He had warned her that once she got her life back together, she would wonder what she’d ever seen in him. The truth was, she had no idea who he was, really. Not intellectually. She reacted to him in purely instinctive ways, trusting him not because of what she knew, but what she felt to be true.
What if her instincts were wrong?
Absently, she touched the spines of his books. This was not the collection of a casual reader, whatever he wanted her to believe. The well-read volumes covered the childhood favorites she’d teased him about, but also included classics by writers such as Shakespeare and Dante and Dickens. One whole shelf was devoted to philosophy, and another held thrillers and mysteries. Spencer was a favorite, which somehow didn’t surprise her. She pulled one book out at random and flipped through the pages.
But they didn’t hold her attention. Again and again, her gaze was drawn to the man beyond the window. A man who seemed to have no job, but had managed to buy land and build a cabin on it. A man who rode a motorcycle and had a tattoo and wore to-hell-with-you hair, but read Shakespeare and Plato. A man with scars that suggested a kind of brutality most ordinary people could barely admit existed.
Secret sorrows of all sorts lurked in those pale green eyes. Mattie wanted to free them, let them out of the darkness where they moldered and into the sun, where they’d die a natural death.
But she knew even as she thought it, the wish was futile. If ever a man had built walls, Zeke had. She knew herself well enough to know she didn’t have the kind of tools she needed to knock the walls down.
With a sigh, she put the book back and set about making something for their dinner. The least she could do was make herself useful.
*
DINNER WAS A quiet affair. Mattie had managed to put together a fairly decent offering of soup and canned fruit and crackers, and they ate it silently before the fire Zeke built.
She hadn’t thought it was possible to be in the same room with someone for hours on end without speaking, but she’d never had to deal with a brooding man like Zeke before, either. Even when supper was finished and they’d cleaned up the dishes, he disappeared outside and didn’t come back for quite a while, then making no comment or apology for it.
She tried to amuse herself with a novel, but reading seemed too tame. The rain fell steadily outside, making her restless. Annoyed with Zeke for his silly brooding, restless with nothing to do, she took an oversize jacket from a hook by the door and stepped out to the porch. Steaming cup of coffee in hand, she settled in one of the chairs and gazed out at the night.
The clouds had moved off, leaving behind a breathlessly black night. All the overused, overworked metaphors applied: it looked like black velvet studded with diamonds; like a movie star’s dress; like magic and sequins and hope.
An ease passed through her. The silence was unbroken by even the scurry of animals or the call of a bird. The wind whispered, water trickled from some high place, and dripped into an unseen pool.
She smiled to herself. Kansas City, with its traffic and noise and thick air seemed a million miles away, and she was glad of it. All her life, she’d dreamed of places like this. She’d read of the English countryside or quiet groves in the mountains, or wilderness retreats, and a soft bloom of curious longing would fill her. To sit in silence like that!
And here she was, after the strangest series of events she could imagine. A month ago, she’d been planning her wedding.
That woman, the one who’d spent her days typing memos to department heads, her evenings tracing Byronic influences in Regency era poetry, and her weekends choosing silver patterns, seemed like a stranger. What Mattie saw about herself when she looked back from this vantage point was that she’d been sound asleep. Not living at all, just going through the motions.
She sipped her sweet, hot coffee. Brian. Why was it so easy to see now what she should have seen then? She had never been in love with him. He’d dazzled her and charmed her; they had a good time when they went places, shared a common interest in some things. What she saw in retrospect was that their dealings with each other had always been unfailingly polite. Even the few times they’d actually made love had been neat and orderly, with the proper preparations and the lights turned low. Even the right music on in the background.
Mattie bit her lip. It was Zeke that made her old life seem so vapid. It was as if she’d been walking around in a black-and-white world until he walked into the café that morning and shown her Technicolor. The sound track of her old life was a careful minuet. Zeke brought with him some roaring, loud rock and roll.
How could a person ever go back?
She wouldn’t. Whatever happened after all of this, she wouldn’t return to Kansas City. The sleepwalker had awakened, and as painful as it had been to cut her hair, the symbolic shearing away somehow made her feel freer to choose a new life when—
When what? When Brian was safely in jail? Maybe. When this was all over. That was as much as she could manage for now.
A light shone in the darkness—a flashlight Zeke carried from the small shed he said contained a sauna. He took his time, the ease of his attitude evident in the lazy, long-legged way he crossed the clearing. “Hey, Strider,” she said when he gained the porch steps.
“Strider?”
“Lord of the Rings,” she said. “Surely you’ve read Tolkien.”
He clicked off the flashlight and smiled. “Sure.”
Seeing that smile, Mattie felt her breath leave her on a sigh of relief. “Does the sauna always improve your mood that much?”
“I reckon it does.”
“You might have invited your guest along,” she said lightly.
“Sorry, Miss Mary,” he drawled. “But it was you I had to get away from.”
The words stung, though she tried not to let them. “I didn’t ask to come here,” she said quietly. “You insisted.”
“I know, and I don’t regret it.” He leaned on the rail nearby her; she could feel his extraordinary warmth along her knee. “But the whole point is to keep you safe until we figure out what to do, and the way I was feeling this afternoon wasn’t going to get that done. You understand?”
She glared at him through the darkness. “I’m not nearly as fragile as you think I am, Zeke.”
He shook his head, and reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “I never said you were fragile. Matter of fact, I think you’re damned brave.” He bent over his lighter and a flare of orange cast deep shadows over the angles of his face. “You’re also a good girl and I’m willing to respect that.”
He had so dazzled her at first, she’d been unable to respond to these comments in the past. “I’m not a girl,” she said, standing. “And I almost out-hustled you at pool, so I can’t be that sweet.”
“I don’t mean anything bad by it, Miss Mary,” he said, and there was amusement in his voice. “You’re honest and nice and trustworthy.”
She cocked her head. “Does that mean you’re mean and crooked and untrustworthy?”
“Maybe.”
“Then what the hell am I doing here at all?”
He laughed. “Okay, sometimes I’m a good guy.”
“And sometimes,” she said with narrowed eyes, “I’m not such a nice girl.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, going still. “Me on a good day and you on a bad one still adds up to a bear and a mouse.”
The growl in those words, the danger in that promise finally brought her to her senses. “You’re right,” she said. “If we’re through parrying, I’d like to get some sleep.”
*
HE INSISTED SHE take the bed. He’d make a pallet on the floor. Mattie protested, vehemently. And Zeke steadfastly ignored her.
It panicked her just a little. She didn’t want to sleep in his bed, on his pillow, with the smell of him, the imprint of his body all around her, when he’d made it very, very plain there would be nothing between them. It would drive her crazy.
But she lost the fight. He was simp
ly, calmly, cheerfully immovable. She picked up the sleeping bag and threw it at him. “Fine, then,” she said, taking pleasure in the solid thunk of the bag against his head.
He laughed. “Chill out, girl.”
“Woman,” she muttered, turning back to the bed. Under where the sleeping bag had been was a thick blanket, printed with horses. She chuckled, touching a rearing stallion that had obviously provided the model for his tattoo. “Sure you don’t want your horse blankie?” she asked over her shoulder.
He was tugging off his boots, but spared a grin in her direction. “It was a present.” The way he said it, she knew it was a woman. Some other woman who had lost out in the struggle for Zeke Shephard’s heart. There were probably dozens of them, Mattie thought with a scowl, shedding her own shoes.
“Which came first, the tattoo or the blanket?”
“Tattoo. I got it when I was fifteen. Got drunk with my friends and went into Jackson. One of the many times I ran away from home.” He spread the couch cushions on the braided rug in front of the fireplace and shook the sleeping bag out over it. “Lasted two months, that time, though.”
Mattie sat on the bed, watching him. Firelight caught in the waves of his hair as he unbuttoned his shirt. “You want to give me a minute of privacy here, Miss Mary? I’m not gonna make a habit of sleeping in my jeans.”
Dutifully, she turned away, only now becoming aware of the intimacy of these surroundings when it came to things like dressing and undressing. She could wear her tank top and jeans to bed, she supposed, but getting in and out of them might prove a bit troublesome.
She heard a rustle, the clink of something in his pockets as his jeans hit the floor. “All right,” he said after another minute. “I’m decent.”
Mattie turned back to find him safely ensconced in the sleeping bag before the fire, his chest bare, his arms comfortably tucked under his head. A bright shock of need rippled through her—and the hunger was back, wild and hot.
Irritably, she dug through her tote and dragged out her tank top and shorts. For an instant, she considered slipping outside to change, but it was too cold. “Now if you’ll afford me some privacy, Mr. Shephard?”
It was his turn to shift. Hastily, Mattie shed her jeans, all too aware of the sound the zipper made as it slid down, and shimmied into her shorts. Turning her back to Zeke, she yanked off her T-shirt, shivering a little at the wash of cool air on her skin. For one long, agonizing minute, she wondered if she ought to keep her bra on, just for the sake of modesty, but it would be miserably uncomfortable. What woman didn’t take off a bra with a sigh of relief at the end of a day?
It felt as if it took forever, felt as if it took her a hundred minutes to undo the clasp, another fifty to slip it from her shoulders and discard it, another four hundred years that she stood there naked to the waist with a half-naked Zeke behind her. She peeked over her shoulder.
He had shifted to the way he was before, his hands clasped behind his head, the green eyes glittering with something dangerous and dark. Lazily, he smiled. “Told you I’m no nice guy.”
Mattie clasped her arms over her breasts and glared at him. “Turn over right now or I swear I’ll—”
He lifted up on one elbow, his pagan hair falling around his smoothly rounded shoulders, his expression even darker. “Or you’ll what?”
She spun around and grabbed her shirt, her spine rippling with the caress of his eyes. With a yank, she tugged the shirt over her head and turned around. “You’re a real son of a bitch,” she said.
“Miss Mary!” he said mockingly. “I had no idea you could talk like that.”
Furiously, she picked up her clothes, bending to retrieve her jeans and stuff them into the tote. “If the shoe fits…”
“I told you,” he said, the teasing dropping away. “I told you.”
“So you did.” She scrambled under the horse blanket and leaned over to blow out the candle. “Good night, Zeke.”
His voice was a slow, dark drawl. “’Night, Miss Mary.”
*
ZEKE WOKE JUST before dawn to a chorus of bird song. He heard the birds before he opened his eyes and knew instantly where he was.
Home.
Slowly, he stretched in his cocoon of a sleeping bag, feeling the deep relaxed pull of his muscles after a good sauna and a good night’s sleep.
As was his habit here, he opened his eyes and looked around slowly, thankful for each tiny thing illuminated by the gold bar of early-morning sun that broke through the windows. Grateful for the pine walls and floor, for the good propane stove in the corner, for the fireplace that had given him such fits as he built it, but that now worked like a dream. Yeah, whatever they took, this was home. He left it often, but always came back.
From his vantage point on the floor, all he could see was the top of Mattie’s glossy head, pointing at him at an angle. A spray of hair fanned over the edge of the mattress. A restless sleeper.
Quietly, so as not to disturb her, he got up and slipped into his jeans, got a clean shirt from the shelf and slipped outside to greet the morning.
And what a morning! Across the valley, washed sparklingly clean by yesterday’s rain, he saw the first rays of dawn strike the distant blue mountainsides, throwing into mystic shadow the valleys and hidden crevices. Closer in, the tops of aspens rustled as if in greeting and arrows of sunlight kissed the uppermost leaves with a blaze of color. He inhaled deeply, smelling damp earth and pine needles and the crisp undernote of the mountains themselves. Glorious.
A tiny cracking branch drew his attention, and from the trees ambled a doe and her fawn, the fawn dancing to catch up. Upwind from him, the doe didn’t sense Zeke’s presence, and calmly nibbled leaves from a shrub.
Mattie had to see this. Walking backward slowly, he turned the door handle without a sound and eased inside. She hadn’t stirred. She sprawled over the bed, corner to corner, the posture of a sleeper who had nothing to fear. He was glad of that, at least.
He touched her shoulder. “Mattie,” he said in a deep whisper. “There’s something you should see.”
She roused instantly and blinked up. “What?”
“Be very quiet and come with me.”
She got up and he took her hand, putting a finger to his lips, showing her how to move silently. They slipped out the door. She looked bewildered at first, but he drew her close and pointed over her shoulder to the feeding doe.
Her nearness unsettled him, but he didn’t push her away, only watched the wonder dawn in those big eyes, watched the joy break on her face. They stood there for a long time, utterly still, his hands on her shoulders, until the deer tired of the spot and wandered into the trees.
When the last shadows of the deer were out of sight, she sighed and leaned into him. Zeke stiffened momentarily, but the fit of her head beneath his shoulder was too perfect to resist. He left his hands on her fragile shoulders, too, let them just rest there without moving. They didn’t talk. Mattie simply leaned on him and he just as simply braced her, moving his chin on her hair as they took in the grandeur of the mountain morning.
Finally, she sighed. “Thank you, Zeke. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that moved me as much in my life.”
He squeezed her shoulders, knowing this was the moment he ought to let go, step away. He didn’t. Instead, he stroked her slim arms gently. “My pleasure.”
And it was. How often had he wished for someone with whom to share a moment like that? In spite of his father, he’d been close to his siblings and it was natural for him to wish for someone to see what he saw, to share those magical mornings with. He pointed toward the valley. “Did you see that?”
“Yes. It’s even more beautiful than I expected. You’re so lucky to have a place like this.”
That was one way to look at it. “I am,” he heard himself say. The weird motion—that strange hope—grew another notch in his chest. It scared him.
“If you want to go back to bed, you can,” he said, stepping away.
“No.” She ambled to the edge of the porch, gazing out at the landscape. He found his attention snagging on her strong legs, bare under the shorts. Without warning, he remembered the sight of her smooth, graceful back last night, the tiny glimpse of white breast he’d seen under her arm. The memory both aroused and shamed him. “I’m sorry about last night, Miss Mary.”
Impossible to read the look in her eyes just then. He was sorry if he’d said anything to break the spell of the magic, glorious morning. As awkward as a thirteen-year-old, he glanced away.
“I peeked, too,” she said, and a tinge of rose colored her cheeks.
“No, you didn’t. I kept my eyes on you.”
“Not last night,” she said and folded her arms. “The day at the river, back in Kismet.”
He remembered the morning and grinned. “Guess we’re even, then, huh?”
She nodded, smiling in return.
Just that fast, Zeke was slain. Early gold light washed over her, gilding the silky cap of hair, edging the curve of a small ear, cascading down her long white neck. Her tank top had slipped on one side, giving him a broad view of her shoulder. It would be so easy, he thought, so easy to flick those straps from her shoulders and send that ugly little shirt slipping away.
The vision hurt. The swelling wish for—what?—collapsed like a balloon in his heart, and he remembered the others. Not so many as some might expect, but enough women to know he couldn’t get it right, that he’d take what Mattie offered so generously, then destroy it, somehow or another. This time, he’d just leave it alone.
“If you want to go on and get dressed,” he said with effort, “we can have some breakfast. Maybe go hiking.” That would keep them busy, at least.
“Will you show me how that shower works first? I’m dying to get cleaned up.”
The shower. He stared at her for a long minute, willing himself to be an adult, to behave as if he’d learned how to control his more carnal impulses. Damn. The shower.
“Is that a problem?” she asked. “I can just wash up, instead.”
“No. No, it’s not a problem. Get your stuff and I’ll show you how it works.”
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 110
