"It's more comfortable than wearing ridiculously constricting garments designed by straight-laced Victorians." She pushed her anger aside and assumed a deliberately sultry expression. Leaning provocatively against the countertop, she looked up at him from under thickly fringed eyelids. "Minister or not, I see you noticed."
His blue eyes slashed down her body, leaving behind a trail of burning sensation. When they returned to meet her melting gaze, he shrugged indifferently. "I'd have to be blind not to." He took up a dustpan and knelt to sweep into it the debris his broom had collected. Furious, Shay turned back to the sink.
"You're a fine one to criticize what someone wears," she said. "I never saw a clergyman dressed the way you are." In casual slacks and an Oxford shirt, he looked like a tired executive from Manhattan who had come to Connecticut for a relaxing weekend. "You don't look like a minister."
Ian seemed highly amused as he raked the trash into the wastebasket. "How are ministers supposed to look?"
"Not like you," she insisted stubbornly. She could have said they should look older and softer. They should have kind, paternal features and white hair, and maybe steel-rimmed glasses. They definitely should not have coal-black hair that looked so satiny as to tempt a woman to run her fingers through it. They should not have blue eyes that pierced through the toughest self-defensive armors to read one's private thoughts. Those same eyes should not look at a woman with an intensity that seemed to burn her clothes away. Nor should a minister have a body that was tall and lean, hard and strong, tanned and dusted with dark hair.
Ian took up a dish towel and began to dry the dishes she had stacked in the drain. For several minutes they worked in silence. The house was quiet except for the soft clatter of dishes.
"What happened to our parents?" Shay asked.
When he wasn't being the stern judge, his smile was breathtaking. "They went for 'a turn around the property,' ostensibly to walk off their dinner. Personally I think it was to get away from us and indulge in some serious kissing."
"Why didn't they just go upstairs to their room?"
"That would be unseemly."
She laughed. "It's hard for me to imagine my mother behaving like a bride."
"Children rarely see their parents as sexual creatures."
"Do you mind?" She looked up at him, her head slightly tilted, aware of the curls rioting around her face.
There was a lengthy pause as he studied her. "Mind?" he finally asked hoarsely.
"About your father marrying my mother. You spoke very fondly of your own mother and the times the three of you spent here as a family."
He tossed the tea towel over his shoulder and carefully placed the stack of plates he'd dried in the cupboard in front of him. "Dad loved my mother very much. Celia told me the same thing about the relationship she had with your dad. Statistically it's the ones who were happily married who remarry quickly after the death of their mate. What your mother and my father have together now doesn't detract from their former relationships."
Shay considered the matter thoughtfully. "I like John, not only for the man he is, but also for the happiness he's brought to my mother. I never thought I'd see her this relaxed and content again."
"You don't resent him? You don't look upon him as someone trying to take your father's place?"
Shay smiled up at him, then turned away. "That's a very intuitive observation. As you might guess, I adored my father. At first I might have felt a twinge of resentment for the man who had replaced him in Mom's life, but not now. Not after meeting John and seeing them together. It would be selfish to begrudge her this happiness." She risked looking at him again. "What about you? Were you happily married?"
"Very."
"But you haven't remarried quickly."
His eyes met hers steadily. "No, I haven't."
Okay, so he didn't want to talk about it. They'd talk about something else. Feeling slightly rebuffed, she asked, "At what point in one's life does one decide to become a minister?"
"At what point does one decide to pose naked for a living?"
"Damn you!" she cried, whirling around and thumping him in the stomach with her fist. "I'm making every effort to be pleasant because this weekend is important to my mother and to John. I've tried to carry on a polite conversation, but at every opportunity you drop in some sly innuendo."
His hand whipped out to catch her wrist, and in one swift motion she was hauled against him. "Don't ever hit me again, and don't ever curse at me." His teeth were tightly clenched. "As for my sly innuendoes, I was asking out of a desire to know. What makes a pretty young woman want to sell herself the way you do?"
If he hadn't had her wrist clasped between fingers of iron, she might have been tempted to slap him. If she'd had the nerve. She was seeing full-scale the power of his temper. It was fearsomely intimidating and equally as restricting as his grip.
"Because I'm pretty all over, that's why," she said loftily. "I was born with what some people consider a perfectly proportioned body. It has no blemishes, no scars, no birthmarks or moles. My body is far more striking than my face. That's why artists sometimes use my body even if they put another face on it."
She stopped to draw in a great breath and felt her breasts flattening against the solid wall of his chest. "It's a commodity, and that's what I'm selling. It has nothing to do with what's on the inside of me. You should revere the human body. It's God's creation. Some of the world's most fabulous artworks are nudes. The Vatican is full of them. Think about it, Reverend Douglas." She dragged her hand out of his grip, and fell back a step.
"What you say is true," he conceded, "but how can you live with yourself knowing that some … some pervert might make you the object of his sexual fantasies? Might look at your pictures and wish he could see you in the flesh, touch you, fondle you?"