Sparks Fly

toes.” She paused, her smile softening. “It really is nice to have you home for a few days.”
    “Next time, you don’t have to throw yourself off a ladder to get me here.”
    Joyce was laughing as she wheeled off out of the living room, leaving Will alone with his thoughts. All day, he’d been calling Angelina, but every time, her voice mail picked up.
    Whenever he had a problem, he’d always found a good solution. But he was floored by his continuing ineptitude in dealing with Angelina.
    A knock sounded on the door. He prayed that it wasn’t another young woman sent over by her parents to meet him. He opened the door slowly, expecting the worst.
    He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Angelina?”
    “Will? What’s going on?”
    Angelina looked even better in real life than she did in his dreams. Her clothes were slightly rumpled from the flight. Rumpled looked amazing on her.
    “I’ve just flown all the way across the country and all you can do is stand there gaping at me?”
    Will wasn’t sure what possessed him just then. He knew he should have better control over his baser urges, but he just didn’t.
    “I should have done this instead.” He reached for the woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
    And kissed her.

    * * *
    Angelina was so surprised by Will’s kiss that she kissed him back.
    It should be illegal for anyone to kiss as well as he did, she thought. Will deepened the kiss and Angelina whimpered in response. But when Will made a low sound of pleasure deep in his throat, Angelina immediately crashed back into the real world.
    She broke off the kiss and stumbled away from him, hating the fact that he was too darn potent for her to think rationally. “Stop trying to confuse me. Tell me what’s going on right now,” she insisted, congratulating herself on her fairly poised delivery, considering that she felt as put together as an unmade puzzle.
    “I don’t know. I have no idea why you’re here. All I know is that I’ve been calling you every hour for two straight days. You have no idea how frustrating it is when all I get is your voice mail. But now you’re here, standing right in front of me.”
    Angelina was stunned by his soliloquy. “You’ve been trying to contact me for two days?”
    “Maybe I should have left a message, but I wanted to explain things in person.”
    He wanted to explain things. It was too close to what Bryce had said to her at the end of the summer. Will had just kissed her like he was dying of thirst and she was water ... but when was she going to learn that passionate kisses didn’t mean anything to men like them?
    Trying for mature, hoping for calm, Angelina managed, “It’s okay. You don’t need to explain anything to me.”
    “I don’t?”
    She pasted a cheerful smile on her face. “I understand perfectly.”
    “You do?”
    “Of course.”
    “But—”
    Angelina cut him off before he could say anything that would hurt her more. She faked a yawn.
    “If I’m going to have a good consultation with your mother tomorrow morning, I’d better get some rest.”
    “My mother called you?”
    Angelina stared at him in disbelief.

CHAPTER NINE
    Judging by the closed, wounded look on Angelina’s face, he knew she wouldn’t believe him if he told her the truth. Frankly, he was having a hard time believing what his mother had done. She was worse than any of the other scheming mothers he’d encountered during the past twenty-four hours.
    Was it wrong to be so pleased by her meddling?
    “I hate to tell you this, but there’s only one spare bedroom.”
    A look of utter disbelief and exhaustion settled over Angelina’s face.
    Will cleared his throat and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He wanted to reach out for Angelina to comfort her, but something told him his touch wouldn’t be welcome. Not when she was so clearly upset with both him and his mother.
    “I’m going to grab my stuff right now and clear out so you can have it.”
    He groaned inwardly, knowing that there was no way he was going to be able to get any sleep on the couch in the living room, with Angelina just a wall away. As it was, he was fighting the urge to pull her back into his arms.
    How could it be that in weeks he had gone from being perfectly sane and in charge of his life to losing control over everything?
    Right now, his only chance at temporary sanity was to dunk himself in the cold lake.
    * * *
    It only took Will five minutes to pack up his things, but