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“So what is it?”

Donovan smiled at her question. “A veil of sorts. It’s a normal part of the daily clothing for many women where I’ve been.”

Oh. Now that she looked at it closer, she could see that.

“A friend once told me they protected women from the lecherous stares of men like me.”

He said the words in jest, but Kacie Jo could tell they were serious, and she wondered again what all Donovan had seen and done the last six years.

Reaching out, she took the lace from him and rewrapped it in the gauze. “I could never imagine your gaze being lecherous.”

She meant the words as a sort of balm for whatever was troubling him.

“You really have no idea.” His whispered words took the breath from her, and she tried to recall all the snappy comebacks she’d been practicing.

After a few breathless seconds she remembered her plan and his part in it. Carefully, Kacie Jo lowered the lid on the box and confessed, “I want to know everything about you."

At her words Donovan turned away, and Kacie Jo let her breath out in one long whoosh, relieved until he turned back to her with narrowed, worried eyes.

When he reached out and grabbed her hand, Kacie Jo commanded herself to keep the light, flirty smile on her face even though nothing about this felt light or flirty.

“Let’s go to the kitchen for a second.” He glanced around the room, and Kacie Jo realized they’d become the focal point of the room's attention once again. So much for guys' night.

She nodded then stood and followed him all the while wondering if her dream was finally coming true. Somehow, she’d imagined this differently. She’d wanted him overcome by his feelings for her, something other than his calm gaze around the room.

Who was she fooling? She’d wanted him to look at her and fall instantly in love. Immature, of course. But then this entire dream was immature. The product of a teenage girl’s over-active imagination. Yet somehow here she was, standing in Grady’s kitchen, alone with the man of those dreams.

Oh God.

Donovan leaned against the counter and pulled her hand to his chest and Kacie Jo tried to settle her run-away heartbeat as he spoke.

“You sure grew up, Kacie Jo.”

She tried to smile. To laugh. This was what she wanted. She held her breath as his hand reached up to her face. Her stomach dropped when he let his hand fall without touching her.

When he turned away, she heard his softly whispered words she was sure she wasn’t supposed to hear. “I can’t do this.”

What couldn’t he do? She wanted to ask, but he turned around and smiled down at her with that same smile he’d given when she’d asked him to stay all those years earlier, and the words dried up in her throat.

“You’re quite the temptress tonight. Not at all what I expected.”

Kacie Jo shrugged as she tried to control her conflicting emotions. Why would his words leave her feeling so sad? “I’m not usually like this, Donovan. This is for you. I think you know that.”

He flipped her hand over, then ran his fingers over the lines on her palm as if he were a Gypsy King trying to tell her fortune. Kacie Jo fought to keep from melting right there on the spot.

“I do know, and I appreciate it, Kacie Jo. I’m having a hell of a time standing here, holding your hand and not dragging you closer to see if you kiss as good as you look.”

“So don’t. Don’t fight it. Kiss me and see.” Kacie Jo couldn’t believe the words had slipped from her mouth. This conversation had certainly never been a part of her dream.

He shook his head. “I can’t. If it were some other time, maybe. But I’m thoroughly screwed up here, Kacie Jo. I don’t know when I’m going to get my life straightened out, but right now’s definitely the wrong time.”

“I’m not talking about forever here, Donovan. It’s just, you know…”

He laughed bitterly. “A one night stand? Right.” He shook his head. “I’m going to try to forget you ever even thought about it.”

She cringed at the judgment in his voice.

He turned away again and Kacie Jo waited as he ran his hands through his hair before turning back to her.

“Kacie Jo, God, I wish…” He trailed off. “I wish I could just forget who you are. But I can’t. I planned on walking you back here and showing what a colossal jerk I can be, but I can’t do that either. I look at you, and you’re this light. You have been all these years. And I have to be honest, Kacie Jo. I don’t need a temptress. I don’t need sex from you. That would scramble up the mess in my head in ways you can’t begin to understand. What I need is a friend I can count on. A friend to just listen to me and let me laugh. God, I haven’t laughed in forever.”

Kacie Jo listened to Donovan speak. Half the words weren’t even to her at all, but she was the one there. She was the one listening.

And as she listened, she realized her plans were washed up. How could she seduce a man who said sex with her would mess up his brain? The outfit, the makeup, the cake. All were pretty much wasted effort. Donovan needed a friend.

Didn’t it just figure? She really wished he’d given her a taste of what a jerk he could be.

“Well, honesty is a good thing I guess, Donovan.”

Kacie Jo struggled with her conflicting emotions, and Donovan hoped like hell he’d done the right thing. He truly had planned on showing her how horrible a man with sex and only sex on his mind could be.

But then he’d pulled her close and realized he was out of his league. He wanted to taste her, to hold her, to touch her everywhere.

And he knew in that instant he couldn’t do it. She meant too much to him. The last few years she’d been an anchor of sorts, and he couldn’t blow that. If he gave in to his desires, even for one simple kiss, it wouldn’t stop there.

So he opted for a partial truth. He couldn’t tell her everything. Couldn’t tell anyone how he’d let another best friend down, how war had ended in personal tragedy. How he’d watched as killers lit the fire that sucked the life out of him as surely as it killed its victim.

But he could tell her one truth. He pushed away the emptiness as she gave up on him, but he couldn’t just let her walk away.

“Wait.”

Kacie Jo shook her head. “No, I don’t think I better stay right now, Donovan. I know you need a friend and I’m going to try to be that for you. But right now, I need to go.”

Kacie Jo walked out of the kitchen, picked up his present and her purse and tugged on Eliza’s arm. “Let’s get out of here and leave these guys to their night.”

She had to get out. Now. Before she cried or went back in the kitchen and showed Donovan Nelson just what he was missing.

But she didn’t need to go back in the kitchen because Donovan had followed her. Great. Rejected for the whole world to see.

She took a deep breath and turned to him.

“So it was great seeing you again, Donovan.”

He stood across from her, close enough for her to smell the spicy cologne he still favored. “You, too, Kacie Jo.” His words rumbled over her, and she tried to avoid his eyes. She didn’t want him to say anything else. Didn’t want to think about how an affair with her would hurt him.

Instead, she reached over and gave him a
friendly
hug. And then she closed the door between her and her childish dreams.

Chapter Three

Kacie Jo walked past the teacher-of-the-year plaque in her entryway and straightened it out of habit. She had plenty to think about, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to put those thoughts to words.

Unfortunately, Eliza wasn’t going to be put off a second longer.

“Kacie Jo, did we or did we not go over to Grady’s so you could have your way with Donovan Nelson?”

She should’ve never said those words to Eliza. Now she’d never live them down. “We did.”

“So?” Her friend’s question packed quite a punch for such a little word.

“So, I’m not sure now is the right time.”

“I seem to remember wondering that myself at some point in the last month. In fact I distinctly remember asking you if you’d completely lost your mind when you spent two hundred dollars on makeup.”

Kacie Jo remembered, too. And she remembered her answer. She’d been in love with Donovan Nelson for as long as she could remember. Yes, she knew it wasn’t real love. How could you possibly love someone you hadn’t seen in six years? But how could she not love the larger than life, cool under pressure reporter he’d become? How could she not love the boy who’d become a man while she watched? How could she not love someone who sent her presents and made calls from spectacular locations like Bahrain and Egypt and Lebanon?

Okay, it wasn’t love. It was hero worship and lust all rolled into one.

When her friends had tried alcohol and drugs, she’d pushed herself to do better at school and earn scholarships. When they had one fling after another because the Cosmo Astrologer said it was written in their stars, she’d settled for chaste kisses and a few dates here and there.

And it wasn’t because she didn’t want to, as Cosmo put it, find her erogenous zone. She’d just always known she wanted Donovan and no one else could compare. Certainly not the boys her age. And not the men who asked her out now.

If she honestly believed Donovan would ever be the marrying kind, she’d go for that ultimate goal.

But one thing Donovan Nelson would never be was the marrying kind. Actually, that fact added to his mystique. To his charm. To his very sexy, off the charts heat level.

She couldn’t share any of those thoughts with Eliza. Actually, when she really considered her reasons for spending that much money on cosmetics she’d never worn before, they seemed a little ridiculous.
 

So she answered the only way she could. “I remember, too. And now, I think you’re right.”

Eliza started in obvious surprise. “Don’t be silly. You had him right where you wanted him.”

Kacie Jo shook her head. “I don’t think so. He needs a friend not a lover.”

“You’re crazy.” Eliza pointed to the gift box that now lay on Kacie Jo’s coffee table. “I realize you were lost in your own little world when he gave you that scarf, but he was totally, completely putty in your hands when you picked it up. I don’t care what he said.”

“It’s a veil, and I don’t know about putty. But I do know something about that black lace bothered him. I wish I…”

Eliza cut her off. “Stop it right there. If you’re out to seduce the man you can’t go deciding to try to fix him. I know you and I know that tone of voice. What bothered him was the idea of you and black lace in one room.”

Eliza might be right, but it didn't change the fact that Donovan didn't want her like that.

If only she could get beyond the long dark hair, the small diamond earring, the way his face was scruffy, unshaven for a couple days. The blue eyes that reminded her of one of his Mediterranean post cards.

He’d been her fantasy for so long, she wasn’t sure she could let it go.

When Donovan heard the knock on the door, he wasn’t surprised. The empty living room mocked him.

Opening the door would set a series of events in motion that could never be taken back. Kacie Jo’d been a spark of innocence in the drudgery of his life for so long. He didn’t want to lose her.

With that thought, he opened the door and came face to face with the girl he’d imagined for months instead of the temptress who’d stopped by earlier.

Relief surged through him. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail much as she’d worn it as the teenaged basketball champion, the way he remembered before he left. Her face was scrubbed clean of all but mascara. The way her jeans and shirt fit snug against her body made it clear she was all grown up, but this outfit didn’t scream come and get me.

Thank you, God, this Kacie Jo he could handle.

“Well, hey there stranger.” He spoke the words with a playful drawl, letting her know he noticed the difference and liked it.

She lifted an eyebrow in a cocky grin and pursed her lips. “Don’t ‘hey there’ me, Donovan Nelson. And you can keep your sweet talk to yourself.”

Donovan fought the disappointment at this turn of events. Insane disappointment, but disappointment all the same.

He opened the door further. “Come on in.”

She sashayed past him, and for a second, Donovan wondered if this reminder of a simpler past was more seductive than the earlier tease.

He decided then and there they couldn’t avoid earlier. Sure, it might be easier to move forward from here and pretend earlier hadn’t taken place. But it would also be dangerous.
 

“So what changed your mind?”

She didn't back down from his challenge. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“I was almost afraid to open the door. I thought I might find you wearing nothing but a raincoat or something along those lines.”

“Well, I thought about it.”

“But?”

She laughed, and he caught a glimpse of the temptress. “One, what a total cliché. Two, in case you’ve forgotten, this is my brother’s place.”

Like that mattered. “Didn’t seem to bother you earlier.”

Her soft laughter soothed a broken place inside him. “You know me. Bothering Grady just gave me extra incentive.”