He didn't put an arm around her, but he shifted closer. Close enough so their shoulders and arms touched, a way of simply offering some of his body warmth. But his heartbeat thought there was an implication because his pulse leaped like a pole vault.

Or maybe the leap was caused by the way she suddenly looked at him.

Music from the live trio playing inside drifted back to their part of the boat. He heard it. but like the buzz of other passengers' conversation and bursts of laughter, all sounds seemed to be coming from miles away. Every nerve ending in his body focused on her.

"I can't believe I'm really here, really seeing this."

"You mean the real Notre Dame?"

She chuckled. "The one in South Bend is real, too. Which is funny, because we're here, yet this is the one that seems like a fantasy. It's all so…magical."

The old cathedral wasn't remotely magical, he thought, but she was. And when another spring breeze whisked at her hair and made her shiver again, she didn't fight his arm scooping around her shoulder, nudging her closer.

He knew at that instant they would sleep together.

"You said you'd been in France around four years now? So all these monuments and museums are old to you. You've probably been inside Notre Dame a zillion times."

"Museums, yeah. But Notre Dame, I've never been there."

"Really? But it's so beautiful."

"Yeah, well, might as well get this right on the table. I'm allergic to churches. Especially Catholic churches. My dad had two career goals for me. One was to become a priest, which he must have realized was highly unlikely when he found me sleeping with the babysitter when I was fourteen. I'm pretty sure that incident set off my Recovering Catholic phase. I'm still in it."

"Hard work, this recovery?" Humor glinted in her eyes.