Not really. Hot came closer to the mark. Hot and dangerous. Her widespread legs were pressed tightly against his…well, his muscular derriere.

  She’d never ridden on a motorbike before, let alone on a Harley with a sexy Marine. And she’d certainly never been so sexually wound up. The rumble of the Harley’s engine created a vibration that…well, she had to admit that maybe it was sweet. It certainly was doing wild things to her. She could feel the excitement burning in her, surging in her veins until her entire body was flushed with it.

  Her senses were throwing her into a turmoil. Questions zinged through her mind. And what about her hands? Where should she put them? They were on his abdomen, but they kept slipping down to his belt buckle. She’d burrowed her arms beneath his jacket so her fingers were against his T-shirt. The cotton felt smooth and warm. Her hands didn’t meet so she couldn’t just clasp them together…

  What was the proper etiquette in such situations? Probably just to hold on and pray.

  It didn’t occur to Chloe for some time that she still had no idea where they were going. She deducted from some of the road signs flashing by that they were headed north, away from the city.

  Where was he taking her?

  She wanted to ask him, but doing that required removing her cheek from his back and she wasn’t prepared to do that yet. She considered herself quite brave to
have managed to turn her head from side to side to see what they were passing.

  Before too long, they were out in the countryside, beyond the suburban sprawl that seemed to collar the city for miles.

  Or maybe she’d just lost track of time, being so engrossed as she’d been with the vibrating engine and Steve’s sexy body and all.

  Chloe tried hard to be analytical, attempting to allocate what percentage of her tumultuous feelings was caused by him and how much was caused by the Harley. But it was difficult to be rational when she was all churned up inside. She was experiencing so many different sensations she couldn’t begin to catalog them all.

  She was still trying to figure things out as they crossed the state line into Wisconsin. The farther north they went, the more vivid the fall foliage became. The greens of summer were replaced by the brilliant yellows and fiery reds. The leaves were even more intense against the deep blue sky.

  Steve had avoided the expressways and had instead stuck to the back roads. He seemed to know where he was going. But then men were good at that, acting like they knew their way, when they didn’t have a clue.

  She’d read a book about that, about the different communication styles between men and women, about their reasons for refusing to ask for directions. But darned if she could remember the details at the moment. She kept being distracted by the here and now. Like how good Steve smelled—part leather, part clean soap, part just plain male.

  She sat a little straighter and tried to peer over Steve’s shoulder. That didn’t work, he sat too tall. Maybe if she moved a little to one side…

  Chloe did and panicked when the bike seemed to tilt as if in danger of falling over.

  She returned to her former position and scooted even closer. Her hands slipped again, this time all the way down to the placket of his jeans.

  Steve took one hand off the handlebars to move her hands back up to his chest.

  Chloe was mortified. She hoped he didn’t think she was trying to cop a feel or anything. Her face burned and she was glad he couldn’t see her, although she would have liked to explain that her hands had just slipped. She suddenly recalled seeing some helmets that had microphones attached to them, presumably so driver and passenger could speak to one another. She certainly didn’t want him thinking her hands were doing the talking.

  But her helmet had no microphone.

  She forced her attention to the passing scenery as a way to get her thoughts headed in another direction. Eventually that tactic worked because the pastoral surroundings were not only pretty, but they were also peaceful. Wooded ridges and gumdrop-shaped hills created a bucolic landscape. Well-tended farms with red barns and silver-capped silos dotted the countryside. Large wooded areas of oak, maple and hickory provided bursts of color.

  As a little girl, Chloe had read a storybook about Jack Frost gleefully coating the leaves before spilling buckets of color over a hillside.

  That’s how it looked right now. The big red and gold trees were splashy and bold. Autumn was her favorite season, the ever-changing weather could bring the remembered warm sunshine of summer one day and the threat of wintery showers the next.

  It was only now occurring to her that it was interesting that her favorite time of year was the one with the most vivid living-color displays.

  If she’d liked bland, why choose autumn?

  Sure there were some trees whose leaves simply turned brown and fell to the ground, but there were so many others that put on a spectacular show.

  She’d been in danger of becoming one of those brown leaves, but she wanted to be one of the rowdy sugar-maple leaves—the tricolored kind with shades of green, yellow and finally red.

  Yes, Chloe wanted to be one of the bright chromatic ones that people collected and carefully pressed into books to save. Not the brown ones that people crumpled beneath their feet or that sat there and turned into mulch.

  This was her first step toward that goal—living a more adventurous life. Living in the moment.

  They traveled through a valley and up another hill before she noticed that Steve seemed to be slowing down.

  Now he was turning, into a farm stand.

  Well, it actually appeared to be bigger than a farm stand since it was located in a rustic barn. Square bales of hay were placed artistically around, along with rows of yellow mums and pumpkins. There was even a scarecrow, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and denim overalls, seated in a rustic wooden wagon.

  When they came to a stop, Steve braced one leg on the graveled ground.

  Chloe wasn’t sure how she dismounted, if that was the proper term, from the Harley, but once she did so, she noticed her legs felt all rubbery. Was that Steve’s fault or his beloved motorbike’s?

  “I thought we could use a break,” he said, removing his helmet to face her.

  “Good idea.” Why did her voice sound all croaky?

  “You can take your helmet off now. Want some help?”

  She needed help, all right, but not from the source of her trouble. “No, I’m fine.”

  She may have been fine but her fingers weren’t. They were all thumbs as she struggled to get the strap undone.

  “Here.” Steve nudged her hand aside and took care of things himself.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed how gentle his touch could be for such a powerful man. He had large hands. His fingers were long and lean, his nails clean and closely clipped. But there was more than just the physical description at work here. These were a warrior’s hands, capable of defending and protecting. Also capable of making her knees go all funny.

  “There.” He stepped back. “Better, huh?”

  “Infinitely.” At least she could still utter four-syllable words, even if only one at a time. She firmly slid her black-framed glasses back into place.

  “Good. I thought we could pick up some food for a picnic lunch over at Devil’s Lake.”

  Seemed an apt destination for a man as sexy as the devil.

  And Chloe was hungry. Starving actually. She’d only had time to grab a granola bar before leaving the house that morning.

  As they approached the building, the sun glinted on bushel baskets full of ruby, gold and green apples. The display was set out on tables along with signs listing the varieties—Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious, Jonathan. And, of course, there was a section inside the barn itself with a deli offering an incredible variety of cheese. After all, they were in Wisconsin. Even their football fans up here were called “cheeseheads.”

  “Wisconsin is the number-one cheese producer in the nation, you know. They produce 2.5 billion pounds annually.” Jeez, she couldn’t believe she’d just spouted statistics at him. She only did that when she was really nervous. She had all kinds of trivia stored in her mind. It went with the job, which often had her looking up all kinds of things—from the average annual rainfall in Belize to the lifespan of a grizzly bear.

  “What do you think about some cheddar?” Steve held up a plastic-covered wedge.

  “Sounds good.” She looked around at the displays. “I can’t believe they’ve got blueberry Monterey Jack cheese here.”

  “Why? Is that a favorite of yours?”

  “I’ve never tasted it.”

  “We should try some then.” He added it to the shopping basket she held.

  Another section offered several varieties of sausage. “They have venison sausage,” Steve noted.

  “I am not eating Bambi in any shape or form.”

  “Not feeling that adventurous, huh? Okay, fine. No deer meat.” He picked up a summer sausage instead.

  When they returned to the Harley, Steve stored their purchases in the leather saddlebags along the backside of the bike. “Ready?”

  She nodded. This time she felt more confident as she swung her leg over the passenger seat. She was becoming a biker babe.

  The ride to Devil’s Lake was a scenic one. The road twisted and climbed into a series of lush, wooded hills to the entrance of the state park.

/>   A short while later, Steve pulled the Harley to a smooth stop in the parking lot. This time Chloe dismounted with an elegant grace that even she was proud of.

  “You did good for a two-wheeled novice,” Steve noted.

  “What makes you think that I was a novice?” she countered.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the way you hung onto me for dear life.”

  “Maybe I was just doing that for effect.”

  It had had some kind of effect on him, that’s for sure. Having her pressed up so closely against him, like white on rice, had made him very aware of her. Male to female. And then his heart had almost stopped when her hands had landed on the placket of his jeans.

  They were supposed to be comrades in arms of bad luck in the romance department. A team. No sex involved. No desire to have sex included.

  Steve took a deep breath and reassured himself that everything was under control. Because there was no way he was stepping back into that frying pan after having just stepped out of the relationship fire.

  What was that phrase—once bitten, twice shy?

  No, he didn’t like the sound of that. No way was he shy. Smart. Once bitten, twice smart. Yes, he liked that better. He was smart. He learned from his mistakes. And never, ever repeated them.

  Good. He had that straight then. He finished locking up his Harley before turning to find Chloe heading off. “Where are you going?”

  She pointed to the nearby picnic table. “To eat.”

  Steve shook his head as he finished transferring their food into a backpack.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

  He shook his head again.

  She waved a hand. “Then you pick which picnic table.”

  “We’re not eating at a table.”

  “Then where are we eating?”

  He pointed toward the bluffs surrounding the lake. “Up there. Not afraid of heights, are you?”

  “Would it matter if I was?”

  “Knowing what you’re afraid of helps you overcome it. Those five-hundred-foot bluffs are among the most ancient outcrops on the planet. They’re something like a billion years old.” At her surprised look, he shrugged. “I did some recon ahead of time on the Internet about the place.”