by Sandra Hill
Dana whirled about to find the Typhoon’s star quarterback—former star quarterback—spread-eagled on his back in the snow. “Damnit! Stupid ice! Stupid snow!” He flailed at the thick stuff, but succeeded only in burying himself deeper.
Dana blinked down at him, fighting to retain her self-control. He looked so incredibly . . . desirable. Snow dusted his unruly brown hair and clung to his arching brows and outrageously thick eyelashes. A crystal drop of melted snow quivered at the corner of his mouth and dragged her thoughts down dangerous paths where she had no business going.
His elegant black coat—cashmere, she’d bet, though she’d never actually seen anything so expensive up close—had fallen open to reveal the lean, broad-shouldered body that had danced through her dreams more times than she’d care to count. He was dressed in a tweed sport coat over soft green turtleneck sweater—more cashmere from the look of it—that clung intriguingly to a well-muscled chest and washboard abdomen that she’d fantasized finding under those heavy shoulder pads he wore during a game. His pleated slacks looked expensive and, sprawled as he was, revealed more of the tempting male body beneath than he realized.
She forced her gaze from the impressive bulge at the bottom of his zipper, on down the long legs to the out-sized feet at the end of them.
Thank God for the feet.
She let out the breath she’d been holding, relieved. Only an idiot, or a man who’d forgotten what a New England winter was like, would have worn those expensive loafers with their slick leather soles. A good pair of hiking boots with a good tread on the sole would have made more sense, especially for a man with a leg and hip that were still healing after being broken in seven different places.
Still, she couldn’t help but picture him with bare feet. And bare legs. And bare chest. Not to mention bare—
All right, she couldn’t help picturing him stark naked, but then, she’d been picturing him like that for so long it was almost second nature. Seeing him in the flesh, so to speak, even if he was fully clothed and flat on his back in a snow bank, was like having Christmas and Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July rolled into one neat, very tempting package.
“Are you going to spend the next hour staring, or are you going to help me up?” he growled.
His eyes looked hot enough to burn holes right through the snow . . . or her.
Because what she was feeling, what he made her feel, was so wickedly, dangerously tempting, Dana did what she always did— she retreated.
“You said you didn’t want any help,” she said coolly.
“I changed my mind.” Even growling, his voice was that kind of rough baritone that roused shivery prickles on her skin. He held up his hand. “Help me up.”
Not please help me up, just, help me up! The rudeness made it a little easier to take the hand he offered.
She heaved. He came halfway up, wincing and clearly trying not to. His injured leg obviously wasn’t cooperating, so she pulled a little harder. Her feet slipped out from under her as neatly as if she’d been on skates.
“Aaack!” she screeched.
“Damnit!” he swore, toppling back into the snow bank. “Ooof!” he added as she landed on his chest. Hard.
His arm came around her instinctively, pinning her against him.
“Unh,” said Dana, and blinked snow out of her eyes.
His face was white as the snow he lay in. His eyes squeezed shut and his mouth curled with pain.
“Shit.” He sounded a little breathless when he said it.
Dana hastily shoved off his chest, making him wince.
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s so slick and you’re so big and—”
He waved his hand limply, as if even that much hurt. His eyes were still firmly shut and there was a set look about his mouth that said he was hurting and he really wanted to swear some more but was trying hard not to.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
He opened his eyes at that and scowled up at her. “No man looks fine when he’s on his ass in a snow bank.”
You do. She didn’t say it.
And you have a great ass.
Of course, she hadn’t actually seen his ass so far, clothed or otherwise, but she’d admired it plenty when it was covered in those tight football pants, and there was one poster in her bedroom—
No, better not think about the bedroom. And better not let him anywhere near it, either, she reminded herself, remembering the posters and the clippings from sports magazines that were pinned on the walls.
Dana rocked back onto her knees, this time taking care not to shove against his chest. She looked at him, trying to think of him as a rock, maybe, or a downed tree, or a lame moose, even. She knew how to deal with a lame moose.
“Let’s try it again, shall we?” she said, like a woman with places to go and people to see once this annoying little matter was dealt with.
“Let’s not,” he said, and carefully shoved to a sitting position. Using his right arm, she noticed. The arm that hadn’t been damaged in the accident. The arm that wasn’t his throwing arm. That arm he hugged to his chest. The line of white around his mouth and the hard set of his jaw said all she needed to know about whether the fall had hurt him.
She couldn’t tell if the arm or the leg bothered him more, and didn’t have the courage to ask. Ever since the accident she’d been suffering from fantasies of her soothing his fevered brow. Good-looking men were always grateful when you soothed their brows and nursed them back to health. Very grateful. She’d read it in a book somewhere.
Dana shoved the thought away, irritated. She wasn’t usually this confused.
She wasn’t usually six inches from the man of her dreams, either. “So, how do you want to do it?” she asked, putting a little bite into her tone just to be sure he didn’t get any wrong ideas.
He didn’t, drat him.
Instead, he glared at the snow, which was a nice change from glaring at her. “I don’t know. I’ve never landed in a snow bank before. Not like”—his glare switched to his injured leg—”this.”
“Well, let me know when you do,” Dana said, and stood. The way she figured it, the more distance between them, the better.
He growled. Honest to God growled. “Look, if you’ll just stand there and not move, I’ll . . . uh . . . climb up you. Use you for a brace. Sort of. Is that all right?”
I’d rather you climbed on me, she thought, and blushed. “Sure,” she said. “Whatever works. Here’s your cane.” He didn’t bother to thank her.
Using the cane for leverage, he cautiously got to his good knee. His bad leg stretched at an awkward angle and the snow wasn’t doing a thing for the creases on his trousers, but at least he was halfway there.
“Come a little closer,” he said. “That’s it. Brace yourself. Great.”
Leaning against her for balance, he slowly, painfully, struggled to his feet. She had to fight against the urge to wrap her arms around him and help him. Or drag him back into the snow bank. That brief time she’d been lying on his chest, his mouth had been only a few inches away. Next time, she’d remember to take better advantage of her opportunities.
No she wouldn’t. Who did she think she was kidding? She’d never have the nerve and she knew it.
She almost did, though, when his hand briefly curved over her braced thigh. Only the knowledge that he’d have preferred a sturdy wood handrail restrained her. She’d never had much success with men, but she didn’t usually come in second to a handrail, either.
While he grumbled and muttered and tugged his coat into place, she stared at the snow-shrouded forest that backed up to her house and wished that George had never suggested this mad arrangement, or that she’d have had the good sense to decline.
Indulging in unrequited fantasy at a distance was a time-honored female tradition, and she’d always believed in female traditions even if she wasn’t very good at them. Seeing your fantasy this close was s
omething else entirely, however, and she had absolutely no idea how to handle it without being rude or making an utter fool of herself.
Neither choice held much appeal, but of the two, she’d take rude any day of the week. Rude was safe. People kept their distance when you were rude, and with Stanley Kijewski, a little distance was a very good thing.
The tingling of her thigh where his hand had pressed, just for an instant, was proof of that. The disconcerting ache a little higher up where her thighs joined her hips was like a buzzing alarm telling her to beware.
She had to fight against the urge to squeeze her legs together, hard.
“You okay?” she said, sounding cold and uninterested and rude. “Fine,” he grunted, not looking at her. He brushed the last of the snow off his coat. The last he could reach, anyway. There was a patch at the back of his shoulder and another on his left buttock. She didn’t offer to brush them off.
“Be careful right there,” she said, pointing but not looking at him. “And watch the steps. They’re even worse.”
They crawled up the path, her in front, him following, the back of her neck prickling with charged awareness every inch of the way.
Dana kicked the snow off her boots on the steps, then, once inside the door, knelt to take them off.
“You don’t have to take your shoes off,” she said, deliberately not looking at him as he awkwardly tried to balance on his bad leg so he could scrape the snow off his other foot.
She set her boots on a scrap of rug set at one side to catch the drips. He toed off his loafers and nudged them onto the rug beside her boots. She studied the over-sized, stocking-clad feet, but resisted letting her gaze slide higher.
She didn’t dare, because what she really wanted was to stare and stare and stare, to devour him with her eyes. Of course, she wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t even going to glance at him.
No more than was polite and normal, anyway.
She glanced at him. She’d swear he was even better looking than he’d been five minutes ago.
He didn’t look one whit happier, though.
“Coffee?” she asked. He shook his head. “The john’s that way.” She waved vaguely. “I’ll be right back.”
“Sure. Whatever,” he muttered behind her.
She barely stopped herself from slamming her bedroom door behind her, but she couldn’t stop the unexpected wobble in her knees or the loud pounding of her heart.
She stared at the big poster pinned on the opposite wall. Stan, left arm pulled back for a pass, eyes narrowed and dangerous behind his face guard. Of all the posters and clippings, this was her favorite, but right now, it might as well have been wallpaper.
Stan “The Man” Kijewski was here. In her house. And in a few more minutes they were going to be in the same car together for . . . hours.
She almost collapsed against the door at the thought.
Stan glared at the hallway where she’d disappeared. He’d met stevedores with more manners.
None with as great an ass, though.
Dana Freeman had a truly magnificent ass, the kind that made a guy think of grabbing hold and—
No, he wouldn’t think of that. Especially not about Ms Freeman.
She might have a body made for hot dreams and hotter sex—she’d taken off the vest on the porch to reveal generous curves in all the right places, even under the bulky sweater—but the woman had ice water in her veins. Had to have. The way she looked at him made him wonder if he had a social disease he didn’t know about.
Not to mention she weighed a lot more than she looked. It had hurt when she’d landed on him. His shoulder and leg ached from the fall, but he was getting used to that. What he wasn’t used to was a woman who was so damned oblivious to his very existence.
When he was crawling to his feet, he’d deliberately put his hands a couple of places that would have earned him a slap under any other circumstances. She hadn’t so much as giggled. She certainly hadn’t blushed. And if she knew how to bat those beautiful, ice-blue eyes of hers, she sure as hell hadn’t given him a demonstration.
Stan suppressed an urge to charge down that hall, throw open her bedroom door, and sweep her into an impassioned kiss, just to show her what she as missing.
He really should have opted for the brunette and Cancun.
Since he hadn’t, he’d have to make the best of things. All he had to do was survive the next few hours locked in a car with her, then he could forget she even existed.
In the meantime, he might as well indulge his curiosity.
While he waited for Dana Freeman to emerge, Stan gritted his teeth against the pain and clumped around the living room, shamelessly poking into the books on the crowded shelves that lined one wall, opening cabinet drawers, and shuffling through baskets.
The house surprised him. She surprised him.
He would have expected the books on forest management and the professional and outdoor magazines, but there were a lot of well-read paperback romances mixed in with all those high-brow literary and non-fiction books. He would have expected the comfortable, practical furniture but not the needlepoint pillows—pillows he suspected she’d created herself, if the half-finished piece in the basket by the easy chair was anything to go by. He might have expected the pine cones in the brass bowl by the hearth, but not the carefully tended African violets on the glass shelves by the window.
Dana Freeman wasn’t anything like the bruising woman he’d imagined, but he couldn’t quite get a feel for what she was. Except beautiful. That he’d gotten in one swift, satisfactorily lustful glance. Also rude, unhelpful, and cold.
Yet nothing about this house said cold.
Not that it mattered, of course.
When she finally emerged a few minutes later, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. She’d changed the leggings for loose, practical jeans. She still wore the sweater, but had casually looped that incredible hair at the back of her head, then fastened it with one of those claw thingies that always made him think of a steel trap.
She paused for an instant. Stan had the uncomfortable feeling she was taking in every inch of him and that he was somehow coming up wanting. In spite of himself, he straightened, putting more of his weight on his good leg and less on the cane.
He thought of her offhand acceptance that he hadn’t needed any assistance, out there in the yard, and scowled.
“Sure you don’t want some coffee?”
Her voice was low, yet clear and carrying with just the right touch of huskiness to make it sexy as hell. The kind of voice that could whisper sweet nothings in the bedroom, or get attention in a crowded room.
“No coffee, thanks.” He glanced out the window. Because he wanted to check the weather, he assured himself, not because those calm, ice-blue eyes had any unsettling effects on him. “We’d better get going. This weather doesn’t show any sign of getting better any time soon.”
“Have you had lunch?”
“No.” Right now everything hurt too damn much to think about food. What he really wanted was to stretch out on that long, inviting-looking sofa, to put his leg up and prop some pillows under his shoulder and spend the next hour staring at the lights on the Christmas tree and letting the homey, pine-scented warmth of this place seep into his bones. And if Dana Freeman wanted to spend the time soothing his weary brow and whispering sweet nothings into his ear, that would be fine, too.
He sure as hell didn’t want to get back in that car. Just the thought of it was enough to make everything hurt more than it already did. But pain was something he’d learned to live with. Pain and wanting things he couldn’t have.
Dana studied him thoughtfully. No matter what he said, the man was hurting. The fall, then her landing on him, had probably jarred every healing bone and joint in his body. Not that he’d admit it, of course, any more than he’d admitted to being in pain when he’d played the entire fourth quarter of that game against Dallas with a severely cracked rib.
“Mind
waiting while I fix myself something to eat?” she said. She wasn’t above a little subterfuge if that’s what it took to get him to rest for a bit. The weather could wait.
She had to fight not to smile at his obvious relief.
The incipient smile died when he limped into the kitchen after her. That same electric awareness she’d felt out in the yard made her body come alive, charging every nerve ending to acute awareness.
Behind her, he crossed to the tiny kitchen table and pulled out a chair. She didn’t need to turn and look. If she were suddenly struck blind and deaf, she would know where he was and what he was doing.
A hot flush stained her face. To hide it, she wrenched open the door of the refrigerator and stooped to look inside. The cool air was welcome relief. She took her time fishing out lettuce and meat and cheese.
Behind her she could hear a soft, groaning sigh as Stan settled into the chair and stretched out his leg.
Adding mayonnaise and mustard to her haul, then a half-empty carton of milk, she nudged the refrigerator door closed with her hip and dumped everything on the counter. She didn’t once glance his way, but she knew he was watching her. Her nerve endings told her so.
“Nice house.”
She jumped, not expecting the sound of his voice, and glanced over her shoulder.
His eyes were the clear green of old glass, and they were fixed unwaveringly on her. Was it her imagination, or did she read approval in his gaze? Approval and, maybe, just a little bit of interest?
“I wasn’t expecting to see Christmas decorations out here.” His gaze slid down her jeans-clad legs and up again. “Do you bake Christmas cookies, too?”
“Yes, but I give them all away.” Dana concentrated on setting the meat and cheese out on a plate. He was probably looking at her skinny rear and thinking she ought to eat a few herself.
When she was sure she wouldn’t embarrass herself by more blushes or any hungry, yearning looks, she set the plates and food on the table, including a setting for him. The strained look of silent suffering that had been on his face ten minutes ago was gone, but there was still a tension about his jaw that spoke of pain. She would, she decided, give it a little while longer before she agreed to leave.
