That Runaway Summer by Darlene Gardner Page A

and we can talk, get to know each other better.”
    Panic flared inside her, and she shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”
    “Whoa,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You can trust me, if that’s what you’re worried about. All I’m asking for is wine and conversation.”
    She met his eyes, perfectly visible in the moonlight. She believed he wouldn’t push her to sleep with him, yet she couldn’t trust him. Not with any meaningful conversation. Not after she’d been burned twice by people she had faith in.
    Her heart jerked and started. She wouldn’t talk of her past if she went inside the house with him. She was less sure of her resolve to stay out of his bed. How had this happened? How had she come by for such an innocent reason and gotten to this point?
    “I can’t.” She cast about for a sensible excuse, but her brain felt scrambled with him touching her. She drew her hand away from his. “I’m guiding a white-water trip early tomorrow. I need my sleep.”
    His lips quirked, his only sign of disappointment. “I bet it’s beautiful in the mornings on the river.”
    Finally, a safe subject.
    “The best time to kayak is before anyone is awake other than the herons and the eagles.” Her trip tomorrow morning was at ten, a fact she’d conveniently neglected to tell him, but she sometimes went on short sleep when she kayaked for pleasure. “The sky is almost achingly blue and it’s so quiet the rumble of the white water sounds like thunder.”
    “Forget what I said about not calling in a favor.” His voice sounded soft and seductive in the darkness. “I just thought of one.”
    Her muscles clenched while she marveled at how easily he’d resurrected the sexual tension between them.
    “You can give me a kayak lesson,” he said.
    She relaxed. “Are you serious?”
    “Completely. You did say you owed me.”
    “Then you’re on.” This was more like what she’d had in mind. She mentally went over her weekend schedule. She was guiding trips Friday and Saturday mornings, bartending Saturday and Sunday nights and taking naps in between. “I’m free Sunday morning if I skip my bike ride. Say, at seven. Would that work for you?”
    “Perfectly,” he said.
    She might have qualms about being alone with Dan in a darkened house, but surely she could handle him on a sunny river.

    S TARSKY AND H UTCH CLAWED at the door leading to the back porch on Friday morning, whimpering and sending Dan pleading looks. Before the temperature rose on summer mornings, he liked to let the still-cool air flow through the window and door screens. He usually left the back door unlocked so the dogs could come and go into the fenced backyard. Not today.
    “Forget it,” Dan told the dogs. “You’re not getting anywhere near those pygmy goats.”
    Introducing the dogs to his two newest pets, however, needed to become a priority. It had been a simple matter to keep the dogs out of the backyard that first night Tinkerbell had stayed in the shed. That wouldn’t work now that the goats had become permanent residents.
    Dan needed to find out whether the dogs would welcome the newcomers or try to tear them apart.
    He’d rescued Starsky and Hutch, who were in the same litter, from an animal shelter back in Ohio. They were mutts, a mix of breeds that almost certainly included some Doberman. Since goats were prey animals and Dobermans hunters, it was entirely possible the dogs would attack.
    The proper way to begin acclimatizing the animals was while the dogs were leashed. He’d try that tactic soon, but not this morning. He started work in thirty minutes.
    His cell phone rang. He snatched it off the kitchen counter and checked caller ID. His oldest sister, who called occasionally but irregularly. He immediately clicked on the phone.
    “Karen? Is everything all right?”
    “Everything’s fine.” She had a strong authoritative voice to go along with her personality. The firstborn of the four