Finding Laura by Kay Hooper

Author:Kay Hooper [Hooper, Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76809-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-10-26T22:00:00+00:00

“IT’S A BIT late to be out here, isn’t it?” Alex asked as he stepped into the gazebo.

Josie looked up with a start, and stared at him for a moment before glancing around the gazebo as if she expected to see a clock. “Is it?”

“Nearly eleven.” He had changed, as she had, from the more formal clothing he’d worn for dinner, and was dressed now in jeans and a sweatshirt, and Josie couldn’t help wondering if he’d come out here in search of her or if this was another of his nighttime rambles.

“If Amelia wants me—” she began.

“I’m not Amelia’s messenger boy,” he said a bit sharply.

His edginess didn’t do much to ease her own, and Josie frowned at him. “Sorry.”

Alex drew a breath and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Look, I saw you from my window as you crossed the veranda, and I thought …” He shrugged. “I thought that since I was getting awfully damned tired of this polite dance we’ve been doing all week, I’d come out here and—try to change the music.”

“Change it how?” She felt at a slight disadvantage, since she was leaning back in the chaise and he was on his feet, looming over her, but she didn’t move to get up.

“Would it help if I apologized?”

Josie swung her feet to the floor, but still didn’t get up. With an effort, she kept her face expressionless. “I’d say that all depends. Would you mean it?”

He opened his mouth as if for a quick affirmative, but then hesitated. Finally he shook his head. “No, dammit, I probably wouldn’t. I still don’t want three of us in my bed.”

“And I still can’t help how I feel,” she said steadily. “I—I don’t know why I can’t let him go, Alex.”

“Maybe because you loved him,” he said just as steadily.

Josie nodded slightly, even though she had more or less faced a different truth days ago. It wasn’t because she had loved him that she couldn’t let go of her dead husband. It was because his memory, painless now, was safe and shielded her heart, and if she let it go, there would be nothing protecting her from being hurt again.

“Josie?”

She looked up at him, at that handsome face and those shrewd, perceptive greenish eyes, and the jolt of pain she felt told her that she might not, in the end, have a choice to make. With or without her assent, it seemed that her shield was weakening. Because something else was, suddenly, stronger.

“Josie …” He stepped to the chaise and went down on one knee, both his hands covering hers as they lay in her lap. “I was an idiot, all right? I pushed you, and I shouldn’t have. I won’t make that mistake again.”

She freed one of her hands and touched his face almost curiously, frowning a little as she wondered when it had happened. “You said you had a right,” she murmured.

“I was wrong.

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