“She gone to bed?” he asked, hoping she had and also hoping she hadn’t.
“No, getting her things put away,” Minnie said as she got out the plates. “We’ll eat in front of the fire, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure.” Normally, she wouldn’t have asked. When they lost power in the winter, they always pulled the couch and chairs up close to the fire and took their meals there. Most of the time, they all slept down here, too, so there’d only be one fire going. But she was going to be upstairs, someone had to be up there with her, just in case. In case of what, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it would be best for her to be all alone upstairs in the middle of a blizzard. He should stay in his room. He’d be down the hall.
This was what Thalia did. She made things not normal. She made him not normal.
She came down a few minutes later. She’d changed—her other clothes were probably still wet from the snow. Hell, he should have gone up and changed his jeans. Too late now. She was here and the food was ready.
“Help yourselves,” Minnie said, scooping the baked pork chops and wild rice onto a plate.
“You okay?” J.R. asked Thalia in a low voice. She looked okay—actually, she looked great—but something about her face had him worried.
She gave him a watery smile. “Just a long day. You? Have a good nap?”
He supposed he should be glad he could still pull off a little bit of acting, but it left a sour taste in his mouth. “Yup.” Then he was handing her a plate and talking about how good the chops smelled and having dinner with her.
And the funny thing was, it all felt perfectly normal. Which meant it wasn’t.
By the time the two of them got back to the fire, Minnie and Hoss had taken the chairs. What was this—a conspiracy? J.R. took a seat on the couch and waited. Would Thalia sit close enough to touch, or would she crowd into the far side of the couch, closest to Minnie?
She split the difference. If he wanted to, he could lean over and elbow her. Which would be rude. At least Minnie wasn’t giving him the stink eye this go-round.
Instead, the whole meal was easy. Thalia asked questions about blizzards, J.R. answered, Hoss told stories that scared the hell out of her and Minnie did the reassuring.
At no point did she start talking about movies or Oscars or James Robert Bradley. She didn’t treat him like he was special or anything. She treated him like, well, a friend. A friend she’d go into a bar and have a drink with. A friend she’d eat dinner with.
He was almost having fun—more fun than the first meal they’d shared. Especially when she looked at him—which she did a lot. They weren’t that far apart. Just a few feet and some forks and knives separated them. The firelight threw a warm glow across her face, and her grin was deep and honest.
They were stuck here for a week, maybe two. He couldn’t pretend to be asleep the whole time. What was he going to do?
By the end of the meal, Thalia was trying to politely hide her yawns behind her hand. J.R. was too tired to even make that effort.
“Can I help with the dishes?” Thalia asked Minnie.
“Heavens, no.” Minnie chuckled, although she was clearly pleased with the offer. “We pile them into the sink until the water heater is heating again. You go on up to bed.” She gave J.R. one of her motherly looks that spoke louder than words.
Yeah, he probably looked like hell and he was in serious danger of passing out and drooling on the coffee table. “I’m going to hit the hay, too.”
“You all holler—loudly—if you need anything.” Already wrapped in a buffalo robe, Hoss’s Lakota accent was stronger, his eyes half-closed as he stared at the fire.
J.R. knew he and Minnie would stay up half the night, telling the old Lakota legends and long-ago family stories while they kept the fire going. He’d learned a lot the first couple of winters out here, like how Hoss’s father had died in a car wreck when he was a little boy and how Minnie had been raised by her grandma, who barely spoke English.
“Good night, all.” Thalia looked at him as she stood, and he had to fight the urge to take her hand in his and lead her upstairs to a bedroom. Maybe hers, maybe his. Did it matter?
Damn, but he must be tired to be thinking like that. Instead, he stood and grabbed the flashlight. That was a safer option, by far.
They climbed the stairs in silence. He knew he needed to get into his room and shut the door—the sooner the better. Bolting on her would be rude, all the more so since he had the flashlight. He should make sure she was okay in her room. That was the polite, gentlemanly thing to do.
The hall was dark, but the blowing snow cast a pallid white glow over everything. In the light, Thalia’s eyes looked huge. And something else. Was she scared? “It’ll be fine,” he said as he stood in the hall.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything, which made him feel like he had to say something else. “My room is right there, so if you need anything...”
Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say? He’d messed it up somehow, because she dropped her gaze to the floor and managed to look embarrassed.
“J.R.—” she began, and he knew she was going to try and thank him again. And he knew if she did, he’d want to kiss her again. And that would be a problem. Although, honestly, he was so tired he was having trouble remembering why that would be a problem, but he knew it would mess things up. Everything he’d built for himself would be in danger if he did something foolhardy like pursue his attraction to Thalia Thorne.
So he interrupted her with, “Yeah, knock if you need something. I’ll see you in the morning. ’Night.”
He was a grown man, by God, and as such, he did not sprint down the hallway to avoid uncomfortable conversations with a woman.
But he walked quickly.
Nine
That was...odd.
Thalia changed into her flannel jammies, threw another log onto the fire and climbed underneath what felt like twenty quilts and blankets.
J.R. had just...left her standing outside her door. The man had risked his life for her, but he acted like he didn’t want her to thank him. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was almost afraid of her.
Which was ridiculous. He’d taken on that cowboy in the bar at the drop of hat and driven into a blizzard. He couldn’t be afraid of her. Could he?
She was the one being ridiculous. What had she expected him to do? Stand there while she gushed over him? This wasn’t Hollywood, and whatever he’d once been, he wasn’t the kind of man whose ego needed constant reassurance.
Ugh. She was stressed and tired and all-over confused. Overthinking right now would be as productive as chasing her tail. She’d go nowhere but in circles.
She curled into a ball under all the bedding, wishing she could feel her toes more than she could now. The fire made a huge difference. The room was easily twenty degrees warmer than the stairwell and the hall. She certainly wouldn’t freeze to death. That didn’t make it warm.
Thinking about J.R.’s arm around her shoulders, though—yeah, there was a little heat there. Her mind played over the moment when he’d kissed her forehead in the car. It hadn’t been a hot ’n’ bothered kind of kiss, but somehow, the tenderness of it left her with a distinctly bothered feeling. He’d come close to kissing her on three different occasions now. Was she going to have to settle for a single touch of his lips when he was right across the hall?
At least the tossing and turning she was doing helped keep her warm.
Thalia slipped in and out of sleep. The fire had a mesmerizing quality to it, and she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming some of the shadows it threw or not. Time seemed to have stopped. There was no day or night, no dark or light. Just white snow and red fire, a comfy bed and cold toes, and the man across the hall that she’d always wanted.
She thought about her lif
e, her mother and what waited for her back in Hollywood. She thought about Blood for Roses, the movie she wouldn’t get to make. It would have been a great movie, too.
At one point, Thalia knew she was dreaming because she was watching Hell for Leather in the theater with her college boyfriend, the one she’d left behind when she moved to Hollywood. That date had happened a long time ago, but sitting in the dark theater felt real. James Robert’s amber eyes jumped off the big screen and seared themselves on to her heart. Breathless, she watched him ride across the range, his six-shooter firing with deadly accuracy. God, how she’d loved that role, that movie. That actor. She’d seen all of his movies, but this one—with him scruffy and rugged and way more than a little dangerous—this was the one that put her past schoolgirl crush and right over into borderline obsession.
Then the scene changed, and James Robert was in a cabin in front of a roaring fire, leaning against the mantle. The firelight made his hair shine like gold in the dark room, but he seemed worried.
Wait, Thalia thought. Was that scene in the movie? No, she’d remember it. She’d seen Hell for Leather enough to have the whole thing memorized.
She pushed herself up, but the scene didn’t change. He was standing in her room, wearing green-and-blue-plaid flannel pajama bottoms under a thick green bathrobe. “J.R.?”
“My fire went out.” His voice—no way she was dreaming. “I wanted to be sure yours was still going.”
“Oh.” For some reason, this disappointed her. “Are you cold?”
He shrugged, but that was the only answer she got. He hadn’t even looked at her, as if he was afraid she was sleeping in the nude and he was violating her privacy by being here.
“You’re cold.” It wasn’t a question anymore, just a statement of fact. His fire went out—so he checked on her. He’d put her first, again.
“Used to it.” His voice sounded like he’d been gargling with gravel.
Thalia swallowed. Was she sure she wasn’t dreaming J.R. here, in her room, almost close enough to touch? Oh, how she wanted to touch him, to feel his work-roughened hands on her body. Then she remembered how he’d bolted in the hallway. Right. Throwing herself at his feet was out. That didn’t mean he had to leave. “You can stay in here, if you want.”
Even though he didn’t move, everything about him tensed. She half thought he was going to break the mantle off the wall. “I’ll go.”
“No, stay. At least long enough to warm up.” Let me warm you up, she wanted to say, but the last thing she wanted was for him to accuse her of trying to seduce him for the wrong reasons.
She thought he was going to leave, but instead he sat cross-legged on the floor. “Until I warm up.”
He didn’t look like he was planning on sleeping. Something about this situation felt a little like the conversation they’d had on the phone last night, except this time, the distance between them was only a few feet. With him sitting so close to her, everything about him looking rugged and scruffy, she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep anytime soon. What she wouldn’t give to slide her arm around his waist like she had earlier, to feel his weight against her. What she wouldn’t give for that moment of connection. “Why did you leave?”
Without looking away from the fire, he said, “I hated it so much. So much. I couldn’t buy a grapefruit without someone taking pictures of me. They made fun of my clothes, my body, my everything.” She saw him grin, but it was a joyless thing.
“People made fun of you? But everything I read about you was always so glowing. You were such a golden boy—so perfect.”
This time, his grin seemed more real. “You read those things, did you? Or was that for research?”
“I’ve seen all the James Robert Bradley movies.” Revealing that felt dangerous, like when she’d called him from her room. She was crossing another line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
“All of them? Even Babydoll Smile?”
That had been one of those teen sex romps from early in his career. “Even Babydoll Smile. Which was terrible, I might add.”
His grin widened as he tucked his knees under his chin. He didn’t seem to be as cold, but she thought she saw him shiver. His back was probably freezing. “I was fully capable of bad acting. Which begs the question, Thalia. Why do you want me for your movie?”
And just when she thought things were lightening up. This was the price she paid for crossing that small line moments ago. He knew now. She thought about trying to fudge the truth, but then he said, “And don’t feed me that line about how ‘people’ want to know and will pay, either. I think I’ve earned an honest answer.”
He had, darn it all. She owed him the truth. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at the fire. That made confessing seem less...intimate. “It was me. I wanted to know what happened to you.” He didn’t say anything, which somehow made her jumpier, so she kept talking. “You were the reason I wanted to become an actress. It sounds crazy, but...” the words, I had the biggest crush on you refused to actually move past her back teeth. So she hedged, hoping to turn the conversation back to him. “You’d left by the time I hit town. I missed you by months. You didn’t even come back to award the Best Supporting Actress Oscar the next year. You were gone.”
Which was a lousy thing to say—like she was mad he hadn’t waited in Hollywood for her arrival. But if he kept asking her questions and she kept answering them honestly, she had no idea if she would even be able to look him in the face in the morning.
“That’s the thing I don’t understand about you.” Every part of Thalia tensed up at this broad statement. What on Earth was he going to say? That she was some kind of nut? That she was delusional? That she’d always be a nobody? Levinson had said all those things to her, and more.
But J.R. wouldn’t, a fact he illustrated when he went on. “Anyone who’s ever found out about James Robert Bradley has forgotten about me. It’s like I cease to exist.” She could hear the hurt in his voice, could guess that more than a few women had broken the heart of the man sitting before her. “You’re different. You already knew about all that, and you still...” He turned his head to her, meeting her gaze from across the room. Head on his knees, he was curled into an impossibly small ball. Despite the massive strength displayed by his broad shoulders, she saw the little boy who’d wanted to be a firefighter, army man, astronaut and a cowboy. But never an actor. “You still treat me like I’m a real person.”
The way he was looking at her did a lot to raise her personal temperature. Her heart about stopped, although she couldn’t tell if that was from the heartbreak behind his statement or from the best compliment she’d ever received. She had no idea how to reply without sounding like a doofus. “You are real. To me.”
The corner of his mouth crooked up—not much, but a little. The firelight lit his face from the side, bathing him in the glow of warmth. Oh, she thought, that’s the real smile. The one that could melt her in the middle of a blizzard.
Then she saw a shiver shake his body, and he began to rub his shins for warmth. “Are you still cold?”
“It’s fine.”
Whatever moment they’d shared felt distant already.
“It’s not.” She’d seen movies with blizzards in them. As far as she could tell from that limited pop-culture selection, the way people kept warm when they were freezing to death was through body heat. “Come get under the covers.” She hoped that came out in a no-nonsense tone, not a swoony, seductive tone. But she couldn’t tell.
His eyes squeezed shut and it looked like he was gritting his teeth, like he was undergoing new and cruel mental tortures. “I’ll be fine.”
She had about enough of this tough-guy thing he was working. He was probably two steps from hypothermia. She was not about to let him walk out of here. She wouldn’t touch him, she promised herself. She wouldn’t give him a reason to think
she was trying to seduce him for ulterior motives. This was entirely innocent.
Well, maybe not entirely. To be under the covers with J.R.? Somehow, that was even more exciting than the thought of sleeping with James Robert Bradley.
She tossed off the blankets and got out of bed. Even though she had socks on, the moment her feet hit the floor, the cold jolted her fully awake. And he’d been sitting on that? Heavens. Forcing a stoic J.R. into her bed wasn’t exactly a dream come true, but she wasn’t going to let him turn into a Popsicle to preserve his male pride.
She managed to get hold of his arm before he got to the door. “No, you’re going to warm up. Come to bed.”
He met her eyes, and the temperature in the room kicked up several notches. “It would be best for both of us if I go back to my room.”
“No, it won’t.” She didn’t know which part would keep her up more—the thought of him freezing to death, or the memory of the way he had looked at her. Either way, she wasn’t sleeping. “And this isn’t about sex,” she added, more to remind herself than him. She wasn’t doing a single thing to make him think this was a calculated negotiating tactic. Including doing exactly what she wanted with him. “This is about warmth.”
“Thalia—” he said, his voice sounding deeper now. More dangerous. And much, much warmer.
She was playing with fire, but she couldn’t let him see how much he was affecting her. She shoved him toward the mountains of blankets. “You’re not leaving this room until you have a regular body temperature.”
He stood at the side of the bed, the firelight shining in his eyes. Her breath caught in her throat, and she managed to avoid sighing in satisfaction. “This is about warmth.”
“Yes.” The way it came out—as a squeak—completely contradicted the words, but she refused to look away. “Just warmth.” That and long-held, deeply personal fantasies. She wasn’t going to let him know that. Not now, not ever.
He stood there, his gaze blazing down on her until she was sure she was going to crack. Then kicking off his slippers, he removed the bathrobe and spread it out on top of the blankets before climbing in. He scooted over and held the blankets up for Thalia to follow. Once she’d tucked the covers back up around her chin, she couldn’t help but notice he was almost hanging off the other side of the bed. “For warmth.” He sounded like he was speaking through clamped jaws.
Harlequin Desire February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: The King Next DoorMarriage With BenefitsA Real Cowboy (Kings of California) Page 43
