Page 60 of A Shore Thing

Esmé had struggled to conceal his restlessness when fear like this seized her, stalling their work. Her foible, he’d called it.

Griffith stroked a stray curl behind her ear. He was setting her to rights gently, with unhurried tenderness.

She exhaled. “I’m sorry I ever said your heart was rotten kelp.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Because it’s an insult to kelp? Or because you finally recognize my fine qualities?”

A smile curved her lips. Her limbs felt looser, the fight flowing out of her. The dog was gone. It hadn’t been that dog. She wasn’t a child staring death in its jaws. She was a woman grown, on a warm heath, on a warm day, with a man whose eyes glinted with devilish suggestion.

Impulsively, she leaned in.

She laid her hand on his heart.

14

Griffith turned to stone. She couldn’t feel his heartbeat through his coat. She couldn’t feel the hard plane of his chest. The wool muffled all, surprisingly thick.

Time stopped.

He flicked her hand away, the action quick and somehow sharp. His brief, pincherlike grip didn’t hurt, but pain bit into her regardless.

“Forgive me.” She pulled back, sucking in her breath, mortified.

Oh, Lord. Excruciating error. This honeyed, heated feeling—it wasn’t reciprocal. He didn’t feel drugged by her scent, entranced by her lips. From the beginning, she’d misinterpreted his flirtation. She’d pegged too much to that one kiss, which he’d pressed upon her as a gallantry. He flirted as he breathed. Perhaps it wasn’t even intentional, his flirting, but a side effect of making eye contact while dangerously beautiful.

He was making eye contact now. Her self-consciousness peaked. She wanted to bury her face in the prickly grass, but she’d feel more craven if she looked away.

“Penny.” His voice was rough.

“Griff.” She tried to smile. She was equal to the situation. She could navigate back toward teasing antagonism and preserve their nascent camaraderie.

Pressure kept building in her chest, threatening a new rush of tears. It would be hopelessly silly—to sob with thwarted desire. To sob because she’d forced this reckoning, and now, as a consequence, had to relinquish a gratifying daydream, in which she stirred desire too. Stirred his desire. Ha.

He was scrutinizing her, making some internal calculation, and she knew she would emit a sob if she had to hear him put it all into words. He’d already communicated his aversion with that flick of his wrist.

She’d spare them both.

“There was a caterpillar.” She mustered the smile. “On your lapel, near the gardenia. I removed it.”

He glanced down.

“It’s gone,” she said.

“There’s no caterpillar on my lapel,” he confirmed. He looked up. “There was, though?”

“There was.” Her smile held. “You were helping me gather myself. I was returning the favor. Caterpillars chew through wool. You might have ended up with a hole in your coat.”

“Nightmarish thought.” His gaze roamed over her face. “You wouldn’t be lying. About the caterpillar.”

“Of course not.” She blinked, too rapidly. “Why else would I have touched you?”

“I don’t know.” His gaze locked hers. “Perhaps for the same reason I touched you.”

“Exactly. An exchange of services.”

“I wasn’t doing you a service.” He edged closer, eyes bright. “I was succumbing to an irresistible temptation.”

She swallowed hard. “Now who’s lying. Me? Tempt you?”