That Summer Place by Susan Wiggs, Debbie Macomber, Jill Barnett - That Summer Place Page A

second day out in the boat was still flat, and rippled and fit for a Calvin Klein ad.
    The first time he’d taken off his shirt she’d almost fallen overboard. She’d spent the whole rest of the day trying to look everywhere except at his chest.
    She sat there munching on another chip—just what her thighs needed—and looking at him. Half of her was still unable to believe they were sitting on this very rock, here and now, that it was real and not some wishful daydream.
    His long legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. The breeze would bring his scent to her every so often.
    “I feel seventeen again,” she said, then laughed because it was a stupid thing to say. “I just wish I looked seventeen again.”
    He turned to her and cocked his head. “Why?”
    “Only a man would ask that.”
    “Why this obsession with getting older?”
    “It’s not an obsession.” She sat straighter and crossed her legs Indian-style.
    “You sure make enough comments about it.”
    “I do not.”
    He laughed.
    She chewed her lip. “Do I?”
    He nodded.
    She rested her chin on her fist and thought about it for a moment. “Don’t you ever feel it?”
    “What?”
    “Old. As if life has passed you by?”
    “I don’t know, Catherine. With each year I find I feel more comfortable with who I am.”
    “Really? Hmmmm. And here I feel older and more uncomfortable with who I am.”
    “Women.” He muttered in that foolish male way.
    She was quiet for a moment, gathering control so she wouldn’t haul off and punch him. “Women feel this way because men age so well.”
    “Women only think they don’t age well.”
    She turned. “Do I look that stupid?”
    “You don’t agree.”
    “Society doesn’t agree.”
    “Lauren Bacall, Goldie Hawn and Raquel Welch are all gorgeous.”
    “Clothing models are twelve.” She sat up a little straighter and hugged her knees to her chest. “And look at all the older men with pretty young things on their arms.” She gave a wry laugh. “All we women have on our arms is flabby skin.”
    When he didn’t defend his sex, she looked at him.
    “Suddenly you’re not saying anything.”
    “I have a feeling this is a ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ discussion.”
    “Chicken.”
    “No thanks. I’ve had enough.”
    She gave him a look that said his tactic wouldn’t work.
    He sighed in that aggravating way men had. “I like you just the way you are, Catherine.”
    “You’re changing the subject.”
    “I thought we were talking about you getting old.”
    “You think I’m old?”
    “Hell no. You said you were old, not me.”
    “Don’t tell me you’ve never dated someone a lot younger than you.”
    He was completely silent.
    She laughed. “Ha! I got you on that one.”
    He looked at her while she crowed, then said, “I dated a woman for two years who was five years older than I was.”
    “I didn’t ask you about older women.”
    He grinned. “I know.”
    She sat there while the sunshine beat down on them. After a moment of silence she said, “There must have been a lot of women in your life.”
    “Yes,” he answered honestly, then looked at her and added quickly, “But they all looked like you.”
    She was horrified.
    “Okay, then,” he said in a rush. “None of them looked like you.” He tried to look serious and failed.
    She burst out laughing and shook her head. “You are awful.”
    “Yeah, but you love me,” he said in a flippant and teasing way.
    But it was so close to the truth she couldn’t laugh. What would her life have been like if she had married Michael? Her daughters could have been his had things been different, had he not gone to war, had she not let her father come between them. Had they been older.
    Perhaps, she thought, being young wasn’t such a good thing.
    He slid his hand behind her head and before she knew it he had pulled her face toward his. Then he was kissing her deeply, but gently, as if he had all the time in