The Winter Man

by Diana Palmer

  Lost in thought, in nightmarish memories of screams and her own loss of consciousness, she didn’t hear the first knock on the door until it came again.

  “Miss Corrie!” a familiar angry voice shouted above the wind.

  She got up, feeling her way to the door. “Keep your shirt on,” she muttered as she threw it open.

  Quinn Sutton glared down at her. “Get whatever you’ll need for a couple of days and come on. The power’s out. If you stay here you’ll freeze to death. It’s going below zero tonight. My ranch has an extra generator, so we’ve still got the power going.”

  She glared back. “I’d rather freeze to death than go anywhere with you, thanks just the same.”

  He took a slow breath. “Look, your morals are your own business. I just thought—”

  She slammed the door in his face and turned, just in time to have him kick in the door and come after her.

  “I said you’re coming with me, lady,” he said shortly. He bent and picked her up bodily and started out the door. “And to hell with what you’ll need for a couple of days.”

  “Mr….Sutton!” she gasped, stunned by the unexpected contact with his hard, fit body as he carried her easily out the door and closed it behind them.

  “Hold on,” he said tautly and without looking at her. “The snow’s pretty heavy right through this drift.”

  In fact, it was almost waist-deep. She hadn’t been outside in two days, so she hadn’t noticed how high it had gotten. Her hands clung to the old sheepskin coat he was wearing. It smelled of leather and tobacco and whatever soap he used, and the furry collar was warm against her cold cheek. He made her feel small and helpless, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “I don’t like your tactics,” she said through her teeth as the wind howled around them and sleet bit into her face like tiny nails.

  “They get results. Hop on.” He put her up on the sled, climbed beside her, grasped the reins and turned the horse back toward the mountain.

  She wanted to protest, to tell him to take his offer and go to hell. But it was bitterly cold and she was shivering too badly to argue. He was right, and that was the hell of it. She could freeze to death in that cabin easily enough, and nobody would have found her until spring came or until her aunt persuaded Mr. Durning to come and see about her.

  “I don’t want to impose,” she said curtly.

  “We’re past that now,” he replied. “It’s either this or bury you.”

  “I’m sure I know which you’d prefer,” she muttered, huddling in her heavy coat.

  “Do you?” he asked, turning his head. In the daylight glare of snow and sleet, she saw an odd twinkle in his black eyes. “Try digging a hole out there.”

  She gave him a speaking glance and resigned herself to going with him.

  He drove the sled right into the barn and left her to wander through the aisle, looking at the horses and the two new calves in the various stalls while he dealt with unhitching and stalling the horse.

  “What’s wrong with these little things?” she asked, her hands in her pockets and her ears freezing as she nodded toward the two calves.

  “Their mamas starved out in the pasture,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t get to them in time.”

  He sounded as if that mattered to him. She looked up at his dark face, seeing new character in it. “I didn’t think a cow or two would matter,” she said absently.

  “I lost everything I had a few months back,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m trying to pull out of bankruptcy, and right now it’s a toss-up as to whether I’ll even come close. Every cow counts.” He looked down at her. “But it isn’t just the money. It disturbs me to see anything die from lack of attention. Even a cow.”

  “Or a mere woman?” she said with a faint smile. “Don’t worry, I know you don’t want me here. I’m…grateful to you for coming to my rescue. Most of the firewood was frozen and Mr. Durning apparently doesn’t smoke, because there weren’t a lot of matches around.”

  He scowled faintly. “No, Durning doesn’t smoke. Didn’t you know?”

  She shrugged. “I never had reason to ask,” she said, without telling him that it was her aunt, not herself, who would know about Mr. Durning’s habits. Let him enjoy his disgusting opinion of her.

  “Elliot said you’d been sick.”

  She lifted a face carefully kept blank. “Sort of,” she replied.

  “Didn’t Durning care enough to come with you?”

  “Mr. Sutton, my personal life is none of your business,” she said firmly. “You can think whatever you want to about me. I don’t care. But for what it’s worth, I hate men probably as much as you hate women, so you won’t have to hold me off with a stick.”

  His face went hard at the remark, but he didn’t say anything. He searched her eyes for one long moment and then turned toward the house, gesturing her to follow.

  Elliot was overjoyed with their new houseguest. Quinn Sutton had a television and all sorts of tapes, and there was, surprisingly enough, a brand-new keyboard on a living-room table.

  She touched it lovingly, and Elliot grinned at her. “Like it?” he asked proudly. “Dad gave it to me for Christmas. It’s not an expensive one, you know, but it’s nice to practice on. Listen.”

  He turned it on and flipped switches, and gave a pretty decent rendition of a tune by Genesis.

  Amanda, who was formally taught in piano, smiled at his efforts. “Very good,” she praised. “But try a B-flat instead of a B at the end of that last measure and see if it doesn’t give you a better sound.”

  Elliot cocked his head. “I play by ear,” he faltered. “Sorry.” She reached over and touched the key she wanted. “That one.” She fingered the whole chord. “You have a very good ear.”

  “But I can’t read music,” he sighed. His blue eyes searched her face. “You can, can’t you?”

  She nodded, smiling wistfully. “I used to long for piano lessons. I took them in spurts and then begged a…friend to let me use her piano to practice on. It took me a long time to learn just the basics, but I do all right.”

  “All right” meant that she and the boys had won a Grammy award for their last album and it had been one of her own songs that had headlined it. But she couldn’t tell Elliot that. She was convinced that Quinn Sutton would have thrown her out the front door if he’d known what she did for a living. He didn’t seem like a rock fan, and once he got a look at her stage costume and her group, he’d probably accuse her of a lot worse than being his neighbor’s live-in lover. She shivered. Well, at least she didn’t like Quinn Sutton, and that was a good thing. She might get out of here without having him find out who she really was, but just in case, it wouldn’t do to let herself become interested in him.

  “I don’t suppose you’d consider teaching me how to read music?” Elliot asked. “For something to do, you know, since we’re going to be snowed in for a while, the way it looks.”

  “Sure, I’ll teach you,” she murmured, smiling at him. “If your dad doesn’t mind,” she added with a quick glance at the doorway.

  Quinn Sutton was standing there, in jeans and a red-checked flannel shirt with a cup of black coffee in one hand, watching them.

  “None of that rock stuff,” he said shortly. “That’s a bad influence on kids.”

  “Bad influence?” Amanda was almost shocked, despite the fact that she’d gauged his tastes very well.

  “Those raucous lyrics and suggestive costumes, and satanism,” he muttered. “I confiscated his tapes and put them away. It’s indecent.”

  “Some of it is, yes,” she agreed quietly. “But you can’t lump it all into one category, Mr. Sutton. And these days, a lot of the groups are even encouraging chastity and going to war on drug use…”

  “You don’t really believe that bull, do you?” he asked coldly.

  “It’s true, Dad,” Elliot piped up.

  “You can shut up,” he told his son. He turned. “I’ve got a lot of paperwork to get throu
gh. Don’t turn that thing on high, will you? Harry will show you to your room when you’re ready to bed down, Miss Corrie,” he added, and looked as if he’d like to have shown her to a room underwater. “Or Elliot can.”

  “Thanks again,” she said, but she didn’t look up. He made her feel totally inadequate and guilty. In a small way, it was like going back to that night…

  “Don’t stay up past nine, Elliot,” Quinn told his son.

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Amanda looked after the tall man with her jaw hanging loose. “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He said not to stay up past nine,” Elliot replied. “We all go to bed at nine,” he added with a grin at her expression. “There, there, you’ll get used to it. Ranch life, you know. Here, now, what was that about a B-flat? What’s a B-flat?”

  She was obviously expected to go to bed with the chickens and probably get up with them, too. Absently she picked up the keyboard and began to explain the basics of music to Elliot.

  “Did he really hide all your tapes?” she asked curiously.

  “Yes, he did,” Elliot chuckled, glancing toward the stairs. “But I know where he hid them.” He studied her with pursed lips. “You know, you look awfully familiar somehow.”

  Amanda managed to keep a calm expression on her face, despite her twinge of fear. Her picture, along with that of the men in the group, was on all their albums and tapes. God forbid that Elliot should be a fan and have one of them, but they were popular with young people his age. “They say we all have a counterpart, don’t they?” she asked and smiled. “Maybe you saw somebody who looked like me. Here, this is how you run a C scale….”

  She successfully changed the subject and Elliot didn’t bring it up again. They went upstairs a half hour later, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Since the autocratic Mr. Sutton hadn’t given her time to pack, she wound up sleeping in her clothes under the spotless white sheets. She only hoped that she wasn’t going to have the nightmares here. She couldn’t bear the thought of having Quinn Sutton ask her about them. He’d probably say that she’d gotten just what she deserved.

  But the nightmares didn’t come. She slept with delicious abandon and didn’t dream at all. She woke up the next morning oddly refreshed just as the sun was coming up, even before Elliot knocked on her door to tell her that Harry had breakfast ready downstairs.

  She combed out her hair and rebraided it, wrapping it around the crown of her head and pinning it there as she’d had it last night. She tidied herself after she’d washed up, and went downstairs with a lively step.

  Quinn Sutton and Elliot were already making great inroads into huge, fluffy pancakes smothered in syrup when she joined them.

  Harry brought in a fresh pot of coffee and grinned at her. “How about some hotcakes and sausage?” he asked.

  “Just a hotcake and a sausage, please,” she said and grinned back. “I’m not much of a breakfast person.”

  “You’ll learn if you stay in these mountains long,” Quinn said, sparing her a speaking glance. “You need more meat on those bones. Fix her three, Harry.”

  “Now, listen…” she began.

  “No, you listen,” Quinn said imperturbably, sipping black coffee. “My house, my rules.”

  She sighed. It was just like old times at the orphanage, during one of her father’s binges when she’d had to live with Mrs. Brim’s rules. “Yes, sir,” she said absently.

  He glared at her. “I’m thirty-four, and you aren’t young enough to call me ‘sir.’”

  She lifted startled dark eyes to his. “I’m twenty-four,” she said. “Are you really just thirty-four?” She flushed even as she said it. He did look so much older, but she hadn’t meant to say anything. “I’m sorry. That sounded terrible.”

  “I look older than I am,” he said easily. “I’ve got a friend down in Texas who thought I was in my late thirties, and he’s known me for years. No need to apologize.” He didn’t add that he had a lot of mileage on him, thanks to his ex-wife. “You look younger than twenty-four,” he did add.

  He pushed away his empty plate and sipped coffee, staring at her through the steam rising from it. He was wearing a blue-checked flannel shirt this morning, buttoned up to his throat, with jeans that were well fitting but not overly tight. He didn’t dress like the men in Amanda’s world, but then, the men she knew weren’t the same breed as this Teton man.

  “Amanda taught me all about scales last night,” Elliot said excitedly. “She really knows music.”

  “How did you manage to learn?” Quinn asked her, and she saw in his eyes that he was remembering what she’d told him about her alcoholic father.

  She lifted her eyes from her plate. “During my dad’s binges, I stayed at the local orphanage. There was a lady there who played for her church. She taught me.”

  “No sisters or brothers?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head. “Nobody in the world, except an aunt.” She lifted her coffee cup. “She’s an artist, and she’s been living with her latest lover—”

  “You’d better get to school, son,” Quinn interrupted tersely, nodding at Elliot.

  “I sure had, or I’ll be late. See you!”

  He grabbed his books and his coat and was gone in a flash, and Harry gathered the plates with a smile and vanished into the kitchen.

  “Don’t talk about things like that around Elliot,” Quinn said shortly. “He understands more than you think. I don’t want him corrupted.”

  “Don’t you realize that most twelve-year-old boys know more about life than grown-ups these days?” she asked with a faint smile.

  “In your world, maybe. Not in mine.”

  She could have told him that she was discussing the way things were, not the way she preferred them, but she knew it would be useless. He was so certain that she was wildly liberated. She sighed. “Maybe so,” she murmured.

  “I’m old-fashioned,” he added. His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “I don’t want Elliot exposed to the liberated outlook of the so-called modern world until he’s old enough to understand that he has a choice. I don’t like a society that ridicules honor and fidelity and innocence. So I fight back in the only way I can. I go to church on Sunday, Miss Corrie,” he mused, smiling at her curious expression. “Elliot goes, too. You might not know it from watching television or going to movies, but there are still a few people in America who also go to church on Sunday, who work hard all week and find their relaxation in ways that don’t involve drugs, booze or casual sex. How’s that for a shocking revelation?”

  “Nobody ever accused Hollywood of portraying real life,” she replied with a smile. “But if you want my honest opinion, I’m pretty sick of gratuitous sex, filthy language and graphic violence in the newer movies. In fact, I’m so sick of it that I’ve gone back to watching the old-time movies from the 1940s.” She laughed at his expression. “Let me tell you, these old movies had real handicaps—the actors all had to keep their clothes on and they couldn’t swear. The writers were equally limited, so they created some of the most gripping dramas ever produced. I love them. And best of all, you can even watch them with kids.”

  He pursed his lips, his dark eyes holding hers. “I like George Brent, George Sanders, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Cary Grant best,” he confessed. “Yes, I watch them, too.”

  “I’m not really all that modern myself,” she confessed, toying with the tablecloth. “I live in the city, but not in the fast lane.” She put down her coffee cup. “I can understand why you feel the way you do, about taking Elliot to church and all. Elliot told me a little about his mother…”

  He closed up like a plant. “I don’t talk to outsiders about my personal life,” he said without apology and got up, towering over her. “If you’d like to watch television or listen to music, you’re welcome. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  His heavy eyebrows lifted. “This isn’t the city.”

  “I know how to cut o
pen a bale of hay,” she said. “The orphanage was on a big farm. I grew up doing chores. I can even milk a cow.”

  “You won’t milk the kind of cows I keep,” he returned. His dark eyes narrowed. “You can feed those calves in the barn, if you like. Harry can show you where the bottle is.”

  Which meant that he wasn’t going to waste his time on her. She nodded, trying not to feel like an unwanted guest. Just for a few minutes she’d managed to get under that hard reserve. Maybe that was good enough for a start. “Okay.”

  His black eyes glanced over her hair. “You haven’t worn it down since the night Elliot brought you here,” he said absently.

  “I don’t ever wear it down at home, as a rule,” she said quietly. “It…gets in my way.” It got recognized, too, she thought, which was why she didn’t dare let it loose around Elliot too often.

  His eyes narrowed for an instant before he turned and shouldered into his jacket.

  “Don’t leave the perimeter of the yard,” he said as he stuck his weather-beaten Stetson on his dark, thick hair. “This is wild country. We have bears and wolves, and a neighbor who still sets traps.”

  “I know my limitations, thanks,” she said. “Do you have help, besides yourself?”

  He turned, thrusting his big, lean hands into work gloves. “Yes, I have four cowboys who work around the place. They’re all married.”

  She blushed. “Thank you for your sterling assessment of my character.”

  “You may like old movies,” he said with a penetrating stare. “But no woman with your kind of looks is a virgin at twenty-four,” he said quietly, mindful of Harry’s sharp ears. “And I’m a backcountry man, but I’ve been married and I’m not stupid about women. You won’t play me for a fool.”

  She wondered what he’d say if he knew the whole truth about her. But it didn’t make her smile to reflect on that. She lowered her eyes to the thick white mug. “Think what you like, Mr. Sutton. You will anyway.”

  “Damned straight.”

  He walked out without looking back, and Amanda felt a vicious chill even before he opened the door and went out into the cold white yard.