“What?” she asked breathlessly.
“I can’t say it. You’ll be horrified.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“Let’s just say the thought of you massaging me gave me some rather vivid thoughts.”
“How vivid are we talking?”
“Positively filthy.”
Sierra snorted with laughter as he pulled into one of the last remaining parking spaces at the Wayfarer. Owen and Evan had drawn a crowd.
When he would’ve gotten out of the truck, Sierra stopped him. “I’m not sure if it matters, but if we walk in there together, we’ll be making a bit of a statement to half the town.”
“Does that matter to you?”
“Not at all, but you might not be ready to deal with that.”
“If I wasn’t ready, we wouldn’t be here, but I appreciate you thinking of me that way.”
“Okay, then.”
He stole a kiss. “Let’s go.”
When she met him in front of the truck, he wrapped an arm around her to hustle them toward the entrance as the wind whipped off the water in South Harbor. The fishing boats that lined the pier during the summer and fall had been put away for the winter, leaving nothing to break the icy blast of wind.
He opened the door and ushered her inside, following her with a muttered curse about how freaking cold it was.
“It gets worse in January,” she said over her shoulder, smiling at his grimace.
She stopped at the hostess stand, and he wrapped an arm around her from behind as he whispered in her ear. “Will you keep me warm in January?”
“Will you be here in January?”
Before he could answer, the hostess came to show them to a table by a roaring fireplace that cast some much-needed heat on the big, crowded room.
Sierra felt every eye in the place on her and Morgan as they took their seats and accepted menus from the hostess.
“Is everyone looking at us, or does it just seem like it?” Morgan asked as he kept his gaze fixed on the menu.
“Oh, they’re all looking. Nothing fuels the gossip machine around here like a potential new romance.”
“I see how it is.”
“You don’t. Not yet. But you will.”
“What does that mean?”
She gave him a sly grin. “You’ll find out.”
* * *
Morgan was completely captivated by her, but then again, like he’d told her, he’d known he would be. That was why he hadn’t dared get too close before he’d taken care of some of the more onerous tasks that followed the death of a loved one. It wouldn’t have been fair to her to start something when he was an emotional disaster area.
Not that he was “healed” from the tremendous loss, or anything close to it, but the sharp, ragged edges of early grief had subsided somewhat, leaving him with a dull ache that would probably be with him for the rest of his days.
He’d learned to live with that ache after losing his parents and sister, so it wasn’t new to him. What was different was that he no longer had Billy to commiserate with. No one else in his life could understand the magnitude the way he did, and now that he was gone, too, Morgan was very much alone with the tragedy of it all.
