“Come on, Stephen. Let’s go inside.”
They rushed through the door, removed their snow-covered shoes, and hurried over to the wood-burning stove. Stephen grasped the zipper of his coat, but Audrey clasped her hand over his and shook her head. She took the zipper from between his fingers, pulled it down, and yanked his coat off. Stephen unfastened the buttons of her coat and pushed it off her shoulders. She shook her arms free and let it fall to the floor. She tore open his flannel shirt and tugged it out of his pants. Stephen whipped it off and flung it away. He grabbed the hem of her sweater and jerked it over her head. She tucked her hands into the waistband of his jeans, unfastened the button, and zipped open his fly. Stephen grasped the front of her pants but hesitated with his fingers dipping inside while he gazed into her eyes, looking for any sign of disapproval.
“Go ahead, Stephen,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Take them off.”
He worked the button loose, dropped the zipper, and tucked his hands in at her sides, being careful not to catch her panties. In one smooth motion, he pushed her pants to her feet. Audrey stepped out of them and kicked them aside. She shoved his jeans to his ankles, and he pulled them the rest of the way off. She stood gazing at the wet spot in his boxer briefs as a broad smile brightened her face.
“Looks like someone had an accident.” She giggled and ran for the blanket on the sofa, flopped down, and covered up.
Stephen put his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Mine are wet because of sabotage. That doesn’t explain the wet spot in yours.”
Audrey tucked her head under the blanket for a moment, then gazed warily at him. “How could you see that?”
“I couldn’t.” Stephen grinned and climbed under the blanket with her.
“Jackass. You tricked me.” She turned away and pulled the blanket off him.
“So, you’re going to let me sit here and shiver because I got you to admit something you didn’t want to admit?”
She raised the blanket and rolled over to face him. “All right. I enjoyed kissing you, Stephen, as is evident by my damp undies, but was it really necessary for me to say it out loud?”
He pulled the blanket over himself and wrapped his arms around her. She swung her legs up, and they stretched out together along the length of the sofa. “It’s pretty obvious when a woman gets a man excited, but it’s not so simple for him to tell if he has the same effect on her.”
Audrey slipped her fingers along the front of his boxer briefs. “Yes, it’s very obvious. The signs are more subtle for a woman. You have to observe carefully.”
Stephen pulled her onto him and lay gazing up into her eyes.
Audrey cleared her throat as she rolled off him. “Our agreement was to get each other warm, not hot.”
“I’ve been hot ever since you walked in the door, but I’m not complaining.”
She jockeyed for position, making him slide over to give her some room. “Are you okay with lying here holding me and not doing anything else?”
Stephen sighed as his heart sank. “If it makes you happy, Audrey, I’m okay with it.”
“Thank you, Stephen. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.”
He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift. The frustration of his arousal was compounded by the knowledge that Audrey wouldn’t give him relief, at least not anytime soon. But simply having her in his arms gave him a sense of satisfaction he hadn’t expected when he woke that morning. All things considered, the day was turning out to be one of the best he could remember. There were still many secrets left to discover about Audrey, but she was beginning to reveal one truth: her relationship with her fiancé was not on solid ground.
***
The increasingly dark layer of gray clouds hung in the sky, blocking out most of the sunlight. Snow continued to fall all day, sometimes heavy, sometimes just a few odd flakes here and there. As afternoon gave way to evening, Stephen built a fire in the fireplace. It didn’t put out much heat compared to the stove, but it worked wonders for atmosphere. Audrey had put on Stephen’s flannel shirt, which fit her like a short dress. She didn’t want to get back into her street clothes, but the cabin wasn’t quite warm enough for only underwear. Stephen fished out a pair of long johns and slipped into them, wondering how Audrey could stand to go bare legged, but enjoying the view none the less. He stoked up the wood-burning stove and put two sirloins on a rack suspended between two cast iron frying pans.
Audrey strolled out of the kitchen, holding a bottle, and gazed at his contraption. “What do you call that?”
“It’s not exactly a grill, but this will be better than baking the steaks in the oven or frying them.”
She held up the bottle. “You didn’t tell me you had wine.”
“Where did you find that?”
She dusted the bottle and set it on the table. “It was in the wine rack under the cabinet. Looks like it’s been here a while. There’s no telling if it’s still any good.”
“Well, I suppose we’ll find out. You don’t happen to have a corkscrew, do you?”
She held up a chrome-plated corkscrew and set it with the wine.
When Stephen finished cooking, he lit two oil lamps on the fireplace mantel and a candle on the table, then turned out the electric lights. The soft amber glow of the flames deepened the auburn color of Audrey’s hair. Her smooth, pale skin radiated sensuality. Candlelight flickered in her beautiful brown eyes as she sat across the table, gazing his way. An involuntary tremble on her pouty lips hinted that desire was rising in her heart.
She took a sip of her wine without turning her attention away from Stephen. “Yesterday, if someone had told me that tonight I’d be snowbound in a cabin in the woods, eating steak off a paper plate with a pocket knife, drinking wine from a coffee cup, and winding down the best day of my life with a handsome stranger, I’d have said they were nuts.” She leaned across the table and kissed his lips. The diamond on her finger sparkled as she moved.
“Audrey, I’m totally confused. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on with you and whoever gave you that rock?”
She put her finger to his lips. “Everything is perfect. I don’t want to spoil it by talking about that. Come sit with me. I like being close to you.”
She grasped his hand, coaxed him to the sofa, and maneuvered him into a sitting position. She sat beside him but turned around to face him and stretched out across his lap. Even with a fire in the fireplace, the cabin was still too cool for comfort. He spread the blanket from the backrest over them. The hunger in her gaze had grown more intense, possibly matching his own. As he drew her into his embrace, his body stirred with anticipation. The fire logs crackled, and orange flames licked the air. Wind howled eerily around the cabin, hard gusts pelting the windows with bursts of snow. Stephen tugged the blanket tighter around them and soaked up her warmth. Audrey snuggled closer and pressed her lips to his, but only for one brief moment.
Stephen grasped her fingers and brought her left hand between them for both to see. “This is killing me, Audrey. What are you doing?”
“I’m not cheating, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You’ve made a promise to another man, but you’re driving me out of my mind, making me want you. That’s cheating.”
“Trust me, it’s not.” She gazed at the solitaire on her finger. “Nothing is set in stone.”
Her words made no sense. An engagement was just about as set in stone as a relationship could get. Either Audrey’s definition of a relationship ran completely contrary to his or something had gone so terribly wrong between her and her fiancé that arousing another man didn’t qualify as cheating. Nothing short of a breakup could account for that, except—maybe the guy had cheated first and she was taking revenge on him to even the score before they got married. “Do you want to clarify that?”
“It means the situation is fluid, in dynamic motion, not permanent.”
“Yeah, I was asking for details specific to you.”
“I know you were.”
“You have to give me something, Audrey. Am I even in the running?”
She jerked her hand from his grasp and sat up, glaring at him. “Okay—okay, you’re right. I guess I owe you an explanation.” She hesitated for a moment longer as the irritation on her face gave way to resignation. “Do you believe in the idea of soul mates, that everyone has a perfect partner who is an exact match only for them?”
Stephen flopped his head onto the backrest and gazed at the flickering fire. “It’s a romantic notion I’d like to believe in, but I know too many people who are in bad relationships with someone they thought was a soul mate.”
She fished around under the blanket until she found his hand and grasped it tightly. “I think most people never find their perfect partner and settle for someone convenient, but I also believe that sometimes fate brings people together who have to be together. Sometimes it’s for a higher purpose, like having a child who will change the world, and sometimes it’s just to increase the quantity of love in the universe.”
Stephen shifted his position to get more comfortable. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, then let her go. “That’s a beautiful idea, Audrey, and I’d like to believe it. If you’re trying to tell me that this pertains to us, somehow, just come out and say it. I’m not the type of guy who is easily frightened. I mean, you showed up on my doorstep out of the blue, for God’s sake and you’re...” He couldn’t tell her she was a dead ringer for his dream girl, not so soon anyway. “Sorry, finish explaining. I want to hear this.”
Audrey rubbed a finger over her solitaire, gazing intently at it. “There’s a man, and the moment I met him, I was sure he was the one I’d spend the rest of my life with. The trouble is, I thought I was in love with another man before him, but things went wrong that nearly ruined my life. So, no matter how I feel about this man in my heart, I’m terrified that something will go wrong again. I need to know for sure that he’s the one for me before I make our relationship permanent. I think you’re a really nice guy, Stephen, and I need you to help me figure out if I should follow my head or my heart.”
Stephen covered his eyes with his hands and leaned his head backward over the sofa, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “So basically, you ran into me and decided that I’d be a good test dummy to help you sort out your feelings for your fiancé?”
“Jesus, Stephen, you’re making me sound like a heartless bitch. I’m not like that. I knew it was a mistake to try and explain my situation. If you knew all the details of what I just said, you’d understand that I’m a good person and you’d help me.”
“Then give me the details, Audrey. I want to understand.”
She frowned deeply and shook her head. “All I can do is ask that you please trust me. If you’re willing to do that, then hold me close and don’t question my morals.”
He grasped her ring and began sliding it toward the tip of her finger, but she closed her fist before he got it off. “Dammit, Audrey.”
Her eyes began to glisten. “I can’t, Stephen, I’m sorry.”
The disappointment in her voice told him what her words didn’t say. Of all the times for him to screw up, this was probably the worst. She was offering him the opportunity to convince her that her fiancé wasn’t her soul mate, but he had blown everything with two words. All the wounds from his recent breakup had begun to heal because of this stranger who appeared out of nowhere, and he had hurt her at the first opportunity. Stephen left her sitting on the sofa, slogged into one of the bedrooms, and closed the door.
He trudged over to the bed and flopped lengthwise across it, letting his head hang down toward the floor. A paperback novel lay covered in dust between the leg of the headboard and the wall. Stephen fished it out and dusted it off. The title read: Two Studs for Ms. Tart. He tossed both pillows together, sat back against them, and began to read.
***
The gentle click of the bedroom door closing sent a chill crawling up Audrey’s spine. It had a finality about it that a violent slam wouldn’t have had. If Stephen had been pissed and needed to cool off for a while, there was a chance he would be back to talk things over. But calmly walking away could only mean that he wasn’t passionate enough about her to get angry that she’d denied him. It was just as well. If things had kept going in the direction they were heading, her vow would have been totally shattered. And what good is a person who can’t keep her word? As it stood, she had danced all over the line but still not crossed it completely.
I’m a total friggin’ saint. She had used Stephen’s body, played with his emotions, intentionally misled him, and all she wanted to do was rush into the bedroom with him and spill her guts about everything. He was kind and warm and funny and gorgeous to boot. And he was passionate about her. She could hear it in the way he swore when she kept him from taking her ring off. He just wasn’t the type of guy to throw an angry fit when he didn’t get his way.
There was nothing but his own sense of morality to stop him from taking what he wanted. She had pushed him beyond the point where some guys wouldn’t have accepted no for an answer, but she knew in her heart that he’d never do anything she didn’t let him do.
She desperately needed to tell him the truth, but that meant taking a risk she wasn’t willing to take. That meant trusting him to be the man that she believed he was. She had known him for less than one day, not nearly long enough to put so much trust in any man. As she had discovered, six years wasn’t long enough to know one man well enough to trust him.
And yet, she couldn’t help but feel that something bigger than herself was happening. Fate had intervened in her life, and no matter how bad she hurt, how confused she felt, or how terrified she was about being wrong, she had to go where it wanted to take her. Stephen was there for a reason. Mere coincidence couldn’t account for his presence or the sequence of events that had to occur exactly when they did in order to bring them together.
Every second she spent away from him was another lost opportunity to discover answers. Only one question really mattered at the moment, and she wasn’t sure she’d have the guts to ask, but they couldn’t move forward until she did. If he was involved with someone, that news might devastate her, but if he wasn’t, a world of possibilities awaited her. Either option was equally frightening for totally different reasons. It was like flipping a coin to decide the next phase of her life. Tails and she’d bow her head, forgive Daniel, and live with the hurt. But if it came up heads... Her stomach turned over at the thought of seriously pursuing a relationship with someone new. Despite her fear, she needed to talk to him.
He was behind a closed door a few feet away, and the only way to get to him was to walk over and knock. Even if she couldn’t find the nerve to discuss anything else, at least she could apologize for making him think he was nothing more than a test dummy.
Audrey stood and took a step toward the bedroom, but her trembling legs couldn’t support her. She staggered and found herself sitting on the arm of the sofa. Light spilled out from under the bedroom door. At least he’s still awake. Go on and talk to him. What’s the worst that could happen? He could send me away. Shit. He could invite me in. Oh, God, what should I do?
She took a deep breath, pushed herself up using the sofa for support, and gave it another try.
Chapter Four
Each page in the novel was more explicit than the last. Just when Stephen decided to ditch it rather than chance the embarrassment of Audrey catching him reading it, the bedroom door opened. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks as she poked her head inside and grinned, but her beautiful smile lifted the gloom from his heart.
“What’cha reading?” she asked.
He held the book up so she could see the cover. “Someone left it under the bed. Lucky for me.”
She strolled over and climbed onto the bed beside him. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want, Stephen.”
Guilt coupled with embarrassment was more th
an he could stand. He returned his gaze to the book, unable to look at her face any longer. “Whatever.”
“Hey, I’m apologizing. I know this is frustrating for you, but please believe me, I’m just as frustrated.”
Stephen set the book on his lap and stared at the sexy trio on the cover sandwiched together in a loving embrace. “I’m the one who should apologize. Sometimes I don’t think before I speak. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you. I know you have your reasons, and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”
Audrey threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Thank you, Stephen, for everything. There’s something I’ve been wondering about you, but I’ve been afraid to ask. Do you have a girlfriend at home waiting for you?”
Stephen grabbed his wallet off the nightstand. “Yeah, as a matter of fact I do. I have a naked picture of her. Do you want to see?”
Audrey closed her eyes and flopped backward onto the bed. “Not really.”
Stephen pulled a faded picture of a Holstein from his wallet and held it in front of Audrey’s face. “She’s a real hottie, don’t you think? Check out those utters, mmmoo.”
“Huh?” She opened one eye and grinned. “Wow, you two make a cute couple.”
He put the picture away and leaned back against the pillows. Audrey sat up, still grinning, and joined him. Stephen slipped his arm around her waist and hugged her. She giggled and sank into him.
“Okay, that was kind of funny.”
“It’s not original. An old buddy of mine used to pull that. He’d walk into a party and say something like, ‘I had a blind date last night, and I got a picture of her naked. You want to see?’ Of course everyone would say yes, and then he’d take out a picture of a cow or a dog or just about any other animal. It got so that everyone knew his joke, but we always went along with it just to see what kind of picture he had. Once he came in and said, ‘My date last night had a great body, but her face looked like Stephen’s mom,’ and then he pulled out a picture of a naked woman that he had glued a gorilla’s head onto.”
Snowbound Hearts Page 5
