Restless Heart by Wynonna Judd

disappointment in her life that she could handle right now, thank you very much .
    She was going to enjoy Seth’s company this evening, then say good-bye and go back to her life as he went back to his.
    Two separate and very different lives.
    Destiny carried the tray to the coffee table and sat down to wait. In the bathroom, the shower stopped running.
    She picked up a magazine and flipped through it, but her brain refused to focus on anything other than the fact that Seth was undoubtedly toweling off his naked body on the other side of the door.
    A few minutes later it opened. “There. I feel much better now.”
    Seth reached up to run his fingers through his wet hair, and Destiny couldn’t help but notice a delicious ripple of muscle beneath the Wilmot Panthers T-shirt stretched across his wide shoulders. And while there shouldn’t have been anything attractive about his basic black sweatpants, Seth managed to wear them well.
    “Hmmm . . .” He brought his forearm up to his nose and sniffed. “Peaches-and-cream bodywash,” he said with a grin. “I smell like a girl.”
    “Well, you sure don’t look like one,” came out of Destiny’s mouth. Dangerous territory, but she couldn’t stop herself. Something sizzled between them, making her feel feminine and alive and daring—just as she had earlier, onstage.
    “Thanks. Although I have to say that those little exploding beads I read about on the bottle made me tingle all over.”
    That pretty much stole coherent thought from her head, and she could only look him over from head to toe.
    “What?” Seth asked with an amused frown. “Do I have a Q-tip sticking out of my ear or something?”
    Oops. Embarrassed, she blurted the first thing that popped into her head. “No, but your barn door is open.”
    “These sweatpants don’t even have a barn door.”
    Oops again. “Gotcha!” She forced a laugh.
    “What are you, twelve?”
    “And holding. Just ask my father.”
    Talk about an effective mood dampener.
    “Destiny—” Seth came over to the couch, shaking his head. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
    He sat beside her, and Mike settled at their feet.
    “All I meant was that Daddy’s been waiting impatiently for me to come to my senses and finally become an adult. Maybe it’s about time I did.”
    “You’re an adult. Look at you. Better yet, let me look at you.” It was his turn to let his gaze ride over her. “Yep—you’re all woman, all right.”
    Unnerved, Destiny thrust a glass of sweet tea into his hand and turned the conversation back to her father, the buzz kill.
    “I guess I should be grateful that Daddy raised Grace and me with the belief that you create your own luck and seal your own fate.”
    “And yet he named you Destiny.”
    She nodded. “In that you create your own. And Grace was named as a reminder that if we stray from our path in life, through divine grace we will find our way back.”
    Seth reached over to put his glass back on the coffee table. Droplets of condensation fell onto a drowsy-looking Mike, but it didn’t faze him in the least.
    Destiny smiled fondly at the little dog. “Too many nights sleeping in the rain.”
    “But he’ll never have to be cold, wet, or hungry ever again, thanks to you.”
    “You got that right. Truth be known, though, I needed him as much as he needed me.”
    The warm concern shining in Seth’s deep brown eyes was so comforting that for a long moment Destiny simply sat there and soaked it up like a dry sponge. Life, she thought, would be so much easier with a soft place to land at the end of the day.
    But that— this —wasn’t going to happen. Not for her. Not with him.
    Resigned to the fact, she inhaled deeply.
    “You know, you really do smell like a peach,” she heard herself say. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
    “You sure?” He opened his arms. “In that case, why don’t you come on over here.”
    “Oh, I—” She slid away from him and crashed into the arm