Moonlight over Manhattan

by Sarah Morgan

  If there was tension, it was well hidden.

  She felt an almost unbearable longing. She knew what she was witnessing was precious. It was love in all its different forms. Mother to child. Grandmother to child. Man to woman. Brother to brother. Husband to wife. It was all right there, a perfect web of love.

  Some people might look at a mansion and covet it. They might want to fill their closet with designer labels, or travel the world.

  What Harriet coveted was right here in this room.

  They drew her into the conversation, asking her about herself, about the dogs, about living in New York. After only an hour in their company, she felt more at ease than she ever had with her own family.

  For these people mealtimes were something to be celebrated, a chance to get together and share stories. Despite Tyler’s griping about food, napkins and visible displays of affection, it was clearly an important night for them. Nothing like her own family gatherings, which had been something to endure.

  By the time she and Ethan left to return to their cabin, she felt as if she’d known the O’Neils forever.

  “Lovely people.” She virtually danced along the path, a feat in itself given the ice.

  Ethan held her hand tightly to stop her slipping. “I don’t know what’s happening to you, but I love it.”

  “What’s happening is that I nailed today’s challenge. I did not run out the door.” She punched the air with her free hand and saw that he was grinning.

  “I’d say you kicked your challenge in the butt.”

  The moment they stepped through the door of the cabin, he caught her to him and kissed her.

  “I’m proud of you. You’re incredible.”

  She kissed him back, feeling powerful and capable of anything. Anything. When she lowered her hands to the zipper of his jeans, he raised an eyebrow.

  “Miss Knight, are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

  “I am.” She closed her hand around his erection and heard the breath hiss through his teeth.

  “The bedroom is—”

  “No.” She pushed him back and they both tumbled onto the rug in front of the fire. In less than ten seconds both of them were naked. It wasn’t the first time they’d made love, but it was the first time she’d been in charge.

  She kissed her way down his body, taking her time to explore, allowing her mouth to roam. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before, having this fierce craving to discover. She wasn’t just discovering him. She was discovering herself, and it was a heady experience. Up until recently she’d tiptoed through life, careful not to draw attention to herself. Now, there was no more tiptoeing, and she definitely had his full attention. She went where she wanted to go. Did what she wanted to do, and what she did drew a rough sound from somewhere deep in his throat.

  She felt the sudden acceleration of his heart under her hand, felt the hard muscle of his abs tighten as she moved lower and took him into the heat of her mouth. She heard his breathing grow heavy and felt a whole new powerful feeling that came from knowing what she was doing was driving him wild. He fought for breath, moaned her name and she gave and gave until his hands hauled her upward and she finally moved over him, straddling him.

  In the firelight she could see the bunched muscle of his shoulders and the glitter of his eyes as he focused on her face. She knew she was flushed. She knew her hair was tangled from his hands. It didn’t matter to her. It certainly didn’t seem to matter to him.

  Murmuring that she was beautiful, incredible, driving him crazy, he gripped her hips and entered her with a slow upward thrust that filled her completely. The sheer intensity of it stole her breath. She felt her body yield to the demands of his and the thrill of the masculine invasion made her heart race and her tummy tighten. All she was aware of was him, and the hot aching need that spread through her body.

  She closed her eyes.

  Sex with Ethan was an intimacy she’d never known before.

  And then he started to move. He moved with a slow, relentless rhythm that sent pleasure coursing through her. With each stroke he went a little higher, a little harder, urging her close and closer to the edge until there was nothing in her mind except this. She didn’t care about the past. She didn’t care about the future. There was only now. And he made the most of now, driving into her until her body was screaming for more, until sensation after sensation crashed down on her and the contractions of her body rippled along his shaft, taking him with her.

  Somehow, much later, they made it up to the shelf and lay together looking at the snowy forest, luminous in the moonlight.

  She felt dazed. Drugged. And happier than she could ever remember feeling.

  Ethan stroked her arm. “I was afraid you were going to find this evening daunting. I was worried that by putting you in a room with a large number of strangers, I wasn’t being fair on you.”

  “It was great. And I’m glad I stammered. Falling and discovering that you can get back up is good for confidence. Right now I feel as if I can do anything.”

  He pulled her closer. “And now you’ve discovered you can do anything, what’s next for Challenge Harriet?”

  “No idea. But I’m tired of not doing things because I’m afraid of screwing them up. I really wanted to meet your friends. Your godmother. And I loved them. I love the O’Neils.” She snuggled closer. “I can see why you come back here whenever you can.”

  “It’s a great place. At one point I even considered getting a job here.”

  “In the hospital where Sean works?” She tried to imagine Ethan away from the frenetic pace of New York City. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I enjoy where I work. The ER in a place like this would be different.”

  “You mean like skiing accidents and injury by moose encounter.”

  “That kind of thing.”

  “I can’t believe the whole family run this business together. It’s wonderful.”

  “It’s not as picture-perfect as you might think. Jackson gave up his job to take over the place and save it from crumbling into the dirt. He could see what needed to be done to make the place a viable business in a busy market, but his grandparents didn’t want change. Jackson and Walter—they locked horns a million times when he was trying to upgrade this place. In the end he brought in Kayla. She worked for a company in Manhattan. He decided an outsider who could view the whole thing without considering the emotional elements might be the answer to the problem.”

  “So she stayed and never left.”

  Ethan grinned. “It wasn’t quite as smooth as that. From what Tyler told me, Kayla was a city girl and arrived in her elegant coat and heels. Took a while for her to warm up to the place. Literally.”

  “But she did. And she fell in love with Jackson.” It sounded perfect to her. “How did Tyler meet Brenna?”

  “They virtually grew up together. Brenna lived in the village.”

  “And they run the ski side of things?”

  “Yes. They all pulled together to make this place what it is now. For a while it didn’t look as if it would happen.”

  “But they got there in the end. They found a way.” And that was how it should be, Harriet thought. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t expect picture perfect. She never had. What she’d always dreamed about was a family who stuck together and supported one another through thick and thin, as the O’Neils had. Anyone could be there for the good bits. That was the easy part. The part that mattered, the part that really tested love, was to be there for the bad. “Do they mind that their mother is marrying again?”

  “They want her to be happy. It helps that they like Tom. And he fits in well. This place has been home to him forever.”

  “Did you bring Alison here?” She told herself that she wasn’t jealous. She was interested, that was all. She wanted to know him better and somewhere deep inside her she knew the key to understanding him was to understand what had gone wrong with his marriage.

  “Once. It was too quiet for h
er. Not enough going on. She’s a city girl. And she had no interest in skiing, so that didn’t help.”

  “You don’t talk about her very often.”

  “There’s not much to talk about. She’s my ex-wife. We tried. We failed. That’s it.”

  He condensed it into a few short sentences. A few weeks ago she might have left it at that, but she wasn’t the same person she’d been a few weeks before. “Why do you see it as failure?”

  “I didn’t win any awards for husband of the year.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Did I mention that I love your new haircut?”

  “Good. Why do you blame yourself?”

  “Because I was already married to the job. I couldn’t give her the relationship she wanted.”

  “But didn’t you meet her when she was filming you in the ER?”

  “Yes.”

  She lifted herself onto her elbow so she could look at him. “And she fell in love with the handsome hero who saved lives.”

  “Maybe, but that isn’t what the job is. Not really. They can make it look glamorous on TV, but the reality is something different.” He lay back against the pillows, taking her with him so that they snuggled together looking at the trees beyond the wall of glass. “Growing up, my dad was my hero. He was a respected part of the community. Everywhere we went, people greeted him. Going to buy a loaf of bread from the store turned into a half-hour trip instead of the ten minutes it should have been. People would stop him and ask him things and I never saw him impatient. Never once saw him turn them away or tell them to see him in clinic hours. If someone was distressed, he was there. Time and time again, I saw him step up. When a kid went under a truck at the County Fair, when a man was beating his wife and the police wanted my dad to go with them. My dad was there. And I wanted to be exactly like him. I wanted to make a difference.”

  “Were you ever tempted to work in the community like him?”

  “No. Because I wanted my home life to be separate. I didn’t want to bump into my patients every time I left the house. My parents’ marriage worked because my mother understood the man he was, and she never tried to change him, not even when she was scraping burned dinners into the garbage or hosting a dinner party by herself because my dad was out helping someone else. Of course it helped that she was a doctor too.”

  “Why would she try and change him?”

  “Because that’s what usually happens.”

  She asked a question that had been on her mind for a while. “How long were you and Alison together before you decided to get married?”

  “A year and a half. Maybe a little longer.”

  “And during that time you didn’t stop working?”

  He frowned. “Of course not.”

  “So she knew exactly what your job entailed when she married you.”

  “Your point being?”

  “She could hardly blame you for doing the job you’ve always done. She fell in love with you because of who you are. The job is part of who you are. Did she expect you to give it up?”

  “No, but I think the reality was a bit more than she expected.”

  “And you blamed yourself for that?”

  “I worked long hours. Unpredictable hours. That’s a fact. I was unreliable. That’s a fact too. I missed dinner parties, journalist functions she wanted to take me to—she told me after one of our rows that the only thing she could depend on was that I wouldn’t be there for her if she needed me.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have been there for her socially, but if she’d needed you in any other way you would have been there.”

  “You seem very sure about that.”

  “I am. You’re loyal to your friends and your family. I’ve seen it. And you prioritize. But your job is important. What you do is important. I don’t think you were the problem. I think the way you felt about each other was the problem. A relationship is like a jigsaw, isn’t it? The pieces have to fit together if it’s going to work.” And her parents’ relationship hadn’t worked. The pieces hadn’t fitted. She could see that so clearly now.

  His arms tightened around her. “You know a lot considering you’ve never been in love.”

  Until now. Harriet stared into the darkness, acknowledging the truth.

  She loved Ethan.

  It had happened gradually, without her even noticing. Maybe she’d fallen in love with him a little that day she’d first met him in the ER. Not because of the gentle way he’d examined her ankle, but because of the questions he’d asked. He’d been determined not to let her go before he’d satisfied himself that her injuries weren’t the result of any kind of abuse. That was the type of man he was. He was the type of man who would look after his sister’s dog even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. A man who was determined to make a difference in the world, and who would step in front of a friend even though doing so put his own life in danger. The type of man who made friendships that lasted a lifetime, and who could indulge the devil inside himself and ski a double black diamond run.

  The type of man a woman could easily fall in love with.

  Whenever she’d thought about it, and she’d thought about it often, she’d imagined love would be a gentle, comforting, enveloping feeling. Like bathing in warm water or being wrapped in a blanket. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Hadn’t expected the wild intoxication that felt as if she’d inhaled an illegal substance. It made her giddy. It made her want to smile at times where no smile was warranted. When she was feeding one of the dogs or occupied by some mundane task like peeling potatoes.

  This wasn’t how she’d thought it would be. She’d gone on dates, hoping to find love, and had never expected to find it when she wasn’t looking. And yet that was what had happened. She’d fallen in love with him piece by piece, heartbeat by heartbeat. With each glance, each touch, each conversation, she’d slid deeper. She wasn’t sure if she felt ecstatic or terrified.

  But she knew what his reaction would be.

  He’d back off. Withdraw. Protect himself, and believe he was protecting her.

  He’d end the relationship.

  And she wasn’t ready for that. That, she thought, was a challenge too far.

  So she said nothing. Simply lay in the dark with her secret, thinking of all those times she’d thought about falling in love and wondering why she’d ever thought it would be simple.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE WEEK FLEW PAST, in the way time always seemed to whenever something good was happening.

  To Ethan’s surprise, and hers, Harriet turned out to be a natural skier.

  Tyler commented that the yoga and Pilates had probably helped her balance and strengthened her core muscles, but Ethan thought it had more to do with the new determination she showed in everything she did.

  In the relatively short time he’d known her, he’d seen a change in her. A big change.

  She had a confidence now that had been lacking in the woman he’d first met in the emergency room. The woman who had stammered and fled from his apartment had been replaced by a woman who didn’t seem much inclined to flee from anything.

  Now, instead of having to force herself to meet her daily challenge, she seemed to embrace it. Bring it on. It was as if all those days of doing the thing she found most hard had taught her that her limits didn’t lie where she’d originally thought. She’d stepped outside the walls she’d built for herself and discovered a whole new world.

  He’d seen it that morning when Tyler had suggested she take the chair lift up the mountain and tackle a run that would have been beyond the scope of most beginners.

  There had been a brief moment when she’d thought about it and then she’d nodded and stomped her way toward the lift in her rigid boots, carrying her skis.

  He’d seen the concentration on her face, the frustration when she’d fallen in an inelegant heap, and the determination with which she’d scrambled upright again. It was as if that ski run had been in some way representative of the way she inte
nded to live her life.

  Watching her made him wonder when he’d last pushed himself out of his comfort zone.

  Marriage, probably.

  In a serious relationship that had demanded things of him, he’d been seriously out of his comfort zone.

  When he’d come here with Alison, she’d insisted that he stay by her side in case she fell. It had taken a matter of hours for her to decide skiing was an expensive form of suicide, and after that she’d resented the time he spent skiing.

  I don’t even get to see you when we’re on vacation.

  Harriet actively encouraged him to leave her and ski with Tyler.

  “It will be less embarrassing for me if you’re not standing there watching.” She let him haul her to her feet again after yet another fall. “I plan to go up and down this run until I can do it without falling.”

  In the end she persuaded him to go and he and Tyler had one of the best days skiing either of them could remember. They skied Devil’s Gully, which, Ethan reflected, probably wasn’t the most sensible thing he’d ever done in his life given that most of the year his fitness was honed on machines. Pounding on a treadmill and hefting weights wasn’t the same as hurling yourself off a cliff and hurtling down a slope so steep it made your thighs scream and your gut churn. For the seven minutes of hair-raising descent, he’d definitely been out of his comfort zone.

  He reached the bottom of the run in the same condition he’d started it, and counted himself lucky.

  “You’re out of condition.” Tyler grinned at him. “City life is making you soft.”

  Halfway through the week the rest of his family arrived. First his parents, who had booked a lodge to themselves, and then his sister, who drove up from New York with her husband and Karen, who seemed to have almost fully recovered from her ordeal.

  Much to Harriet’s delight, Madi was with them.

  The dog greeted Ethan with an enthusiasm he knew he didn’t deserve.

  Maybe Harriet wasn’t the only one who had changed, he thought as he dropped to his haunches to play with the dog. He’d changed too.