by Tami Hoag
He picked up her kapp and examined its sheer fine mesh, the carehil workmanship, the delicate ties. She stared at it, too, with a look that was akin to horror, as if she'd just realized she'd been sitting there half-naked. Her hand went self-consciously to her hair. Impulsively, Matt reached up and covered her nervous hand with his own, overlapping it so that his fingertips stroked the crown of her head. He got the impression that she would have sunk down into the netherworld of the sofa with the lint and cracker crumbs and loose change if she could have.
“You have very pretty hair,” he said soffly. It had the texture and sheen of sable, and there were masses of it wound and pinned and knotted at the back of her head. It nearly took his breath away to imagine what it must look like down. “Why do you hide it?”
“It is the way of my people. A woman's hair is her glory and only for her husband to see, else it would be Hochmut, pride. Pride is a sin.”
“I think the sin is in hiding away something so lovely.”
Sarah herself had long wanted to go with her hair loose and flowing for the wind to tease and tangle. She associated the sensation with freedom of spirit. But it irked her that she wanted to agree with this outsider who was already so dangerous to her, so she answered with one of her father's most famous infuriating lines. “It's the way of our people, not for you to agree or disagree. Its just our way.”
“Well, it's not mine,” Matt said pleasantly, smiling when she scowled and batted his hand away from the pins that were holding her bun in place. He slouched against the cushions, letting his arm fall along the curve of the back of the couch. “And I have a feeling it wouldn't be the way of an expert tree climber either.”
Sarah shuddered at the thought of him reading her mind so easily. “I was a little girl then. Now I'm a woman.”
“I noticed, believe me,” Matt said dryly. “In spite of the lengths you go to, to hide the fact, I noticed.”
“Again you make fun,” Sarah snapped, deliberately taking offense. It seemed safer to keep him at an arm's length with bad temper, so she dredged up all she had. She vaulted out of her seat to pace the floor, knocking over a stack of books in the process. “Always with your teasing and cracking wise, making fun.”
“No!” Matt protested, pushing himself to his feet. Dizziness swam through his head but he couldn't decide whether it was from his condi tion or from the sucker punch Sarah had just delivered.
“A kiss and a pinch and make sport of the little Amish maid—”
“Wait a minute!” He grabbed her shoulders, effectively halting her pacing if not her tirade.
“Just because I wear simple clothes and live a simple life doesn't mean I'm simpleminded, Matt Thorne,” she declared, glaring into his face.
“I never said you were. I never implied you were. Jeez, Sarah, this isn't the Victorian Age. I'm not the kind of man who goes around tumbling housemaids for a cheap thrill.”
“What do you want from me then?” It wasn't a safe question to ask. No matter what his answer was, she would be caught. If he said he wanted something, she couldn't give it and face her family. If he said he wanted nothing … She didn't want to think of what that would mean to her even though it was what was best.
Matt gave her a tender look. “How about a little friendship, for starters?”
Now what was she supposed to do? Her plan had been to scare him away with her bad temper and righteous indignation. And he was asking her to be his friend. The idea was much too appealing, much too tempting.
“I'm sorry if you took my remarks the wrong way, Sarah. I was only teasing. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'd never do that.”
The gentleness in his voice was her undoing. She couldn't stand the idea that she'd hurt him. So much for her impromptu strategy.
“No,” she murmured, looking down at the nubby toes of his wool socks, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. What kind of hostess I make, taking my temper out on the guests?”
“You make a fine hostess,” Matt said, just barely resisting the urge to draw her up against him and hold her. Instead, he crooked a finger under her chin and tilted her head back so he could lose himself in the endless depths of her lake-blue eyes.
Sarah stared up at him, afraid that he would see every feeling she was struggling with, and equally afraid that he wouldn't. She thought for one heart-stopping instant that he was going to kiss her again, but he gave her a tender smile instead.
“You've had a rough day, you're tense. I know just the thing to fix that.”
“You do?” A number of half-formed notions tried to weave their way through the sensual fog in her mind, notions that involved lips and skin and strength and softness and whispered words. None of them quite got a hold, though, and Matt backed away from her, leaving her feeling abandoned.
He went to the bookshelves, to John Wood's fancy radio-stereo machine, which she had always been afraid to touch. With a flick of a switch and a twist of a knob, soft music filled the room. Sarah shivered a little at the magic of it and at the unfamiliar beauty of it. She was used to music; she had grown up in a house filled with singing. But always the Amish songs were about love to God and duty and suffering gladly and going to heaven at the end of a long, painful life. English music was about the world and the relationships between people. It seemed to her, in the litde bit she'd heard, that most of it was about love. Falling in love, falling out of love, the glory of love, the pain of love. The one playing now was sung by a man with a strong, smoky voice crooning that he'd be in trouble if she left him now.
“Paul Young,” Matt murmured appreciatively, returning to stand in front of her again. A relaxed smile curved his wide, handsome mouth as he took a deep cleansing breath and sighed. “Music to get mellow by. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.”
Sarah did as instructed, letting the air hiss out of her lungs slowly only to suck in a sharp breath when Matt settled his hands on her shoulders. He clucked his tongue in reproof, but his eyes were twinkling and Sarah couldn't decide whether he was being serious or not. He made her feel so emotionally off balance, a part of her—the coward in her—wanted to run out of the room and upstairs to the safe haven of her quarters, but another part of her was too drawn to him, too intrigued, by-him, too tempted. She took another deep breath and expelled it.
“I'm afraid I'm not up to playing Patrick Swayze,” Matt said. “So dancing is out.”
“Who is this Patrick? A friend of yours?”
“Not exacdy,” Matt said with a chuckle. Half the women in the free world would have given their fingernails to dance with Patrick Swayze; Sarah didn't even know who he was. Of course she wouldn't. She had probably never been to see a movie. He thought for a minute what it would be like to take her to her first. It would be like experiencing it for the first time himself all over again. Everything would be that way with Sarah. Her innocence would make the world seem new. Lord, how tempting that was to a man who'd seen too much of the worst of it.
“Never mind,” he said at last. “Anyway, the point here is to get you to relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“Fibber.” His fingers massaged her shoulders in a slow, sensuous rhythm. “Close your eyes and just listen to the music, let yourself sway with it.”
Sarah did as she was told and was filled by a strange feeling. It was a little like being un derwater, she thought. She was drifting in a sea of sound, weightless, boneless, sightless. The only thing anchoring her to reality were Matt's hands, hands she began fantasizing about working magic on other parts of her.
“Mmm … that's it,” Matt whispered.
His voice washed over her in the same kind of sensual wave as the music, warm and soft. The Paul Young song ended and another began with no interruption between the two. This song was even slower, softer, more heart wrenching. The words seemed to reach right into her to touch her soul. It was another song about needing love, about hungering for love, a prayer for God to speed the love of a special someone to the sin
ger.
Matt listened to the stirring strains of “Unchained Melody” and watched the look of sweet yearning that came over Sarah's face, and felt something melt inside him. The city, the ER, the noise, the violence were a million miles away in that instant, and he was glad. It was just the two of them and the beginning of something special. He didn't know where this growing feeling would take them, but he wanted to find out.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to step closer to her, to take her in his arms. He couldn't think why he had resisted the urge this long. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted and what he wanted was to feel Sarah next to him. It didn't matter that he'd only just met her. He felt like he'd been waiting half his life to find her. Sarah with her funny moods and Mona Lisa smile, her sweetness there to take all the bitterness from him.
He pulled her gently against him as the song built to its soulful crescendo, and felt the most incredible sense of lightness and peace. It felt so good, it ached inside him. He brushed his lips against her temple, kissing the fragile skin, his breath stirring the baby-fine tendrils of hair that curled there like wisps of silk.
As the last strains of the melody drifted away Sarah stepped back and looked up at him, her eyes so dark a blue, they looked the color of pansies. She stared up at him a long moment, saying nothing, her expression carefully blank.
“Sarah.” He didn't know what he meant to say. All that came out was her name, as soft as a secret.
“I … I'd best say good night,” she whispered, backing slowly away from him, the way she would from a dangerous animal encountered in the wild.
He stayed where he was, watching her go, saying nothing. Then she was in the comforting dark of the hall. She curbed the urge to run. By the time she got to the stairs, she stopped altogether, her hands clutching the polished oak newel post as if it were the only thing keeping her from sinking into bedlam.
“Oh, dear heaven,' she whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. “Please don't let this happen. Please don't let me fall in love with him.”
But as she climbed the stairs to her room, she had the terrible feeling it was already too late for prayers.
It seemed like the wisest course of action was to distance herself from Matt as much as she could. Sarah had come to this conclusion during the course of another long, sleepless night. He wouldn't be staying forever. If she could just manage to keep her heart out of reach until he had gone back to the city, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he left.
Her taste for adventure had been seriously depleted by her fear of pain. Adventure probably wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway, she told herself as she readied a tray of warm muffins and fresh fruit for Matt s breakfast. So far this one had mostly just upset her.
Her thoughts strayed to the memory of being held in Matt's arms and swaying against him as an unseen person in the background sang out all the yearning that had ever been in her heart.
Yes, that had been a sweet moment. And the kiss. That had been precious to her as well. But the risk here was so great and the chance of happiness so small. She had to be realistic about it. Matt was a good man, but there was no future in letting herself fall in love with him. She just had to accept that fact. If she still wanted an adventure, she could try something safer, like figuring out how to make brownies in the microwave oven. Plenty of challenge there, and the only risk was exploding brownie mix all over the kitchen. Or she could have another go at running the VCR. Now there was a real adventure. Every time she tried to put in one of the cartridges Ingrid had told her contained movies, the thing spat it right back out at her. She'd tried touching various buttons, but it only blinked and beeped at her and now the clock would do nothing but flash 12:00—12:00—12:00, and she was terrified she'd ruined it.
Yes, mastering electronic appliances was an adventure that was more her speed. Adventures of the heart were out of her league. Now if she could just get Matt to take the hint.
She wrote him a note telling him she was going into town and stuck it among the muffins. She was hoping he would still be asleep so she could just leave the tray inside his door and slip away from the house before he had a chance to interfere with her plan. There were errands that had to be run in preparation for the guests that would be arriving later in the day. She figured it would take her all morning at the very least to take care of them. That seemed like a good start on escaping the magnetic charm of Dr. Thorne.
She crept up the stairs, taking great care not to rattle the china or slosh the juice. The aroma of coffee wafted up into her face from the thermal carafe, and her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't taken any time to feed herself yet today. She shushed it and tiptoed down the hall, creeping along the wall to avoid the squeaky spot in the floor. Blossom shuffled along behind her making snuffling noises, trailing the scent of blueberry muffins.
Cradling the tray against her, Sarah managed to work one hand free to grasp the knob on the door to Matt s room. With excruciating patience she turned it a fraction of an inch at a time so as not to make any noise. She pushed the door open a bare inch, then two. Then Blossom butted it wide open with her nose and went bounding in, howling, long ears waving like flags. The basset hound hurled herself at the feet of Matt Thorne, who stood dead center in the room, naked as the day he was born.
“Oh, mein Gott!” Sarah exclaimed on a shocked gasp. Her fingers went instantly numb and the breakfast tray made a noisy trip to the floor. Orange juice spewed across the hardwood. Muffins went bouncing in all direc tions with Blossom chasing after them, trying to catch them in her mouth like balls.
Matt stayed where he was, too enchanted by the sight of a grown woman turning purple with embarrassment to worry about his unclothed state. Sarah dropped to her knees and glued her gaze to the floor as she fumbled with the scattered contents of the tray. Silver rattled against china. The tightly capped coffee thermos slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the floor like a bowling pin.
“I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have knocked. I thought you would still be asleep. I had no idea you'd be … be—”
“Naked,” Matt supplied, amusement twitching his lips.
“Oh, mein Gott?”
It didn't matter that she was no longer looking at him. She'd already gotten an eyeful and all of it was burned into her brain. She'd seen him with his shirt off and she'd seen him in his running shorts, but what she'd just seen certainly made a big impression on her overall view of the man. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image from her mind and only succeeded in calling up every detail in startling clarity. Trim hips, muscular thighs. Flat belly with a line of dark hair leading down the center from the edge of his bandages to spread into a thicket of curls around that which made him male—extremely male. “Oh, mein Gott” she mumbled in despair.
“Gee, Sarah, I think that's enough praise. Ill get a big head … or something,” Matt said, barely able to contain his chuckles. He grabbed his bath towel off the end of the bed and slung it around his hips out of deference for her delicate sensibilities and to disguise the fact that he was enjoying having her see him just a little too much. 'Its okay, honey, really. I'm decent now.”
She chanced a peek up at him and went crimson all over again. Decent? Decadent was more like it. The man had no sense of propriety. He certainly had other fine attributes, she thought with a flash of heat in her face, but modesty was not among them.
Matt dropped another towel on the floor to sop up juice and knelt on a dry spot, bending over to look into Sarah's face.
“Sweetheart, its okay. Its no big deal. I don't mind you seeing my body. We've all got one under our clothes.”
She looked at him, utterly shocked, and sputtered, “I don't got one and you had ought to keep yours covered! It looks like a very big deal to me!”
She shoved her soggy note at him and fled, leaving the tray behind. Matt fell over on the floor, laughing and groaning, holding his aching ribs, finally howling
in a combination of hysteria and pain. Blossom dropped the muffin she was devouring and howled along.
Sarah grabbed her cloak and bonnet and rushed out the back door of the house. Gravel scuffed her shoes as she ran across the driveway and down to the small barn where the Woods allowed her to keep her horse. Her breath fogged in the crisp fall air like steam. It probably was steam, she thought. Everything inside her felt hot and churning.
Why had she had to see Matt that way after making her big decision to end the adventure of getting to know him? Now everything female in her just wanted to get to know him better. Lust. Pure, sinful lust, that was what it was. And to her discredit, she didn't feel the least bit ashamed of it. What she felt was angry and frustrated.
She grabbed a section of harness and tossed it on Otis without taking the time to brush him first. She had kept the brown gelding for herself when she had sold the rest of the farm and equipment after Samuel's death. The horse looked at her now with his limpid brown eyes, blinking as if she had just awakened him from a deep, restful sleep.
“We're going to town,” she told him, buckling the bellyband with more force than usual, winning herself a fierce offended look from the old horse. She ignored him, too wrapped up in the whirlwind of her own emotions.
She would go to town and do her errands as slowly as she could, lingering over each task. And when they were all accomplished, she would think up some more. She would invent reasons to stay in town until she absolutely had to return to the inn in order to greet the weekend guests. She would be safe then, surrounded by nosy, demanding tourists. She would cocoon herself with their presence and shut out Matt Thorne as much as she could. Maybe by doing all that she would be able to forget about how wonderfully male he looked and how her body had never experienced any kind of sexual satisfaction.
She slipped the horses s bridle on and led him out into the yard where her buggy was parked. Otis demonstrated his lack of enthusiasm for his work by moving as slowly as he could, stretching out his long neck as he was pulled along, backing up between the shafts of the buggy one plodding step at a time. Sarah tried to rush him, but in a contest between a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman and a thousand-pound horse there was likely to be only one outcome. She hurried where she could, fastening the tugs and buckling the back bands with the speed acquired through hundreds of harnessings. The closer she came to finishing and the nearer she felt to freedom, the faster she moved. Just another two minutes and she would be on the road, alone with her confounded lust, leaving Matt Thorne behind to think what he would.
