he grumbled as Stella headed back toward the resort. The orange moon had risen high in the sky and cast a silvery light on everything, making the road gleam like a sinuous ribbon. It was downright romantic, Stella thought, if one’s thoughts ran that way.“Well, you might ought to have thought about that before trying to put your fist through my wall.”“Well, you might ought to stop making me!”“Oh! So this is my fault?” A dangerous combination of anger and something else bubbled up inside Stella. She chanced a glance over at him, got fixed on his proud and smoldering profile. “I don’t know how as that’s possible, considering I’m not the one loading up on mixed messages and letting ’em fly all over town!”“Mixed—what the hell are you talking about?”“Well, you kiss me one minute and then the next I don’t hear from you for a month,” Stella said, knowing she was mixing her metaphors but too mad to stop. “You ask me to dinner after my birthday last May, which ’less I somehow blocked it out, I don’t recall happening even though four months have gone by.”“I got called up to Fayette for that watercraft rescue training!”“Yeah, which lasted a week and a half,”
