He shrugged off her concern. “I promise you it’s not a problem.”

Janet disagreed. “How will they feel when they find out I’ve stayed the night?”

“For one thing, I don’t think any of them had a doubt in the world that you would be here come morning. Besides that, you seem to be forgetting whose house this is.”

“Hardly.”

“Okay, but whatever Luke’s opinion might be, he’ll keep it to himself.”

Janet chuckled at the unlikelihood of that. “Are we talking about the same Luke?”

“Stop fussing,” he soothed, cupping her face in his hands. “If you want to put this off, just say the word. You’ll have your own room for the night. I can even fix you up on a different floor, if you’d prefer. Give you a key for the lock, too, if it’ll make you feel better.”

She wrestled with the offer. Eventually, longing and a deep sense of inevitability overcame doubt. With Jenny staying at Cody’s overnight, there might never be another opportunity like this one.

She reached up and covered his hands with her own. Her gaze locked with his. “If I stay here tonight, it will be with you.”

Rather than seeming relieved, he tensed as questions darkened his eyes. “If? You aren’t seriously thinking of driving back into town, are you?”

She tilted her head. A smile tugged at her lips at the stark disappointment in his expression. She had another alternative in mind, one with which she was far more comfortable.

“I was thinking I’d have you take me,” she said. She lowered her voice to a coaxing note. “My house might be a half hour from here, but it is totally deserted.” Unspoken was the fact that there would be no ghosts in the bed or prying family members down the hall.

The tension in his shoulders eased the instant he caught her meaning. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said, grinning. “I’ll get my car keys.”

“Mine are in my purse,” she said, already reaching for them and handing them over. “Besides, with only my car parked out front, no one will ever guess you’re there. No gossip.”

“Better yet.”

They rounded the house, laughing like a couple of kids sneaking off to make out. Harlan gunned the engine in a way that would have had Mule sulking for a month about his disrespect for what the mechanic had declared to be an almost-classic car.

Then he shot down the lane and away from White Pines as if he’d been celibate for a decade and had finally discovered he was about to get lucky. Janet found his eagerness both touching and very arousing.