“You were being honest with me, Jessica, and I really would be a fool not to feel flattered, but the more important question is, were you being honest with yourself? Are you sure this is what you really want?”
She hugged her elbows, as though no amount of heat from the fire could warm her. “Not if I start to analyze it. Not if I apply judgement or rational argument. But if I obey....”
The words died on a breath of despair, as though she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she was at the mercy of something that refused to abide by the laws of reason.
“What would you do,” he asked, “if I said I’d be happy to oblige?”
Her eyes flew open and he saw the panic in them, the uncertainty, and underneath all that something tremulous and fragile and unbearably appealing.
He couldn’t bring himself to let her flounder a moment longer. He slid from the chair to sit beside her on the floor and, cupping her cheek in his palm, added, “But that I’ll act on it only if you still feel the same way twenty-four hours from now.”
Her lashes fluttered down beguilingly and if he hadn’t known better he’d have thought her a practiced tease. “I...don’t think I could bring myself to ask a second time.”
He took the brandy snifter from her hands and placed it beside his own on the hearth. “Not even if I show now, like this, how very desirable I find you?”
He tilted her chin up again and fanned the question against her mouth. She shifted ever so slightly, angling one shoulder protectively against his invasion in a gesture that stirred the warm currents of air trapped inside her blouse.
The scent of her flowed out to seduce him, country flowers and summer dawns too alluring to withstand. The kiss he’d intended to bestow as a salve to her pride ran amok with a passion he’d never anticipated and couldn’t begin to contain.
Her mouth melted beneath his, so hot and fragrantly erotic that it might never have known the touch of wintry reserve he’d first seen painted there. He felt himself drowning in the essence of her, tasting the texture of her, delving deep to unearth more of her secrets.
She was all silk and sweet compliance, from the soft fringe of her lashes against her cheek to her lips, to her hair slipping free of its clasp and sliding like water through his fingers, to the skin of her throat, to the smooth slope of her breast—
Abruptly he pulled away from her, dropping her like the proverbial hot potato, too shocked by the degree of arousal she stirred in him to consider how she might view his actions.
Confused, frustrated, he flung wide both hands in an attempt to explain himself. “Forgive me. I—that’s not what I—”
“Please don’t,” she said, visibly withdrawing into herself like a flower suddenly deprived of the sun’s heat. “Please don’t feel you have to apologize. I understand.”
“No, you don’t!” His answer exploded between them. “Hell, I don’t understand myself! I intended to kiss you, that was all. I thought that would be enough and....”
He blew out a breath of exasperation and shook his head. How did a man of thirty-seven, who’d known more than a few women in his time, explain that he’d never before had a kiss sneak up and take him by surprise like that?
“It wasn’t enough,” he finished quietly.
“But it was very nice,” she said, once again lowering her lashes fetchingly.
He almost smiled. “Are you flirting with me, Miss Simms?”
“I don’t know how to flirt. I haven’t had much occasion to practice.”
He sighed ruefully and, picking up the brandy snifters again, offered her hers. “I suspect you’d be a very quick study.”
“I’m not sure that I’d want to be,” she said seriously. “I think, if ever I were to find myself involved with a man, that I’d rather play it straight. Flirting...” she lifted a disparaging shoulder “...it can lead to trouble, don’t you think?”
He leaned his spine against the chair and crossed his ankles. “What sort of trouble?”
“Things can get out of hand. And then, when it’s too late, people can find they’ve done irreparable damage.”
Yes, he thought, just as Gabriel Parrish had.
Ill wind that it was, the name blasted across Morgan’s mind, scattering everything else before it. Where the hell did he get off even contemplating an involvement with this woman when a madman was on the loose and probably out gunning for him?
She was so painfully honest, and all he had to offer her were lies. But what else could he do? Say “I’d make love to you in a New York minute, sweetheart, but you should be aware we could both be murdered in the bed”?
No. If he cared at all about her—and he was beginning to think he did, more than he wanted or had expected to—he’d leave her in ignorance and, more to the point, ensure her protection.
Draining his glass, he rose swiftly to his feet, gripped by a sudden need to check around outside, to make sure they were all safe, at least for one more night. “I could use some fresh air before I turn in and you must be worn out, the way you’ve slaved today.” Quickly, before the pain so evident in her eyes had him sweeping her into his arms again, he turned away from her. “Get a good night’s rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”
He took all the warmth of the room with him when he left.
Left? Practically ran out, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her, was a more apt description!
Shame and embarrassment flooded through Jessica, leaving her trembling and on the verge of tears. How could she have said what she did?
She looked down at the cognac in her glass and wished she could blame it for the words that had escaped her, but the fact of the matter was she’d hardly touched the liquor and had nothing and no one to blame but herself.
Was this what she’d come to? she wondered, standing up only to find that her legs threatened to give out under her. Was she so desperate to feel a man’s arms around her again that she was willing to beg?
And yet the way he’d kissed her...the hunger hadn’t been all hers. Nor was she so ignorant that she couldn’t recognize the desire he hadn’t been able to disguise. She’d felt him, hard and powerful against her. Had heard, over the labored thud of her heart, the rasp of his breath as he’d struggled to control himself.
If she had dared trust her instinct, she’d have guessed that he’d told her the truth when he’d said that he wanted her. But intuition, at least where men were concerned, had let her down too badly for her to have much faith in it a second time, especially on so brief an acquaintance.
This hunger, this raw animal magnetism, was a new experience for her and she was terribly afraid it had clouded her judgement. The only other time she’d come close to feeling anything like it had been with Stuart McKinney. She’d believed herself in love with him and thought that justified the physical side of things, only to learn that love didn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex.
She’d decided then that she’d never again barter her body to win affection, and she’d never had reason to think otherwise, until now. But Morgan Kincaid...oh, he made her wish she were different, better, braver. He awoke the secret woman inside her and made her yearn and ache and want.
“Idiot,” she whispered, and stooped to unplug the tree lights, then took the brandy snifters into the kitchen before she went upstairs. Leaving the bedroom in darkness, she crossed to the window and looked out at the snow-covered landscape glimmering beneath the moon.
She saw the shadow of him emerge from the dark bulk of the stables, watched as he stood at the foot of the veranda steps and surveyed his quiet kingdom. And knew again a wave of sadness that she could be a part of his life for such a short space of time.
He had already left the house when she ventured downstairs the next morning, and for that she was supremely grateful. It was going to be hard enough facing him, without having to do it over the breakfast table. She was not at her best before her first cup of coffee of the day.
She made short work of cleaning up th
e kitchen and was on her hands and knees in the living room, adding fresh water to the Christmas tree container, when the back door suddenly thumped open long before the men usually took their mid-morning coffee break.
Her heart almost cartwheeled to a halt but it was Clancy, not Morgan, who appeared next to her with a pile of slender evergreen branches in his arms. “Figured since you done such a fancy job on the tree that you’d want to dolly up the rest of the place,” he said offhandedly, dumping his load on the freshly vacuumed rug. “Got some cedar here that I cut first thing. Agnes used to put it on the mantelpiece—left it sort of hanging over the edge—and it always looked real nice.”
Jessica sat back on her heels and eyed him cautiously, bowled over by the about-face that had produced such a gesture of goodwill. “Thank you. That’s a wonderful idea.”
“There’s holly growing out back as well. In the corner where the kitchen sticks out, where it’s sheltered from the worst of the weather. Not that it’s got any right growing at this altitude, but the darn thing’s as stubborn as the old gal that planted it.”
“Agnes?” It seemed a reasonable guess since he was so full of memories of her, but Jessica soon learned her mistake.
“Use your head, woman,” Clancy snorted. “Trees don’t grow like weeds, ’specially not up here, and my Agnes was only sixty-six when she passed on. I’m talking about Morgan’s great-granny. A real green thumb, she had. Got things to sprout that folks around these parts never did see before. Always had holly in the house at Christmas. Thought you might like some, too.”
“I would, but it can wait. You’ve already got enough to do.”
“That I have.” He glared at Jessica, as though his bringing her one peace offering had stretched his capacity for seasonal goodwill to its limit.
“Perhaps I could cut some myself later on,” she offered.
“Not dressed like that, you can’t.” He sniffed. “Woman, you’ve been here nearly three days and you still ain’t got the first idea what that weather out there can do to a person who don’t come equipped to deal with it.”
She sighed. She was getting more than a little tired of being chastised for her inadequate wardrobe. What she wore seemed the preferred topic of conversation, losing out only to the current state of the weather. “Well, Clancy, I’m learning fast. However, since there’s nothing I can do to remedy the situation, I guess we’ll all just have to live—”
“Ain’t no call for you to get on your high and mighty horse,” he said, cocking his head to one side and squinting at her. “All I was goin’ to suggest was that from where I stand you look to be about the same size as my Agnes and if you ain’t too proud to take hand-me-downs maybe I can fix you up with something so you ain’t quite so housebound.”
“That would be very nice,” she said, deeming it unwise to take exception to the way he chose to deliver his point.
He left then, slamming the back door in his signature fashion, only to return half an hour later with a large cardboard box which he plunked in the middle of the sofa. “There. See what you can do with what’s in here. The boots might be big but that ain’t nothing an extra pair of socks can’t fix.” He nodded and turned to go, then asked, “By the way, what you cooking up for the midday meal?”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.”
“And some of them mince pie things like we had yesterday?”
“If you like. I’ll have to bake up a fresh batch, though.”
She smiled at him and received a conspiratorial smirk in response. “Better get on with it, then, woman. I’m building up a fearsome appetite running errands for you.”
Although she felt better at the improved turn her relationship with Clancy had taken, Jessica still dreaded seeing Morgan again and grew increasingly tense as the lunch hour approached. It was all she could do not to turn tail and run when she heard the clump of boots at the back door. But after all her agonizing he made it easy for her.
“Hi,” he said, planting himself at the table and rubbing his hands together briskly. “What’s cooking? I’m starving.”
His smile was friendly without being intimate, his glance impersonal without being cold, his tone weighted with no hidden nuances. He was so thoroughly and neutrally pleasant that it occurred to Jessica to wonder if she hadn’t dreamed the previous night’s conversation.
“Heard on the radio this morning that there was another avalanche on the main highway,” he commented as the meal progressed. “Just west of Wintercreek this time. They don’t expect to have the road open again for at least forty-eight hours.”
Clancy, who until then had attacked his meal with the same silent dedication he’d displayed the day before, froze with his sandwich midway to his mouth. “That ought to put a dent in certain folks’ traveling plans.”
“I’d say so.” Morgan smiled his thanks as Jessica removed his empty soup bowl. “At least until after Christmas Day.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, producing the promised mince tarts, “unless you’ve got it hidden somewhere, I don’t see any sign of the traditional turkey for tomorrow’s dinner.”
Morgan intercepted Clancy as he made a grab for the tarts. “We didn’t bother with one last year. It didn’t seem worth it for just the two of us.”
“So what did you have in mind instead?”
“We laid in a good supply of wild duck in the Fall. They’re in the freezer but if they don’t strike your fancy whatever you decide will be fine.” He shrugged apologetically. “Christmas Day’s just another working day on a horse ranch, Jessica. I’m afraid you’ll be spending a good portion of it alone, doing exactly the same thing you’ve done so well since you got here.”
“Pinch-hitting as chief cook and bottle washer, you mean?” She spoke idly, too deeply engrossed in admiring the lithe male beauty of him to consider how her words might be interpreted.
Unexpectedly, he looked up and caught her staring. “Among other things,” he said gently, his gaze holding hers.
Did she imagine that his expression altered imperceptibly, that the color of his eyes suddenly reminded her less of the clear cold of the winter sky than the hazy blue of high summer?
“Well,” she said, hoping the confusion churning her blood didn’t show on her face, “wild duck sounds fine to me. I’ll do my best to make them special.”
His gaze intensified. “As you do with everything, Jessica.”
“Anybody want to tell me what the Sam hell all the double talk’s about?” Clancy inquired, not missing a thing. “Or am I better off not knowin’?”
“You’re better off not knowing,” Morgan said evenly. “What say we get back to work?”
“Might as well. Sooner we get at it, sooner we’re done.” Clancy scraped back his chair and snapped the leather suspenders holding up his jeans. “A man sits too long by a warm fire lettin’ a woman feed him and next thing you know he ain’t good for nothin’ the rest of the day.”
“Then by all means let’s get moving.” Standing up, Morgan slewed his gaze briefly back to Jessica and with a masterful stroke of ambiguity that sent a tide of heat sweeping over her added slyly, “You look a little weary, Miss Simms. Why don’t you take time out for a nap this afternoon? It would be a pity for either of us to be too tired to enjoy Christmas Eve.”
Clancy snorted with disgust, snaked out a hand and crammed the last mince pie into his mouth whole. “Never mind any afternoon nap, woman,” he said, heading for the door. “Make more tarts.”
By great good fortune, Agnes had been a size eight, too. Her faded blue jeans, softened by many launderings to the texture of doeskin, fit perfectly. Sorting through the other items, Jessica selected a hand-knit sweater that came down past her hips, a cream down jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, two pairs of heavy wool socks to wear under the fleece-lined boots, and a pair of thick leather gloves. But she shook her head at the long red thermal underwear and tucked it back inside the box. She didn’t plan to spend any longer outside than it t
ook to gather a few pieces of holly.
The problem was, whatever tool Clancy had used to cut the cedar was nowhere to be found and the holly branches were sturdy as well as prickly. The kitchen scissors were no match for the job, nor was the steak knife she seconded. Frustrated and out of breath, she surveyed the bright-berried limb dangling miserably but stubbornly from the tree. Obviously, without the proper tools, she wasn’t going to have much success.
“Stay inside the house”, Morgan had said. But the stables stood a mere hundred yards or so away. Hardly a life-threatening distance, now that she had the right kind of clothing to protect her, surely?
But the cold wind from which she’d been protected by the bulk of the house caught her as she turned the corner and just about froze the breath in her lungs. Hugging the jacket hood closely around her face and wishing she hadn’t been so quick to discard Agnes’s winter underwear, she struggled across the open ground to the stable and slid back the heavy door just enough to let herself through the opening.
Her arrival went unnoticed at first and for a moment she leaned against the door and simply inhaled the gentle warmth of the place. A window high on the end wall let in what was left of the daylight and two electric lamps suspended from a center beam spilled mellow pools of gold over the scene.
Shadowed stalls lined each side wall, five to the left and five to the right, with a concrete-floored aisle separating them. Steps immediately to the right of the door by which she’d come in led up to a half-loft piled high with bales of bright straw and pale-tinted hay.
To her left, another half-open door showed a small room, the walls of which were hung with the trappings one might expect to find around horses. Saddles and bridles, blankets and liniments, oils and brushes.
The entire place was filled with the scents of hay and clean straw and the faintly astringent smell of animals. The air was full of soft sound: hooves rustling on straw, contented munching, water gurgling down twin drinking channels, and somewhere out of sight the deep baritone murmur of men at work together.
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