by Lori Foster
“I hope you’re kidding.” His uncle suggested a complete farce. Harley wasn’t an actor, and he wasn’t going to start putting on fronts for the press.
“The bad attitude won’t change anything, Harley, so knock it off. Look at it for what it is—just one more step toward the big prize.”
“I don’t see how.”
“It’s all tied together. The favorites get all the breaks.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Sure, the fans like some fighters more than others. But everyone earns their position; no one gets it for free.”
His uncle let out a long sigh. “After missing several opportunities—”
“Satch,” Harley warned, feeling his muscles twitch again. “Don’t go there.”
“—you need the damned opportunity offered to you before you can take advantage of it. Don’t fool yourself: the SBC is out to make money, and fan favorites bring in the cash, so if the audience demands it, it’ll happen that much sooner.”
He might have a point. Not that Harley would admit it.
“We need you in a title bout, and we need you to win in a big way. No judges’ decision. We need a knockout or a submission. Then we’ll really capitalize on all the attention and before you know it, you’ll be in Sublime’s position, with a dozen opportunities knocking on your door and time enough to choose what you really want.”
“Not to put pressure on me or anything, right?” Without really thinking about it, Harley withdrew his hand from under Anastasia’s shirt and stroked his fingers through her hair.
It had a further calming effect on him.
“You’re a damn boulder, Harley. You can take some pressure.”
Harley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I suppose I can.” Arguing with his uncle was pointless. In the end, Harley would do what he wanted, and not a single thing more. Besides, although Anastasia no longer shivered so badly, she was still clinging to him, trying to get warm through and through. She needed his attention—and he’d prefer talking with her than his uncle. “Soon as I see Anastasia back to her cabin, I’ll head home and we can figure all this out.”
“Tonight?”
“I’ll get home tonight, but it’ll be late. We can talk in the morning.”
“First thing, then. Breakfast at eight—no later. We’ve got plans to make.”
“Fine. But, Uncle Satch, do not agree to a single damn thing until I get a chance to see what it is, and think about it. I mean it.”
“Let me know when you get in, Harley. Drive careful. We can’t afford for anything to happen this time.”
Didn’t he know it? “Just try to relax. Things will be okay. I feel it.”
“From your mouth to His ears.”
Harley hung up the phone and looped his hands at the small of Anastasia’s back. It was easier to focus on her than the upcoming issues with the SBC. “Better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She didn’t pull away, and Harley didn’t urge her to. He liked their current position, even if it equaled a sweet torture.
“Who’s Simon Evans?”
So she had been listening? “A fighter, better known as Sublime. Real good-looking, or so the women say.”
“He shaves his head?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen him.” She nuzzled her face against him. “He really is gorgeous.” Then she tilted her head back. “But no more so than you.”
Given the recent news from the SBC, Harley didn’t take her comment as a compliment. It was all bullshit. He’d win favor with fans and the SBC brass because he was the best, not because women found him attractive.
Changing the subject, he touched her still-cold nose and said, “Time’s up, Anastasia. You obviously didn’t get this frozen from driving here, so start at the beginning and tell me exactly what happened.”
CHAPTER 4
“I’M not really sure.”
She sounded sleepy, and that worried Harley. He put his palm to her forehead, but her skin no longer felt like ice. “Okay. So what do you think happened?”
With her forehead again on his sternum, she said, “I lost my brakes.”
“Lost your brakes?”
“Coming down the hill to town.” Another shiver, this one likely from nerves, ran through her. “It was so icy, and the wind was enough to toss a semi off the road. I was going slow, real slow. Then I went to touch my brakes—and nothing happened.”
Harley went rigid. “You sure you didn’t just slide a little?” The look she gave him had him verbally backing up. “I’m not insulting your intelligence, Anastasia. It’s just that the roads are shit tonight and even the best driver could lose control.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. After I deliberately steered into the gulley to try to slow the truck, I did a few spins and ended up facing the opposite way on the wrong side of the road. Luckily, I slammed into a snowbank.”
Harley got an awful visual of her inside the truck. “You call that luck?”
“It’s better than crashing through a building, or God forbid, running over someone.” She snuggled tighter to him. “I had the brake to the floor, Harley, and it didn’t matter. The truck just picked up speed. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He returned her embrace. “Given you didn’t kill yourself or anyone else, I’d say you did great.”
“Thanks. But then I had to walk about a quarter of a mile to get here. That doesn’t sound that far, except that it’s so damn cold outside. The wind is brutal, and the snow’s coming down so fast that half the time I couldn’t see where I was stepping. It was up to my knees—and even higher than that whenever I accidentally went off the road.”
Good God. Harley pictured her struggling through the storm and it made him furious. He doubted she weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, and most of that was soft curves, not sturdy muscle.
Only a quarter of a mile away—but she could have died out there and because she lived alone, who would have noticed?
And he’d kept her waiting while he talked with his uncle on the phone. “You should have said something, damn it.”
She shrugged.
“Were you hurt at all?”
“Amazingly enough, not even a scratch.”
“You’re sure? Sometimes with car wrecks, you don’t realize how badly you’re hurt until after the shock wears off.”
“I’m cold, Harley, maybe angry, and a little scared. But I’m not in shock.”
Harley wasn’t entirely convinced of that. Most women might become clingy after the fright of a near wreck.
Anastasia wasn’t one of them.
In all his dealings with her, he’d gotten the impression of staunch independence and incredible strength. The drama of a crash might make her edgier, but it’d take more than that for her to show so much vulnerability.
Something more had happened. If it wasn’t shock that had her crushing so close, then what? “I understand scared. You could have been killed. But why be angry?”
With emotion simmering in her dark eyes—the kind of emotion that could be fury—Anastasia looked up at him. “Right before I wrecked, someone was following me, right on my bumper.” She drew a shuddering breath. “Almost like the driver wanted to force me off the road.”
Harley held her arms just above her elbows. With his thumbs, he caressed her. “So who was it?”
She shook her head. “It was too dark for me to tell. But on a night like this, why would anyone, even an idiot, drive so recklessly?”
“A drunk, maybe?”
“It’s possible.” Her eyes narrowed. “But you know what I think?”
Harley braced himself. “What?”
“I think whoever was trailing behind me is also the person who cut my brake lines.”
HARLEY was big and safe, and best of all, warm. It felt very nice to have his arms around her. But Stasia knew she had to stop hanging on him. Whatever had just happened to her, it wasn’t his problem. He needed to head home, tonight, right now. He had o
ther, very important priorities and she was a big girl who could attend to her own issues.
Putting her palms to his chest, Stasia tried to ease him back. “I’m okay now.”
He didn’t budge. “No, you’re not.”
Stasia felt the tension vibrating through him. And here she’d only been focusing on her own upset! She stopped pressing away to look up at him.
While he’d spoken to his uncle, she’d been unable to tune out Harley’s end of the conversation. It didn’t take great insight to know that he butted heads with good old Uncle Satch on a regular basis. “Harley?”
He took one hard step back, picked up her coffee, and handed it to her. “It’s cooled enough now. Drink it, and then we’ll go look at your truck.”
“You need to head home.”
“I will. Afterward.”
Trying to decide how to handle him, she sipped at the coffee. “Harley, listen. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you. I just…I had to say it out loud, that’s all. I don’t expect you to—”
As if in deep thought, he spoke without looking at her. “Shush and drink the coffee.”
“I will not shush!”
He glanced at her in a dismissive way. “Fine. Talk if it makes you feel better.”
But she could tell he wouldn’t be listening. He was clearly making plans—plans that included her—and he didn’t intend to discuss it with her.
“You can’t be serious.”
His brow went up. “About?”
“Any of this.” Did she look like a child in need of his help? “For one thing, it’s too dark to see anything on my truck.”
“I can see fine.”
Deterring him wouldn’t be easy. “The snow will already be covering the truck, so trying to look at it would be pointless. Besides, I’d rather go to the police.”
That got his attention. “Yeah? Do you have police here?”
“Well…I guess. I mean, surely we do, right?” Stasia had never had need of law enforcement, so she couldn’t be sure. Spending only one season in an area, sometimes less, supplied her with the basics, but not all the ins and outs. “Doesn’t every town have at least a sheriff or something?”
“I don’t know.” Hands on his hips, Harley paced away, then back again. “Something about this doesn’t sound right.”
Stasia didn’t need his help, but she wanted his trust. “You don’t believe me?”
His frown worse, Harley turned and planted one fist on the wall beside her head. He leaned in until his nose nearly touched hers. “Of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I? You’re not the hysterical type to make up crazy stories.”
She felt caged in, but his words reassured her, and did more to warm her than the coffee had. “That’s nice of you to say, but you don’t really know me.”
“Yeah, I do.” His gaze went to her mouth, but shot right back to her eyes. “Even before you told me about the other vehicle, I knew something else was going on.”
“You did?”
He slowly nodded. “You’ve been plastered on me like a wet shirt, when usually you go out of your way to keep an emotional distance.”
Stasia cleared her throat. “Being plastered to you would be a physical closeness. Not emotional.”
The corners of his mouth lifted in the slightest of smiles. “Maybe, but tonight it was both.” His hand cupped the side of her head. “And just so you know, I wasn’t complaining. Not even close.”
Because he was dead-on, Stasia didn’t debate it with him. “Okay, then…thank you.”
Changing his stance, Harley situated himself so he could chafe her arms when she wasn’t sipping coffee, smooth her hair when she was. He pampered her, which she hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure she wanted, but enjoyed all the same.
When she’d finished all the coffee, Harley stepped back and looked her over. His gaze lingered in key places, not that he could see much through her bulky layers. But the heat of his gaze made her wish he wasn’t leaving so soon.
In only a few hours, he’d be gone—until next year.
“You know what, Harley?” she whispered. “I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”
Eyes so light a blue should have looked icy. On Harley, they radiated the same warmth as the center of a flame. No wonder others, even sports commentators, had made note of the unsettling intensity of his gaze.
“I have a million questions. But your clothes are wet in more places than they’re dry.” His voice was low and gruff and, in some way, seductive. “We need to get you out of them.”
Anastasia froze, then forced a careless laugh. “And to think people told me you were smooth.”
A smile shown in his eyes. “You know what I mean, honey.”
Endearments? Now? She couldn’t fathom why a bright red nose and shivering limbs would encourage him to intimacy. “Honey?”
With an arm around her, Harley started walking her toward the front of the bar. “Anastasia is too many syllables to keep spewing.”
“Spewing?”
He glanced down at her with sympathy and understanding. “There’s no reason to be nervous with me. I know you’ve had a rough time tonight; I have no intention of coercing you into bed.”
Like he’d even need to, Stasia thought with disgust. At the moment, nothing sounded more appealing to her than crawling up close to Harley and staying there, for any and all reasons.
At the back of her mind, she knew someone had tried to hurt her tonight. Not knowing why only made it worse. Being close to someone so big and strong would be only one of many enticements to snuggle with Harley. “Right, sorry,” she muttered. “My brain is still a little frozen.”
Without interrupting his pace, Harley cupped her jaw, tipped her head toward him, and kissed her forehead as if it meant nothing, when it felt like so much.
“Tell me what your family calls you.”
A simple, avuncular kiss on the head shouldn’t have tripped her up, but it took her a second to unglue her tongue. “Why?”
“Because you have to have a nickname, and while I think ‘Anastasia’ is pretty, it’s too damn long.”
She agreed. “I’ve always thought that parents shouldn’t name their children anything with more than two syllables.”
Harley grinned.
“They call me Stasia.”
His hot hand pressed against the small of her back. “I guess that’ll work since you have a problem with endearments.”
He hadn’t given her a chance to decide if she had a problem with endearments or not. So much had happened, not the least of which was his rapid about-face concerning her. He’d gone from keeping her at arm’s length, to treating her like a little sister, to touching her like a lover.
After leading her back through the crowd to the front of the bar, he stopped by her coat, hat, and scarf hanging on the wall. He bunched the material of her coat in one fist—and was displeased.
Not understanding him, Stasia said, “You’re going to give yourself wrinkles frowning like that.”
He turned to face her. “Your coat is still wet, so it’s not going to be much good to you in this weather.”
His words rang with accusation. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s a good coat, a warm coat, and it has weather-proofness built in.”
To make his point, Harley lifted a saturated lapel. “That’s a joke, right?”
Seeing it reminded her of how it felt to wear it, and she shuddered. “No.” She yanked the coat out of his hands. “It is a good coat and it’s usually more than adequate. The problem is that I never expected to wear it in weather this bad for so long. But then I never expected to lose my brakes either, or to have to walk into town, or…”
Her voice trailed off; he wasn’t really listening to her anyway.
As he took his own coat off the hooks, he said, “You can wear mine.”
“No.”
Very slowly, he turned to face her. “It’s not up for debate, Stasia.”
“I agree. I�
�m not wearing it, and that’s that. And before you get all huffy about it—”
“I don’t get huffy.”
“—you should remember that I don’t take orders from you.”
He looked at the ceiling for a double beat before pinning her again with his gaze. “Think of it as a gentlemanly offer, not an order.”
“Doesn’t matter. Either way, I don’t want you to sacrifice for me.”
“Sacrifice?” Harley took a beleaguered stance. “Maybe you failed to notice, but I’m not already chilled to the bone, and I have on a couple of layers. I’ll be fine.”
Like a layer of flannel and thermal would be enough to protect him from the cold? She shook her head. “No. Thank you.”
“You’re going to wear it, Stasia.” He softened that statement by adding, “I don’t want you to freeze.”
Hearing him say her shortened name did funny things to her. Only family and a few past boyfriends called her that. “I don’t want you to freeze either.”
“You’ve seen me in my underwear.”
At that, a few people glanced up, making Stasia feel conspicuous. “Yeah, so?”
“So you had to notice that I have a fair amount of meat on my bones, especially compared to you.”
She shrugged. “I noticed.”
“Good, then you’ll trust me when I say I’ll be warm enough.”
God knew she had bigger concerns than who wore what coat, but still she heard herself say, “This is ridiculous. I really don’t think—”
Suddenly the entire area died.
All lights. All sounds. Gone.
Inside and out.
Even the people stopped talking, stopped in their tracks.
Harley hauled Stasia behind him, and she could feel the abrupt fighting tension in him. He moved again, and her back bumped into the wall.
How had he known the wall was there? The darkness was so encompassing, she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face!
Without so much as a second thought, he’d protected her back with the wall, and her front with himself.
Obviously, Harley believed her about her brakes.
“Sheila,” he called out, “don’t you have a flashlight or something?”
“I’m on it.” A glass broke, Sheila cursed, and after a few seconds more of rustling, a bright utility light flashed on. After scanning the crowd of blank faces, she announced, “Must be another power outage.”
