My Heart Stood Still by Lynn Kurland (best book club books of all time .TXT) 📕

Night would come, of course, and with it too much time to think, but perhaps she would do well to follow his advice.

Don't think so much, he had said.

She wouldn't.

Chapter 19

Two days later, Thomas stood at the base of his tower and contemplated the incongruities of his life. First was his own mortality and its accompanying trappings. He looked at the little portable toilet that stood sentry a discreet distance from the finished tower and decided that it was not a good addition to the landscape. It definitely would have to go.

In contrast to his own mortal frailties were the advantages of having a ghost for a girlfriend, and there seemed to be quite a few of those. All right, so girlfriend was probably pushing it. Companion? No, that wouldn't work either. Friend who was a girl? That was just as lame. No, he'd just have to call her his girlfriend. That's how he thought of her, and there was no use in trying to make it something it was too late to be. He was falling for her, hard, and there was no denying it.

Which led him back to his original thoughts of the advantages that came with a girlfriend who was neither mortal nor from the twentieth century. One of those was eating with a woman who didn't pick at her dinner while claiming she was just a light eater. Iolanthe just didn't eat anything at all, and it didn't seem to bother her that he ate like a starving lumberjack.

Secondly, she was free of all the twenty-first-century modus operandi that had guided the every move of the women he'd dated. He hated prissy women. He especially couldn't stand prissy women in linen suits who brushed seats off before they sat, were afraid of ballpark hot dogs loaded with condiments, and for whom anything less than a hired limousine was just unthinkable.

He never wanted to go to Tiffany's again under duress, never wanted to attend an exhibition of important art featuring strange substances plastered onto canvas in even stranger ways, and most especially never wanted to attend another glittering social gala where everyone air-kissed and made pointed references to the lengths of their yachts moored in the Mediterranean. Swords and plaids were starting to look good to him, and he actually couldn't imagine a better day than one spent lounging in the heather and perhaps stirring himself for a little haggis for dinner.

He was beginning to wonder if he'd spent too much time in the company of Highland males.

Which led him back to thoughts of the lady in question. She was a breath of very fresh air. The day before had been a revelation. He'd spent hours with her in front of the computer, finding her pleasure to be a tangible, contagious thing. How could he not be captivated by her? She laughed when she pleased, cursed when she pleased, and looked at him as if she were pleased. When she was angry, she said so. When she was sad, she cried.

And when she dressed up for her portrait, she was breathtaking.

He stood in the middle of the bailey and gaped at her as she walked across the dirt toward him.

Girlfriend, hell.

He wanted to make her his wife.

He wondered what kind of reaction that announcement would get. He suspected that now was not the time to make it. Maybe later, when he didn't mind her running away from him.

For the moment, he was content to stare at her and wonder if he would ever again catch his breath. He'd noticed the picture of that dress in the book, but he hadn't realized it would be her choice. The navy of the gown was stunning against her fair skin and the gold embroidery brought out highlights in her hair he'd never noticed before. She was nothing short of exquisite.

"You're beautiful," he managed.

She blushed and looked down at her dress. "Aye, the dress is lovely. Thank you for the idea."

"You could be wearing a burlap sack, and you'd be just as lovely. It isn't the dress."

"Oh," she said, smiling up at him. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." He started to hold out his hand, then realized he shouldn't, so he shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat as if he'd meant to do that from the start. "Ready?" he asked.

She looked up at the sky. "We'd best do this before it rains. I'm sure the painter wouldn't appreciate that."

"No doubt. Maybe we'll have him finish it at the inn. That'll be easier on him."

He walked with her to the garden, where the artist in question was blowing on his hands and looking anxious to get to work and probably get out of the cold. Thomas stood back and watched Iolanthe seat herself on the bench. He wondered if the painter with his trained eye could see things Thomas couldn't. Iolanthe looked perfectly normal. The only thing that was perhaps even a bit odd was the perfection of her dress and the way the breeze didn't touch her hair.

He looked at her sitting there with her gown about her and her hair spread out over her shoulders and an uncomfortable pain began in the middle of his chest. If he hadn't known better, he might have thought he was having a heart attack.

Was it longing he felt?

No, it was hell.

He thumped his chest and scowled. He'd once heard a definition of hell and it was want to, but can't. Want to go to heaven, but can't.

Want to have this woman for his, but can't.

Hell.

He wanted to look away from her, but he couldn't. All he could do was just stare at her with what he was certain was a look of pure, naked hunger. Never mind her body—though that would have been nice as well. He wanted her soul, wanted it as he'd wanted nothing before in his life.

She turned her head briefly to look at him.

He saw her mark the