Read Online Donovan’s Angel by Peggy Webb - Free Book Online Page A

him to say yes, but most of her wanted a denial. Her
lips were slightly parted as she waited for his answer.
    His fingers moved in slow circles on her hand
as he sat quietly in his chair savoring her. The candlelight
reflecting on her hair gave her an ethereal quality. He smiled,
thinking of the many facets of her personality. She was angel and
flesh-and-blood mischief maker, tranquility and high-voltage
energy. She was flamboyant woman with flashy jewelry and gamine
with dirt on her cheek. She was endlessly fascinating, and even if
he lived to be a hundred, he knew that she would still be
surprising him. He thought of the word he and his brothers had used
to tease one another about girls when they were growing up—smitten.
There was no doubt about it: Paul Donovan was smitten.
    “No,” he told her in a voice she thought was
marvelous. “I’m sorry you didn’t think of this sooner.”
    “You’re not serious! I know you don’t spend
your Saturday nights this way, racing through the streets like a
bat out of hell and wading in ponds and riding in miniature
cars.”
    “The go carts and the hair-raising ride from
Pontotoc notwithstanding, I’m having a wonderful evening. The
company makes it so.”
    “I didn’t plan for this to happen,” she
admitted. “You were supposed to hate this evening.”
    “You made a common mistake, Martie, thinking
that I’m a stick-in-the-mud simply because of my profession.”
    “I did
not
think that.”
    Still holding her hand, he smiled. “Not even
a little?”
    She made a face at him. “Maybe just a teensy
bit. Did you learn mind reading at seminary, too?”
    “I learned about people long before that.
Living with my brothers and sisters, not to mention a host of
aunts, uncles, and cousins made homegrown psychology a necessary
survival skill. Appearances are sometimes deceiving, and people
rarely fit into the neat cubbyholes we assign them.”
    Martie withdrew her hand from his. “This
evening is an exception. A fluke. It doesn’t change a thing.” She
turned her head toward the window so that he wouldn’t see her face.
He was too discerning, she thought. He would see the uncertainty in
her eyes. If the evening had failed miserably as an incentive for
forgetting, it had succeeded royally as a vehicle for advancing
their romance.
    Through the window she saw the edge of an
orange moon, brilliant as only an October moon could be, and she
wondered if the improbability of their relationship was the cause
of her fatal attraction. Was she like a child who wanted most what
it could not have? She glanced at Paul from under her lashes.
No
. His inaccessibility was not the attraction. It went
deeper than that. He was quiet strength and controlled energy, easy
companionship and heart-thundering sensuality. And she wanted to
climb across the table and ravish his made-for-kissing lips.
    “I agree.” Paul’s voice pulled her out of her
reverie. “It doesn’t change a thing. I’m a minister and you’re a
Jazzercise teacher, and we still live across the fence from each
other.” Something changed in his eyes, as if a wonderful secret
were lurking in their depths. “And something has already been set
in motion between us. Something neither of us can stop.”
    She thrust her chin out stubbornly. “I intend
to try.”
    “Did you two enjoy the ice cream?” Neither of
them had heard the waitress approach.
    “Yes, thank you,” Paul told her.
    She stuck a pencil into her red topknot and
gathered the empty bowls onto a tray. “I told Mary Muldooney back
there in the kitchen that I never saw a couple have more fun over
two little dishes of ice cream. Been married long?”
    Martie opened her mouth to speak, but the
waitress didn’t require an answer. She had long ago learned the art
of carrying on one-way conversations.
    “Mary Muldooney says you are probably
honeymooners, but I told her you looked more like one of them
fairy-tale couples where everything is just so combustible.