Richard would have been appalled to see her standing naked in the woods. So, come to think of it, would her parents. And anyone else she knew. Bree was not a brazen, sensual lady and never had been. She was just…Bree. All her life she had been just…Bree.
Maybe the shampoo bottle held a secret formula for washing away dissatisfaction, because at the moment she exulted in playing mermaid. When she dived to rinse off, her hair streamed behind her, and she played a few minutes more, although her flesh was starting to feel cold. A half hour later, shivering, she shook the water from her skin as she waded back to shore. Bending to pick up the towel, she straightened, loving the warmth of sunlight on her bare skin.
Almost against her will, she found her eyes darting around, seeking out shadows in the woods, absently scanning the densely covered rise to the top of the hill…Abruptly, her hands stopped patting her skin with the towel as if she were putting on a strip show. Then her spine straightened into a more natural posture, and she stopped whipping back her hair like a forties movie star.
Dammit, Bree. You’ve been freezing for at least a half hour, and you may as well quit acting like a damn fool. He’s not there. You knew that even before you came down here.
The softly caressing towel turned into a rubbing punishment. Would you get that damn man out of your mind?
Chapter Five
At eleven, Bree collapsed on the feather bed, tested her little finger to see if it had the energy to wiggle, discovered it didn’t, and contentedly closed her eyes. This once, she knew she would sleep. The day couldn’t have been fuller, with shopping and swimming and a quick experiment with scents and an entire evening of baking. And in the peace and silence of the woods, she was certain her nightmares were behind her.
But the dream came back in the darkest hours. Always, it was slightly different. New details would hauntingly tug at her memory: the way the clouds had hung in charcoal-gray shadows, the face of someone in the crowd, the song she’d been humming as she left Gram to get the car.
Always, the end was the same. She’d let herself be talked into taking a frail old woman outside on a frigid day-her fault. They’d shopped for hours-her fault. She’d left Gram alone-her fault. She’d wasted a few minutes bringing the car around, the exact minutes during which the purse snatcher had attacked Gram-her fault. She was the one who had let it all happen. Wrong choices…all her fault.
And the siren kept screaming in the dream. The night pressed down on her; sheets writhed around her like chains. She had loved Gram so much, and the siren kept screaming, along with a silent scream that no one else ever heard.
“Bree. Stop that caterwauling and get your little butt down here so we can both get some sleep.”
Bree’s eyes flew open. Disoriented in the darkness, she glimpsed the illuminated hands of the clock next to her. 2:13 a.m. Vaguely, she was aware that her heart was pounding, her forehead damp, that the sheet was twisted around her.
“You hear me? If you don’t come down, I’m coming up.”
The voice was a low, lazy baritone, delivering the threat in bored tones. In fact, she heard the yawn that followed it.
Hart. Unmistakably.
Heart still thundering, Bree frantically untwisted the sheet and groped for a robe. There wasn’t one. Naturally. She hadn’t anticipated needing a robe or a nightgown; she’d gone to bed naked because the night had been hot. There was certainly no reason not to, when she was positive she had bolted both doors.
“Bree.”
She tripped on the quilt, trying to reach the wardrobe in the dark.
“Honey. You really shouldn’t try my patience at two in the morning. At the count of ten, I’m coming up.”
Her fingers frantically touched cotton, polyester, linen, silk and finally the quilted fabric of her robe, grabbing it from its hanger. Hurriedly wrapping the short garment around her, she rushed barefoot to the loft stairs, groggily aware of a dim, flickering light below.
She took one step down, and two more-enough to be able to bend over and look, blinking hard. The tears were already dried on her cheeks, forgotten; and if her body was still trembling slightly, she put it down to rage.
“Now, let’s not panic. I put on my pants, see? Nothing to get nervous about. Get down here,” he ordered irritably.
Nothing to get nervous about? A double sleeping bag was spread out on the floor by the wood stove. Two candles were flickering in tin lanterns. The rich bride cake she’d spent the evening making was still on the kitchen table-but had a distinct and massive dent in it. And an almost-naked man was glowering at her from the bottom of the wooden steps-and never mind his jeans.
Hart’s massive chest was bare, his shoulders the color of hot gold by candlelight, his chest sprayed liberally with silvery curling hairs. His hair was tousled, his cheeks dark with stubble and his midnight eyes glinted at her like wet blue stones. The civilized veneer was gone; he could have been a mountain man, as primitive and amoral and rough as any of the hermits who stalked the back hills carrying their shotguns.
“Honey, don’t climb down a flight of stairs in a robe that short for anyone else, would you?”
He lowered his head. She scrambled down several more steps, even though she never for a minute believed he could see what he was claiming to see. “What the devil do you think you’re doing here? How did you get in?” The questions tried to tumble from her lips, but though her mouth moved, she had no voice at all.
For a moment, there was no sound at all in the cabin. Hart just looked at her, his eyes rambling with devilty over her wildly curling hair, the faint dampness on her cheeks, the vulnerable pallor of her face by candlelight. Bree flushed, for no reason, tucking the robe closer around her in a protective gesture that produced a desultory smile from Hart.
“Unfortunately, I finished the hooch when I came in. I checked around-thought you’d at least have a beer in the fridge, but no. Not even wine. God save us from teetotalers,” Hart said disgustedly. “I can hardly believe we’re stuck with milk.”
He disappeared through the open door of the lean-to, and Bree let out an impossibly huge sigh, combing her fingers hurriedly through her hair. He was such an exasperating man…yet in some murky corner of her head, she wasn’t totally miserable about his being here. The ache in her heart lessened, the post-nightmare trembling had stopped…Every time Hart was around she was too busy being furious to feel depressed.
“You left your window screens unlocked. Doesn’t do much good to bolt all the doors when a bear could push a paw through the screen and get in.” He returned from the lean-to and thrust a glass of milk in her hand. A lazy grin split his face; that teasing smile below intensely dark eyes still seared on hers from above. “Now, don’t throw it, honey-not that I’d really mind. Milk may be a bitch to clean up, but I’ll take that look in your eyes any day over the way you looked a few minutes ago. So you had another little nightmare, did you? More alligators under the bed? I would have been here last night if I hadn’t had so damn much to take care of. Just sit down, and we’ll have a little talk.”
She jabbed a furious forefinger at the sleeping bag.
He nodded. “You didn’t really think I was going to leave you alone here to scream your heart out all by yourself? Besides, it was hot up at my place.”
A blatant lie. His house had central air conditioning, and her nightmares were her business. Bree’s lips tightened as she motioned even more angrily to her cake.
“Terrific stuff. It was still warm when I came in. I could smell it when I was ten feet from the door. Now, I know I took a little piece, but that was hardly my fault. You shouldn’t bake like that if you don’t want it eaten. Incidentally, you’ve got quite a contraption there.” He motioned to the “bubbler” she had set up in the corner by the dry sink, where she’d played with a formula for perfume hours before.
“I had such high hopes when I first walked in here that you were making a little moonshine-it is a still, isn’t it? But that smell isn’t remotely relate
d to liquor. In fact,” Hart drawled lazily, “the scent has distinctly aphrodisiac qualities. One of the first things I noticed about you on the plane was that scent you wear-nothing heavy, is it, honey, just whatever it takes to drive a man over the edge. Are you a witch in secret, Bree? Woops. I forgot the lady isn’t inclined to talk back.”
Hart twisted around, spotted her purse on the floor by the dry sink and bent over, rummaging around in it until he withdrew her notepad and pen. “Drink your milk,” he ordered. “And then-just this one time-we’ll do a little communicating your way. Against my better judgment. One way or another I’d like at least a hint as to why you get the screaming meemies at two in the morning. Unless you’ve got something better to talk about?”
He motioned her to the sleeping bag, as if he expected her to sit there. Bree stood rooted to her spot in the shadow of the stairs, one hand holding her robe closed and the other clutching the cold, sweating glass of milk.
“Ah. We get the feeling the lady doesn’t want to talk about it. Well, fine, Bree.” Hart sprawled in a kitchen chair and raised one bare foot to the opposite one with a lazy yawn. “I told you before that it’s terrific finding a woman who doesn’t constantly prattle on and on, demanding constant attention, interrupting my every sentence…” He yawned again, a flashy grin zipping across his face. In that crazy, flickering candlelight, he looked like a demented tawny bear.
“Believe me, honey, I can talk for two. You want to hear about the time I drove a car into a swimming pool? That’s a good story. It happened to be the principal’s car-in the suburb of Los Angeles where I grew up-and the principal’s daughter happened to be in it. Happened to be in the car, that is, not just the suburb. Problems sort of compounded on that one, since I was only fifteen and didn’t have a license-”
My God, he could talk. On and on…Bree stood motionless in the corner. She took a token sip of the milk, but never considered sitting down. Even to perch on the steps was tantamount to giving him permission to stay. And Bree couldn’t do that.
Tension crackled around the room like a resounding echo. It had nothing to do with Bree’s nightmare. It had nothing to do with Hart’s naturally lazy baritone, soughing on and on about a dozen irresponsible escapades he’d had in his youth. The tension was strictly sexual; it rippled disturbingly whenever her eyes met Hart’s-and his never once left her face.
“So they let me take over the business. Uncle Harvey was sick of the constant travel. Dad was still trying hard to believe I could turn into an upstanding human being if given a little responsibility.” Hart yawned and paused long enough to lift both feet onto the kitchen table, crossing his ankles. “Lord, you have beautiful eyes. Sometimes soft as water, sometimes full of fire…” He raked a lazy hand through his hair, staring at her. “Anyway, easiest way to make money I’ve ever seen. Don’t know why the hell I went to college-except maybe for the pleasure of getting kicked out, like I told you. All I really needed to make good was a peddler’s mentality, a little larceny in my character, the ability to butter a few palms…Getting a little tired, honey, or are you just swaying on your feet because you like music?”
Vaguely, it occurred to Bree that there was something sneaky about Hart. For one thing, he was always yawning when his eyes were most alert. He worked so hard to present his character as totally irredeemable, when no one could have packed all the irresponsible, selfish actions he claimed he had into one short life. He insulted her often, but suddenly he would say something kind…and he was here, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to find a house close to her…
Maybe it was his personal hobby, driving women crazy. He was good at it. Her bare feet had grown roots. She’d stood still for the better part of an hour and just let him rant on, and cobwebs must have collected in her brain, because she knew darn well she’d been staring at him for most of that time. Nightmares faded when Hart was around-it was a trick he had. A terrible trick, that blue-eyed stare that held hers in a jail-like lock, as though he wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her mind wander to any subject but him.
“Well…” The kitchen chair tipped down; Hart’s feet dropped to the floor. “I think it’s time we both got some sleep, anyway. This time I think we’ll insure against nightmares, though. Do you want to sleep down here with me, or shall I take my sleeping bag upstairs?”
Her jaw sagged, just slightly.
Hart bent over and pushed one of his two pillows toward Bree, clearly making room for her on his double sleeping bag. “If the mosquitoes weren’t so bad, I’d suggest the porch, but without repellent or netting, this is probably the coolest place we can find. Snuff that second candle?”
He opened the tin lantern over the dry sink to blow out the first candle. The second one was on the table. Bree, rubbing one arm absently with the cold fingers of her other hand, didn’t move. His arrogant assumption that they were sleeping in the same room surpassed even his usual audacity, but she wasn’t certain how she’d fare in a fistfight.
His eyes leveled on hers over the flame of candle on the table. “Don’t be too foolish, Bree,” he said in a low voice. “We both know I’m not leaving. And that you’re not afraid of me.” He snuffed out the second candle himself.
In the sudden total blackness, she heard him shucking off his jeans, then lying down on the sleeping bag, then…silence. A lonely, frightening silence. All silences had been frightening to Bree for these past weeks.
One of her bare feet shifted forward, then the other. Moonlight bathed her profile in white mist for one moment before she crouched down, fingers blindly reaching for the spare pillow and quilted surface.
“Here.”
He tossed a cotton blanket over her, most impersonally. Tugging it to her chin, Bree felt…ashamed of herself. If it had come to a fistfight, she knew darn well she would have won by forfeit. Hart was without morals or character, but she just knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on an unwilling woman…There was no pretending she’d been forced, coerced or browbeaten into lying next to him.
Minutes ticked by. Her eyes gradually dilated until she could make out hazy, moonlit shapes and shadows. Lying on her side at the edge of the sleeping bag, she was conscious of her own tense, weary limbs. The cabin still smelled like fresh-baked cake, like the elusive flowery scent she’d made earlier, like wood and the sweet odor of the vanilla candle just snuffed, like…man.
Like Hart.
No sane woman would trust him. Like an abrasive, Hart had scratched the serenity she’d expected to find here-but she didn’t want him to go…not just yet. She wasn’t ready to face the darkness alone again-the night, the dreams, the terrible, vulnerable feeling of loneliness.
Gram’s spirit was in the cabin, as she’d known it would be. And by day, Bree was feeling an increasingly strong belief that she hadn’t been crazy to burn her bridges, to chuck her job, her fiancé, everything that was familiar. She’d made some wrong decisions in her life; all she needed was the courage to turn herself around. But by night, fears eroded that brand-new, so-fragile courage. In her heart, she couldn’t rid herself of her guilt, of her conviction that Gram had died because of her wrong choices.
And whether it was crazy or not, she wanted, very badly, to be held.
A massive sigh echoed next to her, and she stiffened. “Nothing like sleeping next to barbed wire to relax a man. Not tired yet, honey?”
Hart propped himself up on one elbow, gently pushing her shoulder down until she was lying flat on her back. A huge, shaggy head leaned over her, so close his wet, dark eyes were only inches away, so close the male smell of him surrounded her. “Want to know a very good cure for insomnia?”
Bree shook her head. She was crazy, not stupid.
“Honey’s the cure,” he murmured. “A spoonful at a time. You thought I meant making love, didn’t you, Bree? Put your hands on my shoulders,” he whispered.
She shook her head again, alarmed.
“Now, Bree.” He might have been scolding a recalcitrant child. He lifted one of her l
imp arms and locked it around his neck, then the other. With one smooth motion, he pushed aside the cotton blanket and lay down on his side, cocooning Bree in his arms.
There was a great deal wrong with lying length to length against a man you didn’t like. And worse than that, he felt exactly as Bree had been afraid he was going to feel-warm and big and infinitely safe. Bombs didn’t move Hart-how on earth could anything harm her with him in the way? Like the stroke of a velvet feather, his palms slid down her shoulders to the small of her back, moved back up to gently push her cheek to the hollow of his shoulder, then back down again.
He stroked…and he stroked. Arms loosely around his neck, face buried against embarrassment in the warm flesh of his shoulder, Bree closed her eyes and just…let it be. Her robe was tangled between them; vaguely she was relieved that he at least wore briefs. A little voice in her head kept trying to convince her there was something wrong here…but nothing felt wrong. If the sexual vibrations were powerful, her need to be held was infinitely more powerful. Snuggled close to Hart, she felt irrationally certain that she could take care of herself tomorrow if he would just handle the night.
“Bree.”
Her eyes fluttered open.
Hart cleared his throat. “I don’t know if this is doing something good for your insomnia, honey, but it’s sure wreaking havoc with mine.”
Instantly, she tried to back away from him. Just as instantly, his arms tightened around her. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” he growled. “Stay where you are.”
She stayed, very still. For a minute or so. There seemed to be a perverse demon in her head, though, because after a minute passed she shifted her cheek, just a little. Enough so that her smooth, warm lips suddenly lay against the hollow of Hart’s throat, and rested there.
Can’t Say No Page 6
