Two Against the Odds by Joan Kilby Page A

old.”
    She felt old today. Her younger brother had just gotten married for the second time. Renita and Brett were going to tie the knot in the not too distant future. Her longest relationship had lasted two years and that had been with a man who’d been on the rebound. She’d helped him heal and then he’d met someone else and moved on. As she’d always known he would. Other than him, there’d been guys who were about to move overseas, guys who were commitment-phobes, guys she liked but didn’t love.
    Now she’d hooked up with Rafe. Temporarily.
    Could Renita possibly be right?
    Sienna was calling her, refusing to throw her bouquet until Lexie came to the front. The rest of the unmarried women included Brett’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Tegan, and a handful of women in their twenties. The audience started slow-clapping.
    â€œThey won’t stop until you go,” Renita said.
    â€œThis is embarrassing,” Lexie muttered. Did everyone see her as an old maid who needed all the help she could get to find a husband? But Renita wasright. The only way to make it stop was to get this over with. She shook out her hair and then stepped to the front.
    A cheer went up from the well-lubricated crowd. Sienna turned her back to the women and with a big two-handed toss, threw her roses over her head. Lexie stepped back to where she should have been out of range. But Sienna had a strong arm. The bouquet sailed over Tegan’s head, bounced off another woman’s shoulder and landed in Lexie’s arms.
    Lexie buried her nose in the fragrant flowers to hide the sudden unexpected welling of tears in her eyes. She didn’t believe in marriage and happily ever after and all the claptrap. At least not for her. So it was ridiculous to cry just because she’d caught the bridal bouquet.
    Blinking, she raised her head and laughed, so no one would know she’d been so close to tears.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    â€œW HAT DO YOU THINK?” Lexie made another twirl around Rafe in her petal-pink silk camisole with lacy push-up bra and matching thong.
    They’d come back to her place after the barbecue. Rafe still wore his polo shirt and jeans, but Lexie had changed, eager to show off her new garment.
    His eyes blazed. “I think you’re beautiful. And hot.”
    She stroked her hands down her breasts to her hips. “I don’t usually go in for sexy lingerie but I couldn’t resist. The silk feels so soft against my skin. Here, you feel.”
    He placed his hands on her hips and his fingers branded her through the thin fabric, as if the silk itself had dissolved from his heat. “Is your mother coming back here tonight?”
    â€œNo. She decided it wasn’t a good idea to leave my dad alone. I don’t think Dad’s interested in that woman but I can see why it bothers Mum.” She went up on tiptoe and began to kiss him, unbuttoning his shirt. He shut his eyes as she slid a leg up the inside of his thigh. “Let’s go outside. In the moonlight.”
    His eyes snapped open. “Outside?”
    Lexie pushed away from him and picked up a throw rug from the couch. She tossed it to him and grabbed another, swirling it around her like a cape. “Come on.”
    The full moon rode high in a starless sky, bathing trees and houses in silvery light and glinting off the koi pond beneath the camellia tree. The night air was cool on her skin, but pleasantly so. A brushy-tail possum scampered across the electrical wire leading from the house to the studio, thudded across the roof and crashed through the trees along the creek.
    It was only as Lexie hoisted herself onto the trampoline that she realized Rafe hadn’t followed her. She spread the rug. Where was he?
    The back door swung open. Rafe—clad only in his boxers—appeared with a pillow under his arm, a bottle of champagne and two flutes in his hands, the rug slung around his neck.
    â€œWhere did