by Lucy Francis
“Do they ever get to happily ever after?”
“Yes, when they’re about seventy.”
He grinned. “Better late than never.”
She swirled the remains of the cocoa in her mug, acutely aware of his gaze on her. The kitchen suddenly felt very warm. He slid one hand across the table, brushed his fingertips across hers, then gently disengaged one hand from her mug and held it in his own. It was the first time he’d touched her without gloves on and the electricity sparked by his calloused hands screamed up her arm and jump-started her pulse.
Now she was in trouble.
Victoria tried to stay objective. He’d probably used this question-and-answer format with dozens of women before. He was likely affecting her precisely the way he intended to, a well-practiced assault on her guard so she’d end up in his bed. Or was it? Didn’t his name or his charisma or both usually get him whatever he wanted from women without much additional effort?
He leaned across the table and her heart jumped in response. His voice dropped to a rumbling whisper. “Victoria, your kiss stayed on my lips for weeks. I know this sounds terrible and I’m going way too fast, and it’ll likely insult you, but if I don’t kiss you again soon, I’m going to lose my mind.” He gave her hand a gentle tug.
A battle rose inside her, one side crying for her to run, to avoid this at all costs, to remember why allowing anything to happen again was such a very bad idea. The other side soaked up every flicker of interest in his eyes like raindrops on parched earth, craving his attention with an intensity that stole her breath. Fantasy. It was just a fantasy, and all she wanted was one more little taste before she walked away. She shoved away the fear clawing at her. Heart racing, she eased forward to meet him.
The front door of the house opened and a woman’s voice called, “Hi, honey, I’m home.”
Chapter Three
Curran sighed as Victoria bolted back to her side of the table. So much for timing.
The flash of frost in her eyes told him exactly what assumption she’d made when she heard Kelli’s voice. She pulled against his grip on her hand, and he tightened his fingers just enough to hold her.
She didn’t raise her voice, but the anger came through clearly just the same. “Is that your—”
“Sister. She lives in the other house on the property, just down the drive from here.” He rather enjoyed the way her fine dark brows rose and the light in her eyes simmered down from the temper he’d managed to provoke. “Tell me, do you always leap to conclusions, Victoria?”
She relaxed slightly. “You have to admit, it was more of a baby step than a leap.”
There was a time when she would have been correct to think it was his lover entering the house. He had matured beyond the need to keep more than one woman at a time. “I’m hurt. Do I look like the sort of man who’d try to kiss you if I was already in a relationship?”
“I think most men fall into that category.”
Before he could step in that snake pit, a whirlwind blew into the kitchen. He released Victoria’s hand in time to catch forty-five pounds of nephew launching at him.
“Uncle Curry, Uncle Curry, look, Mom finally bought me the first-edition foil Charizard! It’s way older than me and it’s so cool! Look, look, you’re not looking!” He waved a plastic-encased trading card an inch from Curran’s nose.
Gently easing the boy’s hand back so he could focus, Curran gave the prize his attention. He examined it carefully, wearing the most intrigued expression he could manage. “Yeah, it’s a first edition all right. Good onya, Robby. I’m very impressed.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, setting him on his feet as Kelli entered the kitchen.
Kelli dropped several canvas grocery bags on the countertop, sliding her arms free of the handles. “You should be impressed, Curran. Those cards are expensive and you paid for it.”
“Mom, can I play video games?”
“Thirty minutes, Rob, then you have piano lessons.” The boy tore out of the kitchen as fast as he’d entered and slammed the front door. Kelli turned toward Curran and gave a visible start when she realized he wasn’t alone. “You have company.”
“Victoria Linden, this is my baby sister, Kelli Davenport. Kelli, Victoria.”
Kelli smiled and extended a hand. “A pleasure, Victoria. Do you live around here or are you two old friends?”
Victoria shook her hand. “I’m house-sitting for the Campbells, just west of here. We met untangling Peg-leg from a fence.” A slight blush colored her cheeks when he coughed softly. Nah, Kel didn’t need to know how they really met.
Kelli shot him a look of dismay. “Is Peg okay?”
“A few punctures, some nasty scrapes. Nothing deadly.”
She cast her gaze heavenward and turned to put the groceries away. “That creature would be better off wrapped as steaks and roasts in my freezer.”
“Come on, Kel, you love old Peg.”
“I loved him until he stomped on my flower garden last summer and ate everything.”
Curran eyed the bags on the counter. When he first retired, she’d done his shopping to help him stay out of sight. Now, she did it just to be motherly. “Thanks for the groceries, but I wish you wouldn’t do my errands.”
She smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “Just racking up babysitting hours, dear.”
It didn’t matter that she was his sister. Owing anyone for anything made him uncomfortable. He laughed off Kelli’s words and turned his attention back to Victoria. She smiled at him, and he slid his hand across the table, lacing her fingers through his. Though she was nearly his height, her bones were small, her fingers long and delicate. The soft skin of her hand felt good against his fingertips, and he couldn’t help wondering just how good the tender skin under her clothing would feel beneath his hands.
As if she read his thought—or had the same one herself—her expression changed, her smile tightened. She pulled her hand free of his and stood. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, Curran, but I really ought to be going.”
Kelli glanced over from the refrigerator. “Don’t leave on my account. I’m just putting the cold things away and I’ll get out of here.”
“No, no, I have a lot to do today. I’ve gotten seriously sidetracked. It was nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Kelli said. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Curran noted the way Victoria stiffened when she turned back to him. She wasn’t planning to come back. The thought made him uneasy. Her spontaneity and self-confidence on Halloween captured his imagination, and he’d spent more nights than he was comfortable with haunting Brindle’s, hoping she’d return. A couple of the other waitresses knew her first name, but no one actually knew her. He’d briefly considered buying the place and assigning people to do nothing but watch for her to reappear.
A twist of fate had given him another shot. God bless Peg for his attempt to get through the fence. He couldn’t let Victoria walk away a second time. Not until he examined their potential more closely and decided their fate for himself. “I’ll help you with your horse.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, really.” She sounded cheery enough, but when he looked in her eyes, the deep freeze had returned. Was she always this mercurial, or did he bring out the worst in her?
“I need to get back out there and fix the fence anyway.” Vaguely aware of Kelli trying to disappear inside the huge fridge, he lowered his voice. “Please, Victoria. Let me walk you out.”
She closed her eyes, turned her face away from him. She nodded. Good, a point for him in this little negotiation. He placed a hand on her waist and guided her out of the kitchen, snagging both of their coats off the sofa with his free hand as they left the house.
They paused on the covered porch and he examined her torn parka. Leave it to Peg to destroy a perfectly serviceable coat. “You can’t possibly wear this. You’ll freeze.”
“It’s not that long a ride. I’ll live.”
He tucked the parka under his arm and held out the sheep
skin. “Take mine, until I can buy a replacement for you.”
A shadow passed through her eyes, and she shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Really. Mine will get me home.”
“If you insist, but I’m still going to buy you a new one.” He studied her, watching for her reaction. There it was again, flitting through her gaze. Wariness, bordering on suspicion. As if she feared he might demand something from her in return.
“You don’t have to do that. I was due for a new parka anyway. I’ll replace it.”
Now, that made no sense at all. Why wouldn’t she want him to fix what his animal had damaged? He shook his head, then held the torn parka for her, slipping it up her arms and settling it on her shoulders.
As he pulled on his own coat, she stood watching him, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. He couldn’t help focusing on her mouth.
The memory of her sitting astride him in the club, kissing him, slammed home. She noticed his attention and abruptly released her lip and looked away, her cheeks flushing pink. He shook off the memory, but the tightness in his gut didn’t loosen.
When she hazarded a glance back at him, he tried to set her at ease. “My nephew does that when he wonders if he should say something.”
Her eyes widened. “Does what?”
He reached up, ran a finger along the edge of her mouth. “Chews on his lip. What were you thinking?”
She edged slightly away from his touch. “I don’t want to be nosy.”
He sighed, his breath a cloud in the frosty air, and thrust his hand in his coat pocket. “Ask. I’ll tell you when you’re being nosy.”
She turned and started down the steps. “Your nephew is a cute little guy. How long have they lived here?”
Well, that certainly wasn’t a question he expected. He followed her off the porch, walking beside her toward the barn. “About three years. They moved into their house before I built mine.”
He watched her open her mouth to speak and hastily close it again. “You want to know why.”
“It’s none of my business.”
Curran opened the barn door, waving her through. “But you’re curious, and I don’t mind telling you. More importantly, Kelli wouldn’t mind. Her husband was an alcoholic and when he was drinking, his favorite sport was wife boxing.”
Victoria gasped, color draining from her already pale skin. Though she clenched her fists, he didn’t miss the trembling of her hands.
“Are you all right?”
She blew out a breath and nodded, slowly unfurling her fingers. “Situations like that just make me feel…I don’t know. Helpless, angry. I hate that such things happen. She was lucky to get out of there.”
“I like to think her husband was lucky. I let him live.” That was conditional, of course, on Jonas keeping his mouth shut. He’d be damned if his baby sister would find herself and her son splashed on tabloid pages. “She divorced him and I made sure she got far enough away from him that her ex can’t play the ‘please baby, I’ve changed and I want to come home’ game. He’ll be very, very sorry if he ever tries to get back into her life. Hers or Rob’s.”
Victoria nodded, then walked over to her horse’s stall and lifted the bridle from the hook beside the stall door. “Good. At least Kelli had someone to turn to. So many women don’t.”
“I wasn’t exactly set up to take her in at the time, but I couldn’t leave her there. I had a condo in Los Angeles. Plenty big, but it was no place for an ankle biter.” He held the half-door open as she stepped into the stall. Her horse whickered softly and nosed her hand, waiting for the bridle.
“What brought you to Utah?” she asked as she slid the bit into the horse’s mouth.
“We looked all over the country for a good place. I’d been to Park City before so I was familiar with the area. It’s a safe place. Good schools. Besides, Rob is crazy about skiing, so when he found out he could live and ski in the home of the U.S. Ski Team, that settled it.”
“And you moved here later.”
“About a year ago, yes.” He tamped down on the nagging bit of ego inside him that was preening and screaming she doesn’t know who I am? How can she not recognize me? She’d showed no signs of recognition at all, beyond remembering him from the club, and his more rational self appreciated that.
Victoria led her horse out of the stall, and Curran picked up the blanket and saddle from the rack and swung them up onto the bay’s back. As he pulled on the girth, she asked, “Why not go back to Australia?”
“I haven’t been back to Oz since I was eighteen.”
“Don’t you miss it?”
“Not everyone loves the place they came from. And sometimes, you burn too many bridges to go back.” That was the standard line. It was far more comfortable than talking about his phobia.
Her gaze shifted to the horse. She rubbed her hand down the animal’s wide blaze. “Yeah, I know that feeling,” she said softly.
He watched hints of emotion flit across her expression and continued talking to help pull her back from whatever tugged at her. “Once in a while I miss things. Mostly the mountains and wide open spaces, and I have that here. I thought about sending Kelli back. Australia was really the ideal place to put her, but she loves the States and Rob was born here. America is their home.”
She smiled, returning to him. “Nice to have such an option. Did your work make it difficult to leave California?”
A wave of tension hit him. He didn’t need another woman in his life interested in his image and his money. “Work doesn’t hold me in any particular place.”
“What do you do?”
It was the one thing she could have said to relax him. Maybe she was one of those people who ignored the tabloids at grocery store check stands, or she simply didn’t recall seeing his face on the pages over the last decade. He chose not to lie when he answered but was intentionally vague. “I’m more or less retired, but I consult on occasion.”
“There’s a lot of freedom in that.” She let it drop, turning to lead the bay out of the barn.
Curran hurried to hold open the door for her, breathing a sigh of relief. He liked the idea of seeing where things might go before she found out all the benefits he had to offer.
Outside, she gathered the reins and grasped the saddle horn, settling the toe of her boot in the stirrup. He put a hand on her hip, boosting her into the saddle. The contact set off a wave of heat inside him. He trailed his hand down her thigh to her knee, remembering how her legs felt around his, her pale flesh wrapped in silky stockings. His groin tightened. “I want to see you.”
Her expression darkened, but she made no effort to remove his hand. Her gaze seared him the way it had that night at the club. “I told you, my life is plenty complicated. I don’t need to add anything else to it.”
“If whatever this is between us gets too complex for you, end it. Let me see you.”
She directed a hard look at his hand, and he released her leg. “I have things to do. Goodbye, Curran.” She laid the reins against her horse’s neck and the bay wheeled, kicking up plumes of snow as she encouraged him into a canter out of the yard and toward the trail.
He willed his libido to unwind. She hadn’t said yes, but she hadn’t really said no, either. At least he knew where to find her now. He had her name; she was no longer a phantom. She was real, the first non-socialite/model/actress he’d dated in a dozen years, and he could pursue her.
He’d never wanted a woman so much in his life.
Curran sighed and turned back to the barn, his craving for nicotine striking harder than it had in weeks. Screw it. He’d try quitting again tomorrow. Tonight, he’d indulge his addiction. Right now, though, he needed to grab a coil of fence wire. It didn’t take the winter sun long to slip behind the mountains, and he still had a fence to mend.
It took every ounce of strength Victoria had to ride away from Curran, and once she got going, she didn’t dare stop. Curran Shaw was absolutely perfect. And he scared the hell out of her.
Talking to Aretha quieted the mare some, as if she were content that she’d been heard. Victoria went to work brushing the old gelding down. Unfortunately, while the action kept her hands busy, her brain was able to skip back to Curran.
He was open, truthful—okay, he pretty deftly skirted around his career, but she would do the same, in his shoes. The big question was, why had he walked away? From the outside, it was obvious that his breakup with Hollywood ‘It’ girl Amanda Dannen had something to do with his drop out of the spotlight. The breakup and the retirement happened within a couple of weeks of each other. It had to be more than that, though. Why would a man who had everything banish himself to a small ranch property in a high mountain canyon?
The question nagged at her as she finished brushing Joe and buckled his blanket. When she walked past Aretha’s stall, on her way to get grain and hay, the mare stretched her neck over the stall half-door, ears laid flat back, and nipped at Victoria’s shoulder. She swatted the mare on the nose and glared at the wide-eyed animal. “If you want to be fed, Miss Snotty, I’d suggest you keep your teeth to yourself.”
Aretha snorted and grumbled, but pulled her head back into the stall.
Victoria fed the horses, taking time to rub Aretha’s neck, since the mare became a much nicer animal when she ate, and promised to take her out for a ride tomorrow.
She went in through the back door of the stucco and stone two-story house, leaving her wet boots on the tile entry, then made her way through the huge house to her room. She loved this room, with the sea foam green walls and the pale gray carpet. The colors made the room a tranquil place. She’d be content to live here forever if the Campbells didn’t mind.
