High Noon

of wine in the courtyard?”
    “Exactly what I had in mind.”
     
    A week later, Phoebe sat in Duncan’s garden. Carly was having a sleepover at her new second best friend Livvy’s house, which meant her mama could have the adult version of a sleepover.
    They’d had a swim, and made love. They’d had dinner, and made love. Now it was nearly midnight—and it didn’t matter!—with her sitting out in a lush garden smelling night-blooming jasmine, a glass of wine in her hand. She wore a flimsy excuse for a robe she’d paid entirely too much money for.
    But if a woman couldn’t splurge for such an occasion, when could she?
    The night hummed, the breeze just balmy enough to cut back the heat while a fat old moon sailed over a sky dashed with stars and smeared with filmy clouds. He’d turned music on so that Bonnie Raitt’s Delta-rich voice oozed out of the garden speakers.
    Phoebe sipped wine and gave some lazy thought to making love again.
    “I feel like I’m on vacation,” she told Duncan.
    “I should’ve put little umbrellas in the drinks.” His voice was as lazy as she felt. “Something with steel drums on the stereo. Except I don’t have little umbrellas or any steel-drum CD. No, Jimmy Buffett. It should’ve been Jimmy Buffett and margaritas.”
    “This is fine. This is perfect. I may never move from this exact spot.” She turned her head to smile at him. “You’ll have to start charging me rent.”
    “I’ll take it out in trade.”
    “I’m so glad you didn’t want to go anywhere tonight. Clubs, bars, movies. It’s so nice to just be.”
    “Clubs, bars, movies, they’re not going anywhere. It’s nice to just kick back.”
    “You had a busy week.”
    “Ava’s a slave driver. Beneath that pretty face is the heart of Simon Legree. I think I looked at every tree and shrub for sale in greater Savannah yesterday. And all those drawings and layouts. Sod. Fountains. Statuary. Birdbaths, feeders, houses. What-all. She doesn’t care for the concept of ‘do whatever you like.’”
    “She mentioned you took her by an old warehouse the other day. That you’re converting it into apartments and shops.”
    “Yeah. Thought she’d get some ideas going on that and be too busy to drag me to another nursery. How about we take a sail in the morning? In fact, we can sail over to Savannah.”
    “That sounds perfect. Everything’s just about perfect.”
    “Give me a couple minutes.” He shifted toward her on the wide chaise, then slid a finger down to open the thin robe. “And I’ll make it absolutely perfect.”
    She didn’t have a doubt in the world, not when his mouth found hers, when his hands began to cruise. She reached out blindly until her glass clinked against the table. With her hands free, she tangled her fingers in his hair.
    The breeze played along her skin; the music thrummed just under it. When her head fell back so he could run his lips down her throat, there was the white ball of moon overhead.
    She moved under him, opened for him so when their mouths met again he slipped inside her. Slow and easy now, loose and lazy. Her eyes stayed open so that she could see herself in his. She felt herself rising and falling, rising and falling, in long, liquid waves of arousal and pleasure. When she spilled over the crest, she was still there, trapped in the blue of his eyes.
    Why, she wondered, would she want to be anywhere else?
    “One more.” He murmured it, then captured her mouth again, sumptuously. Her heartbeat thickened, her bones softened.
    I love you. The words rose in her throat, ached to be said.
    They were good words, Phoebe told herself. Good, strong words that deserved to be said. But perhaps saying them for the first time when still coupled with the man on his garden chaise wasn’t the best choice of time and place.
    Instead, she framed his face with her hands. “You were right. You made it perfect.”
    “Being with you…” He turned his head so his mouth pressed to her palm.
    The gesture had her heart taking another stumble. Something fluttered inside her belly. “Being with me?”
    His gaze leveled on hers. “Phoebe—”
    Her cell phone rang.
    “I jinxed it!” She struggled up. “I should never have said perfect.” She thought of Carly, her mother, her brother. Snatched up the phone. “Phoebe Mac Namara.” The sound of Dave’s voice didn’t loosen the knots in her gut until she was certain it wasn’t her family.
    “Bonaventure? Where?” Without pen,