Read Online Lover in the Rough by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online Page A

texture of his skin. Yet for all that, there was nothing coarse about him. She had met men who had offended her with their crudeness, men who had never set foot on anything more uncivilized than a sandtrap at the local country club. Chance was not like that. Beneath his harsh surface he had the clean, brilliant strength of a diamond.
    They walked a few steps before Reba remembered. “Shoes,” she said quickly, heading back to the car, pulling him along behind.
    Chance watched in silent amusement while she kicked off her high-heeled black shoes. “I was going to say something about them but you seemed to know what you were doing.”
    “You have a distracting effect on me,” she said lightly, tossing her shoes in the trunk.
    Smiling, he took off his own shoes and socks. Then he held out his hand. She laced her fingers through his again, amazed at how natural it seemed to be standing barefoot in a parking lot with him, holding his hand.
    She led him past the rumpled main beach where women lay in scented oils and designer swimsuits, carefully made-up eyes closed against southern California’s potent early spring sun. Children too young to be in school swooped and screamed with laughter, chasing waves and seagulls with equal abandon. The water was cold and unusually calm. Long, low waves curled over lazily, as though unwilling to make the effort to break with their usual thunder and flashing spray.
    The tide was out, leaving behind a damp ribbon of packed sand. Chance followed Reba along the margin of the land and the sea, watching her gracefully find a way among the rocks scattered at the base of the headland that defined the north end of the beach. The headland had eroded into a series of fingerlike projections. Between the fingers nestled tiny, protected patches of sand no bigger than an apartment patio. Reba kept going until she found the miniature beach that was farthest away from other people.
    “We’ll have to keep an eye on the tide,” she said as Chance spread out the comforter for them to sit on, “but we should get an hour of peace.”
    “That’s why you come here, isn’t it? Peace.”
    She looked past him to the immense sapphire sea shimmering beneath the sun. “I spend so much time with people,” she said quietly. “When that and the noise and the telephone get to me, I sneak down here to be alone.”
    “Except today.”
    She turned to him, surprised.
    “You’re not alone,” he said.
    She smiled. “I don’t mind. I have lots of questions to ask. Nineteen, to be precise.”
    “Sixteen,” corrected Chance.
    “Who’s counting?” asked Reba innocently.
    Chance groaned and sank down onto the comforter. He sat cross-legged, looking up at her. His thick moustache didn’t disguise the essential hardness of his tanned face or the sensual sculpting of his mouth. Behind the startling silver-green of his eyes was a mind that weighed everything on a scale as old as life. Survival. Despite his expensive clothes and indulgent smile, he looked as though he had been born out of the restless movements of the earth. There was an intensity to Chance Walker that was compelling, a dynamic balance of opposites—distance and intimacy, danger and safety, excitement and release—that shifted with each moment.
    He waved his hand in front of her face. “Hello?” he asked. “Did I suddenly grow horns and a halo?”
    “If anyone could, it would be you,” she agreed, sitting beside him. “What’s your father like?”
    “No bloody halo.”
    “That isn’t what I meant,” retorted Reba.
    “What did you mean, then?” he teased. “Be specific.”
    “I’ll use up too many questions that way.”
    Chance shook his head. “Clever little chaton .” He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Dad was born on a piece of west Texas dirt that couldn’t even grow cactus. He started hunting treasures when he was six. He ran away from home when he was thirteen. He never went back. He’s lived in more godforsaken