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doomed to disappointment. She was a tease. A gorgeous tease, with soft skin and a softer mouth. He was not about to sign up for a repeat of the night before.
    “How long are you home?”
    Why so chatty, and why did she care? Beneath the brim of her hat, her blue eyes looked up into his, and he begrudgingly answered, “I leave day after tomorrow.”
    “Well, maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
    He dropped his arms to his sides and tapped the bottle against his hip. “I doubt it.” Lord, she was beautiful. All pale skin and blue eyes and bouncy hair. Wearing a shirt meant to be modest but wasn’t. That skirt might be on the conservative side, but he’d had a real good look at her legs the day before.
    “Too bad.” She pulled her pink lips into a frown. “I thought we could be friends. Maybe end this silly thing between our families.”
    “I’ve never had a female friend.”
    She smiled and pointed at herself.
    His gaze followed her hand pointing at her breasts beneath that thin blouse and lacy slip. Last night, she’d pushed her breasts and crotch into him, and he’d about gone off in his pants like he was fourteen again. “I don’t want a female friend.”
    Her smile fell. “Any female or just me?”
    He didn’t want to relive that, nor did he want a friend who he was dying to get naked. “Just you.”
    “Oh.”
    One corner of her lips pulled down, and he heard himself explain, “I can’t be friends with you after last night.” He took a drink and purposely elaborated so she’d get back in her Chevy and go before he tossed her on the hood of her car and crawled on top. “I had to masturbate three times to get rid of my hard-on.”
    Beneath the brim of her hat, her pale cheeks flushed. “I’m really not a tease, you know.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “It’s just that . . .” She lifted one hand with a slim watch on her thin wrist. “I’ve been warned off you my entire life. ‘Stay away from the Pennington men,’ over and over, and I just . . .” She dropped her hand to her side. “I got scared. I’ve never . . .” She looked down at the toes of her white pumps, hiding her face with her hat.
    He raised the bottle to his lips. “You’ve never?”
    “Gone all the way before.”
    He choked on a mouthful of beer.
    “If my first time was with a Pennington, I think generations of Toussaints would come back and haunt me.”
    He swallowed and wiped drops of beer from his chin. “Jesus. You should have told me instead of going on about how you’re a woman.”
    “I am a woman.” She peeked up at him from beneath her hat brim. “I just don’t think I should be the first Toussaint to get sexually involved with a Pennington.”
    A virgin. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. “You think you’re the first?”
    “Yes.” She raised her face and blinked. “I’m not?”
    He shook his head, and said, “Follow me.”
    “Where?”
    “You’ll see.” He set the bottle on the stump, then took her hand. “Watch your step. There are all kind of bricks from covered wells and old cooking pots. This used to be a working sugar plantation, and some of the old equipment is hidden under weeds and vine.”
    Blue smiled as she looked at the old plaster covering the house and big columns. His big hand engulfed hers as he pulled her along and pointed out overgrown fields with his free hand. “Some of the old slave quarters are over there. Just dangerous piles of wood nowadays, but I crawled all over them as a kid.”
    There was pride in his voice. A pride that she understood. No matter how old, no matter how bad the wiring and horrible plumbing, Esterbrook was his home. It was a part of his heart and his soul, just as Dahlia Hall was part of hers.
    They walked for about fifteen minutes while he pointed to this and that. Then they stopped in front of a live oak. Old and gnarled and enormous, it had to be at least three hundred years old.
    He reached for her hat and tossed it on the ground. “Take off your