"Just like I dared you to dress funky the night we went to the play at my school," he remembered with an appreciative grin.
"Mmm. And I've lived the life of a modern single woman since I left home," she added thoughtfully. "There haven't been many men in my life, but I doubt that my mother would have approved of all my actions. She's probably quite convinced that Autumn and I are still virgins simply because we're not married yet and that Summer was an innocent bride. She's very old-fashioned in that way."
Clay chuckled. "You don't think you're underestimating your mother a bit?"
"Oh, no." Spring laughed softly and shook her head. "No matter what she might suspect, she'd never admit it, even to herself. She prefers blissful ignorance—like all mothers, I suppose."
"You'll probably be the same way with our...with your children." Clay stumbled over the Freudian slip, then sobered immediately. "About the future, Spring..."
Still dazed by the thought of having children with him, Spring tensed, a bit nervous about what he was going to say. "What...what about it?"
"Let's delay it awhile, shall we? What we have together is still so new, so wonderfully mind-boggling, that I'd like to savor it before we move on to the next step. We have a lot of decisions to make, a lot to discuss, and I fully intend to do so soon, but how about if we take a couple of weeks just to get to know each other better?"
That sounded fine to her—on one condition. "Are you staying here during those couple of weeks?"
"If you'll have me," he replied with a winsome smile. "I'm taking a vacation. It's my turn."
"I'll have you," she told him, a bit too fervently, she thought immediately. She backtracked a little. "I can't take off work, though. My appointment calendar's full, and I can't take off again so soon."
"That's okay. I didn't expect you to."
"What will you do with yourself during working hours?" she asked, concerned that he would be bored.
"I could stand around your office and watch you work," he suggested teasingly. "No? In that case, I'll play tourist. I've never been to Arkansas. Maybe I'll find some barefoot hillbillies, if I look hard enough."
Spring scowled ferociously at him. "Are you daring to insult my state?"
He released her hands to hold both of his up, palm outward, in a gesture of conciliation. "Of course not! I was only teasing."
"Good. You just might be surprised at what you find in Arkansas," she told him smugly.
"I've already found something in Arkansas that's the best thing I've ever discovered. You."
She melted. "Thank you."
"This time together will also give you a chance to see what it's like to live with me," Clay pointed out, only half-teasingly. "I'm not your most normal guy, you know. And I do tend to get moody occasionally. Not very often, you understand. But I don't leave my dirty socks lying around," he added with a bit of boyish boasting.
"You don't wear socks, Clay," Spring informed him sweetly.
"That's right, I don't." He looked abashed for a moment, then grinned. "Maybe I should buy some and not leave them lying around."
"I don't think that will be necessary. I'm sure we can find another virtue in you if we look hard enough."
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then shot her a challenging look. "You're too far away. If you're going to find a virtue in me, you're going to have to look closely."
"Is that right?" Her brow lifted at the dare, as he'd known it would. "You know, the light in here is a bit dim. There's a better light in the bathroom."
He looked intrigued. "The bathroom?"
"Mmm. I thought I'd take a shower. I worked up quite a sweat today—at work," she added saucily. Then, remembering another challenge he'd once made her, she tilted her head and looked at him through her lashes. "I'd be happy to wash your back, Clay."
He, too, remembered telling her that one day she would offer to wash his back. His eyes gleamed with pleasure as he stood and held out his hand to her. "Only if you'll allow me to return the favor."
"I think that can be arranged."
The shower took a very long time. The water had run quite cold by the time it finally ended. By then they had soaped each other from head to toe, Spring had discovered two more tiny scars on Clay's body, and he'd gleefully located a shallow, round, nine-month-old chicken-pox scar on her left breast, just to the side of her turgid pink nipple. Twisting the chilly water off, he covered the small imperfection with his mouth, which led to a painstaking exploration of the rest of her body, supposedly to find other reminders of the childhood disease she'd contracted so recently. He didn't find any, but by the time he'd concluded his search, neither of them remembered what he'd been looking for.
After they'd languorously dried each other with huge, fluffy towels, Spring took Clay's hand and led him into her bedroom, reminding him that she was supposed to be looking for his virtues. With a boldness that was new to her—and delightful to him—she made love to him. Slowly. Thoroughly. Imaginatively. He loved every minute of it, and he managed to tell her so in broken gasps and strangled groans.