Excerpt From BEACH BABY:

"Do you think we'd be together today if we'd kept Amy and raised her ourselves?" Reid asked.

"Speculating is pointless." Nina turned the heat down and moved away from the stove to take soup bowls out of the cupboard.

"But you've thought about it?" Reid persisted.

Nina turned to him, a trace of wistfulness in the angle of her head. "Maybe we weren't really in love. Maybe it was just puppy love."

Puppy love scampered away at the next infatuation, it didn't linger quietly, infusing memory with a bittersweet mixture of joy and pain. Feelings that had lain dormant for years tugged

at Reid's heart. "If we met for the first time now," he countered, "would we fall in love?

"But we're not meeting for the first time," Nina said, gathering a fistful of cutlery from the drawer and going to the table. "We've got truckloads of baggage, not to mention that we're very different from each other. If anything, the differences are more accentuated now that we've matured."

"So you're not at all attracted to me?" he asked before he could stop himself. He wasn't even sure which he wanted-a denial or a confirmation.

"Don't ask me that!" Flustered, she moved away from him around the table, distributing the bowls and laying spoons and knives haphazardly.

Reid followed, placing the dishes at an even distance from the edge of the table. "You brought the subject of us up. Why are you being evasive?"

"Why are you forcing the issue?" Nina stopped short and faced him, close enough to touch but back on the offensive. "What do you expect me to say, Reid? That there's still an attraction between us and we should try again? That's not the message I was getting from you the other day. But maybe you weren't telling the truth then. Exactly how do you feel?"

Reid tried to frame an answer but Nina's blazing blue eyes were challenging him and suddenly explanations and discussions wouldn't do. He wanted action. "There's only one way to find out."

Before he could think twice he kissed her. The spoons went loose in his hand and the hard rims of the bowls she clutched dug into his abdomen. He felt the incredible softness of her lips and the heat radiating from her sunburned cheek. Years slipped away and he was twenty again. Passion flamed with astonishing swiftness as the kiss deepened, breathtaking in its sweetness and intensity.

Nina drew back with a gasp. Reid blinked, slightly startled to find himself in his ordinary surroundings-the vase of marigolds on the counter that Tara had picked yesterday, Beebee banging the wooden spoon on an upturned pot, the hot breeze floating in through the open window bringing with it the smell of the sea.

Nina, wide-eyed, lips still parted, looked as shell-shocked as he felt. "What was that?"

Reid rubbed the back of his neck. "I think we just raised a whole new set of 'what ifs.'"

"Oh, no we didn't." Nina recovered with a brisk shake of her head and pushed past him, almost throwing down the rest of the spoons. "I'm here to take care of Beebee, not to dredge up the past."

"That kiss was very much in the present." Reid put a hand on her shoulder, turning her. "Did you, or did you not, feel something just now?"

"What I felt isn't the point," Nina said, breaking free again. "The situation is difficult enough without complicating it by us getting romantically involved. I'm still angry with you on so many levels. You came back too late for us to keep Amy. You had her early years which I will never have. Being with Beebee now shows me with heartbreaking clarity how much I missed. A kiss, no matter how hot and soul-stirring is not going to resolve those issues."

"So you're just going to ignore what happened between us?" Reid said, frustrated..

Beebee, sensing the tension, began to cry.

"Look at what our arguing is doing to her," Nina said. "We can't resume a flawed relationship while we're responsible for our granddaughter," Nina said. "What if things went wrong again? We can't risk our personal problems interfering with our ability to care for Beebee." Nina turned away, touching the heel of her hand to her eye. "Let's just keep it simple, shall we?"

"Fine." Reid picked up Beebee and wiped away her tears. The rational part of his brain agreed with Nina's assessment; he didn't know why it annoyed him so much to hear her say it. And then he recalled her words to describe the kiss-hot and soul-stirring. How was he supposed to keep things simple knowing she felt like that?