A Solitary Heart
Page 18
“Dammit,” she muttered, “I’m getting into this house one way or another.” She left her purse and duffel bag on the porch. Stepping gingerly through the wet grass, she carefully made her way around to the side of her house until she stood under the dormer that sheltered her second-story bedroom window. She knew the lock on that window was broken. A large twisted oak tree towered over the roof, with one branch stretching conveniently close to the window.
As a child, Hilary had scampered up and down this tree with the agility of a monkey. Could she still do it? With a resigned sigh she set about scaling the rough trunk.
The climb wasn’t as easy as she remembered, especially when she was tired and a bit weak from her illness, and the tree bark was slick with rain. But after several miserable minutes of slow, unsteady progress, she made it high enough that she could scoot out onto the branch, then swing her legs down until her toes touched the relative safety of the windowsill. Hilary would have smiled at her own success if it wasn’t such an effort.
The window protested with a shriek of wood against wood, but the warmth inside the house beckoned her. She stuck one leg through the opening and promptly upset a lamp, which tumbled noisily to the floor. She was about to push on through the opening anyway when she heard a strange sound. She froze, her heart pounding. Someone was in her bedroom. Though it was dark and quiet, she knew with an unshakable certainty that she was not alone.
“Meredith?” she whispered hopefully.
A low, deadly-sounding and very male voice answered her. “Hold it right there.”
She willed on herself a calmness she didn’t feel. She’d interrupted a burglar! “Look, I’ll just back on out of here, okay?”
“What the hell?” The voice was filled with irritation and confusion. Through the darkness Hilary saw the shadow of movement near the lamp on the floor. With a click, the room was illuminated, and suddenly standing before her was six feet of half-dressed man brandishing her high school softball trophy like an avenging broadsword.
“You’re a woman,” he said, slowly lowering the trophy.
Hilary was only too aware of that fact. The pleasingly sculpted man standing before her in blue bikini briefs sharpened her tired senses, including an overwhelming sense of her own femininity that was disconcerting under the circumstances.
“I’m the woman who owns this house,” she corrected him, pulling her other leg through the window.
“Wouldn’t the front door have been simpler?”
“Never mind about me. Who are you? And where’s Meredith?” She glanced over at the rumpled sheets. “What are you doing sleeping in my bed?” Inwardly she groaned. She’d wanted to sound intimidating, and instead she’d come off like Goldilocks.
“I’m Matthew Burke, Meredith’s cousin.” He smiled slowly. “And you’re Hilary McShane. Now I recognize you from your picture.” He nodded toward a framed photograph on the wall, which featured Hilary with her grandmother. She’d been perhaps twenty-four when the photo was taken, but she hadn’t changed much in the few years since.
The muscles around Matthew’s neck and shoulders visibly untensed as he assumed a more relaxed posture. “Didn’t Aunt Sheila write to tell you I was staying here?” he asked.
Now things were beginning to make sense, Hilary thought. “She probably did. The MammalTrackers project was so far out in the boonies we hadn’t received any mail—” She stopped to accommodate another coughing fit.
“You sound awful.” He tossed the forgotten trophy onto the bed. “You’ll catch pneumonia in those wet clothes.” He reached to help her remove her sodden jacket. She let him, then was surprised at how sure and gentle his hands felt where they brushed against her sweater.
“Too late,” she said. “I already have pneumonia. That’s why I’m home a couple of months early. So, Matthew—”
“Matt,” he corrected her.
“Matt,” she repeated. “Why are you here instead of Meredith?”
“Meredith injured her knee a couple of weeks ago playing volleyball, and she had to move back home with Aunt Sheila. But Sheila didn’t want to leave your house empty. It just so happened I needed a place to stay…” He shrugged as he hung her jacket on the corner of the four-poster bed. “Would you excuse me a moment?” He opened the top drawer of the oak chest and produced a pair of jeans.
Hilary couldn’t compel herself to look away as he dressed. He was about her own age, she guessed. His brown hair was thick and almost straight, and it fell over his forehead as he bent over to step into the jeans. His body was lean but firm, his actions graceful yet economical. She was fascinated with the way his softly faded jeans molded to his lean hips and thighs.
When he looked up at her again, she was struck by his eyes. It wasn’t the deep brown color so much as the way they seemed to take in every detail of her bedraggled appearance. Her heartbeat stumbled.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Had she missed something? “Ready for what?”
“A hot bath. Your teeth are chattering.”
Hilary longed to argue. Why should she take the advice of this man? But the fact of the matter was that she was too tired to argue, and the prospect of a steamy soak in the tub was heavenly. She was shivering. So she followed meekly as Matt took her arm and led her out of the bedroom and down the hall.
They paused at the bathroom door.
“You look pale,” he commented, a note of concern in his voice. “Can you manage the bath on your own?”
“Of course I can manag-g-ge.” Her chattering teeth betrayed her.
Matt’s brows drew together as he reached a hand up to her forehead. “You feel warm. Are you taking any kind of medicine?”
“I’m fine,” she said a bit sharply, shying away from a touch that felt too familiar, too comforting—too intimate—to have come from a stranger. But even as she pulled back, she realized she was only fighting herself. Matthew Burke was going to take care of her, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
She attempted to soften her retort with a smile. “I have some antibiotics in my purse, and I’m due for one. If you could bring my things up from the front porch, I’d appreciate it.”
He didn’t smile back as concern continued to etch his face. “Be careful getting in the tub. You’re pretty shaky.”
She was, Hilary admitted as she leaned against the bathtub to turn on the faucet. But she wasn’t sure she needed or wanted Matt’s concern. She’d gotten enough of that from the doctor in Alaska to last a lifetime. She’d been sent home under protest, insisting she was hardly sick at all.
Downstairs, Matt found one damp duffel bag and one overstuffed leather purse on the front porch. This was all she took with her on a three-month camping trip in Alaska? Definitely the adventuresome type, he decided.
He’d deduced a great deal about Hilary McShane long before tonight. He knew she was unconventional, partly due to hints his aunt had dropped about her neighbor, but mostly because of what he’d seen of Hilary’s house. The walls were painted in bright, offbeat colors, and the furnishings, from antique to ultramodern, were eclectic—and that was a kind description. Every surface in the house was loaded with knickknacks and bric-a-brac, from framed photos to jars filled with matchbooks to dozens of souvenir teacups from all over the country. The paintings and photos she’d chosen to hang on the walls were mismatched except with respect to their subject matter; they were exclusively devoted to wildlife.
Then there was the outside of the house. It was painted pink. Matt had always wanted to know what kind of person lived in a pink house. Now he knew—or at least, he’d found out enough that he wanted to know more.
She’d started to get under his skin the moment he’d turned on that lamp and seen her long legs straddling the windowsill. Her mop of coppery hair was damp from the mist and curling in wild disarray. He’d immediately liked the determined thrust
of her chin and her slightly raspy voice, surprisingly low and sultry, which had played against his nerves like a good back scratch. Thank God his jeans had been handy.
Still, he would have liked to have met her under different circumstances. Now that she was here, it was only a matter of minutes before she’d attempt to oust him from her home.
He couldn’t afford to be evicted. Over the past two weeks he had filled the greenhouse out back with plantings. To move his seedlings now would defeat the whole purpose of his summer research project. Yet what choice did the woman have but to reclaim her home?
Upstairs again, he listened at the bathroom door. Upon hearing a definite splashing noise, he nodded with satisfaction and knocked. “Hilary?”
“You can come in. I have the curtain drawn.”
Too bad, he caught himself thinking as he opened the door cautiously.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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A Solitary Heart
Copyright © 2014 by Amanda Carpenter
ISBN: 978-1-61921-792-8
Edited by Heather Osborn
Cover by Angela Waters
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Original Publication by Mills & Boon: March 1993
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2014
www.samhainpublishing.com