An Old Fashioned Romance

From To Echo the Past by Marcia Lynn McClure

“Why do I make you so nervous?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’m…I’m not nervous,” Brynn lied.

She watched anxiously as his hand removed the toothpick from his mouth and he moistened his lips with his tongue. “You’re lyin’ again,” he chuckled. Then she was paralyzed beyond rational thought as he bent to her ear. His mouth hovered just next to it and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. She thought her heart might burst from her bosom as he whispered, “I ’spose you’d slap me smack ‘cross the face if I tried to steal a kiss from you, wouldn’t you, Miss Brynn?”

“Yes,” she whispered in a shaky, uncertain voice.

As he leaned closer she instinctively put her hands out to stall him, thus placing her palms flush with the bareness of his chest. Quickly she drew them away, replacing them when he continued to move closer, drawing them away and replacing them again. The feel of his warm, smooth skin was alarming. When he at last stood straight once more she felt as if the warmth of it had burned through her hands, traveled the length of her arms and settled in her cheeks.

“You got a mighty cute blush, you know it?” he chuckled. “And I’m a pantywaist for teasin’ ya like that and not followin’ through.” He put one hand under her chin and tipped her head upward so that she looked at him. Taking the toothpick that he still held in his other hand, he put it in his mouth, moistening it. Removing it from his own mouth he pricked her lip tenderly, causing her to gasp slightly, then placed the small sliver of wood on her tongue. Brynn’s mouth reflexively closed on the pick and Michael smiled, tweaking her cheek once more.

“I’ll teach ya that trick another day, darlin’,” he said. “I gotta get on home ‘fore my mama thinks I’m drowned. Which I will be if Mrs. Johnson comes in here and finds me flirtin’ with you like this.”

Brynn began to turn away from him. She needed to escape. But he caught her arm and when she looked up to him, his mirthful grin was gone and he wore an expression of extreme sincerity.

“I am sorry, Miss Brynn Clarkston. You’ve just formed a weakness in me, that’s all,” he whispered, shaking his head as he released her arm and went to where his boots stood next to the fire.

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