Free Beyond Temptation by Brenda Jackson

I,” was Morgan’s easy response…which was a lie, he thought. He’d been drawn to her scent like a bee drawn to honey.
    “Dinner’s ready. I need more hands to bring everything out,” Odessa called out from the kitchen.
    Thinking it would be best not to bump into her twice since he wouldn’t be able to handle it, Morgan used his hand and gestured for her to go ahead of him and he followed her into the kitchen.
     
    Morgan pushed away from the table with a huge smile on his face after finishing off a plate of Odessa’s peach cobbler. He licked his lips. “That was the best peach cobbler I’ve ever eaten,” hesaid. “My mom makes a banana pudding that’s to die for, and I can see someone killing for your cobber as well, not to mention everything else you served today. Dinner was wonderful.”
    Over the rim of her iced tea glass, Lena watched the smile of pleasure that appeared on her mother’s face, and shook her head. Morgan was a real charmer all right.
    “I’ve eaten so much I’m going to have to trek around my neighborhood and walk it off,” he added.
    “No need to wait until you get home since Lena walks every day after dinner anyway. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind the company.”
    Lena quickly gazed over at her mother, studying the older woman’s innocent features. She couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had hatched some crazy idea about her and Morgan getting together. First dinner and now a walk—just the two of them. “I’m sure Morgan has had enough of our company for one day, Mom, and wants to call it a day.”
    Morgan glanced over at her. “Quite the contrary. I enjoyed both of your company and I’d love going for a walk.”
    Think! Think! Lena tried unscrambling her mind to come up with a reason she couldn’t go walking with him. All through dinner her naughty twin hadtried to surface by putting all kinds of thoughts into her head. “It’s kind of windy out. It will mess up my hair,” she said, saying the first thing that popped into her head, although it sounded rather lame.
    “Of course it’s windy, Lena. It’s March,” her mother said, waving off her excuse with her hand.
    “And there’s a cap in my jacket you can borrow,” Morgan tacked on.
    Lena sighed. Both her mother and Morgan were looking at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to come up with another excuse. She smiled over at her mother but inwardly narrowed her eyes at Morgan. Why was he going along with Odessa on this? Just wait until they got outside. There was a lot she had to say to him.
    “Fine,” she said, standing. “Let me change into something more appropriate for walking.”
    Ten minutes later she returned to find Morgan had helped her mother clear the table. She found them in the kitchen, again sharing another joke. “I’m ready.” At the sound of her voice they both turned and smiled, and from the sparkle in her mother’s eyes Lena could tell she was in high spirits.
    “Here’s the cap I was telling you about,” Morgan said, moving away from her mother to come stand in front of her. Instinctively, shereached out to take it from him, but instead of handing it to her he placed it on her head. He stepped back and then tipped his head to the side as if to admire his handiwork. “It will work. Looks good on you.”
    Lena decided she needed to see for herself. She walked a couple of steps out of the kitchen to look into the huge mirror that hung on the dining room wall. He was right. It work would and it looked good…if blue, black and silver were your colors and you supported the Carolina Panthers.
    She turned around and saw that Morgan had followed her out of the kitchen and was leaning against the door fame. His muscular shoulders came close to filling the doorway. “You do know I’m not a Carolina native and that I was born and raised in New York. Buffalo in fact,” she said, meeting his gaze, and a warm oozy feeling flowed through her bloodstream. That seemed to happen each and every