The Wedding Audition by Catherine Mann, Joanne Rock Page B

for getting over a bad breakup. Have a fling!
    “What are we doing?” she heard herself ask, then winced since she sounded incredibly clueless. “I mean—I know where this is going. But—”
    “I know what I want.” Wynn’s hands moved to her shoulders. “I’m one hundred percent clear on that. But I should make a run around the perimeter of the fences. Scan the camera feeds just to be safe. That’ll give you enough time to decide if we want the same thing.”
    She opened her mouth then realized she had no idea what to say to that. She closed it again.
    “But would you consider giving me five minutes to persuade the outcome of your decision before I go?” His palm shifted so he cupped her chin, his thumb running along her lower lip in a way that inspired wicked, carnal thoughts.
    Her eyes fluttered for a moment before she realized how easily she played into his hands. Instead, she gave his thumb a bite.
    His dark laugh didn’t sound at all deterred. “That works, too.”
    Her cheeks burned. “I have no idea what you mean.”
    “I hope you’re here when I get back, Annamae. I can’t wait to find out what a lie you’ve been living with this whole good girl, beige thing.”
    He strode away before she’d even caught her breath, the taste of his thumb still salty on her tongue.
    Bagel barked at him as left, as if asking him to come back. If Annamae weren’t careful, she’d be panting after him soon too.
    Oh wait, she already was.
    Her heartbeat pounded. She couldn’t take a steady breath—and it didn’t have jack to do with her asthma. All this heady sexual hunger had Wynn Rafferty’s name written on it. Her eyes ate him up even now as he vanished into the barn to retrieve his truck.
    Had she been living a lie as the good girl?
    She knew he’d been teasing her and yet, in a lot of ways, she had. She’d taken her role so seriously, she’d let it dictate her life, her choices. And she’d been sleepwalking through her life for so long she hadn’t even noticed. Wynn was giving her a chance to make this decision for herself, so she wasn’t going to play the scene just for the hell of it. She would choose.
    And she wanted him.
    Not because her grandmother said she should have a fling or because she’d realized that she and Boone hadn’t loved each other enough. She would sleep with Wynn because she was wildly attracted to him. Because being with him made her feel a quivery excitement she’d never experienced before. And possibly even because she was a little bit her father’s daughter after all.
    An adventurer.
    Rising out of her chair, she went back inside the house. She pulled the hair tie out of her topknot and freed the newly colored caramel strands, the hue closer to her natural color than anything she’d worn in years. While Bagel made himself comfortable among the cats in the living room, Annamae took the stairs up to Wynn’s bedroom.
    Slow. Deliberate. With purpose.
    “I am having an affair, tonight,” she told the black and white kitten she found curled on a crisply made bed.
    The kitten sat up at this news, folding her tail neatly around her feet as she seemed to listen.
    “I know,” Annamae replied like they were old friends. “Phone the press, right? But could you use a throwaway phone so they don’t show up and climb those apple trees with a telephoto lens?” She ran a hand over the gray quilt folded at the end of the California king-sized mattress propped on a simple platform. The only other furniture in the room was a nightstand, bare of anything save a lamp and a book about grafting heirloom fruit trees.
    “Mew?” The kitten’s conversational skills were better than most of her stepsisters’ who’d never been terribly concerned with Annamae’s life.
    In their defense, she’d never told them she was about to have a torrid affair, so maybe that was an unfair comparison.
    “How many cats does the man have?” she wondered, peering under the bed to see if there were any