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Chapter One (partial)
Kevin Calhoun felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight out. He stopped the loaded handcart in front of the sizable booth designated for Calhoun Construction at the Spring Home Show in Atlanta, Georgia and looked around. Although he hated the sensation he’d been cursed with since the fourth grade, he’d learned early on not to ignore it. As he scanned the busy room, his eye caught a movement from the booth directly across the aisle and instantly knew this was the reason. The blonde standing on the top step of the ladder was going to fall, this he could see right away. As she stretched to attach a banner to the top of the false wall, the legs of the ladder came off the ground. The woman shrieked as gravity took over. With the reflexes he’d honed during four years of high school football and then another four playing for the University of Georgia, he was beneath her with arms extended. The impact was jarring for him, but nothing compared to what it would have been for the woman if he hadn’t been there to break her fall. Kevin took a moment to steady his stance, then checked to see how she was doing. As soon as his gaze locked onto her face, he knew the premonition was not just about the fall. Liza Adams. He’d never forgotten her. Not in the six months his company had spent building her house, or the year since she’d driven away after that fateful night when she played Louisville Slugger with her husband’s Corvette. His groin tightened immediately at the feel of her softly rounded body in his arms. It excited him beyond anything his imagination had created over the past year and a half, and he cursed the cold showers he could already feel because of this encounter. If he hadn’t recognized her face, he never would have guessed this was the woman he’d met two years earlier. Gone were the button-up jackets, pleated trousers, and knee-length demure skirts. Instead, she wore a pair of tight faded blue jeans and a white t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination about the pale blue bra underneath. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that made her look far too young to be the mother of a teenage boy. The fruity smell that tickled his nose surprised him. He’d expected the light rose he’d come to associate with her. It was sophisticated and genteel; and he’d spent the better part of their time apart haunted by it. But this new scent was tropical and living on a tropical island himself, he knew it would be much harder to forget. Aside from that moment with the bat, this was definitely not the Liza Adams he’d met the first time for a consult about building her dream home. Seeing this woman . . . well, he was afraid he hadn’t really known the real Liza Adams. His lips twitched at this thought as he realized he sure as hell wanted to. He waited a heartbeat as she caught her breath, the shock of the fall still evident on her face. When she looked up, his heart leapt at the smoldering look that flashed across her eyes right before she lowered her head. So it wasn’t just me. Damn! He wished he’d known that a year ago. Her cheating husband would’ve had a much harder time running him off if he’d had any idea she might be interested. When she said, “Hi,” the word came across breathless. Knowing it was a mistake and that he’d pay for it in more ways than just a cold shower, he let the thrill of her attraction wash over him. “You okay?” His voice was a bit hoarse to his own ears, but her reply put a smile on his lips that he didn’t expect to leave anytime soon. “Oh, yeah. I am now.”
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