Kisses From Heaven

by Jennifer Greene

  She sipped at the strong, bitter coffee, trying not to think of how the evening with Buck had ended. She thought instead about money.

  Her paternal great-great-grandfather, with a third-grade education, had single-handedly amassed the original Shephard fortune—railroads, real estate, insurance and farms. Making money had been an obsession with him, and he’d sold his soul in the process. Henry Shephard had been a miser, his family still living in near-poverty long after he’d bought his first bank. But Henry Shephard, Jr., the miser’s heir, had changed all that. He, too, knew how to make money, but also how to spend it, and to him the Shephards owed the once-elegant home that Loren so loved.

  Her grandfather was the only son in the family who’d survived Henry Junior. Bill had no business sense, though his dominating father had forced him into the family enterprises. By the time his father died, Bill had given up whatever other dreams he might have had. But he couldn’t force himself to acquire business acumen, so he gambled on the side, and down slid the Shephard fortunes. Loren’s Gran had died in a fall, though she would have lived with proper care—but no one found her for two days. Bill had made her promises, but those that he kept all had to do with money. Gran died alone, on a Friday.

  Loren rose, refilled Gramps’s cup and then her own, swinging back in her chair with a leg tucked under her. Her father, too, had had a preoccupation with money, as in spending it—the yacht, the Morgan, the cottage house, and tennis courts, and jewels… Loren had barely known the glittering couple whose death in a yachting accident had orphaned her. She remembered laughter and parties and swift good-night kisses…and a thousand promises given, never kept, ranging from a piggy-back ride to a trip to the Taj Mahal. Time and love were the promises broken: money always came first.

  She’d met Hal after the empire had already collapsed, and she’d been going that same obsessive road. Hal had money; having lost all of her security, the twenty-year-old Loren had clung to him as to a life preserver. Had she realized how shallow he was, how lacking in character? If so, she’d been too foolish to care. He’d promised love, and he gave her his brand of it between cocktail parties, mostly in the middle of the night. She was shattered for a long time after leaving him. There was a tormenting guilt to deal with—for hurting a man who had really done nothing so terrible to her but live by his own values: that promises didn’t mean anything, that money could compensate for love, respect, intimacy…

  Bill Shephard suddenly cleared his throat. “Did he stay long last night?”

  Loren blinked, folding the paper neatly. “No.” She didn’t pretend not to know whom he was talking about. “Want some breakfast, Gramps?”

  “Oh, I’m not so hungry this morning.”

  “Scrambled eggs? French toast?” Loren coaxed. “How about pancakes?”

  “Well, maybe…” He watched as she took out a bowl and started to put the ingredients together for pancakes. “Interesting man,” he commented.

  “Mmm.” The batter was blended quickly, and then she bent down for the old iron griddle that had lasted for generations.

  “Got a good head on his shoulders, that man. Good sense of humor. I never did trust a man who didn’t know how to laugh.” He paused. “There aren’t many men around that you don’t buffalo, Loren.”

  “How many pancakes did you say you could handle?” Loren asked as she popped small pats of butter onto the griddle and watched them sizzle.

  “I hope you wouldn’t be so damn foolish as to worry about someone like me by sacrificing a chance for your own happiness.”

  “I’m making them nice and thin the way you like them, and I’ve got enough batter here for a hundred.” Loren bent down, kissed his forehead and said affectionately, “Shut up, Gramps.”

  She was turning from the stove with a fresh plate of pancakes in her hand when she saw Buck’s face in the glass window of the door. The sun was just peeking over the horizon behind him, a watery, lemony early March sun; his hair looked burnished in the weak light. His shoulders were huge in a dark olive jacket, and he was looking straight at her, a look that very much echoed the earlier part of yesterday evening.

  She put the plate on the table and her hands on her hips, her silvery eyes echoing the end of the last evening.

  He turned the knob and stepped in. “Mr. Shephard…good morning.”

  Gramps turned and stood up in surprise, a welcoming smile wreathing his features. “Well, come on in, Buck,” he said jovially. “We’ve got pancakes for a hundred; Loren just said it. I can’t say I expected anyone else to be up at this hour. Loren and I are both early birds…”

  “I gave up sleeping myself about two hours ago,” Buck responded. He was just unbuttoning his coat as he descended on Loren. His eyes glinted with determination. “I have to admit I’m starving.” He tilted up her chin and planted a kiss on her mouth before she could protest. “I want Loren for the day, Mr. Shephard.” But he said it directly to her. And then he turned away, reaching for a mug as if he owned the kitchen, and carted the steaming cup over to Gramps as he sat down. “She’s going to raise a pile of objections. All the chores she has to do on a Saturday…”

  “Nonsense!” Gramps rose like a trout for a favorite fly. “She’s been working too hard as it is, thinks we can’t get along without her for a day. The fact is, her sister could lift a finger once in a while—”

  “Pancakes are burning,” Buck murmured to Loren.

  She whirled. Down the drain, four pancakes… Oh, well, there were plenty left. Buck devoured sixteen, one after the other, all the while charming Gramps without another word to her. She marveled, considered sending him packing, considered how all that arrogance made her want to laugh, considered how good he looked in that rough wool shirt…

  “Well.” Buck rose, patting his flat abdomen, which didn’t look in the least filled. The jeans were molded to his long, lanky thighs; she could have put both of her feet in one of his walking boots. He reached for the olive jacket. “Get your coat, Loren—”

  It was exasperating having to look up darn near a foot. “As soon as I do the dishes,” she said firmly. Giant or no, he wasn’t going to push her around.

  “Don’t be silly,” Gramps intervened. “And Angela’ll get the groceries today, Loren, so don’t be worrying about that. You think the two of us can’t put together a sandwich? You just go off and have a good time.”

  Buck was impatiently holding her jacket, his own already on.

  “Well, I certainly am going to change clothes—”

  “No, you don’t. I’ve already noticed that your socks don’t match—and you don’t need makeup. It’s just not going to be that kind of day,” he said impatiently.

  Outside it was fresh, cold and glistening. Lacy patterns of frost covered rooftops and windows, and Loren could see her breath take form as steam. When Buck turned from closing the door, he just looked at her. His eyes were the only warm things on that cold, silent morning. Warm. And private. His thoughts were clearly X-rated.

  She bit her lip. “Do you always blow hot and cold over the period of a few hours?” she asked conversationally.

  He sauntered down the steps. “If that’s a reference to the idiotic way I left you last night—”

  “It is,” she agreed.

  He opened the car door, and she slipped in. “I had a feeling you were going to take exception to my Van Goghs if I took you home last night.” He closed her door and went around to his side.

  “I was not expecting Van Gogh,” she said heatedly when he settled in beside her and started the engine.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We’re going to get it all straightened out today, half-pint. Consider yourself kidnapped.” He motioned to a small bag between the seats and urged her to open it. “I feed my kidnap victims. I wasn’t expecting breakfast, Loren, but I know darn well you forgot about it for yourself.”

  They were the kind of powdered-sugar doughnuts that left a trail of sweet white flecks on her chin and lips, and he chuckled every time he
glanced at her. At the first red light, he leaned over to take care of one sticky spot, the wickedly smooth curl of his tongue on her cheek sending a shiver down her spine.

  She didn’t understand him, but it was difficult to keep up a sensible wall of defenses when he was so easy to be with, when he made it so obvious he was glad she was with him. As the miles disappeared with the doughnuts, she slid comfortably down in the seat, took off her boots and curled up her knees. She felt a little like a gambler on a roll who could lose it all but just couldn’t bring himself to get up from the table yet.

  “How can you sit like that?” he said incredulously. “You could probably tuck up and fit inside a basketball.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him expressively. “I should have guessed from your height that basketball would be your game. I suppose that’s another less than subtle reference to my size,” she added dryly. “There are an awful lot of advantages to being small. Bath towels go a long way. Jeans are cheaper in the children’s section. Half-price at the movies if I put a bow in my hair. I still get a sucker at the bank…”

  “Does the sass come with the size, too?” he asked.

  “I do believe that comes in all sizes,” she said pointedly.

  He had a wonderful laugh, free-flowing and husky. “We’re going to have a fine day, Loren. You curl up any which way you want; we’ll be there in another twenty minutes.”

  Chapter Seven

  The last part of the ride was through a densely wooded area, on a dirt road rutted in places by melted snow. At the end of it, like a sudden surprise, was a cottage with a huge diamond-shaped lake in front of it. Bits of ice that had resisted the last thaw still floated, silvery and charcoal in spots as the wind rippled over the lake’s surface. Dozens of other summer cottages populated the shores, but none of the others appeared inhabited—at least at this time of year.

  Loren was restlessly shifting in the seat as Buck pulled up to the cottage. Before he’d turned the key, she had her hand on the door, but he reached over to grab her wrist. Her exuberant grin wasn’t daunted by the strangely pensive look in his eyes.

  “Loren, I brought you here because I knew we could talk without being interrupted. Look, it’s just a cottage…”

  “Just a cottage!” She all but burst out of the car and ran helter-skelter for the water. “Why didn’t you tell me you lived on a lake? What on earth was all the fuss about last night?” she scolded excitedly. “Have you got a rowboat, Buck?”

  He sighed, following her. “I don’t suppose you want to hear I have a Chris-Craft power boat.”

  “A rowboat’s all we need.”

  He sighed again. “Loren, I had in mind appealing to your rational, down-to-earth, practical little self today. I want you to listen to me—”

  “Certainly!”

  He watched her race to the water and shout complainingly when her fingers were chilled by the icy temperature, the hood of her jacket leaping back to put sunlight in the chestnut of her hair. Her eyes sparkled back to him, the child in her for once let loose as she raced down the sandy shore with her arms outflung, embracing the wind.

  “Would you come back here? You’re going to freeze that little fanny of yours right off!”

  When she returned to him, her breasts were rising and falling in quick little breaths, and there was pure mischief in the grin she gave him. “Go away,” she ordered him saucily. “Come back and get me in a couple of months. I haven’t spent any time near the water since I was ten years old!”

  “Which is about what you look.” She didn’t, though. It was distinctly a woman’s curl of bottom and thigh in her tight jeans, a woman’s way of moving, a woman’s delicate profile of high cheekbone and slim little nose. Her lips were red and moist, and there was high color in her cheeks from her run, but she darted ahead of him, sensing he was going to grab her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said teasingly. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Mr. Leeds. I want to see the inside.”

  “I was just going to warm you up.”

  “I’ll bet you were!”

  Digging a small key from his back pocket, he held it out in front of her. “If you want to get inside…”

  “Bribery? In that case…” She stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his mouth, shivering at the sudden look in his eyes, her fingers lingering on his neck. Her spirits were suddenly not dampened so much as softened; a gemlike flame of exhilaration had been ignited within her and glowed brightly. She rocked back down from her tiptoes, feeling warmth in her cheeks, an odd shyness.

  “So it’s occurred to you, too?” he said wickedly.

  “What?”

  “That we can’t kiss very well standing up. There’s too much difference in heights.”

  She wasn’t ready to make the obvious comeback, that they could kiss very well lying down. “Let me in,” she ordered sternly. “You’re just trying to keep me from seeing what it looks like.”

  When he opened the door, she stepped into a small rectangular kitchen. A little wooden table with two chairs, a refrigerator and stove that had seen a quarter of a century, and—shock of all shocks—a claw-footed bathtub. The first door she opened told her why. The bathroom had obviously been a late addition, and contained…a toilet. Nothing else, barely head room.

  She slipped off her wet, sandy boots, absently handing her coat to Buck as she walked through the kitchen. There was only one main room beyond the kitchen, long and completely windowed at waist height for a complete view of the lake. There was a fireplace and a woodstove, logs stacked neatly on both raised brick hearths. “The fireplace in itself wasn’t enough to heat the place,” he explained, “but by the time I get the woodstove going, it’ll be warm everywhere but upstairs.”

  The plush carpet was a mint-leaf green. The luxury of it momentarily disconcerted Loren, but there was very little furniture. An old rolltop desk, a pile of huge pillows on the floor, a pair of easy chairs with a low table between them, and a bookshelf filled with almost everything but books—a chess set, fishing rod, lantern. It…pleased her.

  “I like it, Buck,” she said quietly, turning to him.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  She blinked at his ironic tone, but didn’t really pay any attention. “You said there was an upstairs?”

  She found it on her own, a little eaved loft without carpet, a double bed with someone’s grandmother’s quilt on it, an ancient antique dresser with heavy scrolls. It was freezing up there, but still she lingered, picturing it in summer with a cool lake breeze from the windows, picturing Buck sleeping there.

  When she came back down, he was crouched by the woodstove, feeding it logs, and Loren watched for a moment. He knew what he was doing. He always seemed to know what he was doing. The confidence he exuded wasn’t ostentatious; it was just there. She couldn’t pinpoint why she felt so completely comfortable around him, but that was there, too; there was no need to hide her excitement over the lake, no cause for embarrassment about her mismatched socks. She wandered back into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” he asked a few minutes later. He was leaning against the doorway, shaking his head at her quick movements in the kitchen.

  “I can’t just sit. Not yet,” she answered frankly.

  The groceries he’d brought had been put away, telling her that he’d planned on staying past dinner; inside the refrigerator there were steaks, a small bag of potatoes and a bottle of wine. In the cupboards, she’d found self-rising bread flour, and her hands were already covered with it, her fingers kneading dough in the big bowl she’d found under the sink. “What on earth are you doing with flour like this? You surely don’t make your own bread?”

  “My mother does. She stocks the kitchen for me every fall. There are about a dozen containers of spices I still haven’t figured out yet…”

  She chuckled. “Well, I saw that woodstove and thought it would make a perfect spot for rising dough. It’ll only take a few minutes. I put some water on
the stove for coffee.”

  “I’ve never seen you move in less than double time,” he complained. “I had in mind watching you relax for the day.”

  “I am relaxed.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  She started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten Gramps or Angela or the work waiting for her at home, but it had simply been so long since she’d had a whole day she could call free. That bubble of freedom seemed to act like yeast in her system, laughter close to the surface every moment, joy in the silliest things… She made Buck knead the dough, laughing at the pained expression on his face as his big hands coated with the flour mix. While the bread was rising on top of the woodstove, the two of them were picnicking beneath it, munching on peanut-butter sandwiches as if they were gourmet fare. A quick cleanup and they were outside, setting off to walk the entire circumference of the lake while Buck regaled her with the personalities of the cottage owners.

  “Mrs. Bradford, she screams bloody murder at the sight of a garter snake, but makes brownies for the summer crowd… Horace, he wears art old Hawaiian kind of bathing suit that goes down to his knees and, by God, they’re bony. He’s at least a hundred and ten, an old recluse… The Redfords, they can’t swim. I haven’t figured out yet why they wanted to live by a lake… Brown’s got two teenage daughters and sits out on his porch every evening with a shotgun in his lap. God forbid anybody should look at his girls… Elizabeth, her place looks like she even dusts the grass, her flowers wouldn’t dare wilt…”

  He was crazy, absolutely crazy, hauling her up like a sack of potatoes when she made the slightest mention of weary feet—and it was a long haul around the lake. Toward the end was a race that Loren won, having started with a two-hundred-yard advantage in a two-hundred-fifty-yard dash. She taunted him with her victory the rest of the way home, tucked under his shoulder for warmth, but when they finally reached the cottage, everything was frozen from her toes to her forehead. They were both exhausted, a matched pair of disheveled redheads with pink noses, in stockinged feet, arguing over the position closest to the woodstove.