by Lissa- Sugar
Color rose in her cheeks. She turned away and started for the front door.
“I don’t see any point in discussing last night.”
He moved fast, came up behind her and clasped her shoulders.
“What I said to you was—it was wrong.” He cleared his throat. “It was inexcusable.”
“Good. Fine. You’ve apologized. Now let go of me.”
He did just the opposite, his hands tightening on her as he turned her toward him.
“I know that what happened—what almost happened—didn’t have a damn thing to do with pity.”
Her face was scarlet, but her eyes were the color of ice on a high mountain lake. It was one hell of a contrast, and his gut knotted. That same hot rush of desire that had burned inside him last night flared to life again.
“I was a fool, Duchess. I was angry at myself and I let it out on you.”
“I’m not interested in hearing this. Last night is history.”
“I’ve never wanted a woman the way I wanted you.”
How could a lie—because, surely it was a lie—make her feel so good? The best thing to do was make it clear that she knew he was lying.
“I’m sure that line has been a winner for you before, Gentry, but it’s not gonna work this time.”
“It’s the truth. You think that’s easy for me to admit? You think any of this is easy for me to admit?” His voice was low. Raw with emotion. “I didn’t plan on anything that happened, Lissa. Not on going to your room, not on making love to you.”
Her heart was beating fast and hard. She didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to forgive him, but there was pain in his voice. What if there was?
It didn’t change things.
He had hurt her badly last night—she knew damn well that her subsequent fury at him had actually been a way of trying to defuse that hurt.
And he was an actor. A very good actor, and she knew all about actors. For all she knew, this was Scene Two of last night’s Act One. Maybe he had enough of a conscience to want absolution. Maybe he figured she’d be fool enough to welcome him into her bed again. Whatever his reason, she wasn’t going to fall for the performance.
“See, that was the problem,” she said with a cool smile. “Planning is everything. If you work out what you’re going to do before you do it—”
She gasped as his hands tightened on her.
“Goddammit,” he growled, “listen to me! I haven’t been with a woman in months. I haven’t wanted to be with a woman. Not since I—not since I hurt my leg. And then, there you were and you were all I could think about, and once I had you in my arms, I wanted it to be right, to be perfect, and instead I screwed up, I failed you—”
Lissa rose on her toes and put her mouth against Nick’s.
For an endless moment, he didn’t react. Then he groaned, slid his arm around her and responded to the kiss.
It was like last night all over again. She melted into him. Her mouth, her hands sliding up his chest, her thighs pressed against his, were all that mattered.
After a timeless interval, she flattened her hands against his chest and gave a shaky little laugh.
“So much for planning.”
“Lissa—”
“You didn’t fail me,” she said, silencing him with a light touch of her hand to his lips. “You failed yourself, or some dumb male vision of what being a man is all about.”
Nick gave a quick laugh. “Hell, Duchess, you sound like a shrink.”
“You gave me a rough night, Gentry. I spent half of it worrying that you’d opened up a wound, broken a bone, did who knew what to your leg.”
“What about the other half?” His gaze dropped to her lips like a caress. “Did you spend it imagining what it would have been like if we’d made love?”
“I spent it trying to keep from going into your room and smothering you with a pillow.”
He grinned. “A woman of action.” His grin faded. “Hell. I deserved it.”
“Yes. You did. I would never, ever, not in a billion years give anybody a pity anything.”
“Yeah. I know that. I knew it even when I said it. ” He slipped his hand into her hair, tilted her face to his. “I’m sorry. I say things sometimes… Since the accident, I mean.”
“One of my brothers went through a bad time. Jake was a pilot, but he lost an eye. It was rough.”
He nodded. “Must have been hell.”
“It was. I suspect there are times it still is. And he said and did some stuff right after it happened that he’d never have said or done before he was wounded.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. He was wounded over there.”
“In action,” Nick said.
She looked up at him. His voice had gone flat.
“Yes.”
“Wounded doing something brave.”
“Not that he’ll ever admit it, but yes, that’s what happened.”
Silence. Then Nick nodded and let go of her.
“So,” he said briskly, “the roads are as clear as they’re ever gonna get in what we laughingly refer to as early spring in Montana, and I’m heading into town for supplies. Come with me and pick up whatever we’ll need for a couple of meals, OK? I don’t mean you have to cook, but you’ll have a better idea than I will of what the men and I can toss into a pot and eat without ending up in an emergency room.”
He smiled, and Lissa revised her estimate of him as a good actor, because even she could tell that the smile was as phony as the joke.
Something had just happened. Talking about his accident—not that they’d really talked about it, but he’d mentioned it. Then she’d told him about Jake, and that had changed things. Why? She wanted to ask, but she knew she wasn’t going to get an answer.
Nick wanted to change the subject? She’d go along with it. She wasn’t going to be here that long. If something about his accident troubled him, he had every right to keep it to himself.
“OK,” she said briskly. “I’ll go with you. Heck, I’ll do better than that. I’ll make lunch and supper and, if I’m still here, tomorrow’s breakfast. I’d just as soon keep busy. Besides, after the way your guys polished off what I gave them last night, I can only imagine how they’ll react to real food.”
Nick laughed. It was an easy, honest laugh, and it made her feel better.
“Trust me, Duchess. If you’d been eating what we’ve been eating the last few weeks—”
“Spam was a feast made for a king, huh?”
“Be it ever so humble,” Nick said, and then he told her he’d scrounge up some warm stuff for her to put on, and she said that would be fine, and he looked at her and for one breathless moment she thought he was going to kiss her…
But he didn’t.
And, of course, that was just as well.
* * *
It was an interesting trip, with Brutus taking up all the bench seat between them as well as most of Lissa’s lap.
“You’re a big baby,” she told the dog softly, but she loved that Nick didn’t relegate him to the open truck bed. She knew lots of truck owners did that with their dogs, but would you do that with a child?
Actually, she’d once snarled that at a jerk back in Wilde’s Crossing.
She was glad she didn’t have to snarl it at Nick.
It took twenty minutes to get to the nearest town. Clarke’s Falls was a one-street-long collection of old buildings and storefronts. One of those was a general store, and Nick pulled to the curb in front of it.
“Stay,” he told the Newf. Brutus gave a gusty sigh as Nick stepped down from the truck.
Lissa undid her seat belt and opened her door.
“Wait for me,” Nick said. “There’s a pile of snow on your side.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Well, she probably would have been if the boots he’d found for her weren’t at least three sizes too big. They started to slide off her feet as soon as she swung o
ne leg out of the truck.
Nick was already there.
“I told you to wait,” he said, grabbing the boot before she lost it and shoving it back on her foot. “Come on. Put your arms around my neck and I’ll lift you down.”
Lissa rolled her eyes. “The man has a short memory! We did this before, Gentry. My arms, your neck. Remember what happened?”
“Trust me, Duchess. I did a lot of practicing with this damn crutch this morning. Now, come on. Put your arms around me. That’s the way. Just let me take your weight.”
She did what he’d asked, and tried not to think about how good it felt as he carried her to the cleared sidewalk and set her on her feet.
“OK?” he said softly, with his arm still curved around her.
“OK,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt.
“Nobody here knows who I am,” he said quietly. “They all think I’m the new manager of the Triple G, a guy named—”
“Bannister. I know.”
Another quick nod. Then he moved ahead of her toward the door. It swung open just as he reached it. An older man came through it, looked at her, at Nick, and tipped his Stetson.
“Mornin’.”
“Morning,” Nick said.
The greeting was quick, but the look the other man flashed as Nick went past him hinted at something. It was the same look that shot across the face of the guy behind the counter.
“Bannister.”
“Jessup.”
It was a fast, impersonal greeting, but easy to read.
Both the men who’d just greeted Nick knew exactly who he was. The only person they were fooling was Nick. It was the kind of human courtesy you could find in small towns, and Nick, the big jerk, had no idea he was on the receiving end of it.
Lissa thought about telling him, thought better of it, and sighed.
“What?” Nick said.
“Nothing. I’m just trying to think of what to buy.”
“Whatever you like. And plenty of it. Might as well lay in enough for the week, just so long as it’s not going to be too complicated for me to put together.”
“You?”
“Well, me and Gus.”
Lissa snorted. “A pair of gourmet cooks, all right.”
Nick grinned. “Just take one of those carts, Duchess, and fill it up while I check on some stuff in the back.”
“Yessir, Mr. Bannister, sir.”
Nick’s eyes darkened. “Nice,” he said in a low voice. “I like the idea of you obeying me.”
Heat shot from her breasts to her belly. She felt her nipples lift and bud, felt the area between her thighs grow damp.
Crazy. That was crazy! One sentence, one swiftly-spoken sentence, and her mind filled with images so hot that she had to bite back a moan.
Blindly, she swung away, grabbed a shopping cart and all but ran down the first aisle.
* * *
Almost an hour later, she pushed the cart up the last aisle to the front counter where Nick and several big cardboard boxes were waiting. He motioned to the man behind the counter.
“This is Tom Jessup, Lissa. Tom, this is Lissa Wilde. The temporary cook—the temporary chef at the Triple G.”
Tom Jessup smiled. “Find everything you needed, ma’am?”
Lissa smiled back. “Yes, thank you.”
“Well, let’s ring it all up, shall we?”
She’d taken Nick’s suggestion to heart. She’d bought whatever she thought would keep a bunch of hungry, hard-working men filled and happy for at least a week.
Bags of sugar, of oats, of flour and rice and pasta and dried beans went from the cart to the counter to the cardboard boxes. Cans of tomatoes and vegetables followed, then packets of yeast. Cans of pineapple rings and apricots, bags of dried fruits, a couple of pounds of apples and pears as well as two ten-pound sacks of potatoes and another of onions made the same trip. Last up were quarts of milk, cartons of butter, packages of cheese, cold cuts, big bags of sandwich rolls, containers of orange juice, steaks and hamburger, chickens and turkey legs, along with a couple of pork roasts.
Nick looked bewildered.
“I won’t know what to do with most of that stuff.”
“I’ll cook it up and freeze it. And I’ll bake some bread and a couple of cakes, too. All you’ll have to do is defrost and heat.”
His face brightened. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I wouldn’t want you or the others to starve. Or to get ptomaine poisoning from you and Gus and your Adventures in Gastronomy.”
Nick laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I have to admit, it’s probably well-placed.”
She smiled as Jessup punched a bell. Two boys appeared from the storeroom at the rear and started carrying all the purchases out to the truck.
“Not that,” Nick said quickly, when one boy reached for a small box. He looked at Lissa, then jerked his chin toward a semicircle of rush-bottomed chairs that stood near a kerosene stove. “Sit down.”
“What for?”
“Jesus, do you have to argue over everything?”
“I’m not arguing.”
“No. But you will. I recognize that tone.” Nick sighed. “Duchess. Do us both a favor. Sit down.”
She sat, and her eyes widened when he opened the box and took out a pair of leather boots.
“What are those?”
“What do they look like?”
“Are those supposed to be for me?”
“No. Here. See if they fit.”
“I just said, are those supposed to be for me? And you said they weren’t. And now you want me to—”
“What I said was, they aren’t supposed to be for you—they are for you. Try them on.”
“Nick. Honestly—”
“You came here expecting hot tubs, fire pits and spring wildflowers. What you found was an old house, a bunch of hungry cowboys, and a snowstorm. Just give in gracefully. Try on the damn boots.” He drew a breath, heaved it out. “Please.”
“But I’ll only be here until…” Lissa sighed. “Fine. I’ll try them on.”
She kicked off the three-sizes-too-big boots, easily slid her feet into the ones Nick handed her. The leather was butter-soft and the size was perfect, and she permitted herself one fleeting instant of self-indulgence, closing her eyes, giving another little sigh.
She loved good boots.
It was, she knew, something that came of growing up on a ranch.
“Good?”
Lissa blinked her eyes open.
“Very nice,” she said briskly, “but I can’t accept—”
“Too late.”
“For what?”
“Mr. Jessup says that health department regulations won’t permit him to take back boots that have been worn.”
Lissa stared at the man behind the counter.
“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t wear them, I tried them on.”
Jessup shrugged his shoulders, but she was pretty sure he was trying hard to suppress a smile.
“Nick. You’re lying to me.”
“Would I lie?” Nick said. He reached his hand back toward the counter. Jessup grinned and handed over a sheepskin jacket like Nick’s, but half the size. “Here you go, Wilde. Try it on.”
“No. Absolutely not. I cannot—”
“Neither can I. You’re a temp.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re a temporary employee, meaning you’re not covered by the Triple G health insurance plan.” Nick fixed her with a stern look. “You come down with pneumonia, I’m stuck with your medical bills.”
She laughed. It was impossible not to laugh; he looked so serious. Tom Jessup, right behind him, was now grinning from ear to ear.
“Nick,” Lissa said softly, “I can’t pay you for these things. They’re too expensive. And I can’t possibly accept them as gifts.”
“Because?”
“Because…because I just can’t!”
He nodded. “Fine
. Then, they’re not gifts. They’re payment in lieu of cash.”
“Huh?”
“For all the work you’ve done.”
“Our deal was room and board.”
“For one dinner. You’ve already done more than that.”
“Yes, but—”
“Lissa.” His voice was soft. “Can’t you simply say, ‘Thank you, Nick. I love the boots. And the jacket.’” He paused. “Unless, of course, you don’t.”
“Oh, but I do! Everything is so lovely—”
He put out his hand, clasped hers, and drew her to her feet. “Turn around,” he said as he tucked the crutch under his arm and held the jacket open. She slipped into it and his fingers brushed over the nape of her neck.
That breathless feeling swept through her again.
“There’s a mirror on that wall… Well? What do you think?”
He was standing directly behind her. She raised her eyes, caught his in the glass.
“What I think,” she said quietly, “is that you’re a very kind and generous man.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw.
“There are gloves in the pockets,” he said. “I hope they fit.”
“Nick—”
“I’m not kind, Duchess. I’m not generous.” His teeth flashed in a quick, self-deprecating smile. “And as I already proved to both of us, I’m really not much of a man.”
CHAPTER NINE
They didn’t talk much during the drive back.
Really, what was there to say?
Still, Lissa couldn’t help glancing at Nick, at his stern profile, his hands so lightly spread on the steering wheel.
He was a man haunted by ghosts; that much was obvious, though she had no idea what those ghosts were—and what did it matter? She would never see him again after tomorrow.
And that was fine.
She had problems of her own. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with a man wrestling with demons. Not that she’d ever have become involved with him. If she’d slept with him last night, it would have been a one-time thing.
She was glad that hadn’t happened.
There was no reason to sentimentalize a twenty-four-hour relationship, but sex did have a way of complicating things.
No more complications.
Not until she had her life sorted out.
And if that was a little old-fashioned, so be it.
