Christmas With A Stranger_Forbidden

by Catherine Spencer

  Families, children.... Despite his best attempts to shut it out, the whole memory thing came full circle again, threatening to blanket him more thoroughly than the snow.

  He shook his head impatiently. He should have stayed in Vancouver where it was probably raining, and those dim-witted ornamental cherry trees along the boulevards and seafronts were bursting with pale pink blossom in anticipation of a spring still three months away. Where he had friends who gathered in exclusive private clubs to nibble on Russian caviar and sip champagne. Where the women adjusted their sleek designer gowns and watched him with a certain hunger that, for a little while, he could return.

  Instead, he was snowbound with the very proper Miss Simms who probably wouldn’t know sexual appetite if it jumped up and bit her on the nose. Damn!

  He kicked open the outside door and dumped the wood basket on the floor next to the tree Clancy had brought in at noon. On the other side of the wall, he could hear her puttering around the stove, opening the oven door, rattling cutlery.

  She froze when he came into the kitchen, as if she’d suddenly come face to face with an intruder bent on unspeakable mischief. She stood on the far side of the table, knives and forks cradled in her graceful nun’s hands, her big gray eyes all wide and startled, and it irritated the hell out of him.

  “What’s with the nervous tic?” he inquired.

  She stared at him, the way a cornered kitten might. “Is it all right to do this?”

  He frowned. “Do what?”

  “Prepare the table for dinner.”

  “Of course it’s all right,” he snapped, his irritation boiling over. “Why on earth wouldn’t it be?”

  “It upset your hired hand, when he came in for lunch. He seemed to think I was interfering.”

  “Oh, that.” Morgan selected a bottle of wine from the rack built next to the Welsh dresser and found a corkscrew. “It wasn’t you so much as the memories you stirred up. Beyond making sure the plumbing doesn’t freeze when I’m not here, he doesn’t spend much time in the main house since his wife died. I guess coming in and seeing the place looking the way it did when she was alive took him aback, especially with it being so close to Christmas.”

  “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “No reason you should.” He took down two wine glasses. “Will you join me, or don’t you drink?”

  “A little red wine with dinner would be nice.”

  A little red wine with dinner would be nice, she said, mouth all ready to pucker with disapproval. Oh, brother, it was going to be a long evening!

  While she served the food, he filled the glasses and wondered unchivalrously if his getting roaring drunk might pass the time more pleasantly. She sat across from him and shook out her serviette, her movements refined, her manners impeccable, as if she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a flock of servants on hand to do her slightest bidding. And yet the meal she’d turned out suggested a more than passing familiarity with the working end of a kitchen.

  They had cream soup made from carrots and flavoured with ginger, followed by stew with dumplings and rich brown gravy, and he had to admit the food went a good way toward improving his mood.

  “These dumplings,” he said, spearing one with his fork, “remind me of when Agnes, Clancy’s wife, used to do the cooking. She always served them with venison, too.”

  “Venison?” Jessica Simms echoed, managing to turn rather pale even as she choked on her wine.

  “Deer,” he explained, thinking she hadn’t understood.

  She pressed her serviette hurriedly to her mouth and mumbled, “I was afraid that was what you meant.”

  “Why, what did you think you were eating?”

  “Beef,” she said faintly.

  He laughed. “Same thing, more or less, except for the antlers.”

  “Oh!” She pushed aside her plate and forgot herself far enough to plant one elbow on the table as she covered her eyes with her hand.

  “What’s the matter, Jessica? You’re obviously not a vegetarian, so it can’t be that.”

  “It’s the image that comes to mind when I think of deer.”

  “Does this happen every time you eat meat?” he inquired, trying to ignore how her hair gleamed in the lamplight. “Do you see little pigs dancing through the air when you fry bacon, or lambs cavorting when you—?”

  “It’s Rudolph,” she said. “I see Rudolph...maybe because it’s Christmas.”

  The red-nosed reindeer? Morgan leaned back in his chair, dumbstruck. “I’d never have figured you for the whimsical type,” he finally admitted, smothering a grin. “Do you believe in Santa Claus, too?”

  “No,” she said, reverting to her usual prim self. “I learned a long time ago that he was the figment of other children’s imaginations, but not mine. And I apologize for appearing to be such a fool. But I’m afraid that, much as I hate to see food going to waste, I simply cannot bring myself to eat...” she ventured another glance at the stew cooling on her plate and turned a shade paler “...that.”

  “Never mind,” he said, oddly touched by this more susceptible side of her personality. “The dogs will love you for it. More to the point, though, is what can we find that you will eat?” He got up and opened the refrigerator door. “We’ve got eggs and ham and cheese. I could make us an omelette.”

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” she said, the nun firmly in control again. “Please just go ahead with your meal before it gets cold.”

  “And what will you do?” he asked, irritation flaring up anew. “Huddle in the corner and subsist on bread and water?”

  “I’ll make a sandwich.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” He grabbed the dogs’ scrap bowl from the refrigerator and, picking up both plates, added their contents to what it already contained. “You’ve hardly slept in the last two days, it’s hours since we ate lunch, and you’re not going to bed on an empty stomach. I might be a lousy host, Jessica, but I’m not inhuman. We’ll eat eggs—unless you see unhatched chickens...?”

  “No.” She got up and came to join him, spine erect, narrow hips swaying elegantly. “But I do insist on helping, since I’m putting you to so much trouble.”

  “For crying out loud, sit and enjoy your wine, and while I’m showing off my culinary skills keep me entertained by telling me why you didn’t believe in Santa Claus when you were a kid.”

  “I grew up in a very...pragmatic household. My aunt didn’t encourage fantasies, not even when my sister and I were very small.”

  He paused in the act of slicing the ham. “Aunt?”

  “Selena and I were orphaned when we were kids, and were sent to live with my father’s brother and his wife.”

  “And Auntie didn’t much like being roped in as surrogate mother?”

  “She was always very fair. She did her duty the best way she knew how, and so did my uncle.”

  Jeez! Morgan reached for an onion and began dicing it with uncommon violence. No wonder she was so bloody repressed. From the sound of it, where she’d grown up wasn’t so far removed from a Victorian orphanage! “And debunking the myth of Santa Claus came under the heading of duty, did it? Does that mean you woke up to empty stockings on Christmas morning?”

  “Oh, no.” She took a dainty sip of wine. “We weren’t in the least deprived materially. There was plenty of money and we always had lots of expensive gifts. They just didn’t come wrapped in...magic.”

  He broke six eggs into a mixing bowl, added salt, a dash of pepper, a dollop of hot sauce, a pinch of dried parsley. “What about the tooth fairy?”

  She smiled and it transformed her face, suffusing it with life and softening its pale angles with a warmth that left her almost pretty. “No tooth fairy, I’m afraid, just regular visits to the dentist and new toothbrushes every second month.”

  “Well, I don’t know....” He whisked the eggs and threw a chunk of butter into the frying pan heating on the stove. “It seems to me everyone deserves to start out with a l
ittle make-believe, a little magic. Special times to look back on, memories to treasure. Isn’t that what childhood’s all about?”

  “We had special times.”

  He poured the omelette over the sizzling butter and swirled the mixture around the edges of the pan, before tossing chopped onion and ham on top. “Like what?” he asked, adding a handful of grated cheese.

  She sat and thought for a minute, her face a study in grave concentration again. “I was given a leather-bound edition of the complete works of Shakespeare when I graduated from high school.”

  “You must have been overwhelmed,” he said dryly. “Think of all that lewd material in the hands of an eighteen-year-old girl! It’s a miracle you weren’t seduced into a life of debauchery.”

  She flung him a somewhat hunted look and in one gulp polished off half the wine remaining in her glass. “I—”

  He divided the omelette, flipped each portion onto the plates warming on the hearth, and waited for her to continue. When she showed no inclination to do so, he put her plate down in front of her and reached for the wine bottle. “What were you going to say, Jessica?” he asked, topping up both glasses.

  “Nothing.”

  The way her mouth clamped shut on the word had his internal radar picking up signals just as it did when he sensed a witness was about to commit perjury. Without knowing how, he’d stumbled on some aspect of her past which troubled her deeply but he knew he’d have to temper curiosity with patience if he wanted to discover what it was.

  “In that case,” he said casually, touching the rim of his glass to hers, “here’s to another stab at dinner. Bon appétit!”

  While he made short work of his share of the omelette, she pecked at hers like a nervous bird. Attempting to ease the tension a little, he said, “I meant to say earlier that the table looks very nice. It’s usually cluttered with stuff and I just clear a space big enough to accommodate my plate.”

  She dropped her fork with a clatter. “Oh, that reminds me, I found a stack of mail for you when I came in to get things ready for lunch and left it on the dresser, next to the clock. Let me get it for you, before I forget again.”

  He started to say, “There’s no hurry,” but she was already skittering out of her chair and scooping up a miscellany of mail-order catalogues and a handful of cards from the few people who knew he always spent Christmas at the ranch.

  “Thanks,” he said, when she dropped the bundle beside his plate, and would have been happy to ignore it until tomorrow if his attention hadn’t been caught by the return address on the topmost envelope.

  Clarkville Penitentiary. The handwriting was unmistakable, as neat and contained as the man who’d penned it. A jarring reminder that, no matter how much Morgan might like to fool himself, there was no escaping who he was. The real world had a way of following him, no matter where he went to hide.

  He sensed her watching him. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Kincaid?”

  “Apart from this ‘Mr. Kincaid’ business, no,” he said shortly, tempted to toss the envelope in the stove unread. “Calling me Morgan won’t compromise your virtue, you know.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “We have spent a night together, after all.”

  She flushed at that, the shocked, uptight pink of a virgin confronted by the nearest thing to original sin she’d ever seen. “But not in any familiar sense,” she protested.

  “No,” he said, pushing away from the table. “Look, I don’t mean to appear rude, but there’s something here I should have attended to sooner and I’d prefer not to leave it any longer.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry if I’ve—”

  “You haven’t.” Annoyed that she assumed his sudden restlessness was her fault and unwilling to explain that it was not, he brushed her apology aside and strode to the door. “I’m likely to be tied up on the phone for some time, so if you—”

  “Please don’t worry about me,” she rushed to assure him. “I’ll just finish my meal, then make an early night of it.”

  “In that case I’ll see you in the morning.” He nodded and left her to it. Once in the study with the door closed firmly behind him, he slit open the sealed envelope and withdrew the card inside.

  A pen-and-ink drawing of Clarkville in winter stared up at him, its walls rising bleakly against the starkness of sky and countryside.

  He flipped it open and read the contents inside. And knew at once that Clancy had been right. Crazy or not, Gabriel Parrish was bent on revenge. Other people might not recognize the threat hidden in the words “I owe you so much and hope to repay you very soon” but he did. He knew exactly what Gabriel Parrish was really saying.

  Tapping the card against the surface of the desk, Morgan debated his options. They were pitifully few. He could run, which was really no option at all since running was not his style and would solve nothing, or he could go looking for his long-time enemy. Or he could wait for the enemy to come to him.

  Briefly, he stared out at a night turned ghostly gray by the still falling snow and knew that of the three only the last made any sense. Which made getting rid of Jessica Simms a.s.a.p. all the more imperative.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS late when Morgan came up to bed. Jessica had expected to be asleep long before then but had found her thoughts revolving around him too persistently for her to relax.

  What a strange and moody man he was, charming and open one minute, brusque and reserved the next. She’d watched him in the kitchen, covertly taking stock of him as he whipped up the omelette. Had noticed his hands in particular, how finely shaped they were, how well cared for, with the nails short and scrupulously clean for all that he’d spent the afternoon in the stables.

  Had noticed his long, strong legs, too, and remembered last night when they’d trapped hers and held her close to him. Not the sort of memory conducive to relaxation at all!

  Then there’d been that other business at dinner. She’d felt like a fool for acting as she had when she’d discovered they were eating venison, and had expected another round of scorn from him. But although he’d laughed at her it had not been unkindly and she hadn’t minded. In fact, she had been quite captivated by the way his wide, sexy mouth had curved with amusement.

  His glance had met hers and he’d smiled at her over the rim of his glass. Behind him, the snow had swirled against the window, a chunk of wood in the stove had shifted and sent a shower of sparks up the chimney and, suddenly, it was Christmas and despite their being strangers a sort of intimacy had flared between them.

  The kitchen had assumed a warmth that went beyond the heat from the fire, the wine had rolled more smoothly down her throat and taken with it the inhibitions behind which she hid so much of herself. She had felt safe; had known that, stranger or not, Morgan Kincaid was a man of integrity and that she had nothing to fear from him.

  And then she’d brought up the subject of the mail and that had spoiled everything. He’d changed, become all dark and withdrawn, with a haunted sort of look about him as he’d weighed the one envelope on the palm of his hand.

  Instinct had told her the sender was a woman who held the power to affect him, to move him, in a way that she, Jessica, had never enjoyed with a man.

  The ambience had altered, become charged with tension, and she had felt herself again the interloper. The intimacy had shriveled, her habitual reserve had come slinking back, and she knew he had neither noticed nor cared that she regretted both.

  It must have been close to midnight when his footsteps sounded on the stairs and light from the bathroom next door shone out into the night. Huddled beneath the down quilt, Jessica listened to the muffled tattoo of water running in the shower, and to her horror found visions of him standing there naked, with the water sluicing down his powerful body, springing alive in her mind’s eye.

  A surge of heat spiraled through her, disturbing, erotic. She remained in thrall to it even after the house sank into silence again; found herself wondering how it would hav
e felt to be under that hot stream of water with him, with his hands gliding the length of her spine to define her buttocks, and his mouth fastening on hers, and his hard flesh fusing tightly within the dark, soft warmth of hers.

  Appalled, she shot up in the bed, welcoming the chill slap of air against her bare shoulders. Such thoughts were unconscionable! She hadn’t allowed herself such self-indulgent rubbish in over five years—not since Stuart McKinney had lied his way into her naive heart and seduced her pathetically grateful body.

  Across the hall, a mattress creaked, a small sound in the overwhelming silence of the night, but enough to leave her brain feverish with yet another unpardonable image. Of Morgan Kincaid looming naked above her on the bed, of his hand pushing aside her silk nightgown to caress her naked breast, of his knee nudging apart her thighs.

  The blood roared in her ears, scorching, shameful. What was the matter with her? Jessica Simms, headmistress of the Springhill Island Private School for Girls, was famous for the absolute incorruptibility of her morals. What would her board of governors have to say if they could see her now, at the mercy of a sexual fantasy so powerful that she was practically writhing with arousal—and all over a man she’d met only twenty-four hours before and about whom she knew nothing but his name?

  Flinging aside the feather duvet, she swung her feet to the smooth pine floor. Not a crack of light showed anywhere as she sneaked down the hall and into the bathroom, with her nightgown whispering around her ankles.

  Once inside, she locked the door and crossed to the hand-painted wash basin. Her eyes, when she glanced in the gilt-framed mirror hanging on the wall, stared back at her, their focus glazed.

  Aghast all over again, she repeatedly dashed cold water over her face and neck, attempting to chase away with pure discomfort what she couldn’t dislodge with logic or propriety. Only when the flush had died from her skin and her pulse approached its normal steady rate did she turn off the flow of water, replace the towel on the brass rail, and let herself out of the bathroom.