“I’m not offering you complicated.” His voice husky, he lowered his head and trailed his mouth along the line of her jaw. “In fact, right now I’ve been reduced to man in its most basic form. What I’m offering is simple.”
“You’re talking about sex.” Her eyes closed and her heart raced. She felt the erotic drag of his mouth move down to her neck and linger on the pulse just above her collarbone. “Sex is never simple.”
“It can be.”
Dizzy with the intensity of wanting, she placed her hand on his chest “Ryan—”
“Yeah, I know.” Reluctantly he eased away from her. “I’m pushing my luck for a first date.”
“This isn’t a date.”
“Ice cream followed by a walk in the woods? On Puffin Island that counts as serious.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gentle hand. “We’ll go back now. You don’t have the right footwear for a long walk. If you’re going to be living on Puffin Island, you might want to do something about that. Unless you have a secret stash of outdoor gear?”
“Most of my clothes are like the ones I’m wearing.”
“That’s what I figured. This is an outdoor paradise. We’ll have you hik
ing, mountain biking and kayaking in no time. Better buy some equipment. We have a great selection in the Ocean Club. And I’m going to take you out on my yacht. The best way to see the island is from the sea.” They started walking back down the trail, with sunlight beaming through the trees and the sounds of the forest in the background.
“I will walk in the forest, but I’m never going on a yacht.”
“Penobscot Bay has some of the best sailing in the world.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I have to experience it firsthand. I don’t like the idea of all that water underneath me, and—” she hesitated “—I don’t swim.”
He stopped. “You never learned?”
“I haven’t been in the water since that day.”
Shock spread across his face. “I assumed—that should have been the first thing your mother did for you.”
“She didn’t, and I’m glad she didn’t.”
“Everyone should be able to swim.”
“Not me. I don’t need to because I’m never going in the water.” She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip and pulled her back toward him.
“I’m going to teach you.”
She closed her hands over his arms to steady herself, her fingers biting into the rock-hard muscle of his biceps. “I don’t want to learn.”
“I’ll teach you in the Ocean Club pool. There’s a shallow end.”
“I don’t care if you’re offering to teach me in your tub—I’m not interested in learning to swim. I am happy to hike and ride a mountain bike, but you will not persuade me to go on a boat of any sort, and you certainly won’t persuade me to swim.”
“Not even if I promise to keep you safe?”
She looked into those eyes and felt her center of balance shift. “A woman might be many things with you, Ryan Cooper. But I don’t think ‘safe’ is one of them.”
CHAPTER NINE
AT LIZZY’S INSISTENCE, they called at Agnes’s every morning to walk Cocoa. Resigned to her new role as dog walker, Emily paid a trip to the Outdoor Store, equipped them both with hiking boots, rain slickers, insect repellent and a small rucksack, and each day they took the dog and explored a different part of the island. On the first day they followed the road out of the harbor and along the trail that wound its way through overgrown fields to the south of the island, accompanied by song sparrows and butterflies. The trail skirted the edge of the Warrens’ farm, sixty-five acres of mixed hardwood, pasture and hay fields. They stopped to admire the herd of dairy cows who provided the organic milk for the ice cream at Summer Scoop, and walked on through meadows crowded with Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod.
On another day they walked the coastal path around to the east of the island. Emily chose the route that went a little way inland, rather than the path that clung to the rocks and rose up over the bluff. Here, the mossy woods crowded the shoreline, sending dark shadows across rocky coves. Gulls bobbed in the water, and seals played hide-and-seek in the surf around the rocks. Cocoa strained at her leash, desperate to explore, but the one place Emily refused to walk was on the beach itself.
She tried to retrace the walk she’d done with Ryan into the woods, but Lizzy was nervous and Emily was afraid of getting lost. She insisted Lizzy wear her hat whenever they were outdoors, but the people she passed were either tourists or locals and none of them showed any interest in a young woman and her daughter. Gradually the acute fear of discovery faded to a dull, background throb.
They returned from their walks at lunchtime, and Emily called into the delicatessen to pick up something for lunch. They then took it back to Agnes’s and ate it picnic style, either on the covered porch overlooking her garden or, if mist had blown in, at her kitchen table.