Read Online Long Memory by Christa Maurice - Free Book Online Page A

James stood beside her. She was a good height. Tall enough that he could put his arm around her shoulders comfortably. While this wasn’t the greatest yardstick to judge a potential partner by, in his experience it helped.
    “The singles scene in Weaver’s Circle isn’t exactly hopping. There are precisely ten eligible bachelors in town and one of them is Zack Jarvis.” Beth shuddered. “On the other end of the scale we have George Kline, but he’s been infatuated with Lily since she moved here and won’t just own up to it.”
    “What about outside of Weaver’s Circle?” James wondered what would happen if he put his arm around her shoulders to test the comfort of having her there. She would either deck him or let him kiss her. Even odds.
    “I’m sort of tethered here and dating just isn’t my forte.” Beth shrugged. “You pays your nickel and you takes your chance.”
    You pays your nickel and you takes your chance. Good motto. James draped his arm over her shoulders.
    She frowned at him, but didn’t back away.
    Leaning down, he slanted his lips across hers. She didn’t bend into his embrace, but she didn’t step back and deck him either. She held herself stiffly, but her hands closed around his forearms. He tried to pull her closer, but she resisted and he didn’t press his advantage. Heat radiated off her body in the cool, shady house. He drew her lower lip between his, and when she didn’t protest, slid his tongue into her mouth. She tasted warm and heady, like a really good wine.
    But she still wasn’t leaning toward him. She kept daylight between them.
    He broke the kiss and stepped back.
    Her face was cool and aloof except for two bright spots of color on her cheeks. “Would you like to explain that?”
    “What?” James glanced around the room, wondering if he’d walked onto the wrong set. She wasn’t reading the same script. Or maybe he wasn’t. He was still working with the script he’d used for every other woman he’d ever dated. She’d already demonstrated that she wasn’t every other woman. “Never mind.”
    “Wait.” Beth grabbed his arm. “You just took me by surprise is all. I don’t respond well to surprises.”
    Then she surprised him by rising up on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a full-contact, mind-bending kiss that nearly made him forget how to do arithmetic. Even after she released him, his body remembered the pressure of hers against him. Totally unlike every woman he’d ever encountered. So this was what she was really like? The feather brush of her hair on his cheeks alone could have reeled him in. Up the ante with those sweet, soft lips and that lush body and he was all in. Maybe even over his betting limit. “You don’t respond well to surprises, but you can certainly dish them out.”
    Beth blushed and looked at the floor. “I’m a little out of practice dealing with the opposite sex.”
    James reached out to draw her into his arms again. “Then by all means, let’s practice.”
    “No.” She planted her hand in the middle of his chest. “We should get back. We’ve left them alone for a long time.”
    “They’re big girls.”
    “One of them with a short-term memory capacity of about thirty seconds and the other one with a burning desire to get me hitched to whatever available male she can find. You should have seen her when the new sheriff came to town a couple of years ago.” She started toward the door. “You better put that box back where you found it. Jean needs a place for everything and everything in its place with her eyesight.”
    James listened to the door bang shut behind her. He needed to revise his earlier assessment of her as Jekyll and Hyde. She was more in line with Sybil. When she was bad, she was baffling and annoying and sometimes frightening.
    But when she was good, she was cute and curvy and wonderful to be around. James put the box back where he’d found it the night before. He needed to figure out