The cannibal’s painted face turned even ghastlier at the word “widow” and he backed off in a big hurry. “Sorry. Excuse me. Uh, gotta go.”
Juliet felt as embarrassed as the other man looked. “I didn’t need saving,” she protested.
“From that guy?” Noah responded, enclosing her hand in his and stepping through the restaurant’s back exit that opened onto a bluff. From there he towed her down a narrow, gritty trail that tracked through low-lying ice plant toward the beach below. “Yeah, you did.”
The steep path quickly dropped them beneath the level of the restaurant. Juliet glowered at his back as annoyance joined the arousal inside her. “Because I’m a poor little widow?” she asked.
Or worse, was his protective response because he considered her such a “lady”? No wonder Noah hadn’t followed up on those kisses in the kitchen. No wonder he’d backed away. He probably pitied her, the poor, desperate widow lady.
As they continued down the path, the annoyance grew, smoldering embers of it flaring into the fire of real anger. It was cool outside, but dressed in her velvet robe and thorny mood, she barely noticed. Trying to keep up with Noah’s longer strides, she stumbled over the root of a scruffy bougainvillea, and the graceless movement stopped her short, her bad temper spiking.
“Damn it,” she yelled, kicking at the scrubby brush. “Damn it all to hell!”
Noah turned to stare at her, and she yanked her hand from his then kicked the bush again. Twice. She glared at the offending plant and then at him. “And don’t you dare look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you didn’t think I knew any swear words. Because, hell yes, I do, and when I’m mad I’m going to let them loose.”
Noah’s voice softened. “Juliet, what’s the problem? What’s made you so upset?” In the bright moonlight, she saw his expression soften, too. It only made her madder.
“I’m not upset.” She took another swipe at the bush, and its barbs caught the hem of her robe so she had to reach down and jerk it free.
“Okay.” His placating tone did nothing to help matters.
She kicked the bougainvillea once more instead of stomping her foot like she wanted to. “I’m enraged, all right?” And before he could ask the obvious question, she let the answer tumble out from wherever it had been packed away all these months. “I’m enraged at Wayne. What was he thinking? How could he have done this to me? How could he have left me alone?”
“Ah, honey—”
“And then how am I supposed to do this…this thing we’re doing now?” Her throat tightened, but the ball of anger inside her was growing and it pushed the words up and out. “I barely dated before I was married—did you know I didn’t have one date in high school?”
“Uh—”
“Well, I didn’t. And so guess what? It means that here I am, over thirty and unmarried, with no idea of how to play the game or read the signals or where to find the rules. There are rules, aren’t there?”
“I’m not sure I know…”
She rolled her eyes. Six plus feet of soldier muscle and a law degree and he was trying to play dumb with her? Before Wayne’s death, she’d watched the leggy girls, the curvy women, the feline females Noah had escorted in and out of his above-the-garage apartment. “Oh, you know the rules all right, which is why I’m furious with you, too. Sure I’m angry at Wayne for leaving me, but you, you’re worse because, damn it, you’ve been leading me on.”
Noah jerked at the accusation and stepped forward. “Now wait a minute. Now wait just a minute.” His hands closed over her shoulders.
She wrenched back. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me unless you’re prepared to follow through.”
His arms dropped.
Now she did stomp her foot. She stomped her foot and fisted her hands and addressed the swathe of stars flung across the night sky, her frustration pouring out of her. “Damn it all! Is it too much to ask that I could have just a little time with a man I admire? Is it too much to ask that I could have a man to hold me through one simple, single night? Is it too much to ask that I could find some way to prove that I didn’t die, too?”
As the last words echoed in her ears, the desperate note in her own voice doused her anger. It subsided as quickly as it had built, leaving her still hot and bothered—but only by distinct embarrassment. And Noah was staring at her, silent.
Aghast, most likely.
“Oh, God,” she said. She covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, God. Now you not only think I’m a pitiful widow, but a crazy pitiful widow.”