He watched as she stood there considering her choices very seriously. She’d pulled her clothes back on and then a jacket of his that he’d given her from his backseat. Her hair had been twisted and piled wet on top of her head, held there by some mysterious woman magic.

Her teeth were chattering.

And damn if he didn’t want to warm her in the one way that would heat them both up. But he had a rule. He’d picked badly with his wife and was in no hurry to love again. He meant what he’d told Alyssa—he wouldn’t even consider trying until the girls were grown.

But lust was different. And there was lust with Lanie, lots of it.

She shivered again and he shook his head. “Just pick one.”

This had her looking up at him incredulously. All of her makeup had washed off in the ocean and she could’ve passed for a teenager, which made him feel like a complete perv, since all he could think about was how she’d looked in her sheer bra and those eye-popping DayGlo pink undies that had done some amazing things for her first-class ass.

“I can’t just pick one,” she said. “Picking out the right cookies takes a minute. Dessert doesn’t go to the stomach, dessert goes to the heart.”

He was baffled. “You’re freezing, and cookies are cookies.”

“I beg your pardon, but you are dead wrong. There’re things to consider here. For instance, do I want double fudge, chocolate chip, or maybe lemon—”

He reached past her and grabbed one of each, adding several other boxes as well. Five in total, all different, and dumped them into the cart.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Just covering all the bases. Let’s go.”

A stoner standing in front of the chips display shook his head at Mark. “Dude. It takes balls of steel to get between a woman and her cookies.”

Lanie went hands on hips. “Why does having ‘balls’ equate to toughness?”

The stoner blinked. “Uh . . .”

“And in the same vein,” she said, “why does the word ‘pussy’ equate to weakness, when even the slightest flick to a guy’s ‘balls of steel’ sends him to his knees—but vaginas can push out an entire human being?”

Both men just stared at her. Stoner Dude covered his crotch with his hands. “Man, you’re harsh. You’re harshing my buzz.”

Mark took Lanie by the hand, pushing the cart with the other. Since her fingers were ice, he tucked them into his pocket. “You’re frozen.”

“But at least I have cookies,” she said happily, and he had to laugh.

At the cash register, he paid and once they were in his truck, he cranked the heater on high, aiming all the vents at her.

“You ever going to tell me what tonight’s about?” she asked after they’d been driving a few minutes. “I mean, I wasn’t even sure we liked each other.”

“I like you,” he said. He liked how quietly smart she was, how creative too. She’d come from what sounded like a hell of a beginning and she’d made something of herself.

On her own.

He admired that. He also really liked watching her with Sam and Sierra. She didn’t treat them like babies. She didn’t patronize and she didn’t try to be something she wasn’t. She spoke to them like they were people. She was a whole lot nicer and kinder to them than anyone had asked her to be, but she wasn’t putting on an act. When she was with them, he could see her real self, and he knew it was because she felt safe enough with them to let her guard down.

He couldn’t help but want to see more of that Lanie, but she didn’t like him as much as she did the twins, although he thought maybe that was changing a little bit. It was probably a good thing she was a temp. Two months total with three weeks already down. He didn’t see her sticking around after the job was done, and that meant they had an expiration date.

A comfort zone in which to explore their chemistry within their own boundaries.

He drove past the turnoff for the winery, up a narrow, windy road, and parked at the end of it.

Lanie stared through the windshield at the woods in front of them. “I’m finally dry and warm and now you’re going to murder me?”

“Not before cookies,” he said.

She snorted and got out, slipping her hand in his as they took the trail. Not, he was sure, out of affection, but because the trail was dark and he supposed also a little intimidating if she didn’t know where she was going. Whatever the reason, the connection was nice. And there was a connection. It was in the zing of awareness that vibrated up his arm and spread throughout his chest.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Favorite escape place number two. I grew up exploring these hills. With two sisters and way too many other family members, all with eyes in the back of their heads, I disappeared a lot up here too. Had a tree fort when I was young.”

“Is that where we’re going? To a tree fort?”

“Better,” he said.

They got through the trees and came to a clearing on a bluff. In the center of the clearing sat an RV trailer. He led her toward it but instead of opening the door, he gestured to the ladder leaning against it.

She gave him a raised brow.

“You have a heights problem?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said and shimmied up the ladder. He did his best not to peek under her skirt. Besides, he didn’t have to. Those DayGlo pink panties were burned into his brain and were sure to be the highlight of his fantasies for weeks to come.

He met her at the top, where she was staring at the two beach chairs on a pad of synthetic turf grass. In daylight, one could see rolling hills and beyond them, the Pacific Ocean. In the middle of the night, like now, it was nothing but a blanket of black against a midnight sky littered with brilliantly shining stars. The only sounds were the winds whistling through the trees behind them and the faintest roar of the sea.

She sat in one of the chairs and leaned back, closing her eyes. “I can smell the ocean.”

“That’s us,” he said and sat next to her, handing her the very full bag from the store.

She rifled through it and pulled out a bag of chocolate chip cookies and the bottle of Jack he’d added at the checkout with a grin. “You’re right,” she said. “This is better.” She paused. “Do you do this a lot?”

“Kidnap a woman? Almost never.”

Laughing, she leaned back and closed her eyes, looking very relaxed. “Never have you ever, huh?”

“And you?” he asked. “What have you ‘never have I ever’?”

“That’s not how the game goes,” she said. “You have to ask a specific question.”

“Okay,” he said, willing to play in order to learn more about her. “Never have I ever . . . boogie boarded in my underwear before tonight.”

She drank, which meant she’d boogie boarded in her undies before, making him laugh. “Didn’t know you were a such a wild thing,” he said.

“Let’s just say I used to be an attention-seeker. Never have I ever . . .” She paused and then smiled. “Been tempted to kiss someone who wears a uniform—before tonight.”

He reached for the bottle.

“Reallllllly,” she murmured.