by Dawn Temple
Arching her back, she thrust herself closer to his touch, silently begging for more. He complied immediately, lowering his head and nipping her through her sweater. An excited tingle buzzed through her, ping-ponging between her breasts and her belly.
No longer able to bear not touching him, she set her trembling fingers to work on his shirt buttons. In no time, she had that beautiful, tight, tanned chest exposed.
She grazed her fingertips from his collarbone to his navel. Wanting to taste, she flicked her tongue over a hard brown nipple. He shuddered and released a loud groan of pleasure, which nearly drowned out the ringing telephone.
They both froze. Kyle’s whispered curse matched Shayna’s thoughts exactly. “I don’t suppose you can let it ring?”
“Shouldn’t.” She shuddered as his teeth nipped her earlobe. “It might be an emergency.”
“Okay, but don’t forget where we were.” He kissed the curl of her ear before pulling back. Shayna stood slowly, not sure her legs would support her weight. The phone’s third ring sounded like a trumpet blast.
Her fingers weren’t quite steady as she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Well, happy holidays, girlie.”
Shayna’s aroused sluggishness disappeared in a flash at the sound of Patty’s scratchy voice on the line. The phone nearly squeezed through her fisted grip. “What the hell do you want?”
Kyle, shirt still unbuttoned and untucked, was at her elbow in a heartbeat, a raised eyebrow silently asking the caller’s identity.
“Patty,” she whispered. Kyle’s face instantly registered the same degree of fury flooding Shayna’s system.
“Got company, do you? I’ll bet our sexy lawyer friend’s a demon in the sheets. Is that how he plans to get you to agree to Steven’s silly scheme?”
As her mother’s venom poured through the phone and straight into her brain, time spun backward, hurtling Shayna back to that ratty apartment in Boston, where Patty had ruled with an iron fist and Shayna was always too afraid to do anything other than exactly what she was told.
“If he’d offered me a tumble, I damn sure would’ve taken it. The man’s got great hands. You know what they say about a man with big hands, don’t you, girlie?”
Suddenly the phone was wrenched from her grip. “Patty, where the hell are you?” Kyle’s voice became a background blur as her brain spun.
How could she be so stupid? A home-cooked meal, a handful of sweet compliments, a few steamy glances and she was ready to haul this man—this near-stranger—into her bed, and all this time, he’d just been working his case. If Patty hadn’t interrupted when she did, they’d probably already be well on their way to naked and sweaty.
She wiped her clammy forehead with the back of her hand. Kyle’s back was to her as he spoke into the phone. “I told you not to make a move until you heard from me.”
Were they working together? Disgust rolled through her stomach. Too stunned to even work up a good fight, Shayna left the kitchen. Earlier, she’d sent Brinks outside so they could eat without suffering his begging. Now she stopped at the front door long enough to let him in, then she dragged her leaden body up the stairs.
She should have figured any man who would willingly work for her selfish, greedy birth father would consider sex just another tool to get the job done. Once she and Brinks reached the bedroom, she locked the door, something she’d never done before.
Her movements were jerky as she crossed to the bed, shedding her clothes as she went. She needed to crash. Sleep would keep her mortified tears at bay and give her the strength to work up a good head of steam tomorrow.
She crawled under the covers. Brinks jumped up and settled next to her, one paw resting against her heart. This was the kind of love and support a girl could trust.
First thing in the morning, she was getting that man off her mountain, even if she had to strap him to her back and carry him over that damned bridge. Although, with his bulldog tenacity, she knew getting him back down the mountain wouldn’t be as hard as getting him out of her life.
Kyle nearly lost his train of thought when Shayna stumbled out of the kitchen, her skin so pale that her veins stood out in morbid relief. He wanted to fling the phone against the wall and pull her back into his arms. But Patty was bitching in his ear, threatening to screw Walker by going straight to the media.
This potential danger to his client—to his career—narrowed Kyle’s focus back onto the job at hand. “Patty, if you cross Dr. Walker, you won’t get one red cent.”
She continued to rant and rave for nearly half an hour. He should have hung up long before now, but knowing Patty it would have pissed her off so badly that she’d have acted immediately—the resulting actions harming everyone involved.
Not wanting to see Shayna suffer any more for her mother’s mistakes, he talked until both his voice and his vocabulary were exhausted. Eventually she agreed to cool her heels.
The instant he disconnected the call, he raced upstairs to check on Shayna. He never should have touched her. Where the hell was his professionalism? His common sense?
The wine and the candles had gone to his head. Not that he’d been drunk. Far from it. But the atmosphere had lulled him into forgetting who they were, why he was here. And now he’d hurt her. Damn. She didn’t deserve to be used. Not by Walker or Patty and most certainly not by him.
Shayna represented the complete opposite of what he aspired to. Ironic that she was the key to his future success. Of course, if he didn’t get a handle on this situation, he would lose everything he’d worked for.
He knocked gently on her bedroom door. “Shayna, are you okay?” The only sound was Brinks sniffing through the crack at the bottom of the door.
“Shayna?”
“Go away.”
“Not until I know you’re okay. What did she say to you?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t have been able to figure out on my own.”
What the hell did that mean? “Shayna, please let me in. We need to talk.”
“I think we’ve said more than enough.”
He didn’t like the defeat in her voice. Through all the crap that had been thrown at this woman, he’d never once heard her sound weak.
“Go away, Kyle.” The light filtering under her door went dark. He stood there several more minutes, encouraging her to speak to him, but eventually he had to concede.
He trudged back downstairs and started cleaning the kitchen.
Both Patty and Shayna insisted Walker had known about the child from the beginning. If that were true, a million dollars was paltry compensation for the abuse of abandoning a child to the hell of life with a witch like Patty Hoyt. Imagine the emotional scars of spending years trapped under that woman’s vindictive thumb.
As bad as his own childhood had been, at least the true hell hadn’t started until he was ten years old. By the time heroin took control of his mother’s life, he’d been big enough to seek shelter when the storms brewed. Had Shayna ever had any protection from Patty?
His eyes were drawn to the portrait over the fireplace. James Miller had been her protection. He’d rescued her from Patty’s world, and even though the man had made mistakes along the way—mistakes the world was likely to persecute him for—Kyle knew Miller’s actions had been heroic.
And now Kyle had crashed her life, unleashing all that old pain. As a child, Shayna had been resilient enough to bounce back. As an adult, would she be strong enough to recover a second time?
Chapter Eight
First thing Friday morning, Shayna picked her way down the road, sticking to the shoulder, doing her best to avoid the slushy brown patches of ice and dirt. The ground looked as if someone had spilled a giant Coke Icee over the mountain.
Good thing her boots were designed to muck through all sorts of nature’s nastiness. It took her thirty minutes to reach Kyle’s car. It was nose down in a ditch about two miles from the cabin. The front tires were buried in mud, the hood was crunched and from the w
ay the tires listed in, she figured the front axle was significantly bent.
Stepping carefully into the ditch, she pried open the back driver’s-side door and peeked inside, finding nothing except the keys still dangling from the ignition. Bracing a knee on the backseat, she reached in and snagged them. Not that anyone could steal the car. It wasn’t going anywhere without a wrecker.
So much for sending him on his way and never hearing from him again. She had no doubt he’d turn rescuing his rental into an excuse to knock on her door and continue pushing Walker’s outlandish proposal.
Odd thing was, after last night’s debacle, she’d gladly spend hours talking about that ridiculous offer. Even that would be better than discussing how close she’d come to falling for his kiss-now-sign-later game.
After Kyle had finally left her alone last night, she’d tossed and turned until the early-morning hours, trying to come up with a game plan to get rid of him. When she’d finally dragged her groggy body out of bed, she’d bundled up and headed out here to check the bridge, hoping and praying with each step that at the lower elevation, the ice wouldn’t be such a nuisance.
No such luck.
Thanks to the steam coming off the water and the freezing wind blowing across the bridge, the road surface wore a thick coat of black ice. The half-mile span was too wide to attempt walking across, except under the most dire of emergencies. And while she wanted Kyle Anderson gone, she didn’t want it badly enough to see anyone risk life or limb.
She turned and whistled as Brinks came charging out of the woods, barking like crazy. The past couple of months had been unusually warm and dry, so the dog was loving this cold weather.
Thinking about the lack of recent rainfall sparked another idea in Shayna’s head.
It might be possible to cross the gulch on foot, down by Hunter’s Pass. Not an easy trek, but if it meant getting Kyle out of her home, she was game.
She’d need a volunteer to pick him up on the other side, someone she trusted. One person came to mind immediately: Danny Robertson. A widower with two young girls, he was one of the steadiest men she’d ever met.
Of course, he was probably working today. Even in Land’s Cross, the day after Thanksgiving was a retail tradition, and as the owner of the biggest feed and seed store in the county, Danny would be hard at it all day. It would be a huge imposition, but at this point, desperation demanded she ask.
The hike back to the cabin took only twenty minutes. Now that she had a plan, she couldn’t wait to put it into action. Brinks trotted along beside her, breaking away every now and again to chase a squirrel. By the time they escorted Kyle to Hunter’s Pass and returned to the cabin, both she and the dog should sleep like rocks.
Finally. Some good news. If she didn’t catch up on her rest before tomorrow night’s pageant, she’d be one cranky Ms. Noel.
When she reached the cabin, she noticed the smoke curling out of the chimney and the light shining in the kitchen. The scene stopped her in her tracks. It had been a long time since she’d returned to anything other than an empty home.
She patted her fingers over her heart, missing her daddy more keenly than she had in quite a while. As if sensing her sadness, Brinks dashed over and butted his head against her hip.
“Thanks for the support, boy.” She ruffled the hair between his ears, then walked around to the backyard.
The hinge on the porch screen squeaked as she let herself in, pausing to kick out of her nasty rubber boots before entering the mudroom. She hung her overcoat on the hook without breaking stride and continued into the kitchen—where she came face-to-face with Kyle, brandishing the fireplace poker like a sword.
“Shayna!” His shoulders slumped in relief as he lowered the poker to his side. “Damn it, I thought you were still upstairs asleep.”
“Nope.” Refusing to notice his cute case of bedhead or the fact that the top three buttons of his dress shirt were undone this morning, she brushed past, tossing him the car key as she went. “I went down to check on your car. It looks totaled.”
He caught the key smoothly. “You walked down that ice-covered mountain all by yourself?”
“Brinks went with me.”
“The dog doesn’t count.”
“The dog counts more than most people I can think of.” She shot him a glare, then grabbed the phone and began dialing. Her eyes tracked him as he returned the poker to its spot next to the fireplace.
After the third ring, a familiar gravelly voice filled her ear. “Robertson Feed and Seed. Charlie speaking.”
“Hey, Charlie. It’s Shayna.”
“Hey, girl. Heard you got some weather up there.”
“Yeah, between the bridge and the sinkhole, I’m penned in. Listen, is Danny there?”
“He’s around here somewhere. Hang on a sec, and I’ll find him for ya.”
“Thanks.” She waited several long minutes, concentrating on the sounds of a busy sales day filtering through the phone rather than thinking about Kyle, who had returned to the kitchen and was rattling around behind her.
Finally Danny picked up. “Hey, sweetie, you missed a great spread yesterday. How’d you weather the day?”
“Cold and cranky. You’ve got no idea how much I wish I’d been able to make it to dinner.” She could have avoided her current pickle altogether if she’d been able to stick to her original plans. “I know you’re busy today, but I need a favor. A big one.”
“Anything for you. You know that.” His immediate assurance warmed her heart. They didn’t come any better than Danny.
“Can you meet me on the north side of Hunter’s Pass?”
“Hunter’s Pass? This time of year, the path will be little more than a cow trail. What’s going on?” The question was a mixture of worry and suspicion.
“Well, the storm stranded an unexpected visitor up here, and he needs to get off the mountain. As soon as possible.”
“Shayna, are you okay? Has this guy—”
“No. No. Nothing like that.” Okay, so it was way too much like that, but she didn’t see any reason to share her embarrassment with anyone else. “But now that the storm has passed, it would be best if we weren’t stuck up here alone any longer. You know how people love to talk.”
A warm, creamy cup of coffee appeared at her elbow, startling her. She turned her head and saw Kyle, his expression blank, a cup in both hands.
“Okay, there’s obviously more going on here than you can tell me about right now.”
She wordlessly accepted the cup Kyle had doctored for her. “That’s right.”
Danny’s breath huffed through the phone line. Shayna could easily picture her abnormally tall friend towering above everyone in the store, raking his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, his mind sorting and organizing, seeking solutions to problems, looking for a way to answer her plea while still tending to his business.
Guilt started working its way through her pique. She was asking too much. “Listen, don’t worry about it. I’m sure the store is really hopping today. Mr. Anderson will just have to cool his heels one more day. The sand truck will have the bridge cleared by tomorrow.”
“Nonsense. You obviously need to get rid of this guy, or you wouldn’t have called. I can be there by noon. Can you hang in there for a couple more hours?”
“Noon is perfect. Thanks, Danny. You’re the best.”
Kyle pounced the instant she disconnected the call. “Shayna, talk to me. What’s going on?”
“The bridge is still too dangerous to cross today, and your rental’s not going anywhere under its own steam. The only other way off the mountain is on foot, so a friend of mine is gonna meet us on the other side of the gulch in a bit. I don’t suppose you had hotel reservations, did you?”
“Of course not. I wasn’t planning on staying overnight.”
“Oh, that’s right. You expected me to fall for your charm and blindly sign that paperwork so you could get back to your rich, powerful L.A. life.”
She t
ried to push past him, but he grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Shayna, last night—”
“Last night I let myself forget you were just a pawn in my father’s power play, and as a pawn, you simply do whatever you’re told. Apparently you were told to get into my pants if that’s what it took to secure my cooperation.” The faint flush creeping up his face confirmed her suspicions. Gosh, these people were something else.
“But thanks to Patty—” man, didn’t that sound odd “—I’ve got my head back on straight. You need to leave, today, and the only way to do that is on foot, so I suggest you bundle up. I’ll get you some duct tape to wrap around those fancy shoes of yours. Might be the only chance you have to get out of here without breaking your neck.”
She shrugged out of his grip and dug through the kitchen junk drawer, pulling out a roll of gray tape.
“You can’t kick me out without giving me a chance to explain.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Kyle. This is my home, and I can do whatever I damn well please.”
“Fine.” He snatched the tape from her hands. “I’ll go, but this isn’t the end of things. Not by a long shot.”
Kyle feared his lungs would explode before they reached wherever the hell Shayna was leading him. He wanted to ask her to slow down, but since her legs were a good six inches shorter than his, his pride wouldn’t allow it.
They’d been hiking up and down a pig trail at breakneck speed for nearly an hour. After fifteen minutes of trying to get her to talk to him, Kyle had given up and concentrated on not passing out. At home, he spent four days a week in the gym, religiously. He could bench press two-hundred thirty pounds and run an eight-minute mile, but scaling this mountain in a pair of tape-wrapped Italian loafers was kicking his butt.
To top it off, in an effort to stave off hypothermia, he’d piled on his suit, the coveralls, the stained sweatshirt and his wool trench. He felt like the freaking Michelin Man, waddling instead of walking.
