by Ann Major
"You okay?" she whispered.
"Great."
She was fumbling with the key when he caught up to her.
"The lock keeps sticking."
"That's because your hands are shaking. Let me help you, Norie."
She handed him the key, dropping it into his open palm, careful not to touch him. "A lot of things are broken around here."
His knee throbbed. "I noticed."
He opened the door, and she led him inside, into an icy living room with high ceilings and tall windows. She pulled the chain of an ancient Tiffany lamp. There were wooden rocking chairs and a battered upright piano. The atmosphere was homey, but everything- the furniture, the paint, the curtains-had a faded, much-scrubbed look. There was no central heat. He saw a single gas space heater at one end of the room. It was an old-fashioned house, the type kindly grandmothers were supposed to live in.
"Like I said, it's not the Hale mansion," Norie apologized again. "But would you mind taking off your shoes?"
She was about to lean down and remove her own muddy boots, but he grabbed her arm. At his touch a sudden tremor shook her. He felt a strange pull from her, and he couldn't let her go.
"Do you really think I give a damn about your house?" His voice was rasping, unsteady. "I came to see you."
For a moment longer he held her. She didn't struggle. He almost wished she had, because he probably would have pulled her into his arms. Her expression was blank; her dark glittering eyes were enormous. He could think of nothing except how beautiful she was. Unconsciously she caught her lower lip with her teeth, and that slight nervous movement drew his gaze to her mouth.
They were alone, in the middle of nowhere. It had been five years. Five long years. He wanted to kiss her, to taste her. But he had made that mistake before- twice-the first night he'd met her, and on her wedding day.
He swallowed hard. "Thank you… for letting me stay."
He saw intense emotion in her eyes.
Although it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, instead of drawing her closer, he released her. She leaned down and pulled her boots off. As he bent over to do the same, the shock of pain that raced from his knee up his thigh made him gasp.
"You're hurt," she said, kneeling before him. "I'll do it."
Standing, he could see nothing but the gypsy-thick waves of her dark hair glistening in the honey-gold glow of the lamp as they spilled over her delicate shoulders. Her loop earrings glittered brightly. He felt her quick, sure hands on his ankles. He caught the dizzying scent of her sensuous perfume. No other woman had such drowsy dark eyes; no other woman possessed this air of purity and enduring innocence that mingled with something so free, so giving.
He had always wanted her. From the first moment he'd seen her angel-sweet face and known the beauty of her smile.
He'd only meant to stop by and see her on his way from San Antonio to Houston, to inform her that Larry had not left her penniless. Grant had intended to take no more than an hour from his busy life. He had a big case to prepare for next week and his Houston project was a mess.
He hadn't expected all his old feelings for her to be stronger than before. It was only one night, he'd told her. One night alone together. Nothing to get flustered over. But his hands were shaking.
Right, he thought grimly. One night. Alone. Together.
The time stretched before him like an eternity. Every slowly kindling nerve in his body burned for her. He clenched his hands into fists.
"There." She was done.
Smiling up at him, she placed his shoes neatly beside her boots and led him through a series of icy rooms. Since the house had no halls on the lower floor, each room opened into the next. To get to the kitchen and the stairs that led to the upper story, they had to walk through her bedroom. It was large and airy-too airy on a night as cold as this one. As they passed through it, he saw a large four-poster bed, a library table full of books and magazines, and a television set. A large Christmas tree decorated with handmade red and gold ornaments stood in the corner. He caught the crisp aromatic odor of fresh spruce. There was a nativity scene sandwiched in between the books on her table.
"Why is the Christmas tree in your bedroom?" he asked.
"Because we-"
"We?" he demanded. Grant gazed at her for a long moment. "I thought you lived alone."
Norie's breath caught in her throat. "I-I do. What I meant to say is that I spend most of my time there." She flushed under his hard scrutiny. "I don't like to heat up the whole house." She lowered her gaze to avoid his unfaltering one.
He hadn't practiced law for fifteen years without developing an almost uncanny sense about people. She was lying-covering something up. But what? Scanning the room again, he found no trace that a man might share it with her.
He shrugged. The best way to find out was to leave it alone-for now.
The stairs were difficult. His knee hurt so badly he could barely climb the steps, and he felt weak again when he had struggled to the top. He followed her from the dark hallway into a charming bedroom with frilly curtains and yellow flowered paper. The room was as icy as the rest of the house.
She knelt on the faded carpet and lit a fire in the space heater, then rose and went to the bed to find the cord and controls to the electric blanket. He crossed the room to help her.
Together they located the switch, pulled the covers back, and plumped the pillows. It seemed an intimate activity suddenly, unmaking the bed, and he stopped before she was through. For a moment he stood without moving, watching her, enjoying the simple beauty of her doing this simple thing for him.
"There," she said softly, smoothing the blanket. "The bathroom is right next door. I'll put out fresh towels. If you're still the same size you were, there are some boxes of Larry's clothes under the bed." Her eyes darkened. "I-I never got rid of them."
"I haven't put on an ounce."
He felt the heat of her eyes move swiftly over his body, mutely confirming his statement. And then she smiled in her unutterably charming way and blushed rosy pink before she glanced down at the carpet in front of his toes.
"I'll leave you to settle in, but I'll be back… with something hot to eat." Her tone was light and a little breathless. "You're probably starving."
"Oh, I am." His own voice when he answered was oddly hoarse. He gave her a look that told her it wasn't only food he was hungry for.
She backed away, stumbled against the doorjamb, blushed again, and was gone.
Damn. She was afraid of him.
The jeans Grant found in the box under the bed fit his muscled body like a snug second skin. The black turtleneck sweater molded every hard muscle in his torso, shoulders, and biceps. Well, maybe he'd put on an ounce. Or maybe as he'd gotten older he'd gotten into the habit of wearing looser-fitting clothes. Comforting thought.
As soon as he finished dressing he climbed into the bed to get warm. He lay beneath the toasty electric blanket, listening to the sounds of Norie bustling about in the kitchen beneath him. Outside, the wind was swishing around the corners of the house and whistling under the eaves. But his pillow was soft, the electric blanket warm. The room was beginning to seem almost cozy. He felt a baffling contentment, to be here, alone with Norie, so far from his own exciting but hectic life.
It was odd, Norie choosing this ice-cold house on a remote farm outside of a dying town, as opposed to the life she could have had.
Why?
He had never understood her.
Not from the first.
Maybe that was why he'd made so many mistakes.
His thoughts drifted back in time. Back to the first night when his mother had sent him to Austin to save his little brother from a scheming older woman.
"Noreen Black is a penniless little nobody. Some sort of Bohemian-an intellectual! An orphan who was raised in north Texas on a dirt farm. She's twenty-seven to Larry's twenty-three. I'm sure she's out to catch him," Georgia Hale had shrieked before Grant left for Austin. "Do you wan
t the same thing to happen to your little brother that happened to you?"
Grant had been making vast monthly payments on a settlement to the beautiful young woman who'd deliberately married him so she could take him to the cleaners. Remembering the bitter consequences of his own mistake, he'd driven off to Austin determined to pay off Noreen Black before she had Larry completely in her clutches.
When Grant had knocked on the door of Miss Black's little apartment a couple of blocks west of the UT campus, a soft welcoming voice had answered. "Larry?"
"Larry's brother."
She'd thrown open the door. "Grant! Larry's told me all about you."
The "scheming older woman" was a slim girl with enormous dark eyes. Her cloud of dark hair was tied back with a green scarf, and huge silver loops danced at her ears. She didn't look twenty, much less twenty-seven. There were books scattered untidily on the dilapidated couch, red plastic dinette chairs and table. She had a pencil tucked behind one ear and had padded barefoot to the door in a pink and black leotard and tights. Tendrils of damp curls clung to her forehead. Her smile was the sweetest he'd ever seen.
His gaze roved the length of her body, passing downward over a flawless neck and shoulders, gently rounded breasts, a narrow waist, and long, shapely legs.
"Lovely," he said in a low voice.
Unconsciously Norie drew back, crossing her hands over her breasts.
"I-I was studying, but I stopped to exercise. To get the oxygen flowing again. I-I wasn't expecting company… " She trailed off uncertainly.
He couldn't tear his gaze away from the curve of her thighs, and Norie's color deepened.
"Are you looking for Larry?"
"No, I came to see you."
"I don't want to be rude, but I do have a big test tomorrow."
She was giving him, Grant Hale, the brush-off. Anger coiled in him as tight as a spring. Of course she was. She was after Larry. Somehow Grant managed to keep his voice calm. "Surely you have time for a quick dinner. I drove all this way just to meet you."
"I-I'm on a very limited budget."
"I'm buying."
That seemed to settle it.
"Well… since you drove all this way… "
She smiled so disarmingly that a shiver of unwanted male excitement darted through him. She was good, really good, at working a man with her charm, he thought cynically. He could see why Larry had fallen for her.
"It'll only take me a minute to dress. Make yourself at home. There's soda in the refrigerator."
While he waited for her, he rummaged about in the kitchen. There was, as she'd said, one soda in her tiny refrigerator. He saw milk, eggs, hamburger meat, canned goods, a few plastic dishes. A tight budget, she'd said.
Not for long, not after she caught Larry.
She returned wearing a red embroidered Mexican smock, red painted earrings, and silver jewelry. Grant complimented her on the outfit and drove her to an elegant restaurant on Town Lake.
She ordered the least expensive thing on the menu.
A trick, Grant thought.
To his amazement, he began to enjoy himself. In the candlelight, with her shining eyes and her pretty, sweet smile that seemed to be for him alone, she was beautiful. Larry was forgotten.
Grant began to drink, rather too much. He never got around to offering her money to leave Larry alone. Instead he talked about himself, about his secret dreams. He told her about Susan, their divorce, the hurt of it all. He told her things he'd never told anyone else. How as a child he'd secretly wished to know his own father. How he'd wanted love, how he'd grown up without it, how it was something he no longer believed in.
Then she'd told him about herself, about her loving parents, about their wonderful life together on their small farm until her parents had died in a car accident.
"I want all that again," she whispered. "You see, I do believe in love. More than anything, I want a home, children. I even know what I'll name them."
"What?"
"The boys will be Darius and Homer. The girls Galatea and Electra."
Grant laughed. Her fingers were toying with the tips of her silverware, and his hand brushed against them accidentally. He felt a warm tingle at the touch of her flesh. She drew her hand away and looked at him, her beautiful face still and silent and tender.
"I-I got those names out of books," she said in a rush. "I always loved to read, even as a child. Especially after Mother and Daddy died. I have a master's in English, and I've taught for three years. I'm studying to be a librarian. And now… I really do need to get home. That test… "
She was lovely, lovelier than any woman he had ever known.
She drove. Because she knew Austin better, and because she hadn't drunk any alcohol. On the way back into town, he was grimly silent.
She parked in the dark in front of her apartment building.
"I had a wonderful time," she whispered. Her face lit with a guileless, naive happiness. Her eyes were sparkling in the darkness.
"So did I." Grant ran his hand up the pale smoothness of her bare arm.
"You're not like Larry."
At her mention of his brother, Grant's mood turned grim. "No?"
"Not at all."
"I came because Larry wrote that he was serious about you."
"What?"
"Don't pretend you don't know," Grant murmured in a coaxing, cynical rasp.
"I'm not pretending. He's just a good friend."
The wine and the hard liquor Grant had consumed made his thoughts swim. She was so soft and lovely, this gypsy girl, so totally different, she mesmerized him. His emotions were in turmoil. "You're poor. He's rich."
"I had no idea." Her voice was a tender whisper. "He seemed so young and so mixed-up. I felt sorry for him."
"I told you not to pretend with me."
"Grant… " She looked lost.
He swore under his breath. "You're good, girl. Very good. Maybe you can fool Larry with your angel face and your innocent, sweet Bohemian act, but you can't fool me. All night you've tantalized me, smiled at me, beckoned me with your beauty. You don't love my brother."
"No, I don't."
Silver bracelets jingled. She reached for the door handle, but his larger hand closed over hers. The minute he touched her, he was lost.
She was warm satin flesh. Her pulse raced beneath his fingertips. He was on fire. His gaze rested on her soft lush red mouth for one second only. Then his lips covered hers. He circled her with his arms. She tried to cry out, but his hot, ravaging mouth stifled all utterance. She was trembling with fear, and with some other emotion that more than matched the power of his own blind passion.
She was warm and sweet like heated honey. An angel who was erotic as no wanton could ever be. Shock waves of desire surged through every aching nerve in his body. He wanted her, as he had never wanted another. This funny, seemingly innocent woman-child who was poor, who was a gypsy girl.
Her slim body was crushed beneath the power of his weight, and the hands that had been pushing against his chest stopped pushing. He felt them curl weakly around his neck, and she pulled him closer, returning his kisses with guiltless wonder, sighing softly in rapture. So there was fire in her, too. Fire for him as well as for his brother.
At last Grant let her go.
"I want you," he said. "I'll give you everything Larry would have given you and more. Except a wedding ring. Like I told you, I made that mistake once before."
Her lovely face changed subtly, quickly, from the soft glowing expression of a woman newly in love to that of a woman who'd lost everything.
"You really think that I… " A sob caught in her throat.
His expression was harsh.
Her luscious, passionate mouth, swollen from his kisses, quivered. Her face was very pale. He saw the sparkle of new tears spill over her long lashes. Her beautiful neck was taut, her head proudly poised and erect.
"I've made mistakes, too," she said softly in a small, brave voice that didn't quite mask
her utter de-spair. "And tonight… you, Grant Hale, were one of them."
He tried to stop her when she tried to go.
"I'm not what you think," she whispered. "And you're not what I thought."
He was forcibly struck by the sorrow in her pain-glazed eyes. She got out of the car and ran all the way to her door where she dropped her keys and struggled with the lock for a long time. He knew she was weeping so hard she couldn't see.
Flushed with anger and frustrated desire, he watched her fumble about, thinking he should help her, thinking he should go, thinking he would forget her, and knowing deep down he never could. When she vanished into the gloom of her apartment building, he started the car and burned rubber in his wildness to get away.
But he'd never forgotten her stricken, tear-streaked face. Not even after she'd married his brother on the rebound. Not in the five years since Larry's death.
Chapter Four
There was a whisper from the doorway that had nothing to do with the wind.
Grant opened his eyes and saw Norie standing there, holding a plastic tray with two cups of steaming hot tea, milk, and Christmas cookies. She'd removed her poncho and was wearing a white sweater that clung to her slender body, and a soft woolen skirt. She seemed to hesitate on the threshold, as if she had doubts about the wisdom of joining him in his bedroom.
Her hair fell in dark spirals, framing her lovely face and neck. Her dark eyes were immense and luminous. Just the sight of her looking so gently innocent and vulnerable made his own body feel hard and hot with wild ravening need.
The wind whistled, and the house shuddered from a particularly strong blast.
"Come in," he murmured.
"I was afraid I'd wake you," she replied breathlessly.
He watched her set the tray down on the table by the bed. She handed him a cup of tea and a plate of homemade cookies. Neither spoke for a while, and the silence seemed awkward and heavy to both of them.
"It seems funny… you being here… in this house," she said at last.
