The Winter Man

by Diana Palmer

  Amanda finished the breakfast dishes before she went out to the barn. Quinn was still there, his dark eyes quiet on the smallest of the three calves. It didn’t take a fortuneteller to see that something was badly wrong. The small animal lay on its side, its dull, lackluster red-and-white coat showing its ribs, its eyes glazed and unseeing while it fought to breathe.

  She knelt beside Quinn and he glanced at her with concern.

  “You’d better go back in the house, honey,” he said.

  Her eyes slid over the small calf. She’d seen pets die over the years, and now she knew the signs. The calf was dying. Quinn knew it, too, and was trying to shield her.

  That touched her, oddly, more than anything he’d said or done since she’d been on Ricochet. She looked up at him. “You’re a nice man, Quinn Sutton,” she said softly.

  He drew in a slow breath. “When I’m not taking bites out of you, you mean?” he replied. “It hurts like hell when you back away from me. You’ll never know how sorry I am for what happened yesterday.”

  One shock after another. At least it took her mind off the poor, laboring creature beside them. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been so…” She stopped, averting her eyes. “I don’t know much about men, Quinn,” she said finally. “I’ve spent my whole adult life backing away from involvement, emotional or physical. I know how to flirt, but not much more.” She risked a glance at him, and relaxed when she saw his face. “My aunt is Mr. Durning’s lover, you know. She’s an artist. A little flighty, but nice. I’ve…never had a lover.”

  He nodded quietly. “I’ve been getting that idea since we wound up near McNaber’s cabin yesterday. You reacted pretty violently for an experienced woman.” He looked away from her. That vulnerability in her pretty face was working on him again. “Go inside now. I can deal with this.”

  “I’m not afraid of death,” she returned. “I saw my mother die. It wasn’t scary at all. She just closed her eyes.”

  His dark eyes met hers and locked. “My father went the same way.” He looked back down at the calf. “It won’t be long now.”

  She sat down in the hay beside him and slid her small hand into his big one. He held it for a long moment. Finally his voice broke the silence. “It’s over. Go have a cup of coffee. I’ll take care of him.”

  She hadn’t meant to cry, but the calf had been so little and helpless. Quinn pulled her close, holding her with quiet comfort, while she cried. Then he wiped the tears away with his thumbs and smiled gently. “You’ll do,” he murmured, thinking that sensitivity and courage was a nice combination in a woman.

  She was thinking the exact same thing about him. She managed a watery smile and with one last, pitying look at the calf, she went into the house.

  Elliot would miss it, as would she, she thought. Even Quinn had seemed to care about it, because she saw him occasionally sitting by it, petting it, talking to it. He loved little things. It was evident in all the kittens and puppies around the place, and in the tender care he took of all his cattle and calves. And although Quinn cursed old man McNaber’s traps, Elliot had told her that he stopped by every week to check on the dour old man and make sure he had enough chopped wood and supplies. For a taciturn iceman, he had a surprisingly warm center.

  She told Harry what had happened and sniffed a little while she drank black coffee. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  He smiled. “You do enough,” he murmured. “Nice to have some help around the place.”

  “Quinn hasn’t exactly thought so,” she said dryly.

  “Oh, yes he has,” he said firmly as he cleared away the dishes they’d eaten his homemade soup and corn bread in. “Quinn could have taken you to Mrs. Pearson down the mountain if he’d had a mind to. He doesn’t have to let you stay here. Mrs. Pearson would be glad of the company.” He glanced at her and grinned at her perplexed expression. “He’s been watching you lately. Sees the way you sew up his shirts and make curtains and patch pillows. It’s new to him, having a woman about. He has a hard time with change.”

  “Don’t we all?” Amanda said softly, remembering how clear her own life had been until that tragic night. But it was nice to know that Quinn had been watching her. Certainly she’d been watching him. And this morning, everything seemed to have changed between them. “When will it thaw?” she asked, and now she was dreading it, not anticipating it. She didn’t want to leave Ricochet. Or Quinn.

  Harry shrugged. “Hard to tell. Days. Weeks. This is raw mountain country. Can’t predict a chinook. Plenty think they can, though,” he added, and proceeded to tell her about a Blackfoot who predicted the weather with jars of bear grease.

  She was much calmer but still sad when Quinn finally came back inside.

  He spared her a glance before he shucked his coat, washed his hands and brawny forearms and dried them on a towel.

  He didn’t say anything to her, and Harry, sensing the atmosphere, made himself scarce after he’d poured two cups of coffee for them.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her after a minute, staring down at her bent head.

  “Sure.” She forced a smile. “He was so little, Quinn.” She stopped when her voice broke and lowered her eyes to the table. “I guess you think I’m a wimp.”

  “Not really.” Without taking time to think about the consequences, his lean hands pulled her up by the arms, holding her in front of him so that her eyes were on a level with his deep blue, plaid flannel shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, and it was open at the throat, where thick, dark hair curled out of it. He looked and smelled fiercely masculine and Amanda’s knees weakened at the unexpected proximity. His big hands bit into her soft flesh, and she wondered absently if he realized just how strong he was.

  The feel of him so close was new and terribly exciting, especially since he’d reached for her for the first time. She didn’t know what to expect, and her heart was going wild. She raised her eyes to his throat. His pulse was jumping and she stared at it curiously, only half aware of his hold and the sudden increase of his breathing.

  He was having hell just getting a breath. The scent of her was in his nostrils, drowning him. Woman smell. Sweet and warm. His teeth clenched. It was bad enough having to look at her, but this close, she made his blood run hot and wild as it hadn’t since he was a young man. He didn’t know what he was doing, but the need for her had haunted him for days. He wanted so badly to kiss her, the way she’d kissed him the day before, but in a different way. He wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

  “You smell of flowers,” he said roughly.

  That was an interesting comment from a nonpoetic man. She smiled a little to herself. “It’s my shampoo,” she murmured.

  He drew in a steadying breath. “You don’t wear your hair down at all, do you?”

  “Just at night,” she replied, aware that his face was closer than it had been, because she could feel his breath on her forehead. He was so tall and overwhelming this close. He made her feel tiny and very feminine.

  “I’m sorry about the calf, Amanda,” he said. “We lose a few every winter. It’s part of ranching.”

  The shock of her name on his lips made her lift her head. She stared up at him curiously, searching his dark, quiet eyes. “I suppose so. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset, though. I guess men don’t react to things the way women do.”

  “You don’t know what kind of man I am,” he replied. His hands felt vaguely tremulous. He wondered if she knew the effect she had on him. “As it happens, I get attached to the damned things, too.” He sighed heavily. “Little things don’t have much choice in this world. They’re at the mercy of everything and everybody.”

  Her eyes softened as they searched his. He sounded different when he spoke that way. Vulnerable. Almost tender. And so alone.

  “You aren’t really afraid of me, are you?” he asked, as if the thought was actually painful.

  She grimaced. “No. Of course not. I was ashamed of what I’d done, and a li
ttle nervous of the way you reacted to it, that’s all. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” She drew in a soft breath. “I know you resent having me here,” she confessed. “I resented having to depend on you for shelter. But the snow will melt soon, and I’ll leave.”

  “I thought you’d had lovers,” he confessed quietly. “The way you acted…well, it just made all those suspicions worse. I took you at face value.”

  Amanda smiled. “It was all put-on. I don’t even know why I did it. I guess I was trying to live up to your image of me.”

  He loved the sensation her sultry black eyes aroused in him. Unconsciously his hands tightened on her arms. “You haven’t had a man, ever?” he asked huskily.

  The odd shadow of dusky color along his cheekbones fascinated her. She wondered about the embarrassment asking the question had caused. “No. Not ever,” she stammered.

  “The way you look?” he asked, his eyes eloquent.

  “What do you mean, the way I look?” she said, bristling.

  “You know you’re beautiful,” he returned. His eyes darkened. “A woman who looks like you do could have her pick of men.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed without conceit. “But I’ve never wanted a man in my life, to be dominated by a man. I’ve made my own way in the world. I’m a musician,” she told him, because that didn’t give away very much. “I support myself by playing a keyboard.”

  “Yes, Elliot told me. I’ve heard you play for him. You’re good.” He felt his heartbeat increasing as he looked at her. She smelled so good. He looked down at her mouth and remembered how it had felt for those few seconds when he’d given in to her playful kiss. Would she let him do it? He knew so little about those subtle messages women were supposed to send out when they wanted a man’s lovemaking. He couldn’t read Amanda’s eyes. But her lips were parted and her breath was coming rather fast from between them. Her face was flushed, but that could have been from the cold.

  She gazed up into his eyes and couldn’t look away. He wasn’t handsome. His face really seemed as if it had been chipped away from the side of the Rockies, all craggy angles and hard lines. His mouth was thin and faintly cruel looking. She wondered if it would feel as hard as it looked if he was in control, dominating her lips. It had been different when she’d kissed him….

  “What are you thinking?” he asked huskily, because her eyes were quite frankly on his mouth.

  “I…was wondering,” she whispered hesitantly, “how hard your mouth would be if you kissed me.”

  His heart stopped and then began to slam against his chest. “Don’t you know already?” he asked, his voice deeper, harsher. “You kissed me.”

  “Not…properly.”

  He wondered what she meant by properly. His wife had only kissed him when she had to, and only in the very beginning of their courtship. She always pushed him away and murmured something about mussing her makeup. He couldn’t remember one time when he’d kissed anyone with passion, or when he’d ever been kissed by anyone else like that.

  His warm, rough hands let go of her arms and came up to frame her soft oval face. His breath shuddered out of his chest when she didn’t protest as he bent his dark head. “Show me what you mean…by properly,” he whispered.

  He had to know, she thought dizzily. But his lips touched hers and she tasted the wind and the sun on them. Her hands clenched the thick flannel shirt and she resisted searching for buttons, but she wanted very much to touch that thicket of black, curling hair that covered his broad chest. She went on her tiptoes and pushed her mouth against his, the force of the action parting his lips as well as her own, and she felt him stiffen and heard him groan as their open mouths met.

  She dropped back onto her feet, her wide, curious eyes meeting his stormy ones.

  “Like that?” he whispered gruffly, bending to repeat the action with his own mouth. “I’ve never done it… with my mouth open,” he said, biting off the words against her open lips.

  She couldn’t believe he’d said that. She couldn’t believe, either, the sensations rippling down to her toes when she gave in to the force of his ardor and let him kiss her that way, his mouth rough and demanding as one big hand slid to the back of her head to press her even closer.

  A soft sound passed her lips, a faint moan, because she couldn’t get close enough to him. Her breasts were flattened against his hard chest, and she felt his heartbeat against them. But she wanted to be closer than that, enveloped, crushed to him.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked in a shaky whisper that touched her lips.

  “What?” she whispered back dizzily.

  “You made a sound.”

  Her eyes searched his, her own misty and half closed and rapt. “I moaned,” she whispered. Her nails stroked him through the shirt and she liked the faint tautness of his body as he reacted to it. “I like being kissed like that.” She rubbed her forehead against him, smelling soap and detergent and pure man. “Could we take your shirt off?” she whispered.

  Her hands were driving him nuts, and he was wondering the same thing himself. But somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that Harry was around, and that it might look compromising if he let her touch him that way. In fact, it might get compromising, because he felt his body harden in a way it hadn’t since his marriage. And because it made him vulnerable and he didn’t want her to feel it, he took her gently by the arms and moved her away from him with a muffled curse.

  “Harry,” he said, his breath coming deep and rough.

  She colored. “Oh, yes.” She moved back, her eyes a little wild.

  “You don’t have to look so threatened. I won’t do it again,” he said, misunderstanding her retreat. Had he frightened her again?

  “Oh, it’s not that. You didn’t frighten me.” She lowered her eyes to the floor. “I’m just wondering if you’ll think I’m easy….”

  He scowled. “Easy?”

  “I don’t usually come on to men,” she said softly. “And I’ve never asked anybody to take his shirt off before.” She glanced up at him, fascinated by the expression on his face. “Well, I haven’t,” she said belligerently. “And you don’t have to worry; I won’t throw myself at you anymore, either. I just got carried away in the heat of the moment….”

  His eyebrows arched. None of what she was saying made sense. “Like you did yesterday?” he mused, liking the color that came and went in her face. “I did accuse you of throwing yourself at me,” he said on a long sigh.

  “Yes. You seem to think I’m some sort of liberated sex maniac.”

  His lips curled involuntarily. “Are you?” he asked, and sounded interested.

  She stamped her foot. “Stop that. I don’t want to stay here anymore!”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea myself,” he mused, watching her eyes glitter with rage. God, she was pretty! “I mean, if you tried to seduce me, things could get sticky.”

  The red in her cheeks got darker. “I don’t have any plans to seduce you.”

  “Well, if you get any, you’d better tell me in advance,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Just so I can be prepared to fight you off.”

  That dry drawl confused her. Suddenly he was a different man, full of male arrogance and amusement. Things had shifted between them during that long, hard kiss. The distance had shortened, and he was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite understand.

  “How did you get to the age you are without winding up in someone’s bed?” Quinn asked then. He’d wondered at her shyness with him and then at the way she blushed all the time. He didn’t know much about women, but he wanted to know everything about her.

  Amanda wrapped her arms around herself and shrugged. When he lit his cigarette and still stood there waiting for an answer, she gave in and replied. “I couldn’t give up control,” she said simply. “All my life I’d been dominated and pushed around by my father. Giving in to a man seemed like throwing away my rights as a person. Especially giving in to a man in bed
,” she stammered, averting her gaze. “I don’t think there’s anyplace in the world where a man is more the master than in a bedroom, despite all the liberation and freedom of modern life.”

  “And you think that women should dominate there.”

  She looked up. “Well, not dominate.” She hesitated. “But a woman shouldn’t be used just because she’s a woman.”

  His thin mouth curled slightly. “Neither should a man.”

  “I wasn’t using you,” she shot back.

  “Did I accuse you?” he returned innocently.

  She swallowed. “No, I guess not.” She folded her arms over her breasts, wincing because the tips were hard and unexpectedly tender.

  “That hardness means you feel desire,” he said, grinning when she gaped and then glared at him. She made him feel about ten feet tall. “I read this book about sex,” he continued. “It didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but it’s beginning to.”

  “I am not available as a living model for sex education!”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But it’s a hell of a loss to my education.”

  “You don’t need educating,” she muttered. “You were married.”

  He nodded. “Sure I was.” He pursed his lips and let his eyes run lazily over her body. “Except that she never wanted me, before or after I married her.”

  Amanda’s lips parted. “Oh, Quinn,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “So was I, at the time.” He shook his head. “I used to wonder at first why she pulled back every time I kissed her. I guess she was suffering it until she could get me to put the ring on her finger. Up until then, I thought it was her scruples that kept me at arm’s length. But she never had many morals.” He stared at Amanda curiously, surprised at how easy it was to tell her things he’d never shared with another human being. “After I found out what she really was, I couldn’t have cared less about sharing her bed.”

  “No, I don’t suppose so,” she agreed.

  He lifted the cigarette to his lips and his eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Elliot’s almost thirteen,” he said. “He’s been my whole life. I’ve taken care of him and done for him. He knows there’s no blood tie between us, but I love him and he loves me. In all the important ways, I’m his father and he’s my son.”