Lover Beware

lipstick in—She tried to think, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn so much as a clear gloss, let alone makeup.
    She was still attractive, despite the passage of years, and now she was fiercely glad she was pretty, glad that even if she felt old inside, the outer packaging looked young.
    Her waist was small, her hip bones jutting faintly, her stomach flat. Her hand came to rest on the strip of tanned skin left bare where her tank top had separated from the waistband of her shorts, and the heat of her palm against her skin sent a small shiver through her. The weight loss had made her more sensitive, as if the gradual paring away of her normal subcutaneous layer had left all of her nerve endings exposed and unprotected.
    Abruptly, she wondered what it would be like for her belly to swell with a child.
    A part of her longed fiercely for the physical changes that pregnancy forced on the female body. For more years than she cared to count, she’d wanted her belly to balloon and her breasts to grow heavy with milk. She’d wanted a baby to hold in her arms, to suckle at her breasts, and she wanted to be tired because her life was filled with kids, and not just emptiness.
    She’d ached with wanting a baby, and still did, but as the years had passed and all of her energy had been focused on Patrick, the sharp, panicked feeling that her childbearing years were slipping away had dulled into acceptance.
    Maybe Patrick’s death had sharpened her need to have a baby, or maybe it was simply that her biological clock was ticking loudly because she was over thirty—but she didn’t just want children in the misty, uncertain future, she wanted to be pregnant now . Too much time had slid by while her body had simply marked time. She wanted to know there was a baby growing inside her.
    She was young enough to remarry, young enough to start a family if she wanted, but her mind flinched from the process of getting pregnant. After years of having a separate room from Patrick, the thought of sleeping with a man, the shattering vulnerability of making love, quite frankly scared the living daylights out of her.
    She picked up the crumpled note, smoothed it out, and looked at the firm, slanted writing.
    Call me.
    Just like that.
    If she called Rider, within five minutes she would be flat on her back and penetrated.
    A raw flash of heat went through her, starting a dull throbbing between her thighs.
    Michael was big, taller than Patrick had been—six foot two, at least—heavier and more muscular, and intensely male. Sex with him would be hot and vital, and there was no question in her mind that he would make her pregnant. The thought of having him on top of her, sliding inside her and climaxing, sent another raw shudder through her and her breasts tightened, the nipples erect and almost painfully sensitive.
    When she was ready for that—if she was ever ready—she would call him, and it registered that, regardless of Rider’s availability, and frightened out of her skin of the process or not, she was mentally preparing herself to have sex with Michael Rider.

Chapter 5
    AT FIVE IN the morning, Jane woke from a fitful sleep, drenched with perspiration, the tank top and panties she’d worn to bed clinging uncomfortably to her skin. Untangling the single sheet that was wound around her legs, she pushed the damp cotton aside, paced to her window, and pushed it wide. Sometime in the night a fitful wind had got up, but the heavy mantle of cloud remained, blanking out the moon and stars, so that darkness pressed in—thick and absolute. The faint tang of ozone filled her nostrils, along with the rich scent of rain and the pervasive sweetness of the jasmine and honeysuckle that persisted in her garden despite her attempts to weed them out.
    Smothering a yawn, she showered, washed her hair, and changed into fresh clothes, then walked out to the sheds and began battening down for the storm.
    Despite the canopy of cloud and the steady breeze, the heat was oppressive, and by lunchtime, coated in dust and grime from wrestling farm equipment into sheds, and jittery from expecting at any moment to hear Michael’s truck coming up her drive, she was ready for a break. Changing into her swimsuit, she called Jess and walked along the worn track to the creek that flowed through the wild reverted country at the rear of her property. Here, the land was twisted and strange, filled with a jumble of large boulders and creepy caves, but the