As for Kit, she couldn’t read his expression, but then he’d turned his face away from her.
Even under his deep tan, she could see the red of anger on his skin.
When he pushed the wheelchair forward a few feet, Olivia saw that the children were in the back, and from their looks they too had heard what Olivia said. As young as they were, their sweet little faces looked at her as though she had betrayed them, had broken some unwritten code of family loyalty.
Olivia wanted to say something in her own defense, but what could she say? Whatever her excuse, she had disparaged Kit, belittled him, put him down. She had turned a family joke into a public condemnation.
Kit took his hands off the wheelchair and started to leave. His silence seemed to say that he too had no words.
He got about ten feet away, then he turned back, and the look on his face had changed.
For the first time, all of them saw Kit’s anger. His eyes were dark lights of rage. He was formidable looking.
Olivia started to step back, but she held her ground.
In just a few steps, he was in front of her and he took her in his arms. Not gently, but with a force that nearly took the breath from her.
He kissed her. His body, his lips showed the passion he’d been feeling since the day he saw her. His desire for her, from seeing her daily, being close, laughing with her, from the tears to the quiet moments of happiness that they had shared, it was all there in that kiss.
His hand went to her face and his thumb caressed the corner of her mouth as his lips opened over hers.
This was not the kiss of a boy or of inexperience. This was a man’s kiss, a man who had seen much of the world, and tasted most of it.
It was a kiss far different from anything Olivia had experienced before. There was no fumbling. No awkwardness. No insecurity. This was the kiss of a man who knew what the hell he was doing.
Kit broke away and for a second he looked at her. His eyes had not changed. They were cold fire, angry, maybe even cruel.
He had one arm around her body, and when he pulled it away, Olivia’s legs folded under her.
With a snap of his wrists, Kit let her drop.
Olivia staggered backward for a step, but she was too unbalanced to catch herself. All the dance lessons she’d had hadn’t prepared her for a kiss that had pulled the insides out of her. Emotion, feelings, even sanity, were gone.
She sat down on the brick pavement hard, her teeth jolting together, pain shooting up through her.
Standing over her, Kit’s face went into a sneer. “Not a boy,” he said. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
Chapter Nineteen
Summer Hill, Virginia 1970
“Sorry, but we aren’t open yet,” the bartender said. “Come back in a couple of hours.”
Kit put a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. “I want a beer and keep the change.”
“I guess I just opened.” He poured a beer, put it in front of Kit, then stood there watching him brood. “So which one did you choose?”
“What?”
The bartender was wiping the counter. “I assume you’re here because you’re after one of the girls. Or did you come into town to see your other choices?”
Kit looked at the man like he was crazy.
“Girls!” The bartender nodded at Kit’s tan. “You been in the sun so long you forgot about them?”
Kit sighed. “Girls are all I think about.”
“That’s normal. It’s what I did at your age. So which one is it?”