The Playboy Takes a Wife. Crystal Green
were going to be a nun….”
“I’m talking about my comments. Please don’t let my failure to say what I really meant reflect on the orphanage. We really are grateful for everything you’ve done. I hope you don’t believe we aren’t appreciative.”
Caught by her honesty—Lucas wasn’t really used to it from anyone except David—he leaned against the casa’s stucco, the texture scratchy against the fine weave of his shirt.
Before he could answer, a preteen bounded out of one of the cottages, his all-white clothing spotted by colors.
“Ay, Roberto,” Alicia said, stopping him. She laughed, glowing, as she straightened the boy’s wardrobe. “Did we interrupt your painting?”
Roberto nodded, shooting a glance to Lucas, who shrugged in confederacy with the boy. Being late was cool with him.
“You.” Alicia sent Roberto off with a soft, good-natured push. “Just don’t let Sister Maria-Rosa see you.”
After Roberto tore off, Lucas watched Alicia. She was still smiling in the wake of the boy’s presence.
How could he ever doubt this woman’s intentions? She seemed so openhearted, so guileless.
But…damn. It wasn’t as if Lucas had great insight into character. There was a lot of anecdotal evidence that could prove his lack of judgment.
“Well…” Alicia said, whisking her hands down over her skirt, removing the imaginary wrinkles. “I suppose we should be getting inside.”
Disappointment dive-bombed him. “Yeah—” he adjusted his tie “—I suppose we should.”
Neither of them moved.
Instead, they waited as the wind hushed around them, the sun sinking closer to the horizon.
Both of them laughed at the same time, a quiet, intimate admission that neither of them felt like going anywhere.
“I’ve had it with reporters,” Lucas said.
“I can tell.”
“Not that I don’t want to greet more of the kids. Don’t get me wrong.”
“Of course.”
His eyes met hers and, for a moment, everything around them stopped—the wind, the rattle of branches.
For the first time in his life, Lucas didn’t know what to say to a woman. But he didn’t really want to be talking, anyway. In this pocket of stolen time, he was content just to look at her, to see the gold in her eyes shift with thought and sunlight. How had she come to be here, wearing these frumpy clothes and hanging out with nuns?
As if reading his mind, she looked away and touched her bracelet, almost as if it gave her something to concentrate on.
“So what’s your story?” he asked softly. “What made you decide to volunteer for this kind of social work?”
Another strand of hair grazed her cheek, her lips. Lucas couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth, the lush promise of it.
“I’ve found,” she finally said, “that I’m good at working with young people.”
“I can see you enjoy them.”
The startling hue of his eyes seemed to press into her, digging for more information. She fidgeted, her skin too aware, too flushed with thoughts she shouldn’t be having.
The forbidden nature of them kicked her brain into high gear; all the impulsive reasons she’d moved from the only home she’d known in the States to come down to the resort area where her parents had met.
“When my grandparents passed away, I realized what I needed to do with my life,” she said, voice thick with emotion. She missed them so much, wanted them back so badly. “They raised me in San Diego, but, after they died, staying there didn’t appeal to me.” She swallowed, tacking on a harmless falsehood just to cover the reminder of why she was really in Mexico. “Not when I realized there was so much to be done down here.”
“Your grandparents raised you?”
Alicia flinched, crossed her arms over her chest. “My mom and dad…passed out of my life. A long time ago.”
Another adjustment to the truth.
Lucas Chandler stood away from the wall, so devastatingly handsome, so confusing to her. Couldn’t her body just ignore those dimples, that inviting gaze?
He ambled closer, a growing hunger in his eyes, his interest in her so obvious that it almost took her breath away.
Closer…mere inches away.
Inhaling his scent, she got dizzy. Her head filled with scenarios, hints of fantasies—
Skittish, she took a casual yet significant step away.
She didn’t want to offend him by assuming he was hitting on her, but she was trying to be a careful girl. Especially lately, after her view of life had been so blasted apart by what her grandfather had told her as he lay dying.
From a few feet away, she heard Lucas chuckle. When she chanced a look at him, she saw a vein in his neck pulsing.
Stop him from getting close again. “I think it’s time to go inside now. The children are waiting and—”
“We shouldn’t be standing out here by ourselves.” His grin wasn’t amused so much as wry. “I know. One photo with me and there goes your reputation. You’re obviously held in some esteem around here, and we don’t want to ruin that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
But he was right. The last thing she needed was this man standing only a few tension-fraught feet away from her, his skin giving off heat and the smell of musk and soap. She’d been around enough to know his type; he could make a girl think that whatever trouble they could get into was right.
Back when she was sixteen, she’d learned this well. Swayed by an older crowd—one her grandparents didn’t know about—she’d given in to peer pressure on a summer night with a boy named Felipe.
And she’d liked it. So much. Too much.
Afterward, she’d been dogged by all the moral lessons she’d learned from church and her grandparents; she’d even wondered what was wrong with her that she’d enjoyed it so much.
Needing some kind of stabilizer, Alicia had made a vow to wait for intimacy again until marriage. Then she could be a good wife, and sex would be respectable with her husband.
She was no angel—not even close. But now, more than ever, she tried her best to be.
There was a cryptic flicker in Lucas’s eyes. It seemed to make him change his mind about being so close to her, because he grinned tightly and nodded while he turned away. Like the gentleman she’d seen all day, he held open the door for her to enter the building, his gaze suddenly a million light-years distant.
The sound of happy chatter greeted her, and she was drawn to it—charity, a cleansing of the soul.
But as she passed by Lucas Chandler, she met his gaze, seeing that it was anything but removed. Seeing that it was so filled with a lingering admiration for her that she couldn’t help picking up her pace and fleeing.
An hour later, most of the boys had retired to their rooms, signaling the end of the reception. The reporters had been ushered away by David long ago, when the food had become less than a novelty and they’d gotten itchy to take pictures again.
Thank God for their absence, because Lucas was done with business for today. Come to think of it, he’d actually lucked out by avoiding the press in his more private moments. He’d all but lost his head out there with Alicia, almost forgetting what a picture alone with him would’ve cost her.
He really hadn’t been thinking clearly, not with the