His smile slanted to one side, making him even more attractive—to the point he gave her butterflies. She was beginning to have an unexpected response to him—one she would never have believed she could feel in her current situation—which was a little disconcerting. She couldn’t allow herself to get infatuated with a man who was now so much better-looking than she was, not to mention that he was still in love with his dead wife. She didn’t want to be nursing a broken heart on top of everything else.

For a moment, she wondered if she’d made the wrong decision coming out here. She shouldn’t have done it, didn’t want him to see her looking any worse. But she was already in the water, and she didn’t have a chance with him, anyway, so there wasn’t any point in leaving. As he’d implied, she had to accept her new reality. The least she could do was put forth the effort to get some exercise.

Once she started to swim, and he didn’t seem horrified by what he saw, she decided she’d made a good decision. She was actually happy to be out of the house, she realized. The steam rising from the water created an interesting effect, and Seth acted less remote as time went by, especially once he started coaching her on how to swim freestyle. She wasn’t any good at it, but concentrating on it gave her a break from everything else, and that was such a relief that she wasn’t ready to stop when he did.

“Can you dive?” she asked as she climbed out of the water.

“That’s not one of my talents,” he replied. “Why? Can you?”

“I’m better at diving than swimming,” she bragged, but she didn’t do much to prove it once they started competing. She tried to do a somersault, but it’d been so long since she’d done one that she sort of freaked out in midair and wound up landing awkwardly and making a big splash.

Once he helped her out and learned she hadn’t hit her face and was fine, Seth couldn’t quit laughing. “Show me again how you do that?” he teased, so she shoved him into the pool.

“Now look who’s laughing,” she said, but that only made him come after her.

Although she tried to run away, she was being careful not to fall on the wet cement—something he didn’t seem too worried about—so it wasn’t difficult for him to catch her. She felt his arms close around her and squealed just before he lifted her off her feet.