Excerpt of Heart and Sole by Miranda Liasson

She yanked the blanket off the bed. “You can take the
bed,”
she said, then threw it down on the hard, short
banquette.

He should have let it go, let her go, but his heart
compelled him to act, and he flew after her in two
barefoot
strides. His arm caught her elbow and whirled her toward
him.

Her eyes glinted with anger; he saw it even in the dim
light. It was hard, even now, not to gather her up and
kiss
her senseless, drag her down onto the bed and not come up
until he’d finished exploring every last curve and
valley.

His muscles actually trembled. Why was he always a flash
of
a second away from losing control with her? Like that one
fine night when they couldn’t keep their hands off each
other. Years and years of bound up feelings finally let
loose. For that one and only time, he’d felt a glimmer of
hope that maybe the past didn’t predict the future, that
there really was forgiveness and mending and fresh
chances.

But that had only lasted until the phone rang at dawn.

Maddie stood there staring at him. His hand still clung
to
her arm as though he
feared she would bolt like a scared rabbit out of the
camper
and into the woods. She shrugged it briskly away.
“Business
is business, right, Nick? From now on, let’s just keep
everything else out of it.”

She thought he was unfeeling, some kind of sociopath who
pulled family businesses out from under people for
pleasure.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.

His gaze locked on hers. Raw emotion registered, lust and
sadness and torment, and for a raw, brutal instant, Nick
felt it all run through his heart like a blade.

He did feel, and she had no idea how much.

He tugged the blanket from her hands. “I’m taking the
seat.
Good night.” As soon as this god-awful weekend was done,
he’d force himself to forget her. It would be easy,
because
she’d hate him for real when all was said and done.