Free Sunshine and Shadows by Pamela Browning Page A

self-conscious laugh and then a minor revelation, such as the confession of a silly habit or a memory of a childhood folly.
    "There's not much," Jay said after a long moment, and she stared at him, wondering what nerve she had hit.
    "Actually," he said, recovering smoothly, "I'd rather know something about you. How did you become a dietitian, anyway?"
    If that was the way he wanted it, she could oblige. Not too many people ever asked.
    "In college, I watched as my girlfriends took up one fad diet after another. I didn't approve of what they were doing to themselves. Later I realized that the whole point of eating is to provide ourselves with good nutrition, and it was a revelation. I'll start nutrition classes at the mission as soon as possible," she told him.
    "I suppose the migrant families have a lot to learn," he said. "Moving around the country and living on so little money makes it difficult for them to eat properly."
    "Most people need education about what to eat. Sometimes I sit in a restaurant and watch people gobbling down fat-filled hamburgers and French fries dripping grease, and I want to shake some sense into them."
    "Uh-oh," he said warily. "Now I'm worried about what you'll think of my famous smoked-turkey sandwich."
    "Don't worry, I've been known to wolf down a few French fries from time to time," she said reassuringly.
    "Speaking of food, let's head back. I'm definitely getting hungry."
    They turned back toward the stairs to the path and Jay pointed toward the horizon. "Look," he said, "there's a ship out there." They stopped and looked out to sea, where a light bobbed gently on the faint gray line between starlit sea and blue velvet sky.
    "I wonder what kind of ship it is and where it's going," Lisa said.
    "Sister Clementine would think it's a cruise ship full of happy people, and Sister Ursula would say it's a freighter crammed to the gunwales with illegal drugs," Jay said in a wry tone.
    "Ah, Sister Clementine and Sister Ursula—how well they balance each other out," Lisa said.
    He looked down at her, enchanted with the way her eyelashes curled against her cheek. She caught him staring at her and looked away.
    He recognized the way she refused to meet his eyes as her admission of their mutual attraction. He slowed his steps and willed her to look up at him again, but she kept her eyes focused straight ahead. When he slid his arm around her shoulders, her bones felt small and delicate, and a wave of unexpected desire swept over him. She glanced up at him, a longer look this time, her wide eyes silvery with starlight. He would have had to be blind not to see that she was powerfully attracted to him.
    He had intended to wait until after dinner, when things were cozy at his town house, when they had established a base of rapport and communication and when kissing her wouldn't seem like such a big step.
    Suddenly he knew that he didn't want to wait. He wanted to feel the lightness of her in his arms. He wanted to bend his head protectively over hers, and he wanted to test the softness of her lips. He wanted to wind his hands through her hair and to feel for himself the silkiness of it, to inhale the fresh scent of it, of her.
    Finally he stopped walking altogether, and he turned her to face him. She lifted her eyes, those incredible eyes that outshone the stars, and he knew that there was nothing he could say to explain what he was about to do because he wasn't sure he understood it himself.
    "Lisa," he said, the syllables of her name blending with the sound of the surf, and then he folded her in his arms and felt the straining of her head lifting to reach his, and his arms raised her slightly off the sand so that their lips would meet, and he kissed her.

Chapter 5

    Lisa had been aware of the electricity between them even before he was, she was sure of that. She'd felt it from the first time she'd seen him, and it was what had fueled her imagination.
    But this—this supercharged jolt of energy surging