From This Day Forward. Christie Ridgway

Blinking rapidly, Annie moved back, click clop click.

      Shutting her door behind him, Griffin looked around. It appeared much the same as the day before. No flowers. No boxes of candy, no striped boxes from lingerie stores. Only Annie herself, looking like a perfectly sweet, perfectly tempting Valentine in all that pink.

      And one imperfect shoe. She took it off and held it up. “I can’t get the strap through the buckle.”

      With all the confidence of a man faced with a simple problem, he took the light piece of leather in his hand and made his way to the love seat. “I’m sure I can fix this in no time flat.”

      Hah. The delicate shoe with its even more delicate strap made him feel like each hand was the size and shape of a baseball mitt.

      “I need a tool,” he finally said, frowning at the stubborn strap. As slender as the damn thing was, he just couldn’t feed it through the gold-toned buckle either. But with a tool a man was never at a loss.

      “What kind of tool?”

      He looked up. Annie had a tiny, concerned crease between her light-brown brows that he wanted to erase with the pad of his thumb. He wanted to touch her there, or that place on her cheek where a dimple would wink if she smiled, or at that very smooth, very sweet spot on her temple where he’d touched her yesterday, where he could see her pulse beating today.

      Her mouth moved. He thought of touching her there, too. His thumb against that puffy surface, his forefinger painting the deep dip of her upper lip, his own mouth lowering—

      Her lips moved again, and he heard the words she said this time. “What tool?” she prompted.

      Griffin shook himself. God. Valentine’s Day must be messing with his head. “Needle-nose pliers?”

      She nodded and left the room, giving Griffin time to take a few deep, get-his-brain-back-in-the-right-hemisphere breaths. When she returned with the requested tool, he focused purely on the problem at hand and had the strap threaded through the buckle in moments.

      Without taking his gaze off the shoe, he set it on the floor. “Slip your foot in and I’ll buckle it for you, then pull the strap through the other side.”

      After a hesitation, she obeyed. Encased in a sheer stocking and with each toenail painted a matching talcum pink, the foot slowly lifted. As she pointed it through the wide circle made by the strap, her standing leg wobbled. Griffin quickly knelt on the floor and she placed her hand on his shoulder for balance.

      He went to work on fastening the shoe, his hands back to baseball mitts. Crouched next to her, he felt the warmth of her sleek leg against his cheek and the scent of her filled his lungs. It was cinnamon, he thought. Spicy yet still sweet. He felt a tremor run through her, but he wasn’t sure if she was off-balance again or if his nearness affected her the way her nearness affected him.

      Little Annie Smith, he reminded himself again.

      Annie Smith all grown up, that evil little voice inside him answered.

      He cleared his throat and used all his powers of concentration to ignore Annie in order to pull the strap through the second half of the buckle with the help of the needle-nose pliers. “Whew.”

      He dropped the tool on the floor and straightened just enough to take a seat on the cushions of her love seat. “Mission accomplished.”

      Annie didn’t lift her eyes off the newly fastened shoe. He thought perhaps she was breathing a little fast, but since his breaths were coming even faster, he couldn’t be sure. “Is it okay?” he forced himself to ask.

      God forbid the shoe was too loose or too tight and she sent him to work on it once more. If he got that close to her legs again, he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t run his tongue along the pretty curve of her calf.

      “I’m just wondering…” Annie started.

      “Wondering?”

      “If I’m going to have to wear this shoe to bed tonight.”

      To bed. A woman with a boyfriend would count on him to get it off her, wouldn’t she? “You don’t have a man to take care of that for you?”

      Her head came up, and her brown eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, no.” She blushed. “Well, maybe. But…not yet.”

      Griffin frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      Her blush deepened. “I’m kind of…shy. A watcher. So I usually hate Valentine’s Day,” she confessed.

      He smiled. “We’re soulmates then.” It was on a Valentine’s Day that he’d finally accepted the lesson of his parents’ marriage. It was the day he’d finally accepted his own true nature.

      Annie shook her head. “Somehow I doubt that, Griffin. But I’m determined to get over how I feel about the day.” Her shoulders squared. “Did you know I’m almost twenty-five years old?”

      Jail bait would be safer for him, but he’d figured she was somewhere in that range. “Congratulations.”

      “No congratulations are in order. That’s the problem.” She frowned, her soft, pink mouth pouting a little. “I’ve been waiting, you see. But today, tonight, I’m seeking.”

      A small rush of alarm ran through him. “Seeking?”

      “As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to think that the fact it’s Valentine’s Day is a good omen.”

      Valentine’s Day and good omens didn’t go together in his book, but he just said, “Exactly what are you doing tonight?”

      “I’m going to a party.” Her voice held a note of pride. “I, Annie Smith, on Valentine’s Day, am going to a party as a seeker of…of love.”

      Griffin stared at her. A seeker of love? The idea struck him as horrifying. Annie Smith seeking love. Terrifying. Heading out on a day like today, full of romantic hope, could spell disaster for her. Who knew what kind of men were out there, ready to take advantage of such optimism?

      “Do you have a date to escort you during this, uh, seeking?” he asked hoarsely.

      She shook her head and then her chin came up a notch. “I’m going alone.”

      Griffin closed his eyes. “Oh no, you’re not.” Maybe this was payback for all those times he’d ignored her when she was a little girl. He vaguely remembered she’d lost her doll once and he’d refused to help her look for it. Whatever the reason, he couldn’t send her out in the world alone.

      Seeking.

      God.

      On Valentine’s Day. She could get hurt.

      Griffin sighed, stood up. “Somebody’s gotta be around to unbuckle your shoe.”

      Annie had sputtered some half-hearted protests, but Griffin guessed that she was really grateful she didn’t have to walk into the Valentine’s Day party alone. Not long after he’d fastened her shoe, they found themselves outside the home of their hosts, a recently married couple who were friends of Annie’s.

      There was some sort of holdup at the door, and they stood behind a line of six or eight others who appeared equally puzzled by the delay. Annie introduced him to the couple in front of them and he was pleased to discover they weren’t complete strangers. The male half was the brother of an old friend, while the man’s date was the daughter of a golfing buddy of Griffin’s father.

      He’d forgotten how small Strawberry Bay really was. By tomorrow noon, it would be all over town that Griffin had escorted Annie to the party. If he wasn’t careful, by tomorrow evening the gossips would concoct some sort of grand romance for the two of them.

      Griffin subtly shifted farther away from her and put on his best big-brother expression. Maybe it was too late to question the wisdom of appointing himself her Valentine’s Day protector, but he could make it clear to the partygoers