Sweet Talk

by Jackie Merritt

  Reed stepped closer to take it from her hand and noticed how fast she pulled back so no part of her would touch any part of him. He thought again of the conclusion he’d reached about Val’s wariness, and said quietly, “I’ll give you this, Doc. You’re exceptionally adroit at elusion.”

  “At illusion? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Reed caught on and snorted out a fragment of a laugh. “I was talking about the fine art of eluding my efforts to be friends with you.”

  “Oh, right. Friends,” she said coolly. “From what I’ve heard about you in Rumor, you have all the friends you can handle.”

  He wondered if he should respond to that remark, which certainly couldn’t be construed as kindly. But it could be further proof of her intentions to keep him off balance, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

  He decided to take it lightly, and grinned to indicate amusement. “There you go again, putting a friendly attitude between a man and a woman in the same category as bed partners. I’ll be outside for a few minutes, but whatever you do, don’t sit there and worry about my braving the blizzard all by my lonesome.”

  Val refused to talk about such nonsense with him for one more minute. He already had silly ideas about her and God only knew what else, and where he’d gotten them she would never know. She wasn’t going to further her own execution, for Pete’s sake. She said not another word while he pulled on his jacket, woolen stocking cap and gloves, took up the flashlight again and finally went through the door.

  “Give me strength,” she moaned when he was out of ear-shot, incredibly glad to be rid of him, if only for a short breather. But as irritating as he was, she found herself listening hard for sounds of him hiking around outside. She heard nothing but the ferocity of the blizzard, and she began to worry. “You damn fool,” she mumbled, angry with herself for being such a wimpy turncoat. Why should she worry about a man who couldn’t mind his own business to save his soul? He’d taken it upon himself to come to her rescue, again, and what in God’s name made him think that she was constantly in need of deliverance? Her demons were private, locked in the deepest, darkest cells of her soul, and there they would stay. But Reed’s seemingly dedicated concern was odd, as though he sensed what she never talked about. Not that he had a right to sense anything about her.

  His annoying concern was his reason for being here; it had to be. But how had he learned where she was? What had put him on her trail in the first place? Had he talked to Jinni? To Jim or Estelle? Most mystifying was what had prompted him to talk to anyone about her today.

  She was still frowning and puzzling when he came back in and stamped the snow from his boots.

  “This is one dilly of a storm,” he declared, taking off his jacket. This time he hung it on one of the wall hooks he’d noticed before. “You don’t mind my using one of these hooks, do you? My jacket is damp.”

  “Heavens no,” she said in a voice that said just the opposite. “I told you to make yourself at home, didn’t I?”

  “And I know you really meant it.” Reed returned to the blankets in front of the fireplace and held his hands out to the flames. “The temperature’s going to drop below zero before morning. We’re lucky you have so much wood. We’re going to need it.”

  “So, is your rig totaled or merely damaged?”

  “It’s damaged pretty badly. I don’t know what the insurance adjuster will say about it.”

  “If he ever gets a chance to see it, that is.”

  “Val, are you thinking we might not survive the night?” He tried to sound upbeat and amused, but without the fireplace going full blast, they might not survive. No, that was an exaggeration. They were under cover, they had lots of clothes and blankets, and more food and water than they would need. If they ran out of fuel for the fireplace, they would still survive. Maybe not comfortably, but there would be little chance of even a mild case of frostbite if they stayed put.

  He turned sideways to look at her. “You’re cold right now. Why don’t you sit down here closer to the fire? I’ll get out of your way, if you’re afraid to sit next to me.”

  “Afraid? Hardly,” she scoffed. “This is my place, you know, and I’ll sit wherever I please!”

  “Sorry, bad choice of words. But let me say this. Sometimes it’s better to get warm from the inside out than from the outside in.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked grumpily.

  “Brandy, my sweet, brandy. And coffee.” Reed scrambled to his feet, thinking that one thing Val Fairchild was not was sweet. But he sure would like a chance to eradicate that cloud of despair she seemed to live under. He would love to get her talking—relaxed and talking—and while candy was dandy as an offer of friendship, liquor was quicker. He smiled slightly and tried to remember the name of the person who had originated that gem. Ogden Nash? Yes, he was sure of it.

  “I’ll make a pot of coffee, if you tell me where you keep the equipment,” he said to Val.

  The tea that remained in the pot Val had made at least an hour ago had long since cooled to room temperature, which wasn’t very high. Hot coffee and brandy sounded wonderful to her, and she didn’t put on a phony face and pretend otherwise.

  “The coffeepot is in the bottom cabinet next to the sink, right side. You’ll find a can of coffee on the same shelf.”

  This particular response greatly pleased Reed; she had actually sounded like a normal person conversing with another normal person instead of biting his head off. Wouldn’t it be great if she dropped her guard long enough to let them really get to know each other?

  Even greater would be a night of lovemaking. She obviously didn’t feel the chemistry between them, but he did. Of course, the mere thought of anything sexual between them was almost ludicrous. Or maybe he was ludicrous. After all, she had said only a few civil words to him and his imagination already had them in bed, staying warm by getting naked….

  Yeah, right. Chuckling under his breath, Reed found the pot and the coffee. When it was brewing he went to his canvas bag and took out the bottle of brandy he’d brought along for medicinal purposes. After all, he’d been heading into a blizzard not knowing what to expect.

  And hadn’t the worst happened? That tree lying on his crunched SUV was damn disturbing. He and Val were stranded until the storm died out and someone came along. And someone would, he was certain. Too many people knew where one or both of them had gone.

  Noticing the cellular phone and charger on the counter, he picked it up and listened for a dial tone. There was nothing but static in his ear, which didn’t surprise him. Ordinary cells didn’t work well in the mountains on good days; they sure weren’t going to pick up signals in this kind of weather.

  Val left her warm blanket to go into the bathroom, which was freezing cold because she hadn’t left the door open. Not that any part of the cabin, except directly in front of the fireplace, was truly warm. Fireplaces were great for atmosphere and slightly chilly evenings, but most of the heat went up the chimney.

  She still didn’t regret coming to the cabin, though. If that nosy Nellie brewing up coffee hadn’t decided to intrude on her life one more time, she would already have dragged her mattress to the floor near the fire, loaded it with blankets and gotten into her warmest pajamas. She would be lying down, snug as a bug, instead of shivering in that chair. God, what a nuisance the man was.

  Val frowned then. Would that tree really have hit the cabin if Reed’s SUV hadn’t been parked where it was?

  She returned to her chair and blanket, and Reed handed her a mug. “It’s really hot, so be careful,” he cautioned her.

  “Hello,” she said with drawled disdain. “I doubt that your coffee is any hotter than my tea was.”

  “Uh, right.” Damned if he was going to argue over the temperature of beverages. Holding his own mug, he lowered himself back to the blankets on the floor.

  “Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t, but I left the bathroom door open,” Val said curtly. “It wa
s freezing in there. Hopefully a bit of warmth from the fire will drift that far and take some of the chill off.”

  “How’s the hot water?” Reed asked after taking a sip of his brandy-laced coffee. “Do you have a hot water tank?”

  “Well, of course I have a hot water tank. This place might look like a shack to you, but it has all of the conveniences I want.”

  “Except for some kind of heater. Look, I like your cabin, but you couldn’t possibly be against a few improvements.”

  Val arched her eyebrow. “Improvements, as in plural? Besides ‘some kind of heater,’ what other improvements does your highness recommend?”

  Reed studied her for a long moment. “You wait for opportunities to put me down, don’t you? Why is that, Val? What is there about me that makes you not only back off, but get set in the next instant for a fight?”

  “You’re imagining things.” She lifted her mug for another swallow. He had added a little sugar or some kind of sweetener to the coffee and brandy, and the drink was delicious. She felt its heat in her mouth, her throat and her stomach, and she was definitely feeling warmer all over because of it.

  “I’m not imagining a damn thing, and you know it. Only you’d rather argue about it, just like everything else I say.” After a moment he added, “Maybe you just don’t like men.”

  She barely managed to keep from gasping. He was figuring her out, and she didn’t want him knowing her that well.

  “Don’t bother,” she said coldly.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, don’t waste your time trying to dissect and understand me. Just so you don’t come up with some ridiculous notion about my sexual preferences, I used to like men just fine. I’ve merely outgrown the need to have one or more of them underfoot. I realize many women believe they cannot exist without a man, but I don’t happen to be one of them. I would appreciate it if you would accept that without question and drop the subject. At least,” she added rather sarcastically, “for as long as we’re confined together in this small space.”

  Reed put on a big show of thinking it over. Then he sighed dramatically and said, “Sorry, but I can’t do that. You’re an intriguing woman, even more so after that bunch of hooey you just laid on me. There is nothing I would like better than to get into your head.”

  “Liar. It’s not my head you want to get into, it’s my bed. Well, sport, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to get you all steamed up.”

  “But you do it so well.”

  Reed grinned. “That’s ’cause you like me and you don’t want to like me.”

  “You are amazing, do you know that? Absolutely amazing. It’s your ego, of course. Since yours is the size of this mountain, you’re not even insulted that I don’t want to like you.”

  “Then I’m right? You do like me, even though you’re trying not to?”

  “Drop dead.” Val finished off her drink and held out her cup. “Make yourself useful and fix me another coffee and brandy.”

  “Say please.” The change in her personality was subtle but encouraging. He would gladly feed her brandy-laced drinks all night if they loosened her tongue and put a crack in that shell she hid behind.

  “Never mind, I’ll do it myself!” She started to get up, and Reed quickly reached out and grabbed the mug from her hand.

  “Would it have killed you to say please?” he asked.

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Would it have killed you not to be so damn childish?”

  He shook his head. “You’re a tough nut, babe.”

  “I’ll accept the tough nut label, but not the other one! I am not a babe!”

  He uncoiled his long, lean body from the floor and got to his feet. “You keep telling yourself that and you’ll get exactly what you want out of life, which, from where I stand, appears to be nothing. You know, I have to ask myself why a woman as pretty and smart as you are is terrified of letting a man get close enough to know her.” Carrying both mugs, he walked away.

  Val sat there, stiff and—surprising to her—on the verge of tears. How dare he dig and prod and poke through her psyche and form his own conclusions about the kind of woman she was and what she would get out of life if she didn’t change her attitude? If she wanted a life without some man mucking everything up, it was none of Reed Kingsley’s business, damn him.

  But at least he hadn’t said “beautiful” while singing her praises. She could handle pretty, but not beautiful, which would have been too absurd to let pass. Actually, he shouldn’t be complimenting her at all, if he even meant what he’d said. More than likely those particular words were nothing but flattery.

  “Oh, who cares?” Val muttered. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her no matter what he said, so why needlessly upset herself by looking for hidden meanings in anything he might do or say?

  Reed brought in two fresh drinks and settled himself on the blankets again. He sipped and stared into the fire; Val sipped and did the same. Neither spoke for what seemed an eternity. She didn’t trust Reed. He might not be talking, but he was thinking, plotting something that she probably wouldn’t like.

  Then she sighed quietly. Her own imagination was as bad as Reed’s. He shouldn’t be here, in her cabin, but he was, and she could sit and resent every breath he took, which was pretty much what she’d been doing, or she could give him a break and treat him like a guest. An unwanted, an uninvited guest, but a guest nonetheless.

  But damn, it was hard to shed the tons of reluctance she’d weighted herself down with years ago, and give any man a break. Breaks were dangerous. Give a man an inch and he’d take a mile. Reed would probably take ten miles!

  “What puzzles me is why you refuse to give up,” she said.

  “What?” Reed had heard what she’d said, but it had come without warning and totally taken him by surprise.

  “I…I guess I was, uh, thinking out loud,” she mumbled, embarrassed that she’d said something that might make him think she cared about anything he did.

  “Interesting thoughts,” Reed said, and brought his mug to his lips with a twinkle in his eyes. “You know, you’ve puzzled me since the day we met. That was quite a while ago. Do you remember it?”

  “No.”

  He laughed softly. “I didn’t think you did. But I do. Everyone was glad that you had finally attended a meeting of the town’s business owners and managers, and you and I shook hands.”

  Val cleared her throat. “I probably shook hands with everyone there.”

  “Could be, but when you put your hand in mine I felt a jolt of electricity that nearly knocked my socks off.”

  “I didn’t notice a thing.”

  “I always wondered if you did, so I’m glad you cleared up that question.”

  “Yes, I’ll just bet you are.”

  “Sarcasm again? Oh, well, so be it. Anyhow, then there was that party at Joe’s Bar. It was somebody’s birthday, I think. I saw you walk over to the jukebox, and then you dropped your coins and you got down on the floor to find them and—”

  “I happen to remember that particular incident, so I do not need to hear a blow-by-blow narration of it.”

  “I was sure hoping for a dance, but one minute you were there and the next you were gone. You didn’t stay for long.”

  “I knew that some guy on the prowl would ask me to dance if I hung around, so I made my excuses to the birthday girl and left.”

  “And that’s the reason you don’t go out very much, isn’t it? You’re afraid of some guy on the prowl trying to get too friendly. Or maybe just a little bit friendly. Maybe smiling at you, or saying a casual, ‘Hi, how are you?’” Reed looked into his mug. “Empty again. I’m going to have another. How about you?”

  “Yes, I’ll have another.” While Reed was making the hot drinks in the kitchen area behind her, Val sat in her chair with her head spinning and realized she didn’t have a tense muscle in her body. It was the brandy, of course. She wasn’t used to drinking hard
liquor, or even beer, for that matter, although she did enjoy a glass of wine with some meals.

  By the time Reed put another full mug in her hand, she was wondering how many times he’d done that. Three? Four? Was this really her fifth drink?

  No, it couldn’t be. She would be tipsy if it were, wouldn’t she?

  “Thanks,” she said, and held the hot mug with both hands, enjoying its heat on her palms. “Would you please put another log on the fire?”

  “Glad to.” Reed was astounded. Not only had she said thanks and please, she had sounded relaxed and comfortable enough to ask him to do something for her. Oh, yeah, a definite breakthrough, he thought, with great gobs of affection for her heating his system far better than the blazing fire ever could. He liked her way more than any woman he’d known before, and the reasons for liking her just weren’t important anymore. He had analyzed his feelings for Val dozens of times since their first meeting and he still had no logical explanation. The whole thing was out of his hands, beyond his control. It was…fate.

  After fueling the fire he said, “Hey, let’s change places. I’ll take the chair and you get down here closer to the heat.”

  Val thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks. I’ll leave this blanket for you. You’ll need it.” She got up with her mug and sat as close to the fireplace screen as she could get. The blaze immediately warmed her face and she breathed a sigh of pure pleasure.

  Reed folded the blanket she’d been using around himself after he sat down and realized that the warmth he felt was Val’s warmth. It was an incredibly arousing thought. His imagination went wild again and put them over there in her bed, nude, entwined and making passionate love.

  “Wow,” he whispered, suddenly overheated. Didn’t she feel any of the torture he did every time he looked at that bed? It wasn’t fair if all the suffering in this relationship was heaped on his head.

  But then, they really didn’t have a relationship, did they?

  Not yet, they didn’t, but his hopes were higher than ever. If this storm held for one more day, he could get very lucky, and he didn’t mean in bed. If Val ever smiled at him with genuine fondness, or kissed him just once, he might die a happy man.