'Twas the Night

by Sandra Hill

  “The kids, too, but . . . well . . . ” She could almost hear him shrug, defeated. “That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

  “Give me the phone.”

  Dana blinked at Stan’s outstretched hand.

  “Give me the phone,” he insisted. “I heard enough and I think I know how we can fix this.”

  She gave him the phone. He settled back against his pillow so she couldn’t hear Mike’s part of the conversation.

  “Hello, Mike? Stan Kijewski here . . . Yeah, that Kijewski. Thanks. I appreciate that. Unhuh . . . Yeah . . . Listen, I don’t mean to butt in but I caught some of your conversation with Dana . . . Unhuh . . . Unhuh . . . Why not give it one last try? You haven’t lost until the clock runs out, you know . . . Yeah, that was a good game, wasn’t it? And I was sweating it, let me tell you. We barely got that last play in before the clock killed us, but it was a touchdown and that’s all we needed, just one point ahead to win . . . Yeah . . . Unhuh . . . Ummm . . . Betty can fix that . . . Yeah, but—How about if we paid for a couple of local folks to come in and help you, then? Could we do that? . . . Sure, no problem . . . No, really . . . We’ll put Dana in the kitchen. I’ll bet she’s a great cook.”

  He winked at her. “Nope, that’s fine . . . No, really.” He grinned. “I’m assuming you’ll still take a credit card . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Great! You want to talk to Dana? Okay, I’ll tell her. Believe me, anything’s better than sleeping on this bus. The seats are waaaay too small for anyone larger than a midget. And, Mike? Thanks.”

  He flipped the phone off before she could protest. “You can call him back as soon as you clear it with Reba.”

  “What, exactly, am I clearing with Reba?” she demanded, suspicious.

  “That your friend Mike will put us up for whatever she was going to pay that other hotel. Providing, of course, that Betty can get us there in the first place. He says the road to the place is knee deep in snow.”

  “Betty can get us anywhere,” said Dana with conviction. “But Reba was paying that hotel peanuts, from what I heard. The owner was a friend of Betty’s.”

  “Isn’t everybody?”

  “Stan!”

  He grinned and batted those beautiful green eyes at her. “That’s me. Care to do anything about it? I’ve got some great ideas if you’re interested.”

  He’d been obnoxiously cheerful ever since that kiss in the snow. She shoved aside the memory of that long, hot, troublesome kiss. “What did you and Mike agree on?”

  “You,” he said, shoving her out of the seat. “He said you had a great ass.”

  “He did not,” she objected, getting to her feet. “Did he? What did you say?”

  “I agreed.” He made shooing motions with his hand. “Now, go on. Git. Go tell Reba we’ve got a place to stay tonight after all and let me get back to my nap. And take that damned phone with you. I don’t want anyone else ruining my beauty sleep.”

  Betty’s friend, Wolfman Woody, had plowed the road into Moose Lodge, just as he’d said he would. There were already at least two and maybe three tracks of cars headed in—the employees Mike had called back on Stan’s say-so. Probably with the promise of double or triple wages for the one night’s work, Dana thought. Wages she suspected Stan had agreed to pay out of his own pocket.

  When she’d asked Stan about it, though, he’d just grinned and tried to kiss her. She’d evaded that kiss, then spent the next hour wishing she hadn’t.

  It was all so darned confusing! Okay, she’d had a crush on him for years, but that wasn’t the same as falling in love. And she was very much afraid that this was really, truly love.

  Loving Stan Kijewski was not a good idea. They lived in different worlds, wanted different things. He was gorgeous, confident, and wealthy. She was none of those things. He was . . . oh, hell. What did it matter? He was the man she’d fallen in love with, and that, unfortunately, was that.

  Thank God he’d never know about all those posters hanging in her bedroom.

  Her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a cheer from everyone on the bus as Betty pulled into the big drive in front of Moose Lodge. The place was a sprawling, two-story log building that had originally been built in the 1890s for wealthy hunters who wanted to spend a few weeks roughing it without having to do forego hot water, servants, and good food.

  There were lights in the windows of the dining hall on the left, but the windows of the two floors of guest rooms on the right-hand wing of the central lodge were depressingly dark. Individual cabins tucked back in the trees were barely visible through the falling snow, their windows just as dark.

  Despite the dark logs of the buildings and the unlit windows, there was something comfortable about the place, something warm and friendly and welcoming.

  Dana stared at the place, remembering. Mike and Penny Parker were old college friends. Even back then they’d talked of buying the lodge and restoring it to its former glory. It was a pity the dream hadn’t worked out the way they’d wanted.

  Nothing of their troubles showed on their faces when they emerged to welcome their unexpected guests, however. Mike was his same slender, smiling self, Penny a little dynamo at his side. Taylor and Tyler, the six-year-old identical twins who’d been born just after their parents bought Moose Lodge and who’d never known any other home, raced down the broad steps, whooping in excitement.

  With the twins as their talkative escort, the Brigade piled off the bus and swept into the lodge, chattering and gawking and asking questions a mile a minute.

  “You coming? Or are you planning on camping on the bus tonight?”

  The question brought Dana out of her thoughts with a snap. Stan was standing in the aisle, grinning down at her. A frisson of sexual awareness shot through her, making her blush.

  “Yes, of course. Right away,” she said, grateful for an excuse to hide her face as she fumbled for her bag under the seat.

  Stan followed her down the aisle, grinning. She was thinking about sex. She’d deny it, of course, but he could tell. Fair skin or not, Dana Freeman wasn’t the kind of woman who blushed for much of anything else.

  “Hey!” he called as she started toward the broad front steps. “Aren’t you going to help me across the ice? Make sure I don’t fall and hurt myself?”

  She stopped, then swung back to face him, hands fisted on her hips. “I helped you when we were stopped by that snow slide, and you took advantage of the situation to kiss me. I helped you at the shelter and again at Big Mart, and both times you took advantage and kissed me again. I don’t trust you.”

  He tried his best to look innocent and hurt and needy, all at the same time.

  “Besides,” she added, gimlet-eyed, “You don’t need my help.”

  “Sure I do. Who else am I gonna lean on? Dr. Meg?”

  “How about Slick or JD?”

  “Nah. They’d think it was funny if I ended on my ass in the snow.”

  “The Colonel?”

  His eyes went wide in mock horror. “You’re joking, right? The Colonel would seriously question my manhood for anything less than major injury. Preferably one with blood and a loss of limbs.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Come on, Dana,” he coaxed, trying to look innocent and pathetic and needy. Just looking at her made him grin like a fool and think lustful thoughts. He held his hands wide. “It’s just a few feet. Think how bad you’d feel if I slipped and really hurt myself.”

  Her gorgeous eyes narrowed to shards of ice.

  “No kisses. I promise.” He mentally crossed his fingers. She shifted uncertainly.

  “Please?” he said. Dana was a sucker for “please.”

  Heaving a sigh of long suffering, she trudged back to him. “All right. But from now on, you’re on your own.”

  She fit against him perfectly, just as he’d known she would. When she slid her arm around his waist at the back, he draped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer.

  “Oof! Don’t squash me, you big lummox.” She
punched him in the ribs. “I said I’d help you. I didn’t say I’d carry you.”

  “You didn’t say you’d kiss me, either, but a fellow can’t help hoping,” said Stan cheerfully. She was crazy about him. The punch in the ribs proved it.

  She didn’t give him a chance to snatch a kiss, though. Not even a quick one.

  A minute later they walked through the broad double doors and into the lodge’s massive great room. Stan stopped short, surprised. “Hey! This place is great!”

  When she pointedly slipped away from him, he let her go. She wouldn’t go far, and there wasn’t much he could do when the entire Brigade was milling around admiring the place.

  There was a lot to admire. Moose Lodge was straight out of a history book. The walls and rafters were constructed of massive pine logs that these days would cost a king’s ransom. Broad stone fireplaces filled the walls at either end of the room, a cheerfully crackling fire in each to welcome visitors in from the cold. The floors were of broad pine planks that would cost another fortune to duplicate, the furniture comfortable rather than stylish. At the opposite side of the room, a wall of multi-paned windows looked out on a snow-covered clearing surrounded by pines and winter-bare trees. To the right, a broad stairway crafted of pine-logs led to a second-floor gallery and a hall to the guest rooms. On the main floor, broad hallways at either end of the room led to what looked like a dining room on one side and more guests’ rooms on the other. Two mounted moose heads, one on either fireplace, stared glassily across the room at each other.

  On closer inspection, the furniture was worn and often saggy, the moose heads looked slightly moth-eaten, and dust was everywhere. Judging from the looks of it, the last real fix-up on the place had been at least thirty years ago. At today’s prices, it would take a fortune to do the place up now.

  God knew what the guest rooms looked like.

  Stan spotted Dana across the room and felt an increasingly familiar surge of heat and hunger deep in his belly. With the right company, he’d never notice the furnishings.

  “Great place!” Slick stopped beside him, with JD right behind.

  “Shame it’s been let go.” JD scanned the room, then glanced toward the chattering crowd that had congregated around the coffee pot the Parkers had set out. Callie was safely behind the coffee pot, handing out cups and packets of sugar. Obviously reassured, JD turned his attention on the nearest moose head. “Remember that old deer head at the Home?”

  “Who could forget?” Slick wasn’t looking at the stuffed moose. His attention was fixed on Reba, who was comparing a checklist with the luggage that was being set down at the far side of the room by two cheerful, jeans-clad teenagers who’d braved the storm to get here, drawn by the Parkers’ call for help and Stan’s promise of triple wages for the two days’ work. Either the woman didn’t know how to stop working, or she was making damned sure Slick didn’t get any time alone with her.

  Stan’s gaze flicked to Dana, who was standing at the window, her back to the room and everyone in it, staring wistfully out at the falling snow.

  Something that wasn’t lust, something unfamiliar but potent, twisted within him at the sight. He’d taken two steps in her direction when JD pulled him back.

  “Whoa, boy. You’d better be damn sure you’ve got a clear view down field before you throw that pass.”

  Stan snorted and pulled free of his friend’s hold. “You’re a fine one to talk.”

  JD’s face darkened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Now, children,” said Slick.

  Stan and JD turned on him.

  “Butt out, Slick,” said JD between gritted teeth.

  “Yeah, butt out,” Stan chorused, scowling.

  “What the hell?” Slick stared at them. “Have you two lost your minds?”

  JD glared at him. Then he sighed. “I’m not sure I’ve got much of a mind left to lose,” he admitted, once more glancing in Callie’s direction.

  “Hey, I understand.” Slick pointedly did not glance toward Reba. “Believe me, I do understand.”

  “You two are pathetic,” Stan said, smugly pleased that he could enjoy the game without risking the miseries his friends were enduring. Dana was tempting, but he wasn’t thinking serious here.

  No dangerous life-time commitment stuff. Not for him.

  “I’d deck you for that,” JD growled, “except for the fact you’re right. Definitely pathetic.”

  “At least you have someone pretty to look at in the other bed.” Stan regretted the words the minute they were out. He was, he realized suddenly, feeling more than just a little jealous. It was a very strange feeling. A very dangerous feeling.

  “For a while there, I thought you two had actually clicked.” Slick studied JD, eyes alight with speculation. “What happened? Did she object to the handcuffs?”

  “Don’t ask.” JD’s shoulders slumped. The man who tackled the most dangerous murderers without breaking a sweat had been felled by a pint-sized felon with a flair for fashion.

  “Still, proximity and all that . . . ” The words trailed away as Stan considered the idea that had suddenly hit him. He glanced at the long halls that led to the guest rooms on the first and second floors.

  “He’s thinking,” said Slick.

  JD’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking, Stanley, old boy?”

  “Don’t call me Stanley.”

  “Come on, out with it,” Slick ordered.

  “I was thinking that there are a lot of rooms in this lodge,” said Stan, rather dreamily. “A lot of empty rooms.”

  “And cabins,” said Slick, beginning to smile.

  “And cabins,” Stan agreed. He wasn’t interested in cabins. If he tried to chase Dana through the snow, he’d fall on his ass for sure. But on nice, solid wood floors . . .

  “So?” JD, already paired with the woman of his dreams—or his worst nightmares, depending on the moment—was a little slow on the uptake.

  “So we don’t have to share rooms like we did last night,” said Slick with satisfaction.

  “Good thing, too,” Stan said. “You snore.”

  “You ought to hear the noises you make!”

  “You were worried about Slick’s snoring?” said JD, bewildered. Stan glanced at Slick.

  Slick tried to look mournful. “It’s the sex. It’s done something to his brain.”

  “He doesn’t have a brain.”

  “True.”

  “Damnit,” JD growled. “If you bastards—Oh! I get it!”

  “He got it,” Slick informed Stan.

  “Her,” Stan corrected. “Not that it did him any good.”

  JD’s hands balled into fists. “Don’t say it.”

  Slick grinned. “Sorry. It’s just—”

  “We’re jealous,” said Stan.

  “And we want a little equal opportunity.”

  “Ahhhhh,” said JD. “You two want your own rooms and you want to make sure Dana and Reba get separate rooms, too. Like, maybe, right by yours.”

  “Very good!” Slick lightly punched Stan’s arm. “See? He’s not totally stupid.”

  “Not usually,” Stan agreed.

  “Go to hell,” said JD, grinning.

  Slick was automatically elected to convince Emma and Maudeen that a little adjustment in the sleeping arrangements was in order. Since it was Slick that was doing the convincing, the results were a foregone conclusion.

  Half an hour later Stan followed Dana and one of the lodge’s teenage employees down the main floor hall to the two doors set side by side at the far end.

  The teen, David, set down the bags he was carrying and unlocked the doors. “You’re in this one, ma’am,” he said, gesturing to the room on the left. “And this is yours, sir.”

  He smiled hopefully up at Stan. “I’m not supposed to bother you, Mr. Kijewski, sir, but if you have a few minutes, could you give me some pointers on throwing a football?”

  “Sure. A little bit later,
though, okay? And don’t expect any demonstrations. I’m not much of a passer any more, either.”

  Stan was so intent on Dana that even the admission of his lost abilities didn’t bother him like it used to.

  She looked so damned delectable. Even when she deliberately turned frosty and distant, like now. The heat she generated in him was more than enough to warm them both, anyway. All he had to do was figure out a way to convince her of it.

  “. . . there’s matches for the fireplace here, and extra logs are stacked over there. There’s candles, too, in case the power goes out.”

  Stan dragged himself back to attention while David went through his spiel.

  “And this door joins the two suites, if you want,” David added, trying to look innocent.

  Stan’s smile vanished. If the boy had been over twenty-one, he’d have decked him for the glance he shot at Dana. The kid had been studying waaaay too many of those swimsuit issues.

  “Great. Thanks.” He handed the boy a tip that had him stuttering, then deliberately shut him out of the room and propped his shoulder on the frame of the still-open door between the two rooms.

  Dana was bent over trying to open a drawer on a night stand that looked like somethings out of a Fifties designer magazine. The view was delectable. Her rump made a nice, curvy upside-down heart, with the point of the heart there in the middle of her spine where her hips curved into that tiny waist.

  He couldn’t wait to take a closer look.

  “Nice place,” he said, deliberately casual.

  She straightened and turned, hackles up and ready for a fight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for the kind of wrestling match he had in mind.

  “Mike and Penny have done the best they can,” she snapped.

  “Hey! I don’t have any complaints. I like the place.”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “You do?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s great. Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t use a bit of a fix up.”

  She sighed and slumped onto the bed, making the wooden bed frame creak.

  The mattress, Stan couldn’t help noticing, dipped a bit in the middle. The bedspread was one of that fuzzy kind that his grandmother used to have. Those bedspreads had been old when he was a kid. What did they call them? Chenille? The one on Dana’s bed looked like the fuzz had been worn off right there in the middle where the dip in the mattress was.