Sun Kissed Read Online Free Page B

might be talking about herself. Reacting to a situation had never been a problem for him. Reacting appropriately was his only challenge.
    “You did what had to be done,” he said. “And it took a lot of courage.”
    Her cheeks went pink with embarrassment. “Courage? I was scared to death.”
    “Isn’t that what courage is all about? The guy who dashes into a burning building without fear isn’t brave. He’s just an idiot.”
    She laughed softly. Tucker decided he liked the sound, a melodic tinkling that lingered lightly in the air. He also enjoyed her smile, a hesitant curve of her lush mouth that tipped up the corners and then slowly blossomed.
    For the second time since meeting her, he noted how pretty she was. Feature by feature, her face wasn’t perfect. Her nose was a little too pronounced along the bridge, her cheekbones a bit too high, her mouth a shade too generous, but overall the effect was stunning. Lush black lashes lined her dark eyes, lending them depth a man could drown in if he wasn’t careful. In the afternoon sunlight that slanted through the side window, her sun-kissed, ivory complexion put him in mind of peaches drizzled with cream, its flawless texture set off to perfection by her ebony hair, which wisped and curled in an untamed cloud.
    Sitting with her spine arched to accommodate her cuffed hands had thrust her breasts forward like plump little melons beneath her blue plaid shirt. Not wanting to stare, he slid his gaze to the graceful slope of her neck, to the shell-like curve of her ear peeking out through the curls, and finally to her mouth. Damn . All his life his mother had preached that sometimes less was more. The saying had baffled him until now. This lady wasn’t verybig, but every inch of her packed a wallop. In retrospect, he wondered how he could have compared her to Tinkerbell. No pixie, real or imagined, could be so delightfully curvaceous.
    Uneasiness washed over Samantha. He was staring at her as he might a strange bug pinned to velvet. Even worse, her skin warmed and tingled beneath his gaze.
    Since her divorce, Samantha had maintained a bulletproof immunity to the opposite sex. Flirtatious grins left her cold. Suggestive innuendoes either revolted her or ticked her off, sometimes both. The only male company she really enjoyed anymore was that of her father, brothers, or ranch foreman, and she tried to maintain some emotional distance even with them. For that reason, it came as something of a shock that everything about this man appealed to her.
    Even with his nose swollen and leaning sharply to one side, he was handsome in a rugged way—tall and lean yet broad-shouldered and muscular, with the look of someone who was no stranger to hard work. His tousled sable brown hair fell across his high forehead in lazy waves. His eyes, a clear sapphire blue, were almost startling in contrast to his skin, which had been burnished to teak by the sun. She especially liked the cut of his features, which were purely masculine, each line as sharp and hard as chiseled granite. He had a strong jaw, a square chin, and a firm yet sensual mouth. In addition to all of that, he was chivalrous, charming, and just impulsive enough to be interesting.
    She would never forget how he had grumped at the deputy. Most people knew to keep their mouths shut insituations like that. But this man had spoken his mind, devil take the consequences. She liked that about him. She liked it a lot.
    And that scared her to death. Instant attractions were dangerous. The little thrill she felt every time she looked into his eyes was a warning sign. She’d fallen fast and hard for a man once. It had been the worst mistake of her life.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    Samantha jerked her thoughts back to the moment, gathered her composure, and forced a smile. “I’m a lot more okay than you are. When we get this ironed out, you’ll be spending the rest of the night in the ER getting your nose fixed. It’s leaning over so