Free My Special Angel by Marcia Evanick Page A

was thick with massive trees and the sweet smell of peat. The path Owen was following was nonexistent, and the air was a good ten degrees cooler and still damp from the previous night’s late thundershower. “The government owns all this?”
    “They bought it back in the seventies and earmarked it for a park.” He held her hand and helped her step over a fallen log. “It’s our good fortune that they haven’t come up with the funds yet to knock down half an acre of trees to blacktop a massive parking lot, asphalt a couple of miles of trails, or throw up dozens of picnic tables.” He grinned, and waved an arm toward a patch of sunlight streaming through the thick trees ahead of them. “In other words it’s still as nature intended it to be—natural.”
    Nadia stepped into the clearing and stared in awe at the beauty surrounding her. The valley was spread out below them, and the mountains were above them. The path Owen had been following had brought them straight into paradise.
    “What do you think? Can you relax here?”
    She had never missed her music as much as at this moment. The melody this valley could inspire would surely rival anything Brahms or Liszt ever wrote. “Beautiful doesn’t begin to do it justice.”
    He reached for her hand and gently squeezed it. “My sentiments exactly.” He started to pull her through some tall grass and toward another clump of trees. “Come on. The best spot for a picnic is on the other side of the valley.”
     
    * * *
     
    Nadia rolled onto her back and groaned. “I can’t believe all that food you packed. Who were you expecting, sumo-wrestling park rangers?”
    “I didn’t see you complaining five minutes ago when I pulled out those two thick slices of chocolate cake.” He chuckled as he finished packing away the remaining food and pushed the basket out of the way. Nadia looked so relaxed with her face raised to the sun and her bare toes wiggling in the soft grass at the foot of the quilt. The picnic had been a stroke of brilliance on his part. Not only was he getting to share some time with Nadia, but the shadows that had to be haunting her in his office had disappeared. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the music to return—she might start in again about how they weren’t right for each other.
    He wasn’t claiming that it was Nadia who was to make Aunt Verna ecstatically happy and start pulling out the family Bible to add another name to the frail pages. But he wasn’t going to discount the possibility either. He was thirty-three years old, and he recognized a good thing when he saw it. The physical attraction between Nadia and himself would be downright frightening if it weren’t so exciting. She was intelligent, caring, loving, and unbelievably sexy. He owed it to himself, as well as to her, to push this relationship as far as it could go. As his aunt Verna was so fond of reminding him, he wasn’t getting any younger. If he wanted to have those six kids he always dreamed about, he’d better start thinking marriage.
    He turned his head and glanced over at Nadia. She was turned onto her side with her arm under her head as a pillow. Her eyes, which could dance with laughter or burn with desire, were halfway closed, and a sleepy smile played across her mouth. She was studying him. He reached into his pocket and placed a coin on the blanket between them. “Penny for your thoughts.”
    She smiled at the copper coin. “Is that all they’re worth?”
    “It depends on what they’re about.” He teasingly jingled the coins in his pockets.
    “I was thinking of you.” She placed a hand over her mouth and tried to smother a yawn. The sun was dissolving all the tension in her body with its warmth. She felt as if she were melting into the quilt.
    “Ah.” He placed another coin next to the penny. “Will this cover it, then?”
    She chuckled softly at the shiny dime and pressed her cheek farther into her arm. “That’s about right.” She closed her eyes as