Charlotte gave her a critical inspection, her brows furrowed. “As smooth as a baby’s bottom. All six-foot-one-inch of beautiful woman.”
Sadie grinned and turned back to face her mother. “Did I just get all gussied up for another dork?” she asked.
Charlotte shook her head. “No, sweetie. You got gussied up for yourself. Because even if you and Morgan don’t hit it off tonight, you can safely assume it’s his shortcoming, not yours.”
Sadie walked over and kissed her mother on the cheek. “And that’s why I need you,”
she whispered. “You keep things in perspective for me.”
Charlotte’s smile was warm. She started to say something but stopped suddenly at the sound of a truck pulling into the driveway.
“They’re here,” Charlotte said, her face immediately lighting with pleasure. She turned and rushed to the door, opening it wide before smoothing down her own outfit.
Sadie followed at a more sedate pace, shaking her head and smiling at her mother’s excitement. Charlotte Quill really was in love again. And she positively glowed, not only from that love but from the promise of the secret little life nestled securely in her belly.
Sadie only wished she could be a fly on the wall when that secret was finally revealed to Callum MacKeage.
Truck doors slammed, and Sadie peeked over her mother’s shoulder to see two men walking toward the porch. She sighed with relief. Morgan-the-hermit really was tall.
That was one awkward obstacle out of the way.
He certainly wasn’t a dork, if that manly swagger was any indication. Even from this distance, Sadie could see that the man carried himself with confidence, apparently not at all put off by finding himself on a blind date.
Sadie backed up to let her mother greet their guests, at the same time quickly smoothing her cuff over the hem of her glove, hoping to calm the butterflies now rioting in her belly.
Callum stepped through the door first, stopping in mid-stride to stare at Charlotte. “I swear, woman,” he said, his voice gravely serious. “You get prettier every time I see you.”
With that declaration, he swept Sadie’s suddenly flustered mother into a bear of an embrace and kissed her soundly on the lips. Charlotte, her face flushed red, pulled away and quickly turned her attention to smoothing down her clothes again. She tried fussing with her hair then, but Callum pulled her under his arm and turned them both to face Sadie, Callum grinning like a cat who had just polished off a large dish of cream.
“Sadie,” he said, “I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Morgan.” He turned slightly, moving a still flustered Charlotte with him. “Morgan, this is Sadie Quill.”
Sadie barely heard what Callum was saying. Her feet were lead weights stuck to the floor. Her vision had narrowed and dimmed, her heart was trying to pound a hole in her chest, and the loud buzz of pumping blood rang in her ears. She couldn’t work up a drop of moisture in her mouth, and a lump the size of a basketball was lodged in her throat.
She could only stare, open-mouthed, at her date.
The man stood just inside the kitchen door, his broad shoulders nearly touching the woodwork on both sides, his hands negligently thrust into his pants pockets, and his unforgettably familiar, forest-green eyes making Sadie think the butterflies in her stomach just might escape.
Her date wasn’t a dork. He was the madman from the lake.
And she was supposed to spend the evening with him?
He took a step toward her.
Acting on instinct alone, Sadie took an equal step back.
His eyes suddenly lighting with unholy mischief, Morgan MacKeage took yet another step forward. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and held it out to her.
The jerk. The silently laughing, defiantly challenging jerk was just daring her to put her gloved right hand in his.
Callum gave a deep cough into his fist. Sadie looked over to find him glaring at Morgan MacKeage with enough force to knock the man over. She looked back at her date from hell. He wasn’t paying any attention to his cousin. He was still staring at her, still holding out his hand.
Sadie looked at her mother then. Charlotte appeared horrified. But was her mother horrifiedfor her orat her for not politely greeting her date?
Anger suddenly came to Sadie’s rescue. Morgan MacKeage had been born a jerk and would likely die a jerk. But that didn’t mean she had to let him be a jerk to her tonight.
He had no right to toy with her this way. Even if she had caught him swimming naked, he didn’t have the right to continue punishing her for what was really no more than a minor indiscretion four days ago. It had been an innocent mistake that any person would have made given the circumstances. If their roles had been reversed, she’d like to have seen Morgan MacKeage simply turn his back on a naked woman swimming in a lake.
Which meant she had two choices here. She could shake the hand that he was still insistently holding out to her, or she could spit on that hand—if she could somehow get the glands in her mouth to work again—and run screaming up to her room.
Both choices made her stomach knot.
Lifting her chin and steeling herself for the feel of his grip, Sadie reached out with her right hand and firmly placed it in his. He gently closed his fingers over her glove and bent slightly at the waist.
“It is certainly my pleasure, Mercedes,” he said in a soft brogue, his polite tone a stark contradiction to his laughing eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Again,” he added in a soft whisper that only she could hear.
The right corner of his mouth turned up in a grin, and he looked at Callum. “You could have warned me, cousin, that she was beautiful enough to take a man’s breath away.”
Callum arched one bushy eyebrow. “I believe I did mention that fact,” he said, smiling tightly.
Sadie gently tugged on her hand, hoping to get it back sometime tonight. Morgan MacKeage shot her a mischievous wink that silently said he clearly knew her discomfort. Instead of releasing her hand, he moved one long finger past the hem of her glove and rested it on the inside of her wrist, directly over her racing pulse.
Sadie flinched at the intimate contact and shivered at the fire that shot up her arm and into the center of her chest. She tugged more frantically to free herself.
His smile now decidedly wicked, Morgan MacKeage refused to release her. He moved instead to stand beside her, tucking her arm through his, anchoring her to his side.
“Shall we go, then?” he said to the room at large. “I believe our reservations are for eight o’clock.”
“I need my sweater,” Sadie said. She made another attempt to free herself.
He started walking to the door as if she hadn’t spoken, her entire arm as well as her hand still entrapped. “You won’t need it,” he said as he all but dragged her along. “It’s a perfect late-summer night.”
He led her through the door and onto the porch, where he stopped briefly. “If you get chilled, lass, I’ll gladly warm you up,” he said in a lowered voice, for her ears only.
Sadie was already chilled, all the way down to her bones. She couldn’t possibly spend an entire evening with this man, considering what she’d done to him four days ago.
Especially considering that she knew exactly what Morgan MacKeage looked like without his clothes on.
A bead of sweat trickled between Sadie’s breasts. How was she supposed to spend an entire evening with this Adonis and not make more of a fool of herself than she already had? How did a woman smile and talk and share food with a man when she knew that his tie and jacket were merely a civilized veneer covering the body of a god?
Then again, how could she bow out on her mother now?
She was smartly trapped—in more ways than one.
Her arm still in his possession, he led her off the porch toward the monstrous four-door truck he and Callum had arrived in. He finally did release her, but only after he had opened the back door of the truck. He let go of her arm, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her into the seat. He then gently closed the door before she finished gasping in shock.