By the time he’d finished a complete study-legs were damned good, way, way better than he expected, a little Yankee white, but the calf shape was just that perfect arch of a curve. Anyway. By the time he finished, she had one eye open.

“Please,” she said. “Go on in. Leave me for dead. There are all kinds of people in the house. If you want someone, just pound on the door.”

“I was looking for you, actually.”

“No point. I’m useless. In a state of complete decline. I can’t move, can’t talk, don’t even care anymore.”

“Are we…” he tried to think of a delicate way to phrase it “…having a little trouble adjusting to the heat?”

She closed the eye. “There’s air-conditioning. That’s what the ad said. It didn’t lie. I bought a thermometer yesterday. My room’s cooled off to eighty-seven degrees. Now go away. I can’t stand anyone watching me while I sweat.”

“I brought ice cream.”

“Beg your pardon?” One eye slid open, then the other.

“Griff’s Secret. A pint. Two spoons. Cold.”

“Say it again.”

“Ice cream.”

Silence. Then… “I don’t know why you went to the trouble of tracking me down, but I absolutely don’t care. You can have whatever you want. Just show me the ice cream.”

He lifted the pint container.

She swung around to a sitting position faster than a jet takeoff. “Spoon,” she said.

He produced two from his polo shirt pocket-as well as a hunk of napkins.

“Do not watch me eat this,” she instructed. “I intend to inhale. And I may drool. You need to understand. Thomas Wolff had it right: ‘You can’t go home again.’ I’m hot. I’m miserable. No one likes me. If I were you, I’d hide behind the veranda rail. Protect yourself from being seen with me.”

If she made love with half the enthusiasm that she ate ice cream, bless her heart, Griff might just have to propose. Of course, he’d have to test that theory. And at the moment, she definitely didn’t look in the mood.