Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

166 DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT
least washes her face and brushes her hair before you
are to come for her.”
Feeling dusty and disheveled and about eight years
old, she wanted to storm out in a huff and leave them to
their jolly friendliness but she wasn’t quite certain she
trusted her leg to hold her.
She had to be content with folding her arms across
her chest and glaring at both of them.
She was further dismayed when Jake smiled at her
with a strange, almost tender expression.
“Good night, then. See you tomorrow. Six-thirty sharp.”
Before she knew what he intended, he stepped
forward and planted a hard, fierce kiss on her mouth,
right there in front of her mother.
Just when she was beginning to feel light-headed, he
stepped back, shoved on his Stetson and sauntered out
of the room. She could swear as he walked out of the
house she could hear him whistling, the bastard.
She shifted her gaze to her mother and found Viviana
beaming at her. Damn. Just what she needed, for Viviana
to take that kiss as permission to fill her mind with all
kinds of unreasonable things.
“He is taken with you.” Viviana’s eyes sparkled.
“He’s only hanging around out of pity,” she voiced
out loud what her heart had been telling her all along.
Viviana frowned, planting hands on her petite hips.
“Stop it! This is not true.”
“Why else would he develop this sudden interest?”
“Not sudden. You just never see it before.”
She paused in the middle of rolling up her pant leg
so she could get rid of the prosthesis. “See what?”