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in the woods?”
    “Are you asking me out on a date?”
    “Uh, yeah, I guess.”
    “You guess? You don’t know?”
    Damn. The man was impossible.
    “Yes, I’m asking you out on a date. Tomorrow.”
    She must have frowned at him or something because he started stroking her forehead with his thumb. The touch was comforting and arousing all at once. The cats loved it when he rubbed his thumb over their foreheads. Now she understood. She didn’t purr, but her body definitely started to rev itself up for more. In fact, she closed her eyes and made a little moan of pleasure.
    That obviously did it for him. He stopped stroking her, settled his hands on her hips, and pulled her in tight against his chest and thighs and all his other hard manly parts. His lips went back to her temple, but this time he kissed his way down the side of her face, over her cheek to the corner of her mouth. She moved into the kiss and opened up for him.
    When their tongues finally met, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into the kiss. He was a virtuoso at this dance of tongues, doling out something sweet, carnal, mysterious, and addictive.
    But when one of his hands left her hip and moved up toward her breast, she inadvertently stiffened. It happened like a reflex. She might fantasize about no-strings sex, but she was abysmally bad at actually having it. Her underlying caution always reared its head.
    Damn.
    And wouldn’t you know it? Jeff was such a gentleman that he backed away a little. “Not okay?” he asked.
    What was she supposed to do now? It was all so awkward. So she said nothing, even though she really wanted him to go back to kissing her and maybe even touching her.
    Instead he relaxed his grip and put her in a safer zone without actually letting her go. “So,” he said in a rough voice, “I’d love to take a hike with you up to the falls.”
    Oh, good. She’d have a second chance to get this right. “Great,” she said.
    “Cool,” he replied. “Why don’t we meet at Gracie’s Diner for brunch or something?”
    No, no, no. She backed out of his embrace. “Uh, no, not Gracie’s. Let’s meet at the Old Laurel Chapel. In the parking lot. At nine o’clock.”
    “The Old Laurel Chapel?”
    “It’s off Morgan Avenue, just north of State Road 606. There’s a little gravel parking lot there and access to the Appalachian Trail, which connects to the trail that leads to the falls.”
    “What about brunch?”
    “I’ll pack a picnic.”
    There was a beat of silence before he said, “Are you ashamed to be seen in public with me?”
    “Oh, no, that’s not it. You see Gracie is…” Her shoulders tensed and her voice stumbled.
    “Gracie’s what?”
    “A busybody.” And so much more. Gracie would grill Jeff because she saw it as her purpose in life to find Melissa the right husband, and Jeff was probably not that guy even if his kisses were amazing. He was probably just a guy passing through, looking for some fun.
    “Oh, I see. Good thinking. I don’t want any gossip,” he said. Which seemed odd for a guy from out of town. But she let it slide.

Chapter Six
    M elissa hardly slept a wink. She kept replaying the kiss in her mind, not to mention that moment when Jeff had scooted, butt-naked, into the back room. Hot. So hot.
    She gave up trying to sleep at six a.m., when she got up and took a frigid shower, threw on some clothes, and headed to the Food Lion for the picnic stuff and a box of condoms.
    Buying them was like burning the bridges to her past. Deciding to have a little fun with Jeff had become an important part of letting go of the store and moving on with her life.
    A few hours later, with a backpack full of sandwiches and other goodies, she pulled off Morgan Avenue into the patchy gravel lot by the Old Laurel Chapel.
    The stone ruin hadn’t seen a congregation in more than a hundred years, and it had been sadly neglected during that time. Its roof had all but fallen in, leaving behind four stone