Kate's Vow (Vows) by Sherryl Woods Page A

Maybe a few Oriental touches, along with some European antiques. The finest wood.”
    She laughed. “Have you been peeping in windows?”
    “Nope. I just know where all the top decorators hang out.”
    “What makes you think I didn’t choose that for myself?”
    “You wouldn’t waste the time.” Her expression told him he was right.
    “And this place?” she challenged.
    “This, I think, you did yourself. I think you picked things because they appealed to your sense of color and touch or maybe just for fun,” he said, glancing at a colorful child’s pinwheel that had been used instead of flowers in a tall vase in one corner.
    “A gift from my youngest niece,” she admitted. “It was accompanied by an automatic bubble gun. She thinks I’m too stuffy.” She hesitated, then added, “I get the impression that you think that, too.”
    “Does it matter to you what I think?” he asked, allowing his gaze to linger warmly until he sensed the color rising in her cheeks again. It felt good to engage in this sort of flirtatious bantering with a woman again, especially with one who seemed almost as new to it as he was.
    There was an instant’s panic in her eyes before that stubborn chin of hers tilted up a notch. “Yes. I think perhaps it does,” she admitted, leaving him almost speechless at the rare hint of vulnerability she’d displayed.
    Such candor deserved an honest response. David considered his answer carefully. “My impression of you is changing by the minute,” he said slowly. “I’m beginning to think you are a rather remarkable woman, Kate Newton.”
    She looked startled and pleased. “Really?”
    “Definitely remarkable,” he said as he rose to his feet and walked across the room. He held out his hands, and after an instant’s hesitation she placed hers in them. He drew her up. “I don’t know what the hell is happening here, but I don’t think I can wait one more minute to kiss you.”
    Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away, seemingly every bit as mesmerized as he was. Stunned by the force of his need after months and months of abstinence, he slanted his mouth over hers.
    Her lips were every bit as soft and yielding as he’d imagined. The texture was like satin, warmed and rumpled by a night of steamy sex. The taste? Sweet, with an intoxicating hint of the wine they’d had with dinner. It had been so long since he’d kissed anyone other than his wife that the sensations felt totally new, more vivid and soul-stoppingly pleasurable than anything he remembered.
    He drew back and looked into her eyes, saw the faint stirring of passion and sensuality, that startled look of amazement that told him she was as taken aback as he by whatever was happening between them. Unwilling to let those feelings fade when they’d only just discovered them, he scooped up handfuls of that luxurious, silky black hair as he framed her face and settled his lips over hers once more.
    There would be time enough tomorrow and the day after that and on into the weeks ahead for all the regrets that were bound to follow.

Chapter Seven
    T hank God for Davey, Kate thought as she sat across the breakfast table from David in embarrassed silence. For a woman not easily rattled, those kisses the night before had shaken her in ways she’d never imagined possible. She’d been awake half the night thinking about them. At least Davey’s presence prevented a morning-after analysis of the mistake in judgment they’d made by allowing the intimacy of those kisses.
    Why the devil hadn’t she thought to set ground rules for herself, as well as him? Possibly because it had never occurred to her that David viewed her as anything other than a prospective adversary in a battle over his son’s future. She wondered for one fleeting instant if those kisses had been part of some low-down, scheming tactics to throw her off guard. She dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had formed. Nothing she’d seen thus far had suggested that