Shooting pain lanced up her leg as she rapped her knee sharply against the dash, sliding out of the truck while glaring at the blue-and-white envelope. She hobbled into the building, smacked the offending object onto the middle of her desk and limped off to dig up some much-needed coffee.
Voices echoing from the conference room reminded her that their video teleconferencing call with the client from Japan was about to begin.
She just needed one minute.
Ripping off the cardboard strip labeled Tear Here, she yanked out the pages, and knew that if someone were to see her and ask why she was snarling, she’d be unable to give a good answer.
But just seeing that man’s name on a return address made her want to heave a rock through a plate-glass window.
Preferably his.
A handwritten note was paper-clipped to the top page.
A representative of the firm will be waiting at the following address this evening between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. if you would like to view the property mentioned in your great-aunt’s last will and testament. I hope you will not allow any previous misunderstanding to scare you off.
Spencer Reed
P.S. The tiramisu was indeed excellent.
Fourteen hours later, Addy was still fuming.
Scare her off? Scare her off?
Her entire day had proved to be one disaster after another, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t keep her mind on her work. Not that she was surprised. How could she concentrate when the strangulation fantasies were running through her head with such startling visual clarity?
Now, spotting an open parking space in the vicinity of the north-side address, she slewed her truck into the gap, grabbed her backpack, jumped out and marched up the block.
Fifty yards ahead of her, silhouetted by the glow of a streetlight, a tall figure leaned casually against a wrought-iron fence.
She didn’t need the benefit of light to know who it was.
Two
Addy skidded to a halt on a patch of ice in front of the gate. He reached out a hand to steady her. She shrugged it off, glared up at his shadowed face and wished she were taller.
“What the hell are you doing here, Reed?”
“Good evening to you, too, Ms. Tyler.”
“There’s nothing good about it,” she snapped, the words exploding in cloudy puffs of her breath in the icy air. “What are you doing here?”
His tone was carefully modulated to soothe. She felt as if she was being handled, and resented it.
“My note said—”
“Your note,” she interrupted, “said a ‘representative’ of the firm would be here. Not you.” A sharp poke at his shoulder emphasized her final word.
Addy had a split second to note that she might as well have poked a brick wall, for all he moved, before the recoil of her own rude gesture threw her off balance again, her low-heeled boots skating out from beneath her.
Spencer yanked her up against his body, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand cupping her elbow. The heat of him radiated through his tailored black coat, cashmere no doubt, and she blamed her momentary dizziness on the sudden warmth. She was aware that she should be backing away from him.
Neither of them moved.
Light reflecting softly off the snowdrifts lit a glimpse of summer sky in his eyes as his gaze slid over the contours of her face, coming to rest on her lips. She experienced it like a physical caress and felt her mouth soften in response. Dazed, she was already visualizing the kiss when his voice broke in with the hard crash of reality.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“What?”
Blood rushed to her face as she jerked herself out of his arms, embarrassed to realize that she’d been mooning over the man like a lovesick teenager hoping for a kiss at the end of a first date.
She reached out a hand to the fence and steadied herself, feeling the twist of wrought iron radiate cold like an icy bone in her clenched fingers.
“I thought you might not come,” he repeated patiently, tucking his hands carefully into his coat pockets. “Based on the outcome of our first meeting.”
“Based on the—” She sucked in frigid winter air and welcomed the cold pain in her lungs as it swept the fog from her brain. “So you lied. And on top of that, you implied in your little note that I’d be too scared to show up.”
“I thought that might get you here, even if it was only to yell at me. And since I am in fact a representative of the firm, I wasn’t lying, strictly speaking.”
“Tell me, Counselor, are the intimidation tactics part of your hourly billing, or did you charge my great-aunt extra for that?”
“I did what I had to do.”
Back on firmer ground, squared off against him like a prizefighter in the ring, she grabbed on to her anger and used it as a shield against other more confusing emotions. In the swirl of anger and attraction, of unwanted hurt and even more unwanted awareness of the man standing in front of her, the scents of old leather and warm vanilla spices still lingering on her clothes from where she’d been pressed up against him—Jesus, the man even smelled rich—one thing was clear. She should be asking herself the same question she’d thrown at him. What the hell was she doing here?
She didn’t need this, any of it, and she didn’t want it.
The realization settled like a burlap sack of wet sand on her shoulders, with none of the elevated light and joy she somehow thought she should feel upon deciding to walk away from her great-aunt, Spencer Reed and this entire mess.
“You did what you had to do.” She repeated his words, rolling them slowly around in her mouth as if they were part of a new dish whose taste she wasn’t sure she cared for. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. The rules of polite society don’t apply to you, do they? You’re a lawyer.”
She opened her mouth, the torrent of scathing words near to bursting the dam, when she realized that she was just prolonging the encounter. Her teeth clicked sharply together as she snapped her jaw shut, shook her head, turned and walked away.
“Addy, please.”
The voice, low and quiet, calling her name the way a friend or a family member or a lover would, made her pause, though she didn’t turn around. She’d known the man for less than two days and it already seemed like every time she tried to walk away from him, he managed to get one last word in.
“Just take a look at the place, please.” The words slid around her like a gentle hand, curling around her elbow and tugging softly in his direction. “We’ll both go inside and get warm, I’ll explain some of the details to you and you won’t take any potshots at my profession.”
Her bark of laughter startled them both.
She had to see the look on his face after that, and the need brought her back to him where he stood in front of the wrought-iron gate up to his ankles in snow and looking perplexed by her sudden burst of laughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” All at once, her humor in the situation was genuine. “My potshots at your profession?”
For once, Spencer’s reserved facade slipped. She could see the physical moment when he remembered his comments to her the day before, and watched him visibly flinch. The sheepish grin and the brow slightly lifted in guilty acknowledgement begged her forgiveness, and the words swiftly followed.
“And I’ll continue to apologize for my massive and completely unprofessional lack of courtesy yesterday morning. What do you say?”
Addy bit her lip, chewing off her raspberry-flavored Chap Stick and feeling the last bit of warmth seeping out of her body. She started to shiver. Lord, it was cold.
Spencer took a step toward her, bringing his face clearly into the light for the first time. The skin of his face as it followed the sharp contours of his cheekbones was pale. She wondered abruptly if he’d been standing outside this gate and waiting for her since six o’clock. She’d stubbornly delayed until the last minute before driving over here, a gesture that had felt independent at the time but now seeme
d merely childish.
“Addy.” He stood close enough now to encompass her in his shadow, the streetlight behind him making a golden halo out of his hair. He lifted a hand and nudged her chin up with gloved fingers until her gaze met his again. She was conscious of her own breathing, the scratchiness of the knit wool cap pulled low on her brow, the dull ache in her fingers and toes. If she didn’t pay attention, she might forget to take her next breath.
His thumb scraped lightly along her jaw. Tucked a rampant curl behind her ear. Her ears were ice.
“Addy, it’s not really me that you’re mad at here.”
Like the ice of a frozen lake cracking beneath the blades of a skater, the moment shattered. Irritated again, she snapped a wave at the gate.
“Let’s get on with it, Reed. And keep the psychoanalysis to yourself. If I want a therapist, I’ll hire one who doesn’t know how to sue me sixteen ways from Sunday.” She raised her hands in the air, cutting off any response. “Sorry.”
“Right.” He exhaled sharply. A set of keys jangled in his hand as he wrestled with the frozen lock on the gate. “Sorry about the hedges. Your great-aunt meant to have them cut back, but time got away from her.”
For the first time, Addy noticed the towering wall of hedges pressing against the fence, leaning heavily over the iron spikes capping the fence rails. Branches struggled to squeeze through the narrow gaps between rails, reaching out to snag unwary pedestrians. Icicles as thick as her wrists pulled heavy boughs earthward in dangerous arcs.
“Jesus,” she breathed. “It’s the briar wood surrounding Sleeping Beauty’s castle.”
When Spencer laughed, she simply raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, all those knights in shining armor impaled themselves on the thorns and died horribly painful deaths in those hedges.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing I left my armor at home today,” he said, swinging the gate wide open before her. “Come on in, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Right,” she muttered as she stepped onto a clean-swept walk that drew a straight line to the front door. Or presumably it did. At the moment, with the snow-laden heights of the hedges blocking off the street, the yellow wedge of light arcing in from the gate was the only illumination. Although she could pick out the outline of the house—high, peaked roofs and other mysterious shapes—against the light of the city sky, details of the building itself were invisible.
“Got a flashlight, Reed?”
“Dammit. If the power’s out again…” Spencer brushed past her. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Again?”
She stomped her feet and crossed her arms tightly against her chest. After a minute or two, a light flickered from what looked like a porch. The man had apparently dug up his own flashlight.
“I’m going to check the fuse box…” His voice echoed slightly, as if reaching out to her from far off instead of across the lawn. “…be just one more minute.”
Three minutes later, after a particularly stiff gust of wind dumped a load of snow off a branch two feet in front of her head, Addy gave up on waiting. She’d damn well rather stand in a dark hallway than out here in the Arctic Circle. Picking her feet up high with finicky cat steps through the newly dumped snow, she approached the darkened house.
When the lights snapped on, she threw a hand in front of her face, reflexively blocking the sudden glare.
And then lowered her hand one millimeter at a time, her mouth hanging open and her eyes painfully wide.
It was a castle.
Towers and turrets. Candles flickering in sheltered sconces. The hedges, threateningly visible in the sudden light, loomed over her like the encroaching boundaries of an ancient forest. She could almost swear she heard horns, dying faintly away on the cold night air, calling the hounds to hunt.
When the wolf burst around the side of the building and raced straight toward her, giving one deep woof on the way, Addy decided that she was hallucinating. Clearly.
Her next conscious thought was that being body-slammed by a wolf into a snowbank sure did shoot the hallucination theory all to hell. Its paws were planted smack in the middle of her stomach and she could feel its hot breath on her neck as it shoved its nose beneath her scarf. She opened her mouth to scream.
And sputtered in disgust as she got a faceful of doggy drool when the thing licked her from her chin to her eyebrows.
“Ew, gross, disgusting.” She whipped her head to the side to avoid another lick and spat into the snow. “Get off me, you big lug.”
“Elwood! Heel!”
The dog gave a reluctant whine, swiped one last kiss wetly across her forehead and leapt off her to go trotting obediently away. Addy pushed herself up on her elbows, scraped the snow out of her collar and wished that the heat of her irritation could actually shoot red laser beams out of her eyes to burn to a crisp the man striding across the snow-covered lawn toward her.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize he was out.” Spencer came to a halt at her feet. She could see him trying to decide whether or not it would be safe to offer her a hand up. The dog, an enormously overgrown puppy she now saw, bounced around his feet, tail wagging and tongue drooling. “Elwood, sit. Sit, Elwood.”
When Spencer finally gave up and shoved the dog’s butt into the snow with two gloved hands, Addy laughed out loud.
“Elwood?” she asked as she clambered to her feet and started brushing off her clothes. “Let me guess, he has four whole fried chickens for lunch every day.”
“That was Jake. Elwood ate dry white toast.”
“That giant wolf in dog’s clothing certainly eats more than white toast.” She could feel melting snow trickling down the back of her neck. “What kind of dog is it anyway?”
“Elwood’s a purebred Akita.”
“Of course. Even her dog sounds snotty, though I wouldn’t have thought Great-Aunt Adeline was a fan of The Blues Brothers.”
“I don’t think she ever saw the film. Elwood is my dog.”
Oops. So much for the truce on insults.
Before she could ask what his dog was doing at the house, Addy heard Spencer give what sounded suspiciously like a snicker. She glared up at him. His lips were clamped together in what was clearly a weak effort to keep from laughing out loud at her. “If you’re finding this funny, Reed…” she warned.
“Not at all,” he said, his voice strangled. “It’s just…dripping.” He reached out a gloved hand toward her hair.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, and jerked her head back. This had the unfortunate effect of dislodging the mountain of snow perched on her hat, spilling it down her face in a cold, damp mini avalanche.
“Dammit.”
Spencer’s laughter burst out of him in an uncontrollable guffaw. Through the ice water dripping into her eyes, she saw him strip off his gloves and shove them into the pockets of his overcoat. He stepped through the snow to stand next to her, crowding her.
“You’re invading my personal space, Reed. Back off.” She knew she looked ridiculous, and resented it.
“I’m cleaning you up, Frosty. Relax.” He tugged off her knit cap and ran his bare fingers gently through her wet curls, combing out clumps of melting snow. She felt the trails left by his fingers on her scalp like the burning afterimage of the sun. Spencer brushed his thumbs gently across her eyebrows and then her cheekbones. When his fingers passed softly over her mouth, she inhaled shakily, and the sudden narrowing of his eyes told her that he’d heard it. “And it wouldn’t kill you to call me by my first name, Addy.”
“You know, it just might,” she muttered, and nearly smiled at the grimness in her own voice. Her awareness of his hands on her skin shocked her with its intensity. In a sudden movement, she jerked her hands up to push his away, only to find her fingers entangled with his.
If I’m so cold, why does it feel like he’s burning me? As the words flashed through her brain, she tried to pull her hands away.
“That’s enough.”
“N
ot nearly.”
The clouds of their breaths lingered in the cold, still air between their faces, merging into one slowly disappearing fog. Addy felt the ridiculous urge to tuck her top lip over her bottom one and direct her next breath straight at her feet, and told herself she was being paranoid.
She didn’t think she sounded very convincing.
“Your hands are cold.”
Her fingers were still interlocked with his, and Spencer was rubbing them gently. With inexorable slowness, he pulled her hands to his mouth and exhaled warmly on them. When she shivered, his smile showed in his eyes.
Enough was enough.
“I’m soaking wet because of your goofy dog, Reed. I’m cold all over,” she snapped.
For the second time since her arrival, her irritation at his smugness saved her from further embarrassment. She yanked her hands away from his and shoved them deep into her coat pockets. “I suppose it would be too much to ask to go inside now, before I end up with a raging case of pneumonia?”
Spencer’s grin told her she wasn’t fooling anyone. Then she shivered again, and this time it was because she actually was freezing.
“I really am cold,” she said as her teeth started to chatter.
“Of course. Come on.” With a casualness she didn’t fall for, he snagged one of her hands and tucked it in the crook of his arm. He led the way back to the sidewalk and steered her toward the front porch. After a moment of mental debate, Addy decided that the advantage of not having to look where she was going, allowing her to stare at the house looming over them, was worth the inconvenience of bumping into Spencer’s body with every step. Elwood pranced about their feet, kicking up snow with a dog’s sheer joy in play.
But it was the house, the fairy-tale, castlelike vision of a house, that she couldn’t take her eyes off.
With all of the lights on and a little more composure under her belt, Addy could see that although the house was large, it was the height of the building that made it seem so imposing. The house itself was three full stories tall, and its towers—there are towers, with round walls and cone-capped roofs, for God’s sake—stretched another story or two higher. There were windows everywhere, almost more windows than walls it seemed, and warm yellow light shone out of dozens of them.
Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) Page 3
