Among the Tulips by Cheryl Wolverton

was about to drop her.
    She gasped and latched on tightly.
    He threw back his head and laughed. “Relax. How much do you weigh? One hundred and thirty? Forty? I lift weights and you’re light compared to what I lift.”
    She flushed. “I’m not going to answer that question. Don’t you know you should never ask a woman a question like that?” She weighed one hundred thirty-nine pounds and it was all in her hips as far as she was concerned.
    He grinned cheekily. “You don’t have to answer. I’ll just go to the gym tomorrow and carry weights around until I figure it out.”
    She growled in her throat, though there was no heat in it.
    Victor chuckled again and bounced her slightly before heading out of the house. She couldn’t believe how fast she’d adjusted to allowing Victor to help her around or carry her. It made her feel like a fairy princess in some ways, a Cinderella, living an entirely new life of discovery and surprise.
    When they started down the stairs the car was waiting and the driver stood, holding the door open for them.
    Victor allowed her feet to drop but kept his arms around her waist for a moment as he stared into her eyes. “My Cinderella,” he murmured and a small smile played about his lips.
    Oh brother, she should never have mentioned that to him. He was never going to let her live it down.
    Looking into those eyes of his, she also realized she was getting herself into trouble here.
    She hadn’t misread him the other day. This was definitely something a stranger didn’t do.
    She felt an answering yearning inside herself. His arms holding her waist so closely to him, his gaze touching the planes of her face. She returned the stare, her gaze traveling lightly over his now-stubbled face, touching his lips, returning to his smoldering gaze.
    Dangerous territory indeed.
    She shuddered from the feelings that thrummed along her nerve endings.
    Victor broke contact and cleared his throat, releasing her.
    That fast, the electricity between them was gone, leaving her feeling short-circuited and as if she were missing out on the next step. She wasn’t sure if she was upset or relieved. Still, she found she wanted to be around him. His poetry, their long talks, his sense of humor—they all drew her to him.
    She turned and slid into the car, wondering if Victor even knew.
    Â 
    Boy did he know.
    What had he been thinking?
    He was attracted to this woman, but she wasn’t the type of woman he dated.
    She was what would be termed, in contemporary phrases, old-fashioned, a conservative chick or even worse expressions by some of the people he knew.
    He didn’t consider her any of those things, however. He thought she was a woman with a value system.
    He’d almost kissed her.
    But he wasn’t looking for commitment right now, and if he started down that path, she was the type of woman who would expect it. He remembered too well the type of life he’d had with his parents. Their near hatred for others who weren’t of ‘the faith,’ the rabid obsession that he keep all things worldly out of his life. He couldn’t go back to that…and he wondered if Annie was like that at all. More and more he was realizing the Jesus his parents preached wasn’t the same Jesus Annie was talking about. Still, it was there, deep down in him, that fear to commit and end up back in the bondage he’d once been in as a child. But what if Annie’s description was real? What if it wasn’t about a set of rules and regulations, but a relationship? What then?
    He slid into the car and smiled politely at Annie, trying to see deeper into her, beyond what he knew. One thing he did know for sure, she’d mentioned her concern that her daughter was dating a man who wasn’t a Christian.
    She loved her kids and worried about them—too much in his opinion. And they manipulated her. Of course, who was he to talk about