by James, Sandy
Laurie glanced over her shoulder and squealed. She struggled like she was trying to increase her speed, but she suddenly tripped and fell face first into a drift. Rolling to her back, she fought to pull herself out of the thick snow. Five huge strides and Ross covered the distance between them.
Ross bent over and grabbed her waist to hoist her out of the snow. But he wasn’t ready to let her go. Feeling happy for the first time in heaven knew how long, he postponed the moment by letting himself fall back into another huge drift, dragging Laurie with him. When they landed, she sprawled on top of him as the two of them laughed as freely as children.
Realizing it had been ages since he’d relaxed long enough to enjoy anything, Ross savored the moment. He looked up at Laurie’s face, so close to his own. She had him absolutely enthralled. Her cheeks were red from the cold and her eyes were bright with her laughter. He had no choice. He had to kiss her. Reaching behind her head to pull her close, he settled his mouth on hers.
Ross felt like he was falling down a deep hole. He loved the way she tasted. Aware of every inch of her body, every bit of her gentle weight that touched him, he wanted time to just stop. Again and again Ross slanted his mouth across hers. Taking advantage of Laurie’s parted lips, he swept his tongue into her warm mouth. His body responded instantly to the little noises she made, the little hums in her throat. When her tongue returned his caress, he was lost.
Laurie moved away first. If it hadn’t been for the intrusion of the bitter cold, Ross would have been content to let the kiss go on for an eternity. He had to fight the urge to pull her back.
“We really shouldn’t stay out here too long,” she said, sounding as reluctant as he felt for the consuming kiss to end.
He tried to hold himself in check as she eased herself off him, but her movements only excited him more. He couldn’t remember having such a lack of control with any woman—including Katie. Laurie finally found her feet. Ross pulled himself from the deep imprint they’d made in the drift. They were both covered with wet snow, and she brushed herself off as he did the same.
“Where’s your briefcase?”
“Dropped it.”
“Do you realize that’s a good sign? Shows you can think about something besides work,” she said with an enormous smile.
It’s because I can think about you instead, he wanted to say, but couldn’t find the courage.
“C’mon,” Laurie said with a wave of her arm. She visibly shivered, and he could hear her teeth chattering. “Let’s get inside. I’m freezing.”
Ross took long steps, using the indentations they’d made through the deep snow to get back to the car. He retrieved his briefcase and garment bag and followed Laurie back into the ranch house.
Once inside the kitchen, she stripped her parka and hung it up. His coat had become so wet and heavy, Ross was glad to finally be rid of it. Boots, gloves, and hats were shed and spread on the kitchen table to dry.
“My jeans are soaked. I’m going up to take a hot shower and get into some dry clothes,” Laurie said.
“Thanks for getting my stuff. I have some dry clothes to change into, and now I can work.” Taking his briefcase and garment bag, Ross followed Laurie into the great room.
As she disappeared up the staircase, he laid the garment bag over one of the chairs and put his briefcase on the sofa. He sat down, popped the latches, and rifled through his files. Finding the papers Arthur had sent, Ross settled back to read.
Laurence Miller was getting to be a huge problem. The file noted several attempts to reach the man by phone as well as a litany of cancelled appointments. The current Foundation chairman lived outside the country, somewhere in Europe. But the man moved around a lot. There wasn’t even an American office Ross could contact. The Miller Foundation didn’t have employees; the chairman evidently did all the work himself. The situation had obviously frustrated the eternally patient Arthur LaGrange enough to pass the problem Ross’s way. He’d hunt the rich heir down somehow and convince him to take his rightful place as the head of the Miller Foundation.
Ross couldn’t fathom why someone with that much money would go to so much trouble to avoid a little bit of work for such a helpful organization. It was so typical of people who grew up with everything handed to them on a silver platter. They took things for granted, had every desire fall neatly into their laps. But ask a little bit of effort in return, they disappeared like Harry Houdini.
He grumbled to himself as he thought about Seth Remington and Katie Murphy—the woman Ross had wanted to marry. If that wasn’t a case of injustice, Ross couldn’t think of one. Seth was heir to the Remington Computer fortune. Until he’d been forced to work for Katie, most people had pretty much considered Seth a worthless playboy. Other than wrecking cars or dating pretty women, he’d accomplished nothing in his life. But Katie changed him, molded him into a man. Now Seth and Katie ran a successful horseracing stable and were expecting their first child.
Ross hated Seth, yet still considered him a friend. Naked jealousy caused that bit of a paradox. Ross respected the man and husband Seth had become, but he resented the money Seth had at his disposal when he hadn’t earned it. Ross always credited Katie with Seth’s miraculous transformation.
Katie Murphy.
Funny. For the first time in nearly a year, he hadn’t really even thought about her. From the time he fell asleep in the snow storm, Katie’s image had been replaced by a tall, voluptuous, blue-eyed woman with hair the color of winter wheat and some very peculiar habits.
Laurie Beaulieu.
The kiss they’d shared while sprawled in the snow had bewitched him. He liked how she didn’t hesitate, how she didn’t act like she was calculating what she could possibly get from the exchange. The wealth Ross had acquired through his hard work sometimes attracted the wrong type of women. Greedy women. They were like predators. It was one of the reasons he didn’t date often. That and the fact he worked an inhuman number of hours every week.
But even when he’d enjoyed the company of a woman, which he had to admit hadn’t happened in far too long, he’d never been kissed so freely and with as much passion as Laurie offered. His physical reaction to her each time they touched stole his breath and set his heart pounding. She filled him with need.
The fire had begun to ebb, and Ross realized his jeans had become damp enough to make him shiver. He put the file down on the coffee table. After throwing a few logs on the fire and stoking the flames back to a bright glow, he decided to grab his fresh, albeit chilly clothes from his garment bag and head upstairs to change. He grabbed his razor and shaving cream as well, hoping the can wasn’t frozen solid. Perhaps without his razor stubble, he could steal another kiss or two. Then he chided himself for acting like a besotted adolescent.
When he reached the bathroom, he didn’t hear water running and the door was ajar. Assuming Laurie had finished her shower and gone to one of the bedrooms to don new clothes, he strode into the bathroom. Ross was just about to throw his clothes on the closed toilet seat when he noticed he wasn’t alone.
Laurie had filled the enormous claw-footed tub with water hot enough Ross could see the steam rising in wisps all around her. Her eyes were closed and her head rested on a folded towel placed on the tub’s high back. Her hair was pinned to the top of her head, but several strands fell in loose tendrils, framing her round face and long neck. The soft swell of her full breasts rose just above the water level, and the sight made his mouth go dry. His heartbeat pounded in his temples. The scene was like a Renaissance painting of an exotic water nymph bathing in a hot spring. She was a work of art.
Every gentlemanly instinct told him to swiftly apologize then turn tail and run. But the sight of her sitting there without any kind of barrier between his gaze and an absolutely perfect view made him powerless to leave. His body reacted, tightened, throbbed, before he even had a chance to try to gain some type of control.
Ross didn’t feel like much of a gentleman at that particular moment.<
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As he tried to win the mental battle he was waging between the overwhelming desire to shed his own clothes and crawl into the obviously warm water with her and the less insane choice of leaving her in peace, Laurie’s eyes flew open.
It must have taken her a couple of blinks to register that Ross had invaded her sanctuary because she didn’t even flinch. Blue eyes met brown, locked for a second that stretched the laws of time. Then she suddenly squealed, grabbed the towel from behind her head, and spread it over her body. He turned on his heel and quickly fled the bathroom, realizing she probably didn’t even hear the half-heartedly sincere apology he mumbled as he left.
Laurie stared at the closed door for a moment and thanked God that he’d gone. She was utterly embarrassed. After several minutes of sitting in the rapidly cooling water and still covered with the wet towel, she finally worked up enough courage to crawl out of the tub. There was no way she’d ever be able to make eye contact with Ross again. Ever.
Can I sneak out of the house and walk to River Bend before he misses me? Escape might be worth a really bad case of frostbite to avoid ever seeing him again and finding out what he thought about her obviously less than desirable figure. Hell, once he’d gotten a good look at her, the man had fled faster than a startled bird.
After killing as much time as she could getting dressed and fixing her hair, she wasted a few more minutes just fretting. The cold finally forced Laurie back downstairs.
Ross was sitting on the sofa, working on files he’d fanned out over the coffee table. The room had grown dark, and he squinted as he read the legal pad he held. She noticed he’d shaved and almost sighed at how handsome he looked.
Laurie took the fireplace lighter and walked around the big room, lighting the candles she’d placed all around when the electricity had died. The room took on an amber glow. Any other time, she would have enjoyed the romantic atmosphere. Now, she felt awkward and out of place.
Not entirely ready to face him, she picked up a candle and carried it with her as she went to the kitchen, hoping there was something chocolate remaining in the pantry.
Ross followed the candlelight with his eyes as she left. He was sorely tempted to follow. Concentrating on the work spread out in front of him became impossible because he was more interested in remembering the image of her soft and very tempting body. Better to keep a little distance.
The phone rang, and Laurie came bounding from the kitchen to answer it. Ross listened to her side of the conversation. He figured that her partner was filling her in on the happenings at their office, so he tried not to eavesdrop. Of course it was a bit harder to ignore her now that she wasn’t speaking French. Her face practically glowed. She’d said she loved her job, and he believed her.
“Where do you practice?” he asked as she hung up the phone. Maybe some polite conversation would break the awkward tension between them.
Her answer came as a surprise. “Andrew and I work at the Joliet Free Clinic.” The amazed look he knew he must have on his face clearly upset her. “It’s not that bad! It’s not like I have a revolving door of paranoid schizophrenics every day. God, you probably watch Law & Order and think everyone who’s mentally ill is a murderer.”
“I never said anything—”
Laurie didn’t let him finish his thought. “It’s that look—the same look my father has whenever I talk about work. I like my job. I like the people I work with.”
He recognized the overreaction but chose to let it pass. Just below the surface, there was something there that would help him understand this woman. He couldn’t quite grasp it though. Not yet. Before Ross could ask a few of his probing questions, Laurie disappeared back into the kitchen.
He threw his papers on the table and followed. “What’s for dinner?”
Laurie emerged from the pantry, carrying a box of spaghetti and a jar of sauce. “You up for Italian again?”
“I’m always up,” he said, giving her a wicked smile before he finished the sentence, “for Italian food.” He wanted to savor the blush she gave him in response, but it bothered him that she wouldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m just teasing. I feel really bad about intruding on your bath.”
Laurie still wouldn’t look at him. She jerked a large pot off the hanging pan rack, filled it with water, and slammed it on the stove. The water sloshed around as she tried to light the burner. After five matches, the contrary appliance finally flamed. “Just forget it. Okay? I’m embarrassed, that’s all.”
“No need to be embarrassed. I really didn’t see...anything.” He actually got the lie out with a straight face. Every square inch of her delicious body had permanently branded in his mind, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate knowing that fact.
Ross watched her move around the kitchen, grabbing a strainer, some plates, a loaf of bread, and a container of grated parmesan cheese. “Can I help?”
“Why don’t you go choose some wine?” she asked as she pointed toward a lightly stocked wooden wine rack. “I could really use some. Something...red.” Laurie dropped the spaghetti into the water.
Sixty minutes and a glass or two of wine later, they were once again seated in front of the fire and finishing their dinner. The awkwardness seemed to have evaporated, and both enjoyed an easy conversation. Ross helped Laurie carry the dishes into the kitchen and clean up the aftermath of the meal.
She was hanging the damp dishtowels on a rack when he went into the pantry on another treasure hunt only to return with a bag of chocolate-chip cookies. He was finishing one of the cookies when he walked back into the kitchen. “Dessert,” he mumbled with a mouthful of cookie. “Want one?” He held the bag out to her.
Laurie reached for the bag then suddenly pulled her hand back as if her fingers had been scorched. “I’d better not.”
“Why?”
“Gotta keep that girlish figure,” she replied before turning around and heading back into the great room.
Still munching on cookies, Ross followed. “Nothin’ wrong with your figure.”
Laurie stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. What exactly was going through that head of hers?
The phone rang. She answered it and had a very brief chat with the person on the other end of the call. “It’s for you,” she told him as she handed him the handset.
He tugged at the cord. “No cordless?”
“No electricity.”
“Ah, right.” He pressed the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Are you ready to come home now?” Sheila’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Had enough vacation? Oh, and don’t bother scowling at me. I can’t even see it.” She laughed. “You’re doing it anyway, aren’t you?
Ross realized she was right and frowned a little more. “Tell Arthur I didn’t find his guy. And, yes, I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Get me a plane ticket. I’m flying back as soon as we get dug out. Hang on.” He turned to Laurie. “When are we getting plowed out?”
She took a quick glance at the clock. “Brodey said he’d be out here sometime tonight. Soon.”
“When you heading back?”
“Next week.”
He wouldn’t see her for a week? That didn’t seem right. “I’m getting an airline ticket for tomorrow. You want Sheila to order one for you? You could get out of this frozen wasteland.”
Laurie shook her head. “Thanks, but no.”
Ross turned his attention back to his secretary. “Just one. And make it first class, Arthur owes me that much. This would’ve been a colossal waste of time if it hadn’t been for Laur—” Damn, he had a big mouth. He looked over to see if Laurie had caught his words. She stood next to the end table, flipping through the Prohibition journal again.
Laurie might not have heard him, but Sheila sure wasn’t one to let an opportunity pass. “Hmm. Sounds like an interesting story, Romeo. You can tell me when you get back.”
“Let it go, Nosey. Just get me the hell out of Montana.”
“Ticket will be waiting at the airpo
rt, sir.”
“Thanks, Sheila.” After hanging up the phone, Ross turned to Laurie. “Looks like my last night here, Kitten.” He dug into the bag and handed her one of the few remaining cookies. She shook her head at his offer. “Don’t like chocolate?”
“God, yes. I love chocolate.”
“Then why no cookie?”
She looked surprised that he couldn’t read her mind. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Ross shook his head.
“I’m...not exactly fat, but—”
“Hell, you’re one of those.”
Laurie narrowed her eyes at him. “One of what?”
He dropped the bag full of mostly cookie crumbs back onto the table. “One of those women who always thinks she needs to be anorexic to be pretty. Why do all women think they’re fat?”
Laurie shrugged, walked to the table, and picked up the bag. “Probably because every woman we see on TV’s so friggin’ skinny.”
That answer didn’t satisfy him. How could she possibly believe she was fat? The lush curves of her body made him drool. “You know, I’d think a therapist would know better. Don’t you ever see girls with eating disorders?” He followed her back into the kitchen.
Flipping open the lid of the wastebasket, Laurie jammed the cookie package amongst the other refuse and dropped the lid. “Of course.” She lost herself in a moment of thought before her eyes suddenly grew wide. “Oh, no. I see where you’re going with this. Don’t even try it. It’s different when I’m talking about me.”
Before she could even react, Ross grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. Chest to chest, Laurie stared up at him with curious eyes. His mouth came down hard and demanding on hers.
The kiss sent a shockwave through his body. The fact that she trembled against him only made him want her more. When her tongue returned the insistency of his, dueling and rubbing, he growled deep in his throat. Her arms slid around his neck, and Ross wrapped his arms around her waist to lift her off her feet. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest, and her feet gently rubbed against his shins.
