Tempest in Eden

"You have your job at the gallery."

"Which accounts for about half my income. I work strictly on commission and depend on my modeling jobs to carry me through the lean months."

"You could model clothes," he shouted. "But then that would be conventional, wouldn't it?"

"I don't look nearly as good in clothes as I do without them."

That thought seemed to make him nervous. His eyes scaled down her body, then looked quickly away. He wiped his palms on his white shorts. "You'd better sit down," he repeated in an unsteady voice. "You've had a shock."

"So have you, reverend. You've just discovered you're as human as the rest of us."

"I never professed to be otherwise."

"Oh, no, Saint Ian?"

"No," he said bitingly. "Why are you getting so riled, Shay? Because I didn't kiss you? Believe me, despite my work, I'm a man in every sense of the word. I'm a strong proponent of kissing. It's just that flamboyant, sexually liberated women don't appeal to me."

Rage washed over her, staining her whole body with a hot flush. "I didn't lure you down on the grass, you know. I woke up to find you fondling my fanny."

"I—" He faltered and swallowed hard. "I didn't realize what I was doing. You were hurt, and I was only … trying to determine how badly."

"Ha!" She laughed, tossing her head back. "You're a hypocrite, too. You were loving it."

Before he could make a rejoinder, they heard the crunch of tires on the gravel road and looked up to see John pull his car to a stop.

"All finished? Who won?" he called out the window.

"I did," Ian said unchivalrously as they made the short walk to the car.

"Shay, are you limping?" Celia asked as Shay opened the car door and climbed into the backseat. Ian didn't extend the courtesy of helping her.

She winced as she sat down. "Yes, I'm limping. Ian hit me with a tennis ball."

John, who was steering the car back onto the highway, slammed on the brakes, and both of the middle-aged people whipped their heads around to the backseat.

"Ian, you hit her with a tennis ball?" John demanded of his son.

"Accidentally," Ian said defensively. "She turned her back while I was serving. It was a dumb thing to do."

"Ian!" John barked.

"I was trying to save my life!" Shay shouted.

John looked from his son to Shay, and his gaze softened. "Are you all right? Where did the ball hit you?"

"Right in the butt."

Ian's words echoed in the close confines of the car, bouncing and rolling around the interior like balls on a roulette wheel before finally coming to rest. John stared at his son in mute surprise. Celia blinked rapidly in disbelief. Shay's head came around quickly to look at Ian with dismay. She didn't know which had surprised her the most, his forthright confess

ion or his choice of words.

He turned to face her, and their eyes collided. To the further puzzlement of their parents, they both burst out laughing.

Their laughter may have dispelled the immediate animosity between them, but it did little to lessen the overriding tension. Ian treated her with deference. His excessive politeness irritated her as much as, if not more than, his previous condescension.

For the rest of the day he rarely allowed them to be in the same room together. When they were, if Shay caught him looking at her, he glanced away immediately. Considering the wide berth he gave her, she might well have been the Devil incarnate sent to compromise the soul of Ian Douglas. She felt like a character out of a Hawthorne novel.

After lunch Ian retired to his room to prepare for Sunday's sermon. "I have to leave early in the morning to get there in time for the church service," he explained.