Home to Honeymoon Harbor by Joann Ross

Author:Joann Ross [Ross, Joann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2018-02-20T13:27:13+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

GOING CRAZY THINKING of Sarah across the hall, standing beneath the shower he remembered sharing with her all too well, John quickly changed into dry clothes, then went downstairs and started fires in both the great room and kitchen fireplaces. Although having a fireplace in the kitchen might seem like a design luxury these days, back when the house was built, before electricity had reached the coast, it had been used for heat and cooking.

He was about to check the fridge when she came downstairs, dressed in an oversize fog-gray, black and white color-blocked sweater that fell to midthigh, and a pair of charcoal-gray leggings with slouchy black socks. Her shoes were surprising neon-pink high-top Reeboks with multicolor-striped laces.

“Nice kicks,” he said.

She glanced down at her feet. “Thanks. They were admittedly a little wild for Japan, where people tend to dress more minimalistic, like New Englanders. But I bought them on sale while living in Oxford and didn’t want to spend the money to replace them.”

It had always been about money with her. She’d waited tables at the Big Dipper after school and weekends and worked on the line at the cannery in the summers. Even during college she’d held down two jobs, which made it even more difficult for John and her to get together, with him in Washington State and her all the way across the country in Massachusetts.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said. “They’re hot.”

She laughed. “Which is proof you’ve been too long without a woman.”

“Over two years,” he responded to what he knew she’d meant as a joke to deflect the compliment he’d paid her. “Not that I’m counting or anything.”

“Oh. Well.” He could see her doing the math in her head. Wondering if their night in Boston could’ve been his last with any woman. Which it had been, but he’d thought he’d ease into that revelation. “I’ll have to admit they always make me feel as if I should be doing aerobics,” she said.

John fought against imagining her in a leotard. Oh, yeah. It had been way too long if that could turn him on.

“You’d probably be good at it after all those years taking ballet from Madame Nikolayev.” He’d always thought she looked like a fairy in her little white shoes and tutus. He remembered her in sixth grade, when she’d been a snowflake in a very shortened version of The Nutcracker. Watching her twirl across that shined-to-a-gloss stage of the Olympic Theater, a spotlight highlighting her glittery white costume and brilliant hair, which had escaped the tidy bun at the back of her head, he’d felt as if he’d fallen off a cliff. A few years later, he’d realized it’d been the first unfolding of boyish lust, but it was also that moment, as their eyes met before she’d danced off the stage, that he’d fallen in love.

“A lot of girls wanted to be Laurie Partridge back then. I dreamed of joining the New York City Ballet and becoming a prima ballerina, dancing with Baryshnikov.

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