"It's no big deal."

She touched his arm, her fingers gentle and cool and so soft against his skin. "Yes, it is," she told him. "To Natasha, it's a very big deal."

"I'm not doing it for Tash," he said quietly, looking down at her delicate hand resting on the corded muscles of his forearm, wishing she would leave it there, but knowing she was going to pull away. "I'm doing it for myself."

Chapter 8.

"Is Thomas really a king?"

Mia looked up from the sand castle she was helping Tasha build. The little girl was making dribble turrets on the side of the large mound using wet sand and water from a plastic pail that Mia had found in her closet. She had remarkable dexterity for a five-year-old, and managed to make most of her dribbles quite tall and spiky.

"Thomas's last name is King," Mia answered. "But here in the United States, we don't have kings and queens."

"Is he a king somewhere else? Like I'm a princess in Russia?"

"Well," Mia said diplomatically, "you might want to check with Thomas, but I think King is just his last name."

"He looks like a king." Natasha giggled. "He thinks I'm from Mars. I'm gonna marry him."

"Marry who?" Frisco asked, sitting down in the sand next to them.

He'd just come out of the ocean, and water beaded on his eyelashes and dripped from his hair. He looked more relaxed and at ease than Mia had ever seen him.

"Thomas," Tasha told him, completely serious.

"Thomas." Frisco considered that thoughtfully. "I like him," he said. "But you're a little young to be getting married, don't you think?"

"Not now, silly," she said with exasperation. "When I'm a grown-up, of course."

Frisco tried to hide his smile. "Of course," he said.

"You can't marry my mom cause you're her brother, right?" she asked.

"That's right," Frisco told her. He leaned back in the sand on his elbows. Mia tried not to stare at the way the muscles in his arms flexed as they supported his weight. She tried to pull her gaze away from his broad shoulders and powerful chest and smooth, tanned skin. This wasn't the first time she'd seen him without a shirt, after all. She should be getting used to this-- "Too bad," Tash said with a sigh. "Mommy's always looking for someone to marry, and I like you."

Frisco's voice was husky. "Thanks, Tash. I like you, too."

"I didn't like Dwayne," the little girl said. "He scared me, but Mommy liked living in his house."

"Maybe when your mom comes back, the two of you could live a few doors down from me," Frisco said.

"You could marry Mia," Tasha suggested. "And move in with her. And we could live in your place."

Mia glanced up. Frisco met her eyes, clearly embarra.s.sed. "Maybe Mia doesn't want to get married," he said.

"Do you?" the little girl asked, looking up from her handiwork to gaze at Mia with those pure blue eyes that were so like Frisco's.

"Well," she said carefully. "Someday I'd like to get married and have a family, but--"

"She does," Tasha informed her uncle. "She's pretty and she makes good sandwiches. You should ask her to marry you." She stood up and, taking her bucket, went down to the edge of the water, where she began to chase waves up the sand.

"I'm sorry about that," Frisco said with a nervous laugh. "She's... you know, five. She's heavily into happily ever after."

"It's all right," Mia said with a smile. "And don't worry. I won't hold you to any promises that Tasha makes on your behalf." She brushed the sand from her knees and moved back onto the beach blanket she'd spread out.

Frisco moved to join her. "That's good to know." He turned to look at Mia, his warm gaze skimming up her legs, lingering on her red two-piece bathing suit and the enormous amount of skin it exposed, before settling on her face. "She's right, though. You are pretty, and you make d.a.m.n good sandwiches."

Mia's pulse was racing. When had it started to matter so much whether or not this man thought that she was pretty? When had the urge disappeared--the urge to cover herself up with a bulky T-shirt every time he looked at her with that heat in his eyes? When had her heart started to leap at his crooked, funny smiles? When had he crossed that boundary that defined him as more than a mere friend?

It had started days ago, with that very first hug he had given Natasha in the courtyard. He was so gentle with the child, so patient. Mia's attraction to him had been there from the start, yet now that she had come to know more of him, it was multilayered, existing on more complicated levels than just basic, raw s.e.xual magnetism.

It was crazy. Mia knew it was crazy. This was not a man with whom she could picture herself spending the rest of her life. He'd been trained as a killer--a professional soldier. And if that wasn't enough, he had barrels of anger and frustration and pain to work through before he could be considered psychologically and emotionally healthy. And if that wasn't enough, there was the fact of his drinking.

Yes, he'd vowed to stop, but Mia's experience as a high school teacher had made her an expert on the disease of alcoholism. The best way to fight it was not to face it alone, but to seek help. He seemed h.e.l.l-bent on handling it himself, and more often than not, such a course would end in failure.

No, if she were smart, she'd pack up her beach bag right now and get the heck out of there.

Instead, she put more sunblock on her face. "I went into your kitchen to help Natasha load the cooler with soda," she said. "And I noticed you had only one thing stuck onto your refrigerator. A list."

He glanced at her, his expression one of wariness. "Yeah?"

"I wasn't sure," she said, "but...it looked like it might've been a list of things that you have difficulty doing with your injured knee."

The list had included things like run, jump, skydive, bike, and climb stairs.

He gazed out at the ocean, squinting slightly in the brightness. "That's right."

"You forgot to include that you're no longer able to play on the Olympic basketball team, so I added that to the bottom," she said, her tongue firmly in her cheek.

He let loose a short burst of air that might've been called a laugh if he'd been smiling. "Very funny. If you'd looked carefully, you'd have noticed that the word walk was at the top. I crossed it off when I could walk. I intend to do the same with the rest of those things on that list."

His eyes were the same fierce shade of blue as the sky.

Mia rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin up in her hands. "Tell me about this amazing pink couch," she said. "What's that all about?"

This time Frisco did laugh, and the lines around his eyes crinkled with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. He stretched out next to her on the blanket, making sure he could still see Tasha from where they lay. "Oh, that," he said. "It's gonna look great in my living room, don't you think? Dirt brown and ugly green go real well with pink and silver."

Mia smiled. "You'll have to redecorate. Maybe a white carpet and lots of Art Deco type mirrors on the walls would work."

"And it would be so me," he said, deadpan.

"Seriously, though," Mia said. "If anything will give Tasha incentive to follow your rules, that will. She's only mentioned it five thousand times today already."

"Tell me the truth," Frisco said, supporting his head with one hand as he gazed at her. "Did I go too far? Did I cross the line from positive reinforcement into sheer bribery?"

Mia shook her head, caught in the intense blue of his eyes. "You're giving her the opportunity to earn something that she truly wants, along with learning an important lesson about following rules. That's not bribery."

"I feel like I'm taking the point and heading into totally uncharted territory," Frisco admitted.

Mia didn't understand. "Taking the point... ?"

"If you take the point, if you're the pointman," he explained, "that means you lead the squad. You're the first guy out there--the first guy either to locate or step on any b.o.o.by traps or land mines. It's a pretty intense job."

"At least you know that Natasha's not suddenly going to explode."

Frisco smiled. "Are you sure about that?"

With amus.e.m.e.nt dancing in his eyes, a smile softening his face and the ocean breeze gently ruffling his hair, Frisco looked like the kind of man Mia would go far out of her way to meet. He looked charming and friendly and pleasant and sinfully handsome.

"You're doing a wonderful job with Tasha," she told him. "You're being remarkably consistent in dealing with her. I know how hard it is not to lose your temper when she disobeys you--I've seen you swallow it, and I know that's not easy. And giving her that medal--that was brilliant." She sat up, reaching for the T-shirt Tasha had been wearing over her bathing suit. "Look." She held it up so he could see. "She's so proud of that medal, she asked me to pin it onto this shirt for her so she could wear it to the beach. If you keep this up, it's only a matter of time before she'll remember to follow your rules."

Frisco had rolled over onto his back and was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand as he looked up at her. He sat up now, in one smooth effortless motion, glancing back at Natasha, checking briefly to be sure the little girl was safe.

She was crouched in the sand halfway between the blanket and the water, starting a new dribble castle.

"I'm doing a wonderful job and I'm brilliant?" he said with a half smile. "Sounds like you're giving me a little positive reinforcement here."

Natasha's T-shirt was damp and Mia spread it out on top of the cooler to dry in the sun. "Well... maybe," she admitted with a sheepish smile.

He touched her gently under her chin, pulling her head up so that she was forced to look at him.

His smile had faded, and the amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes was gone, replaced by something else entirely, something hot and dangerous and impossible to turn away from.

"I like my positive reinforcement delivered a little differently," he told her, his voice no more than a husky whisper.

His gaze flickered down to her mouth, then up again to meet her eyes, and Mia knew that he was going to kiss her. He leaned forward slowly, giving her plenty of time to back away. But she didn't move. She couldn't move. Or maybe she just plain didn't want to move.

She felt him sigh as his lips met hers. His mouth was warm and sweet, and he kissed her so softly. He touched her lips gently with his tongue, waiting until she granted him access before he deepened the kiss. And even then, even as she opened herself to him, he kissed her breathtakingly tenderly.

It was the sweetest kiss she'd ever shared.

He pulled back to look into her eyes, and she could feel her heart pounding. But then he smiled, one of his beautiful, heart-stoppingly perfect crooked smiles, as if he'd just found gold at the end of a rainbow. And this time she reached for him, wrapping her arms up around his neck, pressing herself against him, stabbing her fingers up into the incredible softness of his hair as she kissed him again.

This time it was pure fire. This time he touched her with more than just his lips, pulling her even harder against his chest, running his hands along the bare skin of her back, through her hair, down her arms as he met her tongue in a kiss of wild, bone-melting intensity.

"Frisco! Frisco! The ice-cream truck is here! Can I get an ice-cream?"

Mia pushed Frisco away from her even as he released her. He was breathing as hard as she was, and he looked thoroughly shaken. But Natasha was oblivious to everything but the ice-cream truck that had pulled into the beach parking lot.

"Please, please, please, please, please," she was saying, running in circles around and around the beach blanket.

Frisco looked up toward the end of the beach, where the ice-cream truck was parked, and then back at Mia. He looked as shocked and as stunned as she felt. "Uh," he said. He leaned toward her and spoke quickly, in a low voice. "Can you take her? I can't."

"Of course." She quickly pulled on her T-shirt. G.o.d, her hands were shaking. She glanced up at him. "Is your knee all right?"

He dug a five-dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her with a weak grin. "Actually, it has nothing to do with my knee."

Suddenly Mia understood. She felt her cheeks heat with a blush. "Come on, Tasha," she said, pulling her hair out from the collar of her T-shirt as she led the little girl up the beach.

What had she just done?

She'd just experienced both the sweetest and the most arousing kisses of her entire life--with a man she'd vowed to stay away from. Mia stood in line with Tasha at the ice-cream truck, trying to figure out her next move.

Getting involved with Frisco was entirely out of the question. But, oh, those kisses... Mia closed her eyes. Mistake, she told herself over and over. She'd already made the mistake--to continue in this direction would be sheer foolishness. So okay. He was an amazing mixture of sweetness and s.e.xiness. But he was a man who needed saving, and she knew better than to think she could save him. To become involved would only pull her under, too. Only he could save himself from his unhappiness and despair, and only time would tell if he'd succeed.

She'd have to be honest with him. She'd have to make sure he understood.

In a fog, she ordered Tasha's ice cream and two ice bars for herself and Frisco. The trek back to the blanket seemed endlessly long. The sand seemed hotter than before and her feet burned. Tasha went back to her sand castle, ice cream dripping down her chin.

Frisco was sitting on the edge of the blanket, soaking wet, as if he'd thrown himself into the ocean to cool down. That was good, Mia wanted him cooled down, didn't she?

She handed him the ice pop and tried to smile as she sat down. "I figured we could all use something to cool us off, but you beat me to it."

Frisco looked at Mia, sitting as far from him as she possibly could on the beach blanket, and then down at the ice bar in his hands. "I kind of liked the heat we were generating," he said quietly.

Mia shook her head, unable even to look him in the eye. "I have to be honest. I hardly even know you and..."

He stayed silent, just waiting for her to go on.

"I don't think we should... I mean, I think it would be a mistake to..." She was blushing again.

"Okay." Frisco nodded. "That's okay. I...I understand." He couldn't blame her. How could he blame her? She wasn't the type who went for short-term ecstasy. If she played the game, it would be for keeps, and face it, he wasn't a keeper. He was not the kind of man Mia would want to be saddled with for the rest of her life. She was so full of life, and he was forced to move so slowly. She was so complete; he was less than whole.

"I should probably get home," she said, starting to gather up her things.

"We'll walk you back," he said quietly.

"Oh, no--you don't have to."

"Yeah, we do, okay?"

She glanced up at him, and something she saw in his eyes or on his face made her know not to argue. "All right."

Frisco stood up, reaching for his cane. "Come on, Tash, let's go into the water one last time and wash that ice cream off your face."

He tossed the unopened ice pop into a garbage can as he walked Natasha down to the ocean. He stared out at the water and tried his d.a.m.nedest not to think about Mia as Tasha rinsed the last of her ice cream from her face and hands. But he couldn't do it. He could still taste her, still feel her in his arms, still smell her spicy perfume.

And for those moments that he'd kissed her, for those incredible few minutes that she'd been in his arms, for the first time since the last dose of heavy-duty pain medication had worn off five years ago, he'd actually forgotten about his injured knee.

Natasha didn't seem to notice the awkward silence. She chattered on, to Mia, to Frisco, to no one in particular. She sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs and chanted bits of rhymes.

Mia felt miserable. Rejection was never fun, from either the giving or the receiving end. She knew she'd hurt Fris...o...b.. backing away. But her worst mistake had been to let him kiss her in the first place.