Kiss the Cook (15 page)

"Yeah, it's fascinating. We'll talk about a cruise some other time. Right now we're going canoeing."

Drat. The guy had a one-track mind. Melanie looked out at the sparkling lake. Several canoes and kayaks dotted the calm waters nearby. Farther out she could see speedboats and wave runners racing over the small waves. A shaded picnic area stood off to the left, and several families were taking advantage of the facilities, setting out their coolers, lighting the charcoal grills.

She glanced down at the pencil-thin craft tied to the end of the dock and sighed. Next time she rattled off a list of things she wanted to do before she died, she was going to make damn sure she replaced "ca
noeing" with "three months in Tahiti."

She sucked in a resolute breath.
"All right. Hoist the anchor, Captain.
"

"
’Atta girl," Chris said with a big grin. "Just sit still and you'll do great. You're gonna love this."

Melanie somehow doubted that, but she was willing to give it a go.

Besides, how hard could it be to drive a canoe?

~~~

Ten minutes later, she knew exactly how hard it was.

Pretty damn hard.

Holding Chris's hand, she gingerly stepped into the canoe. Using extreme caution, she sat down while Chris, who still stood on the dock, untied the craft from the aluminum cleat.

Once her butt was settled on the hard wooden seat, Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn't so bad, she decided, clutching the sides of the craft. In fact, it was
sorta fun.

Until she sneezed.

One minute she was sitting in the canoe, the next she was underwater.

She came up, sputtering, pushing her hair from her eyes. "What the hell did you do that for?" she yelled at Chris, who stood on the dock clutching his sides and roaring with laughter.

"I didn't do anything," he said, shaking his head. "I told you to sit still. Canoes are very tippy."

'Tippy?
All
I did was
sneeze!"

"You must have sneezed too hard. Don't worry. You'll get used to it. It just takes practice."

"Yeah. Practice," she muttered, swimming to the dock. "That's just what I want to do."

Disgruntled, she
climbed the wooden ladder and stomped to the end of the dock. Water dripped from her body and squished from her Nikes. While Chris pulled the rope attached to the canoe and righted the craft, she squeezed water from her clothes.

He shot her a grin. "
Wanna give it another try?"

"Might as well. I'm certainly not worried about getting wet." She sizzled a baleful glare at the offending canoe. "Anyway, I refuse to let this excuse for kindling beat me. I am woman. Hear me roar."

"That's my girl." Once again he handed her down into the canoe.

The instant he let go of her, she felt the damn canoe slipping out from under her feet. It was like trying to stand on wet ice. At least this time she was ready when she hit the water. She surfaced and, ignoring the fact that he stood on the dock laughing his ass off, swam to the ladder, pulled herself up, and squished over to him.

"Wanna quit?" he asked, an infuriating grin on his face. His
dry
face.

"Absolutely not," Melanie said between gritted teeth. "This has become a quest."

He reached out and touched the skin under her eye. "I think you need to invest in waterproof mascara. You look like a pirate."

Melanie planted her hands on her wet hips, tapped her soggy Nike, and glared at him.

Holding his hands up in surrender, he said, "Whoa! A
cute
pirate. A
very, very
cute pirate. The cutest. Really."

"Pirate, huh? Ask me where my buccaneers are."

"Okay. Where are your buccaneers?"

She waggled her brows at him. "Under my
buccan' hat."

He threw back his head and laughed. "Ready to try it again,
matey?"

"Sure." She eyed him up and down. "But this time
you
get in first."

~~~

Chris paddled the canoe and covertly observed Melanie through the dark lenses of his Ray-Bans. She was nearly dry and sat with her eyes closed, her face turned up to the sun. He noted with amusement that she sat perfectly still, clutching the edges of the canoe with a white-knuckled grip.

His gaze slid ov
er her and his entire body tensed with desire. Her hair curled in wild profusion around her face, the sun shooting the brown locks with shafts of reddish fire. Her skin glowed with the sheen of some kind of sunscreen that made her smell like a delicious combination of coconut and pineapple. She reminded him of one of those tropical drinks with the paper umbrellas-- sweet, cool, and scrumptious. One that made him yearn to take a long, slow sip.

His gaze drifted downward, taking in her long, slim legs. She'd left her soggy Nikes on the dock to dry, and now her pink-tipped toes peeked at him. Even her feet were cute. Chris shook his head. Damn, he had it bad.

And the fact that she was such a good sport about getting dunked in the lake made him like her even more. Every other woman he knew would have pitched a hissy fit in a similar situation.

But not Melanie. Nope, she'd just taken it in stride, wrung the water out of her clothes, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and grown determined to beat the canoe at its own game.

That unassuming, unfussy side of her appealed to him more than any perfectly made-up, exquisitely groomed woman ever had. A mental image of her, disheveled from a bout of lovemaking, flashed in his mind and he had to stifle a groan. Better get a conversation going before he melted into a sweaty puddle.

"Has Glenn called you about your review?" he asked in a casual tone, gliding the craft slowly through the calm water.

"No, but Bob Harris said it would take about two or three weeks. I'm praying it goes well. This loan means everything to me."

I know.
"I noticed two vacant storefronts across the street from the Pampered Palate. Any idea what's going in them?"

"One is going to be a liquor store. I don't know about the other one."

Chris's stomach clenched. She didn't know.

He considered telling her
about Spaghetti Loco but decided to wait until after he'd talked things through with Glenn. There was no point in destroying her weekend, and he knew the news would do just that. And he refused to ruin their time together with speculation over something that might not be a problem at all. At least he hoped it wouldn't, although his pesky inner voice told him
differently. Firmly pushing his concerns away, he asked, "So what do you think of canoeing?"

She
slowly raised her head to look at him. "Canoeing is fun. I like the ride, the breeze, being out on the lake. Of course, being
in
the lake was not quite so much fun." She slipped her sunglasses on top of her head and eyed his dry shorts with a pointed glare.

"Have you noticed," she continued in a reflective tone, "that every time we see each other we end up wet? We met in the rain, swam in the pool at the cookout,
got pelted with potato peel water, and now this." She glanced down at her wrinkled shorts and shirt. "And between your suits and my shorts, one of us always seems to end up with ruined clothes."

Chris nodded
. "Now that you mention it, yes. We've definitely developed a pattern."

"Seems so." Her gaze drifted down to his dry socks and sneakers before returning to his face. "Of course,
you
missed out on today's water portion of the entertainment. You being on the dock and all."

"I know better than to get into a canoe with a novice.
”

"Ah. So you set me up. You knew I would end up in the lake the minute I stepped into this dug-out log."

"I had a pretty good idea, yeah."

"Hmmm."

He caught the devilish gleam glittering in her eyes. He knew trouble when he saw it.

"You realize," she said in a casual tone, "that no matter how fast you paddle this tub you'll never make it back to the dock dry."

He dug the paddle in, trying hard not to laugh. "I can try."

Her smile widened, deepening her dimples, and Chris's heart thumped. She lo
oked so damned adorable, her eyes filled with mischief, a piece of seaweed stuck to her shirt.

I'm falling in love with her. God help me, I'm falling in
love with her.

Stunned by the enormity of the revelation, he barely noticed when she yelled, "Banzai!" and tipped the canoe, dumping them both into the lake.

~~~

Melanie surfaced and
shook her hair out of her eyes and managed to grab her sunglasses before they sank. Chris came up next to her, sputtering. He pushed his hair back with his hands and Melanie gulped. Good grief. How the heck did he manage to look so sexy? She was sure she looked like two miles of bad road.

He settled his dripping sunglasses on top of his head. "You dunked me," he said, standing up. The water lapped at his chest. Sunlight bounced off his tanned, bare shoulders, and droplets glistened on the thatch of dark chest hair visible above the water.

Why, oh why, had the blasted man taken off his shirt? To torture her? Those firm muscles under golden skin had bunched and flexed every time he dug the oar into the water. Jeez. The guy was more tempting than chocolate. Than double, triple chocolate with whipped cream and a cherry on top. What was she-- made of stone?

She forced h
er hands to remain at her sides-- not an easy task when her fingers literally itched to reach out and touch him. "Dunk you? Damn straight. You put me back in that tippy little sucker and I'll do it again. I've decided I'm not canoe-inclined. I'm definitely a cruise ship sort of girl."

He grabbed her arms and hauled her up against him. Melanie caught her breath as she bumped into the hard wall of his bare chest, and her pulse speeded up to triple time when she looked at his face. His eyelashes were spiky from the water, and his eyes darkened with that look she was not only coming to know, but to anticipate with bated breath. That look he got just before he destroyed her with his kiss.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and waited to be wrecked.

He lowered his head and kissed her with such slow, long, deep perfection, she could practically feel steam rising from her skin. The stunning contrast of the cool lake water, the hot sun, and the hard man p
ressing against her did her in. She knew exactly where this was leading, and it had nothing to do with martinis.

"Melanie…
" he whispered her name against her mouth.

Lost in
a passionate haze, she answered, "Chris… "

"The canoe is sneaking away."

It took several seconds for his words to sink in. Then she leaned back and looked behind her. The upside-down canoe floated a good hundred yards away. The paddle was nowhere to be seen.

He walked her th
e short distance to the dock and helped her climb up. "Be right back," he promised, pushing off with a splash.

While Chris rescued the canoe then returned
it to the rental booth, Melanie busied herself setting up their picnic lunch. She needed an activity,
any
activity, to keep her mind occupied and off Chris, and more importantly, off
that.
Which was nearly impossible because every cell in her body, aided by her horny little hormones, ached for
that
.

R
ather than sitting at one of the sun-blasted picnic tables, she laid out a blanket in a crescent of shade provided by a soaring pine. The last thing she needed was more heat.

When Chris joined her, she handed him a frosty lemonade and watched him polish it off in a series of long swallows. Good grief. Even drinking lemonade, he was beautiful.

He flopped down on the blanket and helped himself to a sandwich. Melanie nibbled on her turkey club, trying to define the fluttering in her stomach. That same half-thrilling, half-terrifying sensation she experienced every time she looked at him. Every time she thought of him. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying it wasn't what she suspected but knowing it was.

"What's up, Mel Gibson?" he asked in a teasing tone. "You look so serious."

Melanie opened her eyes. He was sprawled on his side on the blanket, propped up on one elbow, studying her.

Serious. Yes. That's what I am. Seriously crazy about you.
She stared at him, at his handsome face, the lock of dark hair falling across his brow, and knew she was more than crazy about him.

She was falling in love with
him
.

Holy crap
, how had
that
happened?

Okay, maybe it was because he was the most gor
geous man on earth. But Melanie shook her head and took an absent bite of her sandwich. His looks might have attracted her at first, but it was so much more than that.