Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White

home.
    She toweled off and rubbed a mild gardenia-scented lotion over her body.
    Hannah changed three times before she settled on a lemon-yellow sleeveless dress hemmed about two inches above her knees. It offset her tan and showed her limbs to best advantage. She couldn’t remember when she’d last worn a dress. Not this summer, anyway.
    She appraised the result in the mirror, then muttered a curse. Why did she even care?
    “Well, I’ll tell you why you care.” She leaned forward and addressed her reflection, wagging her finger at her alter ego. “You want to look cool and groomed and unfazed by his little charade. That’s why.” Her very feminine core, deep down, also wanted Rex to see what he’d lost. A part of her wanted him to eat dust.
    Satisfied, she grabbed her sunglasses, sweater and purse and headed back to his car.
    “You took your sweet time.” But the gruffness of his words belied the glint of obvious approval in his eyes.
    And it sparked a small glow of warm triumph in her belly.
    Rex said nothing as he drove.
    She looked like a golden goddess, this woman sitting next to him. The soft floral scent of her freshly showered body stirred painful memories of crushed frangipani blooms.
    He lowered the window, letting in the fresh air. He wanted to blow the scent of her from his nostrils.
    He’d had altogether too little sleep in his SUV. After he’d seen that hulking figure step out from under the portico and walk in her footsteps, he’d followed Hannah home, parked across the street, just out of sight until he could be sure she hadn’t been tailed all the way.
    When she set off for her run earlier this morning, he’d followed her in his vehicle but lost her when she cut into the forest. He’d dug his gym bag out of the car, changed into his sweats and tried to catch up to her, but she was packing a mean pace and he’d lost her, until she crashed into him near the suspension bridge. He would have to keep closer tabs on her.
    Seeing her in the forest this morning, vulnerable, tousled, flushed, breathless, the damp T-shirt molding the soft roundness of her breasts, had near driven him wild.
    He not only wanted to protect her, he needed to. It was a primal urge. He wanted to gather his woman in his arms and keep her safe from the evil of the world.
    Only she wasn’t his woman.
    And she could never be.
    He gripped the wheel and stepped on the gas, negotiating the bend in the road.
    The silence hung thick and charged between them.
    Rex led her to an intimate booth in the back corner of Ben’s Bistro. A private cocoon in the midst of the lively clatter of plates and cutlery and steady buzz of voices. The sun spilled warm through small windowpanes, throwing square patterns onto the red-and-white checked tablecloth.
    “We can talk here.”
    She took a seat opposite him.
    “Try the eggs.”
    Hannah perused the menu. “I’m not that hungry. I’ll have the fruit cup. And a coffee.”
    “The eggs are good. I had them yesterday. You look like you could do with some protein.”
    “I’ll have the fruit.”
    She watched him as he placed their order. He was still in his T-shirt and sweatpants, but that did nothing to diminish his dark aura of authority. He cut a powerful figure. She watched the muscles twist under the tanned skin of his forearm as he handed the menus to the server and checked his watch. Her eyes were drawn by the motion, the silver of the watch, the dark hair on his arm, the solid breadth of his wrist. She’d forgotten the beauty of his fingers. Long. Strong. Those hands. They could be so rough yet so achingly gentle. He had run them over her hot skin once. Moved from her ankles up, slowly, along the inside of her thighs—
    No. She yanked her mind back into the present. He was watching her. Intently. His eyes deep, unreadable pools. His lids with their thick fringe of lashes low. God, he’d been reading her mind.
    Shaken, she lifted her water glass, gulped and silently thanked the