Page 7 of When You Are Mine

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I can ask for.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips, its sweetness a thin veneer covering the passion she knew he carefully checked. “That’s enough for now.”

Chapter Four

Someone in this elevator smelled good enough to eat.

A sexy-sweet scent of vanilla and brown sugar titillated Walsh’s sense of smell and taste. His mouth watered.

The heavy Tag Heuer watch wrapped around his wrist confirmed that he was late. Walsh bided his time in the packed elevator, revisiting every detail about Kerris from last night. Her face, her hair, her voice, the act of kindness he’d witnessed in the parking lot. Everything about her had haunted him since they’d left the scholars’ awards.

By the tenth floor, everyone had filed out of the elevator. Walsh was startled to see Kerris’s slight frame leaning against the wall, eyes closed. There was no flower in her hair today. Her dark jeans weren’t tight, but still hugged the lean, curvy lines of her petite figure.

“Kerris?” Walsh asked, afraid his half-horny imagination had conjured her up.

She jerked here eyes open wide.

“Walsh, what are you doing here?” She wore a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Walsh Foundation logo. Her dark wavy hair was caught in two low ponytails at her neck.

He couldn’t stop the smile that worked its way onto his face. Talk about oblivious. Here he’d been indulging in guilt-soaked fantasies about a woman not even five feet away from him.

“How’d you hide in an elevator?”

“There were a lot of people in here.” She grinned back, and it felt like they’d had this conversation a thousand times before. “I don’t have on my heels, so I guess I kind of got lost in the sauce.”

His deep-rumbled chuckle and her husky laugh met in the space separating them. Walsh felt it again; that invisible thread stretching between them. Electricity zipped up and down his body like a current on a power line.

“Okay, this is my floor.” Kerris smiled her good-bye.

“It’s my floor, too.”

He gestured for her to precede him into the children’s ward, catching a noseful of vanilla and brown sugar. How had he missed that last night when every other detail had played over and over in his head?

“You visiting someone in the children’s ward?” He paced his long steps to match her shorter ones.

“Actually, a few someones.” She slid a hand into her back pocket over the subtle swell of her bottom. “I volunteer here. We do crafts, mostly making jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets. Nothing fancy, but it seems to cheer them up.”

He nodded, searching his mind for something that would make her linger. She saved him from asking something truly idiotic with a question of her own.

“Are you visiting someone?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Iyani.” Walsh looked up the hall toward the little girl’s room. “She’s one of the kids from our orphanage in Kenya. She has a brain tumor. We thought it had been taken care of, but it’s back. The prognosis isn’t good, but I knew she’d have a better shot with the medical care here than there.”

“You really care about those kids, huh?” Kerris lobbed him an admiring glance.

“Of course. In addition to our own orphanages, there are several all over the world that we support. I’m involved with them all.”

“So you have a thing for orphans, huh?” Kerris’s smile drew him in and warmed him up. “Is that why you and Cam get along so well?”

“I don’t know what Cam told you, but things didn’t start off so smoothly with us.” Walsh couldn’t help but smile remembering his early years with Cam. “He was at one of our camps here in North Carolina. I was down from New York spending the summer with my mom. Cam and I hated each other immediately.”

“He didn’t tell me that part. Just that you guys ended up attached at the hip.”

“Men are not attached at the hip.” He scoffed with affronted male dignity. “But we were close by the end of the summer. A few fights, several pranks, and lots of trash talk later.”

“I know he feels really lucky to have found you and your family.”

“Wefelt lucky to find him. I always wanted a brother. He was it.”

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