“Write what down?”
“The idea—nuts, nutty, nutty as a fruitcake, having bats in one’s belfry. Perfect for a theme puzzle.” She was moving her hand, simulating a scribble. “Paper?”
Bemused, Garrick cocked his head toward the kitchen. “Second drawer to the left of the sink.”
Within seconds, she was jotting down the phrases she’d spoken aloud, adding several others to the list before she straightened. Tearing off the sheet, she folded it and tucked it into her breast pocket, returned the pad and pen to the drawer, then sent him a winsome smile. “Where were we?”
Garrick didn’t try to fight the warm feeling that settled in his chest. “Do you do that a lot?”
“Write down ideas? Uh-huh.”
“You really do make crossword puzzles?”
“You didn’t believe me about that, either?”
He moved his head in a way that could have been positive, negative or sheepish. “I’ve never really thought about people doing it.”
“Someone has to.”
He considered that for a minute, uttered a quiet, “True,” then withdrew into his private world again.
Wondering how long he’d be gone this time, Leah walked softly toward the bookshelf nearest her. Its shelves had a wide array of volumes, mostly works of fiction that had been on best-selling lists in recent years. The books were predominantly hardbacked, their paper sheaths worn where they’d been held. Both facts were revealing. Not only did Garrick read everything he bought, but he bought the latest and most expensive, rather than waiting for cheaper mass market editions.
He wasn’t a pauper, that was for sure. Leah wondered where he got the money.
“It must be difficult” came his husky voice. “Finding the right words that will fit together, coming up with witty clues.”
It took Leah a minute to realize that he was talking about crossword puzzles. She had to smile. He faded in and out, but the train of his thought ran along a continuous track. “It is a challenge,” she admitted.
“I’d never be able to do it.”
“That’s okay. I’d never be able to lay traps, catch animals and gut them.” She’d offered the words in innocence and was appalled at how critical they sounded. Turning to qualify them, she lost out to Garrick’s quicker tongue.
“Is that what Victoria told you I do?”
“She said you were a trapper,” Leah answered with greater deference, then added meekly, “I’m afraid the elaboration was my own.”
His expression was guarded. “What else did Victoria say about me?”
“Only what I told you before—that you were a friend and could be trusted. To be honest, I was expecting someone a little—” she shifted a shoulder “—different.”
He raised one eyebrow in question.
“Older. Craggier.” Blushing, she looked off across the room. “When Victoria handed me that envelope, I asked her if it was a love letter.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?” Garrick asked evenly.
Come to think of it, Leah didn’t know. She recalled Victoria saying something vague about craggy old trappers being nice, but the answer had been far from definitive. Her eyes went wide behind her glasses.
To her surprise, he chuckled. “It wasn’t. We’re just friends.” His expression sobered. Propping his elbow on the sofa arm, he pressed his knuckles to his upper lip and mustache. Leah was preparing for another silent spell, when he murmured a muffled, “Until now.”
“What do you mean?”
He dropped his hand and took a breath. “Her sending you here. It’s beginning to smack of something deliberate.”
Leah searched his face for further thoughts. When he didn’t answer immediately, she prodded. “I’m listening.”
“You said that you never went to Victoria’s parties. Did you see her in other social contexts?”
“We went out to dinner often.”
“As a foursome—with men?”
“No.”
“Did she ever comment on that?”
“She didn’t have to. I know that she has male friends, but she loved Arthur very much and has no desire to remarry. She’s never at a loss for an escort when the occasion calls for it.”
“How about you? Do you date?” he asked, repeating the question that had sparked earlier resistance.
Leah answered in a tone that was firm and final. “Not when I can help it.”
He was unfazed by her resolve, because he was getting closer to his goal. “Did Victoria have anything to say about that?”
“Oh, yes. She thought I was … working with less than a full deck.” Leah grinned at the phrase she had written down moments before, but the grin didn’t last. “She was forever trying to fix me up, and I was forever refusing.”
Garrick nodded and pressed his lips together, then slid farther down on the sofa, until his thick hair rose against its back. For several more minutes he was lost in thought. Eventually he took a deep breath and raised disheartened eyes to the rafters. “That,” he said, “was what I was afraid of.”
Not having been privy to his thoughts, Leah didn’t follow. “What do you mean?”
“She’s done the same to me more than once.”
“Done what?”
“Tried to fix me up.” He held up a hand. “Granted, it’s more difficult up here, but that didn’t stop her. She’s convinced that anyone who hasn’t experienced what she had with Arthur is missing out on life’s bounty.” His eyes sought Leah’s, and he hesitated for a long moment before speaking. “Do you see what I’m getting at?”
With dawning horror, Leah did see. “She did it on purpose.”
“Looks that way.”
“She didn’t tell me about the fire, but she did tell me about you.”
“Right.”
Closing her eyes, Leah fought a rising anger. “She was so cavalier about my paying rent, wouldn’t accept anything beforehand, told me to send her whatever I thought the place was worth.”
“Clever.”
“When I asked if the cabin was well equipped, her exact words were, ‘When last I saw it, it was.’”
“True enough.”
“No wonder she was edgy.”
“Victoria? Edgy?”
“Unusual, I know, but she was. I chalked it up to a latent maternal instinct.” She rolled her eyes. “Boy, was I wrong. It was guilt, pure guilt. She actually had the gall to remind me that I wouldn’t have air-conditioning or a phone, the snake.” Muttering the last under her breath, Leah turned her back on Garrick and crossed her arms over her breasts.
That was the moment he came to believe that everything she’d told him was the truth. Had she started to shout and pace the floor in anger, he would have wondered. That would have smelled of a script, a soap-opera reaction, lacking subtlety.
But she wasn’t shouting or pacing. Her anger was betrayed only by quickened breathing and the rigidity of her stance. From the little he’d seen of her, he’d judged her to be restrained where her emotions were concerned. Her reaction now was consistent with that impression.
Strangely, Garrick’s own anger was less acute than he would have expected. If he’d known beforehand what Victoria had planned, he’d have hit the roof. But he hadn’t known, and Leah was already here, and there was something about her self-contained distress that tugged at his heart.
Almost before his eyes, that distress turned to mortification. Cheeks a bright red, she cast a harried glance over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry. She had no right to foist me on you.”
“It wasn’t your fault—”
“But you shouldn’t have to be stuck with me.”
“It goes two ways. You’re stuck with me, too.”
“I could have done worse.”
“So could I.”
Unsure of what to make of his agreeable tone, Leah turned back to the bookshelf. It was then that the full measure of her predicament hit her. She and Garrick had been thrust together for what Victoria
had intended to be a romantic spell. But if Victoria had hoped for love at first sight, she was going to be disappointed. Leah didn’t believe in love at first sight. She wasn’t even sure if she believed in love, since it had brought her pain once before, but that was neither here nor there. She didn’t know Garrick Rodenhiser. Talk of love was totally inappropriate.
Attraction at first sight—that, perhaps, was worth considering. She couldn’t deny that she found Garrick physically appealing. Not even his sprawling pose could detract from his long-limbed grace. His face, his beard, the sturdiness of his shoulders spoke of ruggedness; she’d have had to be blind not to see it, and dead not to respond.
And that other attraction—the one spawned by the deep, inner feelings that occasionally escaped from his eyes? It baffled her.
“I didn’t want this,” she murmured to her knotted hands.
From the silence came a quiet, “I know.”
“I feel … you must feel … humiliated.”
“A little awkward. That’s all.”
“Here I am in your underwear…”
“You can get dressed if you want.”
It was, of course, the wise thing to do. Perhaps, once she was wearing her own clothes again, she’d feel less vulnerable, less exposed.…
Crossing to the dryer, she removed her things and folded them over the crook of her elbow. When she reached for her sweater, though, she found it still damp.
“Here.” Garrick stood directly behind her, holding out one of his own sweaters. “Clean and dry.”
She accepted it with a quiet thanks and made her escape to the bathroom. He was working at the fireplace when she came out. She suddenly realized that though the fire had gone out during the night, the cabin had stayed warm.
“How do you manage for heat and electricity?” she asked, bracing her hands on the back of the sofa.
He added a final log to the arrangement and reached for a match. “There’s a generator out back.”
“And food? If you can’t get to the store in this weather…”
“I stocked up last week.” Sitting back on his heels, he watched the flames take hold. “Anyone who’s lived through mud season once knows to be prepared. The freezer is full, and the cabinets. I picked up more fresh stuff a couple of days ago, but I’m afraid the bacon we had for breakfast is the last of it for a while.”
He’d have had some left for tomorrow if he hadn’t had to share. Leah’s feelings of guilt remained unexpressed, though; there was nothing more boring than a person who constantly apologized.
Garrick stood and turned to face her, then wished he hadn’t. She was wearing his sweater. It was far too large for her, of course, and she’d rolled the sleeves to a proper length, but the way it fell around her shoulders and breasts was far more suggestive than he’d have dreamed. She looked adorable. And unsure.
He gestured toward the sofa. With a tight smile, she took possession of a corner cushion, drew up her knees and tucked her feet beneath her. That was when he caught sight of the tear in her slacks.
“How’s the leg?”
“Okay.”
“Did you change the dressing?”
“No.”
“Have you looked under it?”
“I’d be able to see if something was oozing through the gauze. Nothing is.”
She hadn’t looked, he decided. Either she was squeamish, or the gash didn’t bother her enough to warrant attention. He wanted to know which it was.
Facing her on the sofa, he eased back the torn knit of her slacks.
“It’s fine. Really.”
But he was quickly tugging at the adhesive and, less quickly, lifting the gauze. “Doesn’t look fine,” he muttered. “I’ll bet it hurts like hell.” With cautious fingertips he probed the angry flesh around the wound. Leah’s soft intake of breath confirmed his guess. “It probably should have been stitched, but the nearest hospital’s sixty miles away. We wouldn’t have made it off the mountain.”
“It’s not bleeding. It’ll be okay.”
“You’ll have a scar.”
“What’s one more scar.”
He met her eyes. “You have others?”
Oh, yes, but only one was visible to the naked eye. “I had my appendix out when I was twelve.”
He imagined the way her stomach would be, smooth and soft, warm, touchable. When the blood that flowed through his veins grew warmer, he tried to imagine an ugly line marring that flesh, but couldn’t. Nor, at that moment, could he tear his eyes from hers.
Pain and loneliness. That was what he saw. She blinked once, as though to will the feelings away, but they remained, swelling against her self-restraint.
He saw, heard, felt. He wanted to ask her, to tell her, to share the pain and ease the burden. He wanted to reach out.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he rose quickly and strode off, returning moments later with a tube of ointment and fresh bandages. When he’d dressed the injury to his satisfaction, he replaced the first-aid supplies in the cupboard, took a down vest, then a hooded rain jacket from the closet, stepped into a pair of crusty work boots and went out into the storm.
Leah stared after him, belatedly aware that she was trembling. She didn’t understand what had happened just then, any more than she’d understood it when it had happened the night before. His eyes had reflected every one of her emotions. Could he know what she felt?
On a more mundane level, she was puzzled by his abrupt departure, mystified as to where he’d be going in the rain. A short time later she had an answer when a distinct and easily recognizable sound joined that of the steady patter on the roof. She went to the window and peered out. He was across the clearing, chopping wood beneath the shelter of a primitive lean-to.
Smiling at the image of the outdoorsman at work, she returned to the sofa. While she directed her eyes to the fire, though, she wasn’t as successful with her thoughts. She was wondering how the hands of a woodsman, hands that were callused, fingers that were long and blunt, could be as gentle as they’d been. Richard had never touched her that way, though as her husband, he’d touched her far more intimately.
But there was touching and there was touching, one merely physical, the other emotional, as well. There was something about Garrick … something about Garrick …
Unsettled by her inability to find answers to the myriad of questions, she sought diversion in one of the books she’d seen on the shelf. Sheer determination had her surprisingly engrossed in the story when Garrick returned sometime later.
Arms piled high with split logs, he blindly kicked off his boots at the door, deposited the wood in a basket by the hearth, threw back his hood and unbuckled his jacket.
Leah didn’t have to ask if the rain had let up. The boots he’d left by the door were covered with mud; his jacket dripped as he shrugged it off.
She returned to her book.
He took up one of his own and sat down.
Briefly she felt the chill he’d brought in. It touched her face, her arm, her leg on the side nearest to him. The fire was warm, though, and the chill soon dissipated.
She read on.
“Do you like it?” he asked after a time.
“It’s very well written.”
He nodded at that and lowered his eyes to his own book.
Leah had turned several pages before realizing that he hadn’t turned a one. Yet he was concentrating on something.…
Craning her neck, she tried to reach the running head at the top of the page. She was beginning to wonder whether she needed a new eyeglass prescription, when he spoke.
“It’s Latin.”
She smiled. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Are you a Latin scholar?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re a novice.”
“Uh-huh.”
Reluctant to disturb him, she returned to her own corner. Studying Latin? That was odd for a trapper, not so odd for a man with a very different
past. She would have liked to ask about that past, but she didn’t see how she could. He wasn’t encouraging conversation. It was bad enough that she was here. The more unobtrusive she was, the better.
Delving into her own book again, she’d read several chapters, when his voice broke the silence.
“Hungry?”
Now that he’d mentioned it … “A little.”
“Want some lunch?”
“If I can make it.”
“You can’t.” It was his house, his refrigerator, his food. Given the doubts he’d had about himself since Leah had arrived, he needed to feel in command of something. “Does that mean you won’t eat?”
She grimaced. “Got myself into a corner with that one, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll eat.”
Trying his best not to smile, Garrick set down his book and went to make lunch. Despite the time he’d spent at the woodshed, he was still annoyed with Victoria. It was difficult, though, to be annoyed with Leah. She was as innocent a pawn in Victoria’s game as he was, and, apparently, as uncomfortable about it. But she was a good sport. She conducted herself with dignity. He respected that.
None of the women he’d known in the past would have acceded to as untenable a situation with such grace. Linda Prince would have been livid at the thought of someone isolating her in a secluded cabin. Mona Weston would have been frantic without a direct phone line to her agent. Darcy Hogan would have ransacked his drawers in search of a flattering garment to display her goods. Heather Kane would have screamed at him to stop the rain.
Leah Gates had taken the sweater he offered with gratitude, had found herself a book to read and was keeping to herself.
Which made him all the more curious about her. He wondered what had happened to her marriage and why she didn’t date now. He wondered whether she had family, or dreams for the future. He wondered whether the loneliness he saw in her eyes from time to time had to do with the loneliness of this mountainside. Somehow he didn’t think so. Somehow he thought the loneliness went deeper. He felt it himself.
Lunch consisted of ham-and-cheese sandwiches on rye. Leah didn’t go scurrying for a knife to cut hers in two. She didn’t complain about the liberal helping of mayonnaise he’d smeared on out of habit, or about the lettuce and tomato that added bulk and made for a certain sloppiness. She finished every drop of the milk he’d poured without making inane cracks about growing boys and girls or the need for calcium or the marvel of cows. When she’d finished eating, she simply carried both of their plates to the sink, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher, then returned to the sofa to read.
Crossed Hearts (Matchmaker Trilogy) Page 6
