He shook his head. “Details,” he said. “We got to know each other on a much more fundamental level.”
With his free hand, he touched her lower lip, silently illustrating just how fundamental that level had been. He knew the taste of her, he was reminding her. The feel of her. He knew what it was like to have her trembling in his arms.
And he couldn’t wait to have her there again, he told her with his eyes.
Though he knew she’d heard every word of his unspoken message, she looked quickly away and tried to speak firmly. “We both like old movies, old music, picnics and dancing,” she said, her voice tight “That just about sums up everything we have in common.”
He thought about it a moment, then nodded. “It’s a pretty good start.”
“For what?” she asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
Kit was exasperated. “What do you think, Savannah? That I’ve spent all this time thinking about you because I was curious? That I bullied an old friend for your last name and was prepared to call every McBride in Georgia just so I could stop by and say ‘hi’? That I came all this way just to have soup and a sandwich with you in some out-of-the-way diner before I head back to L.A.?”
She twisted her fingers on the table in front of her. “I don’t see how there can be anything more.”
“I think there can be a whole lot more,” Kit returned evenly. “We made a pretty special connection on Serendipity. Can you honestly tell me that you didn’t feel it, too?”
She couldn’t seem to quite meet his eyes. “I—er—”
He leaned closer to her, so that his lips almost touched her ear when he murmured, “Tell me you haven’t thought about me at all during the past two weeks, and I’ll accept that it was all one-sided. I’ll believe that I read something into it that just wasn’t there.”
“It wasn’t all one-sided,” she conceded after a momentary hesitation. “I felt something, too. But I convinced myself that it was because of the surroundings. The romantic atmosphere. The unreality of it all.”
The slow-moving waitress dropped a tray full of dishes on the other side of the diner. The resulting crash made the few patrons in the place jump, Kit and Savannah included.
“Shit,” the young woman said loudly, and bent at the waist to clean up the mess, exposing more backside beneath her short skirt than she probably realized.
Kit couldn’t help laughing. And then he grew abruptly serious as he looked down and found Savannah gazing up at him.
“We’re hardly in the most romantic surroundings now,” he pointed out. “This place is definitely grounded in reality. But it doesn’t change the way I feel being with you.”
He watched her as she swallowed. He saw the pulse fluttering in the hollow of her throat, and he wanted nothing more than to bury his lips there.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she murmured.
“Just tell me how you feel.”
“Flattered,” she admitted. “Confused. A little skeptical. Very nervous.”
He nodded, intrigued by her choice of words. “Well, that’s honest, anyway. What makes you most nervous—me, or my reputation?”
“Your reputation,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m perfectly comfortable with Kit, the man I met on the island.”
He smiled. “That’s exactly what I hoped—”
“But,” she broke in firmly, “I’m not at all comfortable with Christopher Pace, the famous writer. You’re prime gossip material, and anyone who is seen with you gets caught in the backlash. I don’t want to find my photograph in some sleazy tabloid with all the details of my life spread out for any curious grocery shopper to read.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “You’ve had some experience with the tabloids?”
“I’ve had all too much experience with gossip,” she answered wearily. “And I swore I’d never again put myself in the middle of it.”
The waitress approached with a loaded tray. She set their lunches in front of them with only a minimum of soup-sloshing and dish-rattling, then drifted away without asking if they needed anything else.
Kit glanced down at his food, found that he had no appetite, then looked back at Savannah, who seemed no more interested in the meal than he was.
“Do you know why I went to that island alone?”
She shook her head. “I assumed you needed a vacation.”