"Soooo not what I was expecting to come out of your mouth." I raised my eyebrows. "What the h.e.l.l do you know about being in the girls' locker room after volleyball?"

"Oh, you have no idea what Colt and I got up to in high school," he said cryptically.

"G.o.d, and I don't want to. I played volleyball!" Well after they'd both left school. Thank G.o.d.

Joey laughed. "I don't think princ.i.p.al Holt could wait to see the back of The Butler-Graves Offensive, as he called us. On and off the field, we were kind of a nightmare."

"Joey was center and Colt was quarterback of their high school team," I explained to Jack.

They launched into a discussion about football and high school sports.

Jack had been at school in New York City and mostly played basketball but said he still missed Rugby from being in England, so they discussed the similarities and differences in that and football.

All the time he spoke, Jack never once let go of me, and sometimes in a pause in the conversation or when Joey was talking, he'd amp up his sensual a.s.sault on me. He'd change it up completely like kneading gently as his hand slid down mine one moment, or sc.r.a.ping his fingertips over my pulse so lightly, I almost thought I'd imagined it. By the time we got to my back porch and he released me, I was on internal meltdown.

Joey shook Jack's hand, nodding goodnight to me with an odd look when I didn't follow, and went inside.

We stood for a few moments after Joey's departure, then Jack turned to me.

I ran my eyes over his large frame. "Are you wearing the same t-shirt I borrowed from you earlier?" For some reason the idea that I'd taken it off and he'd put it on thrilled me.

Jack nodded. "I like the way you smell."

And hearing him admit it was better.

"In the interests of keeping my promise to you," he said softly, "and keeping us a secret, I'm not going to kiss you right now. If anyone's following us, or watching, this would be a prime opportunity."

I instantly felt the sharp edge of anxiety clip the edges of my mood. The urge to look around and look for someone spying on us was almost too much to resist. I tried to picture what someone would see if they were watching us right now. Two people standing close together, face to face, but not touching. Total innocence.

But my hand still tingled from his seduction. So did the rest of me.

"I want to kiss you, but we're not doing it out here, and I doubt Joey would appreciate me coming in right now," he whispered with a s.e.xy grin that quirked his dimple.

He folded one arm across his chest, and the other came up and ran a thumb over his bottom lip as if in thought. Then he inhaled a short breath and speared me with a shadowed look from under his ball cap. "Right now this bottom lip I'm touching is literally aching to be on yours."

Oh.

He went on, "I'd like to slide my hands into your hair, then down your back, and pull you really close against me. You feel amazing when you're against me, do you know that?"

I wasn't sure if I shook my head or nodded, but my body definitely swayed toward Jack. I held it in check.

"d.a.m.n," I whispered. "When you decide to tell me what you're feeling, you don't hold back, do you?"

His hand lowered from his mouth to join his other arm across his chest. Anyone watching would never guess what was coming out of his mouth.

I was poised, waiting for his next words. Desperate for them.

"You feel so good against me, you make me want to strip you and slay dragons for you at the same time." His dimple flashed. "And do you have any idea how good your mouth tastes? How amazing it feels when my tongue slides over your lips and touches yours for the first time?"

I gave up trying to control my breathing. "Jack," I managed between two shallow breaths. I'd barely stopped a whimper escaping. My mouth felt dry, so I moved my tongue to find moisture and licked my lower lip.

"G.o.d, and when you do that? You f.u.c.king kill me." He breathed out. "I should stop talking to you because watching you react is about to do me in, and I may not be able to keep my promise."

"Don't stop talking." I half laughed, half gasped. "This could be the best non-kiss in the history of non-kisses." My body was functioning on a deep, subsonic, resonating throb. It had started with his handiwork on the walk home and was now in the realm of desperation.

He shifted and winced and tightened his arms across his chest. "Okay," he said. "Although I may have been a bit ambitious about what I can handle. My threshold is a little low when it comes to you."

"So you can dish it out, but you can't handle it?" I asked, winking at him. "What were you doing to my hand on the walk home, Jack?"

Jack looked at me and sucked his lower lip into his mouth, catching it with his teeth before releasing it. "I was caressing your hand the way I want to touch your body." He paused.

I tightened my arms around my middle as if I could reign in the heat swirling through me.

"Slow, then fast ... soft ... then ... rough." He exhaled an unsteady breath. "Gently ... then really, really hard."

Holy s.h.i.t.

The whimper escaped me before I could stop it. But I didn't care over the rush of hot l.u.s.t sluicing through me from top to bottom with a roar like a waterfall.

Both of us stood in shock.

I was seconds away from combusting, and he hadn't even touched me.

By the look on Jack's face, he felt the same way.

"If I don't turn around and leave right now, I'm not going to give a s.h.i.t about what anyone sees or thinks," Jack croaked.

He stood a foot away from me in s.p.a.ce and time, but he could have been inside me, given what my body was going through, or a thousand miles away, given the frustrated ache that went along with it.

"Come inside," I managed. "I don't care what Joey thinks."

"Yes, you do. I do. He thinks I only want one thing from you. In this splitsecond of time, he wouldn't be far wrong. But I want more, a lot more." He exhaled and brought one hand up to the back of his neck. "Please. Go inside, Keri Ann."

Trying to get my head working through the haze of hormones that had been unleashed, I didn't respond for a few moments. Then I nodded and jogged up the stairs and inside without looking back.

I closed the door and sagged against it, my heart pounding in my ears. My body was a flushed and gooey mess of confusion and want.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. I was confused because I'd been wanting to take it slow. But all of a sudden I was willing to throw my fears of having a public relationship with Jack aside. I couldn't reconcile the way I was reacting to being with him with the part of me that shied away from who he was and what he stood for.

The kitchen light was still on.

"You okay?" Joey asked, making me jump as he came around the corner.

I put a hand to my chest. "Yep, Fine. You startled me. You gonna stay up and study?"

"Actually, no. Did you see the moon? It's almost full. I think I'm going to go for a full moon paddle. You want to join?"

It had been one of our favorite things to do growing up. It was always an even bigger treat for me, as I'd get to stay up late, and hang out with my older brother who at other times was too busy with friends and football to spend time with me. But I just wasn't in that mind-set tonight.

I sighed. "Nah, but you should go ahead. Actually you should call Jazz, she'd love it. She can use my kayak." I don't know where the suggestion came from.

Joey started. "It's late," he said. "She won't want to come."

"Are you afraid she'll read more into the invitation than you want her to?"

He turned away. "Maybe. Anyway, she's with someone now."

"Yes, yes, she is. So you could, I dunno," I rolled my eyes, "go as friends?"

"Come on. Come with me, I need to talk to you."

I did love a midnight paddle. "Just a short one, I'm beat."

He held his hand out. "Keys. I'll get the kayaks in the truck."

I nodded and fished around in my purse then tossed them.

Joey caught the keys and I stepped aside to let him out the back door.

"Joey," I said, stopping him before I changed my mind. "I want to be with Jack, and I'd really like you to get over your reservations about him, about us together."

"Look, Keri Ann. I get it, but I don't have to like it. As far as I'm concerned, he could and probably will, leave anytime, and you'd be right back where you were."

I swallowed my disappointment at his reaction. "Jack wouldn't come inside tonight, or even kiss me, out of deference to you. So I believe he got your message loud and clear. Thank you for being so protective, but ... do you think you could tone it down a bit?"

"Go get ready, let's talk on the water."

We drove with the windows down. The spring night air washed over us, the smell of the marsh riding the wind.

"I'm not sure I trust him." Joey ruined the calm I'd finally collected on the ride to the parking pad under the bridge.

Instead of answering, I hopped down and pulled my kayak out the back. The normally inky dark of the island and its inland estuary was splashed with silver from the moon.

Working in silence, Joey held my kayak while I got in and settled myself. Then I leaned over and held his steady for him.

"Up the creek?" he asked.

I smiled. "As long as I have my paddle." It was always our joke when we decided to head away from the open sound. "Yeah, let's stay close."

I back-paddled and turned, waiting and drifting slowly. The water was black and eerie but beautiful with the light from the moon. It was a full moon high tide, so the water level was higher than normal. If we had an early warm snap, the mosquitoes would hatch in larger batches than usual in the water left behind.

As Joey pulled up close, we moved in silence, soaking up the peace.

I kept my eyes pealed for dolphins. It was the best part of full moon paddles.

Joey cleared his throat to warn me he was about to speak. "I know he's got a movie coming up here and all, but what about after that? I mean if you two are still together, what then? Will you just follow him around the world?"

Sighing, I tried not to get upset. "G.o.d, Joey, I don't know. Why are you worried about something so far in the future? We'll figure that out when we get there." I kept up the rhythm of my paddle strokes and my breathing.

"Why aren't you worried about it?"

"Because it feels right, because I feel like I'm supposed to be with him." I didn't think he needed to know about Nana's letter. That I believed she'd been involved in getting Jack and me back together. He'd never consider that anything but a coincidence.

"And you think if you give up your life and your dreams to follow him around he'll still respect you? That he won't get tired of feeling responsible for you all the time? He's not giving up his life for you, but you seem pretty wishy-washy about sacrificing not only your future, but this town's respect, and frankly my respect, and our family name."

Blood drained from my head leaving a buzzing emptiness in its wake. A sharp p.r.i.c.k of hurt stuck me in the back of the throat, and my eyes welled with tears. I pulled the paddle out of the water and laid it across me.

"Joey-" I tried, but it came out a whisper.

"I'm sorry, Keri Ann." Joey stopped paddling too and reached out the end to grab a hold of my kayak. We paused in the middle of the waterway. It was the dead of night, but the moon was like a spotlight on earth. His features looked pained. "I'm sorry," he said again. "But this is the way I feel. I don't think he's using you. He's seems like a pretty genuine guy. But I can't see the two of you together. I just can't. And I think in the end, you'll be the one hurt." He raked a hand through his hair. "G.o.d, do you even remember Mom and Dad? Mom danced, did you know that? I loved watching her dance. It was magical to me. She'd take me with her sometimes if I didn't have school. She was amazing. People told me she was good enough to be in New York, dancing as her career, but she met Dad and fell in love. He promised her they would find a city that had a dance company. He kept promising, promising. Then she had us and eventually all she wanted to find was a teaching job. If she couldn't dance for herself, then she'd teach others. But no. Dad kept f.u.c.king moving, and she eventually gave up. She just gave up."

I wanted to tell Joey this had nothing to do with me and Jack, but he'd never talked about Mom and Dad, and I wanted to soak it in like a desert rain.

Joey let go of my kayak and started paddling again. Slow and forceful strokes. I followed, pulling my paddle through the inky water.

"When I was nine or so," Joey said as I pulled up close, "you were twirling around the kitchen in this apartment we'd just moved into in Wilmington. You were so little." He smiled. "We were there for some other deal Dad was working on. A sales contract or something. And mom, she ... she started crying out of the blue. She was crying while you were dancing around the kitchen. I didn't know what to do. I thought we'd upset her, or something, or you'd done something wrong. I knew she'd been trying to get a job since we'd arrived, so my nine year old mind wanted to help her feel better, and I told her she should teach you to dance. She just looked at me, sobbing, and then stood up and went and pulled out all of her dancing stuff, leotards and ballet shoes, and threw them in this big metal garbage can that was outside.

"She threw all her stuff away," he said, shaking his head as if he still didn't believe it. "The way she was acting was so scary I screamed at her to stop, and you were crying at all the commotion. Before I knew it, she had set the whole lot on fire. The neighbors called the fire department. It was awful."

I sat in stunned silence. Tears streaked my cheeks. I felt the cool sting of the salt in the breeze.

We'd both stopped paddling again.

Joey was far away in his mind, his eyes glazed as he remembered. "Dad came home a few hours later celebrating. He'd just 'closed' the deal or whatever. He didn't even know anything had changed or that anything happened that day. It all just went on business as usual. But everything was different. G.o.d, she was so different. She wasn't sad so much as she was just ... nothing. I hated it. It was awful. And I hated that Dad never even noticed. I don't even know if they ever discussed it, the fact that she wasn't looking for work anymore. That she never danced again." He took a deep breath. "I look at you, and you remind me of Mom so much. The mom I remember when I was younger. You are creative and honest and good and beautiful, and if it is at all within my power to save you from a situation like that, where you'll give yourself up for someone else, then by G.o.d, I have to try."

He looked at me, his normally blue eyes dark in our current black and white world. But they glittered unshed tears. He let go of his tightly-held paddle with one hand and clenched and unclenched a fist.

I reached for his hand and held it in mine. My heart felt like it was breaking. I'd never known. I was thankful not to have experienced her pain so keenly, but immeasurably more sad I had no memory of it at all. I had no images of the magical and dancing mom Joey so obviously remembered in his mind.

"Please think, Keri Ann. I said it from the beginning, since I saw you together in Savannah, and G.o.d, tonight even, you guys have a kind of intensity that is insane. I'm not saying you're not grown up and can't handle it, but you know what I mean."

I nodded. "I do, Joey. I have all the same concerns as you do. I understand everything you're saying. I'm not going into this blindly. And I don't know how we're going to figure out being together and keeping it private. Or how I am going to be my own person and not be sucked into his vortex. I have no idea what the future will bring, and I'm s.h.i.t scared that I'm going to make the biggest fool of myself."

Joey cringed.

"But no one can plan their life like that. You can't plan it for me, you can't protect me from hurt ... and I don't want you to."

His shoulders slumped. "I know."

I thought of him and Jazz, but I knew he wasn't ready for me to draw the parallel. Perhaps he was scared she was it, and she'd hold him back. Or that she'd give up her plans to be with him, and he wouldn't be able to handle the guilt. "And you shouldn't hold yourself to that either," was all I said.

"So it really doesn't matter what I say, does it? I just want to protect you. I swear if he hurts you, he'll regret it."

Squeezing Joey's hand, I tried a smile.

"And he's Jack Eversea, for G.o.d's sake," Joey added, incredulously. "I mean, seriously?"

I managed a small laugh. "I'm so sorry about Mom, Joey. I don't remember." My eyes welled again. "I never remember her dancing. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. And that she went through that." I swallowed in an attempt to keep my voice from disappearing. "And that I never got to see her dance. She must have been beautiful."