The Thawing of Mara

by Janet Dailey

  Mara's stomach knotted into a tight ball of nerves. The entire situation was making her irritated and on edge. A can of dried parsley flakes was the last item in the grocery bag. She shoved it quickly into place and folded up the paper bag, stowing it beneath the sink.

  In the opening to the living room, Mara hesitated. The couple were in front of the fireplace, locked in a kiss. Celene's arms were wound around Sin's neck while she still managed to hold the champagne glass. One of his hands was on her rib cage, almost cupping her breast. His other arm was pressed against the small of her back, arching the redhead to his muscled body. That hand held his glass. Neither had apparently spilled any champagne in the process since there was liquid in each of the glasses.

  Mara started to retreat into the kitchen until this passionate embrace was over, but she stopped herself. Why should she scurry off as if their kissing made her uncomfortable? If anyone was going to feel awkward from her intrusion, let it be them, she decided. She took another step into the living room.

  "Excuse me, I'm leaving now," she announced with composure, her voice cool.

  With remarkable aplomb and absence of haste, they untangled themselves from each other without tipping their champagne glasses. Celene smoothed the fiery strands of hair from her cheek in a self-conscious gesture, but there was a pleasantly satisfied gleam in her eyes, especially when they darted to Sin.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Prentiss," she apologized while he sipped at his champagne. "I'm afraid we got a bit carried away."

  Secretly Mara thought that excuse might be true for Celene, but a glance at the woman's partner made her doubt that it had been equally true of him. He looked fully in control of himself and his passions.

  "There's no need to apologize." Her mouth curved, but it wasn't much of a smile.

  Sinclair Buchanan moved, drawing Mara's gaze. His sports jacket was unbuttoned, the front held open by the hand thrust in the pocket of his slacks. That casual air was a pose; Mara realized that he was every bit as alert as she was.

  "I haven't thanked you for ensuring that we have something to eat this weekend," he said.

  "It isn't necessary, Mr. Buchanan," Mara countered. "You've already amply compensated me." Before she made her departure, courtesy demanded that she add, "I hope you find the cottage to your satisfaction. If you or your wife have any questions, please contact me."

  Celene broke into a laugh and immediately covered her mouth, her brown gaze dancing to Sin. "Darling, she thinks we're married!"

  "Yes." His amusement was more distant as he turned and lifted an inquiring eyebrow at the redhead. "I wonder where she got that idea…"

  Mara's chin tipped to an angle a scant degree higher than before, the only outward sign of her recoiling shock. She had wrongly presumed the couple were married. She was reluctant to make another assumption in case it should be wrong, too.

  "It's my fault, Miss Prentiss." Sin took the blame without exhibiting any remorse for his action. "I failed to introduce Celene when we arrived. Miss Prentiss, this is Celene Taylor, a friend of mine. Celene, Mara Prentiss," he corrected the oversight.

  "How do you do, Miss Taylor." Mara acknowledged the introduction stiffly and received a smiling nod in return.

  "Celene is spending the weekend with me," he stated. "I don't recall seeing any restriction in the lease against having friends visit."

  "Of course, there was none," Mara admitted disliking his baiting tone. "But you do realize there's only one bedroom," she reminded him coldly, and immediately wished she hadn't said it.

  That devilish glint was back in his eyes. "Yes, I do know, Miss Prentiss. It is Mis isn't it?" Again he jibed at her naiveté.

  "Yes, it is." Mara tried desperately not to snap out the answer. The only way out of this mess seemed to be a dignified retreat.

  "I know you'll want to bring your luggage in and get unpacked, so I won't keep you any longer. Good day, Mr. Buchanan…Miss Taylor."

  Mara turned toward the door only to be halted by a low male voice. "Miss Prentiss, aren't you forgetting something?"

  She glanced over her shoulder, her look totally blank. "I beg your pardon? Forgetting what?"

  "The key to the cottage," Sin replied. "I believe I need one."

  Silently calling herself fifty kinds of a fool, Mara reached into the pocket of her slacks and took out the key. Sin Buchanan walked over to take it from her. She practically dropped it in her haste to give it to him.

  Her eyes blazed at the amused curl of his mouth. That opaque gleam was in his smoke-blue eyes playing over her face. Mara had never felt so impotent in her life. There was nothing she could do to change it.

  "Thank you." His strong fingers closed around the key.

  Mara nodded dumbly and pivoted toward the door. Rigidly she kept her steps unhurried as she exited from the cottage. She was trembling by the time she reached the station wagon.

  Chapter Three

  BY THE TIME Mara reached the house, her seething resentment had been controlled to a low simmer. Sinclair Buchanan had made her look a fool. She didn't like that—nor him. She should have known her new tenant sounded too good to be true. Why had she listened to Harve and rented the cottage without first meeting the man?

  Not that it would have made any difference, Mara concluded as she walked to the back door of the red brick house. "Sin darling" probably wouldn't have brought his mistress to that meeting. Not that she cared whether he had a mistress, she reminded herself. But the pair of them, mostly Sin, had made her look so damn prudish. And she wasn't. She didn't care how other people behaved.

  Slamming the back door, she tossed the car keys on the kitchen counter. They slid against a grocery bag. Mara was reminded that none of this would have happened if she hadn't taken so long in town getting the supplies. His groceries would have been put away and she would have been here to give him the key when he stopped for it, then she wouldn't have been subjected to the embarrassing incident.

  "Mara?" Her father entered the kitchen. Immediately she began unpacking the rest of their groceries. "That Buchanan fellow stopped here. I sent him down to the cottage. Did you see him?"

  "Yes," she answered without elaboration.

  "How did they like the cottage?" he inquired. "I caught a glimpse of his wife in the car. From what I could tell, she looked to be a strikingly beautiful woman, but not exactly the type for a cottage in the Pennsylvania woods."

  "She loved it." Mara sarcastically stressed the verb, the woman's gushy "Sin darling" echoing in her mind. "But she isn't his wife."

  Her voice was hard and flat as she made the announcement. She continued to stack the canned goods in the cupboard without a break in her rhythm, but there was a hint of angry agitation in her movements.

  "Not his wife?" Adam Prentiss echoed in an initially blank voice. "You mean…" He began chuckling to himself as he realized what she meant. "I suppose it was a natural mistake." Mara said nothing, not admitting it was a mistake she had made, too. "There's nothing like bringing your own entertainment along with you to while away the hours."

  "Must you be so disgustingly crude!" Mara slammed the cupboard door shut. An image of her new tenant and his mistress cuddling in front of the fireplace leaped into her mind. It grated at the raw edge of her nerves, inflaming them again.

  Her outburst was greeted by a moment of silence. When her father spoke, all trace of amusement was gone from his voice. His tone was serious and gently reprimanding.

  "Sex isn't crude, Mara. It's a very beautiful thing."

  "I don't care to hear any lecture from you on the subject!" she snapped.

  A long sigh came from behind her, followed by the turning of the wheelchair. When the swinging door had slowly ended its pendulum movement, Mara was alone in the kitchen. Her hands were gripping the edges of the counter, her knuckles white.

  For the rest of that day and all of Saturday, she blocked the cottage and its inhabitants from her mind. On Sunday morning she rose early as was her custom. While the coff
ee perked, she walked out to the mailbox for the Sunday newspaper. Her father was awake when she returned. After helping him into his robe, she held the wheelchair steady as he levered himself out of the bed into his chair.

  The whole routine seemed timed to coincide with the moment the coffee had finished perking. It emitted its last popping sound as Mara wheeled her father into the kitchen. In silence they shared a glass of orange juice and a cup of fresh coffee before Mara fixed their breakfast of ham and eggs and hot rolls.

  With the morning meal over, she stacked the dishes in the sink and filled it with hot, sudsy water. Her father's wheelchair remained positioned at the table while he read the newspaper and sipped a cup of coffee.

  Mechanically Mara began washing the dishes. One by one she washed them, rinsed them and stacked them on the draining board to dry. Her mind seemed blank as she performed the task, her gaze straying out the window above the sink to the woods beyond.

  A large patch of blue caught her eye, and focusing on it, she saw a figure coming up the rutted trail from the cottage. It was Sin Buchanan, dressed in a sky-blue jogging suit. A black stripe ran down the long length of the legs. His muscled frame moved in effortless, athletic strides. The premature gray of his hair was at odds with the rest of him, a perfect male specimen in the prime of his manhood.

  Mara watched him cross the cattle guard and approach the house at an easy, jogging pace. She expected him to turn up the driveway toward the graveled country road, and an alarm jangled through her nerves as she realized his destination was the vicinity of the back door.

  In a sudden spurt of activity she began washing the dishes at a faster rate. Then a knock at the back door brought a stiffening of her spine, and the newspaper rustled as her father set it aside.

  "I wonder who that could be," he murmured.

  "I'll see." Mara avoided his questioning gaze as she dried her sudsy hands with a terry towel.

  She walked to the door, steeling her features to be expressionless. When she opened it, Sin Buchanan stood outside, as she had known he would. His relaxed stance indicated that he felt totally at ease. Mara felt a fluttering tension in her stomach.

  The even rise and fall of his broad chest revealed that the long jog from the cottage to the house had not left him winded. Her gaze lifted to his face and met the smoky blue of his eyes. They seemed somehow shuttered, his inner thoughts hidden from her. If anything, his eyes only reflected the coolness of her attitude. Her gaze flicked to his steel-gray hair that was so strangely in keeping with the dynamic thrust of his vitality.

  "Good morning, Miss Prentiss." There was a sardonic lilt to his low-pitched voice.

  "Was there something you needed, Mr. Buchanan?" Mara skipped the greeting to demand a reason for his appearance.

  "Yes, there is." A faint light gleamed in his eyes, deriding her for asking a perfectly obvious question.

  From behind her came Adam's voice. "Don't stand there with the door open, Mara—it's creating a draft. Invite him in."

  The sheer practicality of the suggestion couldn't be ignored, as much as Mara wished that it could be. Her fingers tightened around the doorknob. Her impulse was to step outside to speak to him privately, without her father listening in, rather than to invite Sin Buchanan inside the house.

  But there was a nip in the autumn morning. The warmth of Sin's breath was making a vaporous cloud in the outside air. Mara realized that if she attempted to conduct this conversation out of doors she would soon be shivering. The last thing she wanted to do was attempt to discuss business with her teeth chattering.

  Reluctantly Mara swung the door wide to admit him. "Please come in, Mr. Buchanan." There was little welcome in her voice. Mostly it held a grudging tolerance for his presence.

  "Thank you." His response, too, was merely a polite expression without a foundation in sincerity. "I hope I'm not intruding."

  As far as Mara was concerned, he was a definite intrusion and she had no intention of denying it. Unfortunately her father was inclined otherwise.

  "Of course you're not, Mr. Buchanan," Adam insisted. "We've already had breakfast. Mara was just washing the dishes while I finished reading the paper. There is some coffee left, isn't there, Mara? Why don't you offer Mr. Buchanan a cup?"

  She sent her father a silencing look. "I'm sure Mr. Buchanan has already had his morning coffee." Her glance challenged Sin to dispute her claim.

  The amused slant of his mouth lacked humor. "As a matter of fact, I didn't take time for coffee before I left the cottage."

  "Pour the gentleman a cup, Mara," her father instructed.

  "All that's left is the bottom of the pot," she added a last warning, irritated that Sin Buchanan was taking advantage of the hospitality he must guess she didn't wish to extend.

  "I like my coffee strong and black," he informed her, and glanced at her father. "Thank you for offering, Mr. Prentiss," expressing his gratitude to whom it was due.

  "Sit down." Her father waved a hand to indicate a chair at the table. "And please call me Adam. With you staying at the cottage, you're virtually our closest neighbor, and I've never liked formality between neighbors."

  "Neither have I," was the agreement. "I didn't introduce myself on Friday. Sinclair Buchanan," he identified himself, and shook hands with Adam before sitting in one of the chairs.

  Having emptied the coffeepot into a mug, Mara carried it to the table and set it in front of him. "I believe your friends call you Sin, don't they?" Her subtle jibe was followed by the thought, Sin by name and sin by nature.

  His blue eyes glanced up at her, challenge lurking in their steely depths. "That's correct," he admitted.

  Immediately her remark seemed churlish. "You said you liked your coffee black?" She sought his affirmation to cover her previous words.

  "Yes, thank you." The frosted gray hair inclined briefly in affirmation, something vaguely condescending in the action. As Sin lifted the mug to sip the scalding hot coffee, his gaze was directed at her father. "Adam Prentiss—I have the feeling I should know that name."

  Adam had been studying his daughter. At the questioning remark addressed to him, he brought his attention back to the man at the table.

  "I'm something of a local historian," he offered in explanation.

  "Adam is being falsely modest," Mara inserted. "He's a very well known Civil War historian."

  "That's where I've heard your name, then." Sin absorbed the information Mara supplied but ignored the acid sting in her voice. "A close friend of mine is an avid Civil War buff, and your name probably came up in our conversation."

  Mara felt a curiosity for the identity of his friend and heard herself inquire skeptically, "Miss Taylor?" His red-haired mistress didn't seem the type to her.

  "No." Sardonic amusement danced in his eyes while the rest of Sin's strong features remained smoothly expressionless. "A close male friend of mine."

  Mara had the distinct impression that she had walked into a trap he had neatly set for her, and she didn't like the feeling. Sin Buchanan was an irritating and offensive man. She wished she could stop rising to his bait and learn to ignore it.

  He was speaking again, this time to Adam. "I believe John mentioned your name as the author of a book he'd recently read about the Battle of Gettysburg."

  "That's possible," her father conceded with a faint smile. "I have written one on the subject. It's a comfort to know someone has read if and it isn't gathering dust on the library shelves."

  "I confess that I know very little about the battle or the Civil War." But Sin Buchanan wasn't apologizing for his ignorance or previous lack of interest.

  "When the South lost the Battle of Gettysburg, they virtually lost the war even though it dragged on for another two years," Adam explained the significance of the battle in history.

  "I don't think Mr. Buchanan is interested in hearing a lecture on it." Mara stated before her father could warm to his favorite subject. She turned a challenging look toward the blandly guarded expressio
n of her tenant. "You said there was something you wanted to speak to me about, Mr. Buchanan?" She pointedly reminded him of the reason for his visit.

  The slashing lines that ran from nose to mouth became more pronounced. Behind his lazy regard, Mara sensed he was laughing at her, silently, cynically. It heightened her feeling of antagonism toward him.

  "Yes, there is," Sin admitted. "I want to make arrangements to have someone to clean the cottage on a weekly basis and have it in readiness for my weekend visits."

  "I see," she murmured, and waited for him to continue.

  "Since I'm new to the area, I thought you might recommend a responsible person for the job," he explained.

  She couldn't argue with his logical request, but neither could she fulfill it. "Offhand, I can't think of anyone," she shrugged.

  "Perhaps I can impose on you to find someone," he suggested. "It's difficult to conduct interviews long-distance, as well as time-consuming."

  Silently Mara wished that he wasn't so damned logical. She wanted to disagree with him, but his proposal made too much sense.

  "I'm flattered that you should trust my judgment." The ring of sarcasm in her voice eliminated the pleasure implied by her words.

  "We both have a vested interest in ensuring that the cottage is well kept. Since you own it, you wouldn't want to see the property neglected, while I want to enjoy it in comfort," Sin reasoned with equitable calm.

  "I quite agree." Mara paused to control the sharpness of her tongue. "But you must understand the difficulty in finding a reliable person who'll be willing to come so far out of the way. We're located off the beaten track."

  Her comment didn't elicit an immediate response. Mara watched as Sin lifted the coffee mug to his firmly defined mouth. His large hand encircled the mug, a healthy tan coloring his skin. She felt her tension building from the volatile undercurrents rippling through the air. Her gaze strayed past Sin to her father, who was observing the subtly charged byplay between them with growing interest. Adam's presence aggravated the situation.

  "I am aware it may not be easy, Miss Prentiss." Sin replaced the mug on the table, the fingers of both hands encircling it. He studied the mug for a moment before sliding his veiled gaze to her. "Naturally I'm more than willing to compensate you for your services."