Ryder didn’t like to accept help, but his ankle hurt in spite of the painkiller. Besides, he was curious to hear what she would say next.
Also, he discovered as he tried to propel himself upright, his bruised muscles had become annoyingly weak. He stumbled on the metal crutches and would have fallen against the car had Lisa not caught his elbow.
Calmly and without fuss, she helped him regain his balance. Despite her skittish responses during their verbal sparring, Ryder noted that there was something steady about Lisa Schmidt. A good sign, if she truly was studying to be a nurse.
As she guided him up the icy walkway, she didn’t pester him with silly reassurances or give him a pep talk. She supported his arm, pointed to a half step that he hadn’t noticed and guided him onto the chalet’s porch.
As he took out his key, Ryder hesitated. There was always a risk in letting a stranger inside, especially when he was not operating at full capacity. Danger could flare when least expected.
However, he’d never been afraid to take chances. He didn’t intend to start now, especially when it would mean never finding out what circumstances had thrown this intriguing woman into his path.
Ryder gestured Lisa inside ahead of him. Following her, he had to maneuver carefully across the thick pile carpet. It snagged his crutches. Furthermore, he was conscious of every movement for fear of knocking over an expensive vase or cut-glass dish.
The chalet belonged to Nina McNally, a widow who’d been flimflammed by Joe the O. When Ryder had questioned Nina about how they might track the trickster, she’d mentioned bringing Joe to this resort and teaching him to ski. She’d recalled that Joe had commented on how many well-dressed older women frequented the slopes.
At the time, Nina hadn’t thought much of it. To Ryder, she’d speculated that Joe might return here to try to get his hands on someone else’s money. Anxious for Ryder to capture her seducer, she had not only paid his fee and expenses, she’d also loaned him the chalet.
“I could never enjoy it again,” she’d told him. “Before I sell it, you might as well enjoy the surroundings.”
It was comfortable. Why then did Lisa gaze around with an odd expression? “How weird.”
“In what way?” he asked as he perched on the edge of a chair.
Lisa indicated the blue rug, white walls with blue molding, blue-and-white furniture and blue knickknacks. “It’s so blue,” she said. “Kind of unusual.”
“I’m just staying here for the weekend. I didn’t choose the color scheme.”
“It’s cool, actually.” She shrugged out of her jacket to reveal a rose-colored blouse of spun-sugar silk that clung to her curves. Ryder had to force himself to look away. “What did you need me for?” he said.
“Can I fix you something to eat?” Lisa started toward the hallway.
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“Because I’m uncomfortable with it.” She stopped to examine an array of blue glass goblets on a mirrored shelf.
“Or because you need time to make up another story?”
She turned toward him. “I wish I could. I’m lousy at thinking on my feet.”
“So tell me the truth.” Ryder itched to walk over, catch her by the shoulders and demand an answer. If only he was sure he could even move. “You said you need me. Why?”
Long, dark lashes veiled her eyes. She folded her arms around herself protectively as she forced out the words. “I need to seduce you.”
“Excuse me?” Usually Ryder only noticed body language when he was trying to gain an advantage on a quarry, but he found himself attuned to everything about Lisa. Even her nose. It was thin, with an aristocratic curve and an expressive tip that quivered as she weighed her response.
“There was another man,” she said finally. “A man who turned out to be not very nice. I need someone to... help me recover. When I saw you on the slope, I decided that man was you.”
“Whoa!” Alarm lifted Ryder halfway out of the chair before pain dropped him back. “You must have me confused with somebody else. I’m nobody’s knight in shining armor.”
“You saved that little girl.”
“I’m great at five-minute rescues.” Ryder wondered how she could have misjudged him so badly. “Let’s get one thing straight. I can’t stand having people hang expectations on me or try to fence me in. I function best alone.”
Lisa moved to the couch and perched on its arm. He was puzzled to read relief in her gaze. “That’s what I want, too.”
“To go to bed with me and then leave?”
“I can’t handle another relationship right now,” she said. “But this man made me feel bad about myself and men in general. I’m desperate to get past that.”
Although she spoke earnestly, there was an opaqueness in her gaze that Ryder couldn’t penetrate. She might be lying again and covering it more skillfully. Or perhaps she was simply embarrassed about her proposition.
“You picked me out with your binoculars—yes, I saw you looking—and decided to seduce me?” Ryder asked skeptically.
“You’re very attractive.” She spoke without coyness, as if reciting an obvious fact. “Don’t women do this all the time?”
“Not in my experience,” he said. “I’m not saying I don’t get propositioned once in a while. Usually the lady’s too out of control for my taste, or she wants a bigger piece of me than I’m prepared to give.”
“I only want one piece of you,” she said, and turned a vivid shade of scarlet.
“How flattering.”
She got even redder. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”
“You honestly believe a roll in the hay will get this jerk out of your system?” He studied her dubiously. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.” She lifted her chin, pride reasserting itself. “Yes, I think so, if it’s the right roll in the hay, as you put it.”
Why was he hesitating? Ryder wondered. His ankle hurt and the medication made him woozy, but it wouldn’t take much stimulation to overcome those disadvantages. He desired the woman. He’d craved her from the first moment he glimpsed her. But he didn’t trust strokes of good luck. Something was fishy about this situation.
Outside, the afternoon shadows grew long. He felt weary down to his bones. “I’ll have to think it over,” he said. “In the meantime, did I hear you offer me food?”
“Sure!” With a will-o’-the-wisp smile, Lisa popped off the couch and disappeared down the hallway.
“There’s not much in the fridge!” Ryder called. “You’ll have to open a can of whatever.” “
Okay,” the reply drifted to him.
Even in her absence, her teasing scent undulated through his senses. Ryder leaned back, enjoying his awareness of this intriguing woman and reviewing the day’s events.
He’d nailed Joe the O. If the bail bondsman acted with his usual efficiency, the man would hobble out of the hospital and go directly to jail. It was time for Ryder to return to Los Angeles and take up a new assignment.
Still, putting too much stress on an injured ankle was sure to worsen the injury, and tomorrow was Sunday. A day of leisure was what the doctor had ordered. And Lisa? Was she what the doctor ordered, or was she trouble personified?
A tinny banging emanated from the kitchen, as if someone were hammering on metal. Before Ryder could call out a question, a crash sounded, accompanied by a squeal of alarm.
“Lisa? Are you all right?” He hoisted himself from the depths of his chair and reached for his crutches.
“It’s a mess!” she cried. “Don’t come in here.”
How could anyone have trouble opening a can? As he lurched forward, Ryder supposed the lady must have been trying to whip up something fancy.
He hopped and thumped his way down the short hallway to the gleaming kitchen. Formerly gleaming. Something red spattered the entire room, from the cabinets to the tile floor. For a horrified moment, he thought Lisa had been badly cut, until he saw her spong
ing off the crimson-smeared refrigerator door with ineffectual swipes.
In the middle of the floor sat a smashed can of tomato soup. On the counter lay an ice pick and a screwdriver. It took Ryder several seconds to figure out that she’d been using them to try to open the can.
A woebegone face turned toward him. Tomato soup dripped from Lisa’s black hair, silk blouse and ski pants, all the way to her designer boots.
Ryder pointed to an electrical device on the counter. “That’s a can opener.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a weighted tool equipped with gear wheels. “This is also a can opener.” He indicated the ice pick and the screwdriver. “Neither of those is a can opener.”
“I’m a little out of practice at cooking,” said Lisa as a glob of tomato soup plopped from the sponge onto the floor.
“At cleaning up, too. Lady, did you just get released from an institution or are you always like this?”
“I don’t usually screw up this bad,” she said. “Is cooking a prerequisite?”
“For what?”
“Seducing you,” she said.
Despite his best intentions, Ryder could feel his body hardening. How could the woman radiate sensuality while covered with red goop?
It might have been the vulnerability in her eyes, or the humor quirking at the edges of her full lips, or the way her dampened blouse clung to her full breasts. Maybe it was something else entirely—the sense that a loopy, endearing human being had just landed in his life. Someone full of surprises and very much worth exploring.
“Forget the cooking,” he said. “Let’s hit the shower.”
*
Lisa supposed she should be overjoyed. Her plan was working perfectly, despite a few early stumbles.
She’d nearly lost her composure when she walked into the chalet and found it overwhelmingly blue. It reminded her of the stick in the ovulation kit, telling her that it was the optimal time to conceive.
In the face of Ryder’s questions, she’d struggled desperately for a new story that she could tell convincingly. She’d stuck as close as possible to the truth and, to her amazement, it seemed to have worked. But now that Ryder believed her and wanted her, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it.
“Did you hear me?” he repeated. “I offered to take a shower with you.”
Swallowing hard, Lisa grabbed a kitchen towel and dabbed at her blouse. “I think we ought to clean up in here first.”
His mouth twisted knowingly. “I see.”
“See what?”
“That I intimidate you.”
She glanced up, startled by the truth of what he’d said. Standing upright in the enclosed space, Ryder loomed even larger than he’d appeared on the slope.
She became intensely aware of his arrogant, tilted head, his broad shoulders and his strong arms. Of the cowboy-style flannel shirt stretched across a muscular chest, and the faded jeans that hugged his lean hips. Even more significantly, she noticed the thrust of those hips, hinting at—no, shouting of—masculine potency.
“You do intimidate me,” she said. “That’s why I chose you.”
“Because you’re afraid of me?” Light through the kitchen window gleamed across the burnished skin of his face and neck. She wondered if he were equally tanned beneath the shirt, and how those muscles would feel if she ran her hands over them.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “The point is, I think you’re man enough to drive Bor...my old boyfriend out of my mind.”
“Does this mean you plan to measure my lovemaking techniques against his?”
If he only knew the truth, he would have no worries on that score. Lisa thought with irony. “I can assure you, I won’t be comparing you to anybody.”
“That sounds better.” Ryder took a step toward her, then winced. “Blasted ankle.”
“Sit!” Grabbing a chair from the small table, Lisa pushed it toward him. “You’re my patient, remember?”
“You’re not a nurse, remember?” But he lowered himself into it, anyway.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you.”
“I don’t need taking care of.”
“The heck you don’t!” Seeing him about to protest, she added, “Besides, I need a delaying tactic.”
“Because I intimidate you so much?”
“Because, well, I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said as she knelt and began to rub Ryder’s ankle. “I’m not in the habit of picking up men on ski slopes. So lean back and let me get used to touching you.”
His chuckle rumbled through her hands, up her arms and all the way to Lisa’s core. The sensation thrilled her and frightened her, and she bent quickly to her work.
She couldn’t touch the injured area because of the bandage, but Ryder’s calf muscles felt tight, so she stroked those. Gradually she felt him relaxing. It was a heady sensation, to realize this powerful man was yielding to her. But, Lisa asked herself uneasily, was she really prepared to give him her virginity?
She experienced a flash of anger toward her parents. If they hadn’t chosen such an obnoxious husband for her, she would have gone to the altar a virgin, which she’d always thought was the right thing to do. They’d made that impossible by trying to control her. As always.
She had no idea how to open a can of soup because her mother, with the connivance of their chef, had banned her from the kitchen. Her father also kept her on a short leash. Even when Lisa worked at the company headquarters, her pay had been the unlimited use of a credit card, but no salary. Over the years she’d received cash only to cover incidental expenses. It was fortunate that she’d stashed enough of that money in her closet in case anything unexpected arose. Like this trip.
Lisa’s attention returned to Ryder as her cheek brushed his blue-jeaned leg. It felt firm and well developed. A skier’s leg. A man’s leg. She enjoyed kneeling here, massaging him. Acting like a twenty-six-year-old woman instead of a sheltered heiress. Experiencing sensations that her parents wouldn’t approve of, with a man they definitely wouldn’t approve of.
She recalled what Ryder had said, about not wanting people to weigh him down with expectations. It was a good thing he didn’t come from a family like hers. Or did he? “Ryder?” she asked.
“Mmm?” It was a contented murmur.
“Does your family ever make demands on you?” she asked.
“My family?”
“Your parents. Do they push you to marry, or to get a conventional job, that sort of thing?”
A long sigh ran through him. “My dad’s gone,” he said.
“Gone?” Hoping she wasn’t being indelicate, she asked, “You mean...dead?”
“Just gone.” Ryder’s body tightened, and she resumed massaging his calf. After a moment he relaxed again. “Living in the most rundown trailer in the park, having me and my sisters before he was ready, working one odd job after another—he couldn’t hack it.”
Lisa tried, and failed, to imagine a life so different from her own. “Weren’t there ways he could get ahead? Improve his job skills, that sort of thing?”
A note of bitterness crept into Ryder’s voice. “He had the same opportunities as anybody else. But he and Mom never planned ahead. Never postponed anything they wanted, never worked harder than they had to. It was easier to drift and to drink. Finally Mom threw him out, and we never saw him again.”
“What about your mother?” Lisa asked worriedly. “It must have been hard on her.”
His tone softened. “She did what she could. Baby-sitting, housecleaning. Trailer parks can be close communities, and we made a lot of friends there. Then she found another man.”
From his tone of voice, that hadn’t been good news. “You didn’t like him?”
“He had one thing in common with Dad. He drank,” Ryder said. “So she got rid of him, and then along came husband number three, and about that time I joined the Marines.”
“What about your sisters?” she asked. “Do you ever see them?”
> “We exchange Christmas cards. They’re doing all right, I guess.” He sounded tired of the subject, so she dropped it. Besides, the sense of him that flowed through her hands and into her bloodstream was stirring Lisa past the point of logic. The tangy smell of tomato soup on her blouse also reminded her that it was time to move on.
“I’m ready to shower.” She stood up slowly, then indicated the wreckage of the kitchen. “But I should take care of this.”
“The cleaning service comes on Monday. It’ll keep till then.” Ryder reached for the crutches he’d leaned against the counter. One of them slipped at his touch and crashed to the floor, into a puddle of orangy red. “Wonderful.”
“Never mind those.” Lisa offered her shoulder for support. “It’s not far to the shower, right?”
“No.” Ryder hesitated. “That isn’t necessary.”
“It’s just to steady your balance.”
He paused for another fraction of a second, then said, “Well, let’s not make a capital case out of this,” and grasped her firmly.
The pressure of his hand set Lisa’s shoulder tingling. Heat rolled through her body, tightening her breasts and derrière. As they strolled along the hallway, past a small bedroom, she enjoyed the sense of being a woman, a fierce creature capable of passion instead of a timid girl.
Ryder’s breathing quickened. As they reached the master bedroom, he swayed close.
Overhead, a crystal and brass chandelier cast golden light across the quilted bed, creating a pool of warmth. The door to the bathroom stood open, revealing a bank of mirrors.
Everything was right: the man, the place, the color of the stick in her ovulation kit. Lisa might feel clumsy and uncertain, but surely that would pass.
Ryder released her to lean against the interior door frame. As he scorched her with his gaze, Lisa started unworking the buttons on her soiled blouse.
Well, she thought, here we go into the wild blue yonder.
Chapter Four
Ryder was by nature a man of action. He considered it his privilege to remove a woman’s clothes before making love to her, but Lisa gave one of her fawnlike quivers every time he reached for her, so he stood and watched.
Let's Make a Baby! Page 4
