“Good evening, are those for me?” she asked, reaching for the tulips that he’d forgotten the instant he’d laid eyes on her.
“Yeah, I hope you like them.”
“I love them, thank you so much. Come inside.”
She stepped aside to let him in and as he walked past her he caught a whiff of her fragrance. Subtle, like her, like the way she’d inveigled her way into his psyche, the blend of sweetness and spice wound around him in a sensual spell of promise.
“I’ll pop these in some water right away. Can I take the wine through to the kitchen for you?”
“It’s okay, I’ll do that,” he said, still feeling a little awestruck.
She’d done something with her makeup that made her dark eyes look huge and warm, and the fresh pink lipstick she wore made him itch to lean forward and kiss it all off. And there was something different about her tonight—a soft confidence that radiated from her. It was there in the smile in her eyes and in the way she walked. He liked it, he decided. He liked it very much.
In the kitchen Finn automatically reached for the champagne flutes on the hutch dresser and extracted a bottle of a locally made sparkling wine. The second bottle, a sauvignon blanc, he put into the refrigerator.
“Are we celebrating?” Tamsyn asked, noting the label on the bottle. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to try that.”
“It’s very good. It’s been made here in Marlborough since the late 1980s. They blend seventy percent pinot noir with thirty percent chardonnay. Here,” he said, passing her a glass filled with the rapidly bubbling straw-colored liquid. “Try it.”
“I can’t do that without a toast,” she said with a secretive smile. She raised her glass toward his. “To new friends.”
He liked that, although right now his feelings toward Tamsyn Masters went way beyond friendly. He clinked glasses. “Indeed, to new friends.”
Their eyes remained locked together as they sipped their wine. He’d never be able to drink it again without thinking of this moment—of her.
“Mmm, that is lovely,” she said, flicking her tongue over her lower lip as she set her glass down on the countertop and picked up the vase of flowers. “Can you bring my wine while I take these to the sitting room?”
Finn reached for the glass, and followed her through. She was as enticing from the rear as she’d been face on. The sway of her hips as she walked made the fabric of her skirt swing gently from side to side, caressing her thighs and the backs of her calves. He’d never been envious of a skirt before. It was a new and distinctly unfamiliar sensation.
He could not, in all honesty, say that his growing feelings for Tamsyn were normal. Not in his experience, anyway. These feelings were consuming. Invading his concentration and disturbing his usually short but fully restful sleep at night.
“Crudité?”
He looked up as Tamsyn passed him a small platter decorated with vegetable sticks and one of those dips females seemed to like so much.
“Sure,” he said, helping himself to both.
It was tasty, the garlic and lemon tang in the hummus leaving a fresh aftertaste in his mouth. Maybe there was something to the dip after all.
“How was your trip away?” she asked, settling herself on the sofa and slipping her feet out of her ballet slippers to tuck them up beside her.
He took the chair opposite, not trusting himself to sit closer.
“Ah, yeah, Wellington. It’s a beautiful city.”
“And your business? It went well?” she continued.
“It did.”
“But something’s still bothering you, isn’t it? You looked…I dunno, worried, when you arrived. Is everything okay?”
Damn, did it show that much? He decided sticking close to the truth was better than fabricating a whole bunch of lies that he might struggle to remember.
“I spent some time visiting a good friend in the hospital. It was hard to see them so unwell.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Tamsyn said softly, her voice filled with genuine sympathy.
“Thanks.”
Finn took a long drink of his sparkling wine. It served as a good way to stop himself from giving her any more details about exactly who he’d been seeing. As if sensing he didn’t want to talk about it further, Tamsyn shifted the conversation to what she’d been doing the past couple of days while he’d been gone. He felt a tug of relief when he heard she had gotten no further in her search for Ellen, but that tug was tempered with a powerful sense of guilt over her very evident disappointment.
She worked her way past it though and the conversation soon shifted to books they’d recently read. She had a very sharp wit and they enjoyed many of the same authors. By the time she served cheese and crackers and fruit back in the sitting room after dinner, Finn was feeling very relaxed. Due in part to the glasses of wine they’d shared, but mostly due to her company. He’d enjoyed entertaining her at his house a couple of nights ago, but he loved watching her in this environment too. She was more in control here, adapting this place to her own patch. Now, as they sat side by side on the sofa, he was looking forward to seeing more.