She drew in a slow, deep breath, counted to three and reminded herself she was here to talk to him, not jump into that bed with him.
“I just brewed some coffee.” She gestured to the pot. “I hope you like it strong.”
He poured himself a cup, then leaned back against the counter and slid his gaze slowly over her. The white cotton T-shirt and jeans she had on were hardly provocative, but the intensity of his look burned, made her feel as if she were standing there naked.
“How do you like to eat your eggs?” Her fingers trembled as she reached for the carton on the counter.
“Alone,” he said dryly and sipped his coffee.
She smiled at him. At least she had him talking. Sort of. “I promise I’ll leave after we talk.”
“We already talked. Which part of, ‘I’m not interested, now go away,’ don’t you understand?”
She decided he was the hard-boiled type, but sunny-sideup was what he was going to get. She cut butter into a heated frying pan, then cracked three eggs into a bowl and dumped them in, too. They sizzled in the melting butter. “I can’t just go away. How could I tell Margaret that you don’t want to see her?”
“Easy. You say, ‘He doesn’t want to see you.’“
“She’s your grandmother. Your family. That has to mean something to you.”
He shook his head. “Lucas and Nick are my family. The only family I’ve known since I was nine years old. The only two people in the world I know I can count on, that I can trust. I don’t need any more than that.”
“At least give her a chance.” Cara piled a plate with eggs and potatoes and set it on the table. “Come to Philadelphia with me. You can meet her and your cousin Peter, too.”
He laughed at that, sat at the table and attacked his food. “Not a chance,” he mumbled around a big bite of potatoes. “I’m here for a wedding, then I’m going home.”
“After the wedding, then.” She sat with her own plate of food.
“No.’r
“What could one day hurt?”
“No.”
“I’ll bet Nick and Lucas could convince you.”
He glared at her and slowly lowered his fork. “If I want them to know about this, I’ll tell them.”
“All right, all right. I get the picture.” She sighed with exasperation. “Well, then, how are you going to explain me?”
“There’s nothing to explain. My friends will mind their own business, unlike some people. And besides, you’re going back to Philadelphia.”
Her smile was slow and sweet. “I can’t do that. I made a promise to Margaret. I always keep my promises.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up as he reached out and took her chin in his hand. The look in his eyes seared her right down to her toes, and her breath caught as he brought his face close to hers.
“Here’s a promise for you, too.” The tone in his voice was laden with sexuality. “I’m going back out on the lake now. If you’re still here when I get back, I’m going to do something we both want, and we’ll both regret.”
He released her, then pushed away from the table. “Get this through that pretty little head of yours—I’m not going back to Philadelphia. Not now. Not ever. Now stop bothering me.”
He stomped out of the cabin, and once again Cara felt completely out of balance. Light-headed and unwound.
She let out a long, slow breath, and with shaking hands, quickly cleaned up. Her skin still burned where he’d touched her. The look in his eyes said it all, and she knew she’d better get out of there before he got back.
Five
He spent the next twenty-four hours in blissful silence. Fishing, reading, counting spiders on the front porch. An entire day of quiet, by himself. Exactly what he’d wanted, exactly what he’d asked for.
So why the hell was he so damn edgy?
It wasn’t the bombshell that Blondie had laid on him the night before last. It was going to take some time to absorb what she’d told him about his parents and grandmother, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about any of it.
If he felt anything.
He wasn’t ready to accept any of her story as fact just yet, and until he looked into the matter himself, he had no intention of giving it more than minimal brain space.
But Cara Sinclair was another story. He’d given equal effort to putting her out of his mind, as well, and met with no success.
Blasted woman. He glanced out the kitchen window, watching the woods, half expecting her to be hiding there, watching him. She wasn’t, though. Even if he couldn’t see her, he’d know if she was there. He’d feel it.
So what the hell was she up to?
And why the hell couldn’t he get her off his mind?
Only because he didn’t trust her, he told himself, and walked away from the window. He kept expecting her to pop up any minute, her green eyes smiling and that sassy little mouth yammering. A mouth he’d thought about well into his sleepless night.
Fortunately for her, she’d taken him seriously when he’d told her to leave after breakfast yesterday. If she’d been there when he’d come back, he would have dragged her straight to his bed—exactly where he’d wanted her since he’d tied her up in the cattails by the lake.
He sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over his face. Damn, he must be one sick bastard.
He could understand wanting to take the woman to bed; he had a healthy appetite when it came to sex. What he couldn’t understand was his preoccupation with her. Why she continually crept into his thoughts. She wasn’t even his type, he thought irritably. She had the looks, all right, and she certainly had a body that wouldn’t quit, but Washington was full of women who fit that bill.
Cara Sinclair was just too spontaneous, too enthusiastic and too damn trusting. She obviously hadn’t spent much time in the real world.
Yanking on a jeans jacket, he stomped out of the cabin and climbed into the truck. He was meeting Lucas and Nick at the tailor’s, where they had to be fitted for tuxedos, of all things. Nick owed him big time for this. The only thing Ian hated more than wearing a tuxedo was wearing a cast. And a cast was considerably more comfortable, not to mention considerably less ridiculous looking.
He drove down the dirt road that led by Cara’s cabin, but only because it was the easiest route leading to the main road, he told himself. Her Jeep was gone, and he wondered if she’d finally given up and gone back to Philadelphia. Not that it mattered to him one way or the other. She could stay or hang around all she wanted, as long as she didn’t bother him.
Except she did bother him. A lot.
Downshifting the truck, he pulled out onto the steep mountain road, found a hard-rock station on the radio, then cranked up the volume.
Maybe music could drown the woman out of his mind.
In spite of his need to flatten the accelerator, he slowed at the hairpin curve at Meadow View, the half way point down the mountain. It wasn’t uncommon to come upon a deer in the road here, or occasionally a boulder that had tumbled down.
He rounded the curve and slammed on the brakes, though not for a deer or a boulder. It was Cara.
Her Jeep was sideways, half on the road, half off. She knelt behind one of the rear tires, and was peering underneath the car. At the sound of his truck pulling alongside hers, she glanced up, then stood.
Brushing off her hands, she stuck them into the front pockets of her jeans. Her pink cotton T-shirt was smudged with dust across her breasts, and he struggled to keep his eyes on her face.
She watched him approach, her manner contrite, almost demure, a side of her he hadn’t seen before. The corners of her mouth tipped upward, a proper damsel-in-distress smile. Hesitant, but welcoming. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair tumbled in soft curls around her face and shoulders.
Damn if she didn’t look appealing, he thought, which only increased his irritation.
“Morning,” she greeted him.
He nodded. “What’s the problem?”
“Rear brakes loc
ked up on me when I came around the curve.” She pointed to the skid marks on the road. “Lucky for me I spun into the shoulder when I slammed on the brakes.”
Damn lucky, Ian thought and hunkered down to look under the rear of the car. The rear brakes had locked up; he could still smell the smoke. The drop-off at this point in the mountain was high and straight down. If she hadn’t spun sideways into the shoulder—Ten more feet, and the Jeep, with Cara in it, would have gone over the edge.
The image of her at the bottom of the cliff, still in the Jeep, had Ian’s fists clenching.
Hands on her knees, she bent beside him. He caught her scent, raspberries again, felt the warmth of her skin radiate in velvet waves over his body. When her arm accidentally brushed his shoulder, he felt as if he’d been sucker punched. It took him a moment to catch him breath before he stood.
“I’m going to push it out of the road,” he said more roughly than he intended. “Get in and steer.”
She jumped into the driver’s seat, and he dug his heels into the asphalt and pushed. The Jeep was barely off the road when a black Explorer whipped around the curve and spun directly toward them. He opened his mouth to yell for Cara to jump when the Explorer straightened, then slid to a halt.
Ian was swearing under his breath as the driver, a stocky, gray-haired man wearing a fishing cap, stepped out of the car.
“Good God, we almost hit you folks.” The driver’s voice held a mixture of apology and fear. “You all right?”
“Fine,” Ian ground out, watched as the passenger, a twenty-something blond man in sunglasses, came around the car.
“Car trouble?” the driver asked.
Cara moved beside Ian. “Brakes.”
“Name’s Wexler. Bill Wexler.” The driver held out his hand to Ian. “My son, Paul, and I are renting one of the cabins by the lake. Say—” Bill grinned at Cara “—you were in the rental office the day we got into town. Nice to see you again.”
Cara smiled at Bill, but Ian’s attention was directed at Paul, who was staring a little too long and a little too hard at Cara.
“Can we give you a lift?” Bill looked at Cara. “We were just going into town for supplies.”
Cara opened her mouth, but Ian took a step forward and shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got the situation under control.”
Ian felt Cara’s eyes on him, but for once the woman knew when to keep quiet. Even after the two men had returned to their car and driven away, she was still staring in stunned silence.
He turned abruptly and faced her. “What?”
“You had the perfect opportunity to get rid of me just now. But you didn’t.”
When a soft smile touched her tempting lips, he felt his body respond. Grinding his teeth, he turned on his heels and headed for his truck.
“Don’t make me wish I had,” he said and climbed into the cab.
“They’ll have to come in from Dallas, but if I order the parts now—” Walt, the barrel-chested, hulk-size mechanic at Gibson Automotive, wiped his large hands on a rag, then shoved it into his back pocket “—well, I can probably have her ready for you tomorrow afternoon. Day after tomorrow at the latest.”
Tomorrow afternoon? Day after tomorrow? Cara felt her heart sink. Ian had dropped her off at the repair shop and gone on to meet Nick and Lucas over an hour ago, and it had taken that long to tow the car down from the mountain and get an estimate. She’d spent the past twenty minutes arguing with the airport car rental company over the lemon they’d rented her. They’d offered her another car, but because she was out of the area, they couldn’t get it to her for at least two days. The best they could do was to let the auto shop in Wolf River make the repairs, and they’d pick up the bill.
How big of them. Either way, she was without transportation.
Looks like you’re stuck with me, Shawnessy, whether you like it or not. She couldn’t decide whether to smile or scream.
With a sigh she signed the estimate, then took the copy that Walt handed her. “Is the post office close by, and a place where I can get something to eat?”
“Post office is at the end of this block, and Papa Pete’s is right around the corner. They make the best burgers and fries this side of the Mississippi.” Walt gave her a toothy grin. “Tell Madge that Walt sent you and she’ll throw in a chocolate shake for free. She’s sweet on me.”
The post office was closed for lunch, with a little paper clock on the locked door that gave the time the clerk would return. Cara could only imagine what the customers would do if a post office closed during lunch in Philadelphia. There’d probably be a riot, she thought with a smile, and found herself warming up to the slower pace and charm of small-town living. Not that she could live here, of course. She liked the hustle and bustle of a big city. But the change of pace from Philadelphia was refreshing, and while she was here, she intended to enjoy it.
She could already smell the delicious aroma of hamburgers grilling before she opened the glass door to Papa Pete’s Down Home Diner. The restaurant was fifties decor—all original—with shiny maroon vinyl booths, chrome and Formica countertops, and alternating black and white floor tiles. The room was packed with a lunch crowd, and when she stepped inside, Cara suddenly understood what a bug felt like under a microscope. A stranger in a small-town diner always drew attention, and she felt several pairs of eyes on her as a large woman with big platinum hair bustled toward her. Embroidered on her white uniform—the design also out of the fifties—was the name “Madge.”
“You waiting for someone, sugar?” Madge’s smile was friendly as she led Cara to a table.
Cara noticed a few heads turn in her direction as she slipped into a booth. “No, I’m alone.”
The diner, noisy with conversation and busy bus boys only a moment ago, had grown strangely quiet. She felt like the person in that financial ad where everyone stopped to listen at the mention of a certain company.
Madge laid a plastic-coated menu on the table. “Aren’t you the gal renting the cabin up at the lake? You were in town a few days ago, at the minimarket. Tracy told me you were right keen on apricots. Said your name was Carol.”
There were limits to small-town charm, Cara thought, and decided she was going to have to be cautious of her purchases in town if she didn’t want to be the center of attention.
Too late, she realized. Everyone in the diner was already staring or listening.
What the heck. The youngest of five, and the only girl, was used to being the center of attention.
“Not Carol.” She smiled at the waitress. “Cara. Cara Sinclair. And you must be Madge. Walt at the repair shop said I should order a hamburger, that yours are the best.”
“He likes her buns, too,” a blond waitress called out from the counter, and several patrons laughed.
“Watch your mouth, Dixie,” Madge called back, but it was all in fun. “The boy’s a little sweet on me, that’s all.”
“We’re all a little sweet on you, Madge, you know that.” A young man wearing a cowboy hat winked at Madge, then tipped his hat to Cara. “How do, ma’am. Luke Sanders.”
There was a sparkle in Madge’s big brown eyes as she shook her head. “Watch out for these cowboys, sugar. Can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ‘em.”
“You threw Dutch Johnson clean into Mesa County last time he sassed you,” a tall, lanky man called out from his bar stool at the counter.
Madge propped a hefty arm on one thick hip and glared at the man. “You’re gonna be next, Leroy, if you don’t mind your own business. And you’re so skinny I could probably pitch you all the way to San Antonio.”
Cara watched in awe as several customers, men and women, joined in to taunt Madge and Leroy. Mock insults flew like missiles, and within seconds the entire place had erupted into laughter. Just like dinner at her house when she was growing up, Cara thought with a smile. Or on those rare occasions when she and all her brothers managed to be in the same place at the same time. She hadn’t realized until this
minute just how long it had been, and how much she missed them.
She finished ordering her lunch between salvos and somehow felt as though she’d been initiated into the town by participating in the diner’s free-for-all. Madge finally stomped off, supposedly to get a frying pan to bean Luke, the cowboy, for starting the whole thing. After a few more verbal attacks, the diner settled down.
That’s when the questions started.
What’d you say your name was, honey?
Where you from?
You really come all the way from Philadelphia just to stay at the lake?
Before she knew it, a married couple had slid into the booth with her, and two ranch hands had pulled up chairs alongside. Everyone else was either listening or adding to the conversation whenever they could get a word in.
That’s how Ian found her when he came into the diner.
Surrounded by townspeople, people he knew, people he’d grown up with, worked with. His eyes narrowed at the two ranch hands glued to Cara’s side: Biff Hornsby and Luke Sanders. There were also a few he’d caroused with, he thought with a frown, remembering the two men.
Blast that tailor for taking so long with the fitting. It was bad enough being stuffed into a monkey suit and chalked up like a baseball field, but he’d also had to endure Lucas’s and Nick’s incessant questions about Cara.
He made his way to the table, caught the tail end of a story Cara was telling about a bigamist she’d tracked down while she was working for an insurance company in Philadelphia. What the two wives had done to their unfaithful husband when they found him made the men wince and the women clap with appreciation.
Shaking his head, he struggled to hold back a grin. He should have known better than to leave her on her own. A woman like Cara was bound to draw attention, not only because of her looks and because she was a stranger in town, but there was something else about her, something…engaging, was his first thought. She made a room come alive just by walking into it.
Killian's Passion Page 6
