Kitabı oku: «Montana Passions», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

Katie woke to the smell of coffee brewing.

That was the good news.

Everything else? Not nearly so pleasant. Her mouth tasted like the bottom of someone’s old shoe. Her wrinkled wool dress gave off a distinctly musty odor. And she had a crick in her neck from sleeping on a too-fat pillow.

She let out a loud, grumpy groan—and then snapped her mouth shut. After all, there was a virtual stranger in the bed across the way—or wait. Probably not. He must be the one who’d made the coffee.

Katie sat up. She’d left the dimmer set to low, so the light was minimal, but she could see that Justin Caldwell’s narrow cot lay empty, the covers pulled up and neatly tucked in.

Anxious, suddenly, to know what time it was, to find out if the storm had ended, if it might be possible that she could go home to her own comfy house on Cedar Street, Katie threw back the covers and jumped from the old bed. Ducking under the rope that marked off her “room,” she pulled open the door to the reception area—and blinked at what she saw.

Beyond the windows, a wall of snow gleamed at her in the gray light of a cloud-thick Sunday morning. It was piled above the porch floor now. Though the wild winds of last night had died in the darkness, the snow itself continued to fall, a filmy white curtain, whispering its way down.

The clock on the wall read seven-fifteen. She picked up the phone. Silence. With a heavy sigh, she set it down again and headed for the ladies’ room, where she used the facilities, rinsed her face and made a brave effort to comb her tangled hair with her fingers.

Snowed-in without even a hairbrush. Definitely not her idea of a good time.

In the kitchen, Katie found Justin sitting at the table by the window, wearing jeans and a cable-knit red and green sweater with reindeer leaping in a line across his broad chest. On his feet were a battered pair of black-and-white lace-up canvas All-Stars.

“It’s true,” he announced at her look. “I have raided the rummage sale bags and I feel no shame.”

“Love the sweater,” she muttered glumly. “Phone’s still dead.” Beyond him, out the window, the snow kept coming down. “They won’t even be able to get the plow out in this.”

“Relax,” he advised with an easy shrug. “Have some coffee.” He toasted her with his stoneware mug. “I even found a smaller pot, so we don’t have to brew it up for a hundred every time we want a cup.” He gestured at the plateful of sandwiches on the table. “And did I mention there are plenty of sandwiches?”

“Wonderful.” She padded to the counter, poured herself some coffee, added cream from the carton in the fridge and plunked herself down in the chair opposite him.

“Better?” he asked after she’d taken a sip.

“A little. Though I’d give a good number of stale sandwiches for a toothbrush. And a comb.” She put a hand to her tangled hair. “If we’re stuck here much longer, I may consider raiding the museum displays for some long-gone pioneer lady’s sterling silver dresser set.”

He looked very pleased with himself—and, now she thought about it, he looked as if he’d shaved. And his hair was wet—was that shampoo she smelled?

She set down her cup. “You found a razor in the rummage sale bags—and you washed your hair.”

He laughed. It was a low, velvety kind of sound and it played along her skin like a physical caress. “Was that an accusation?”

She sat back in her chair and regarded him with suspicion. “You’re much too cheerful.”

“And you are very cranky.” He took another bite of his sandwich, chewed and swallowed. “If you don’t be nice, I won’t let you have what’s in that bag over by the sink.”

She glanced where he’d indicated. The bag sat near the edge: a plain brown paper bag. “What’s in it?”

He pushed the plate of sandwiches toward her. “Eat first.”

She reached for a sandwich, raised it to her lips—and lowered it without taking a bite. “Just tell me. Is there a hairbrush in there?”

He nodded. “More than one. And combs. And a few toothbrushes—still wrapped in cellophane. And travel-size toothpaste. And sample bottles of shampoo and lotion, boxed-up shower caps and miniature bars of soap—oh, and did I mention razors and travel-size shaving cream cans? Looks like someone held up a drugstore, raided a motel supply closet and gave what they stole to the Historical Society rummage sale.”

“Shower caps,” Katie repeated wistfully.

Justin grunted. “Yeah. No need for those.”

“Since we don’t have a shower.”

“But remember. It could be worse. The heat could be out and there could be no wood for the stove. The ladies from the Historical Society could have failed to leave us these delicious sandwiches.” He waved one at her.

“You have a surprisingly vivid imagination.”

“Thank you. And what I meant is, we’re doing okay here. And after you eat, you even get to brush your teeth.”

She supposed he had a point. “You’re right. I should take my own advice from yesterday and keep a more positive outlook on our situation.”

He faked a stern expression. “See that you do.”

Katie ate her sandwich and took a second, as well. Her spirits had lifted. If she wasn’t getting out of here today, at least she’d have clean teeth and combed hair.

Once she’d spent twenty minutes in the ladies’ room using various items from the brown paper bag, Katie went to the storage area and chose a bulky sweater and a pair of worn corduroy pants. She even found thick gray socks and jogging shoes that were only a half size too big.

“Lookin’ good,” Justin remarked with a wink when she returned to the kitchen where he sat reading yesterday’s newspaper.

“The fit leaves something to be desired—but I have to admit, I’m a lot more comfortable.”

“And less cranky.”

“Yes. That, too.” She gave him a smile, thinking how even-tempered and helpful he’d been since she got them into this mess. Really, she could have been stranded with worse. She added, in an effort to show him her friendlier side, “While I was choosing my outfit, I found some old board games. Maybe we can haul them out later. I play a mean game of checkers.”

“Sounds good.” The paper rustled as he turned the page.

“Justin…”

He lowered the paper and gave her an easy smile.

“I just want you to know I appreciate how well you’re taking all this.”

He gestured toward the snow beyond the window. “This is nothing, believe me.”

Really, this positive-attitude approach could be carried too far. “Oh. So you’re telling me this kind of thing happens to you all the time?”

“Only once before.”

“Oh. Well. Only once. That’s nothing—and you’re joking, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not. When I was thirteen, we lived in this vacation-home development in northern Nevada. I got snowed-in there alone for a week.”

She couldn’t have heard right. “Alone for a week—at thirteen?” He nodded. “But what about your mom?”

“She was supposed to be home, but she didn’t make it. The situation was similar to yesterday’s—a sudden storm that turned out much worse than predicted. It got bad fast and she couldn’t get to me.”

“But…where was she?”

His expression turned doubtful. “You sure you want to hear this? It’s not that exciting. And as you can see by looking at me today, I got through it just fine.”

She’d been planning to go check on Buttercup. But that could wait a minute or two. She pulled out a chair and slid into it. “I do want to hear. Honestly.”

He studied her for a long moment, as if gauging the sincerity of her request. Finally, he folded the paper and set it aside. “At the time, we were living in this one-room cabin not far from Lake Tahoe.”

“You and your mom?”

“That’s right. The cabin was one of those ski chalet designs. On a two-acre lot. Intended as a vacation home. It had a single big, open room with lots of windows, the roof pitched high, a sleeping loft above?”

“Yes. I can picture it.”

“My mother was in real estate at that point. She went off to show someone another cabin identical to ours. A bad storm blew in. She couldn’t get back to me, so I was stuck on my own. It was…a learning experience, let me tell you.”

“Yikes. I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah. It was pretty grim, looking back on it. The phone line went dead the first day. Then, the next day, the power went out. But I had plenty of candles and a woodstove for heat. I kept the fire going and tucked into the canned goods when I got hungry.”

“But what did you do, alone for all that time?”

One corner of his full mouth quirked up. “I got pretty damn bored, now you mention it. Bored enough that I taught myself solitaire with a dog-eared deck of cards I found in a kitchen drawer. When that got old, I started working my way through all my schoolbooks. For a thirteen-year-old boy to do every problem in his math book for recreation, that’s desperation.”

“But there was plenty of canned food, you said?”

He made a low sound in his throat. “For some reason, my mom had a case each of canned peaches and cream of mushroom soup. To this day, I can’t stand the sight or smell of either.”

“I’ll bet—but what I can’t imagine is how you made it through something like that.” She scanned his face. “Thirteen,” she said softly. “It’s too horrible. You must have been scared to death.”

He shrugged. “The wood lasted ‘til the end of the sixth day. I got out the axe and chopped up my mother’s oak-veneer kitchen table and chairs. Once I’d burned them, I kind of lost heart. The fire died and I piled every blanket in the place on my bed and burrowed in there for the duration. I have to admit, by that time I was getting pretty damn terrified.”

“But then you were rescued.”

“That’s right. The snowplow arrived at noon the next day with my mother, in her Blazer, right behind it. She was seriously freaked, I can tell you.”

Katie almost wished his mother could have been there, with them, right then. She’d have had a thing or two to say to her. “Your mother was freaked. What about you? You were the child, for heaven’s sake. How could she leave you alone like that?”

He let out a low chuckle. “Katie. Settle down.”

Easier said than done. His story had seriously hit home for her. She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them, feeling antsy and angry and definitely not settled down. “I’m sorry, but it just, well, it fries me, you know? Children are so vulnerable. Parents have to look out for them, take care of them, pay them some attention now and then…”

He sat back in his chair. “Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about more than what happened to me when I was thirteen?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle and looked out the window at the falling snow, blinking against the glare of all that shimmery white.

“Katie?”

She faced him. “You’re right,” she confessed. “I was thinking about how things were for me, before Addy came and got me, when my parents were still alive.”

“Rough?” Those blue eyes had a softness in them, as if he understood—and from what he’d just told her, she had a feeling he did.

She hugged herself harder. “I rarely saw them. They enjoyed traveling. They had a flat in London, the family brownstone in Philadelphia, villas in France and Italy. And where they didn’t have a flat or a villa, they had friends who had one. You know the words. ‘Globe-trotting.’ ‘Jet-setting.’ My parents were the beautiful people. They came from fine families and the money was always there. They never had to work. So they didn’t. They didn’t even have to take care of their child. There were nannies and governesses, plenty of hired help for that.”

“So you weren’t left alone,” Justin said, his eyes direct. Knowing.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But you were lonely.”

“Exactly.” She looked down. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her middle, they made her rib cage ache. With a slow, deep breath, she let go of herself and folded her hands on the tabletop. “I never knew a real family—‘til Addy and Caleb.” She smiled to herself. “And Riley. He was all grown up by the time I came to them, twenty-three, when I moved to the ranch. How many young guys in their twenties have time for a gawky fourteen-year-old girl? Not many. But Riley did. He was so good to me, you know?” Justin made a sound of understanding low in his throat. “What the Douglases gave me was something so important. The two big things I’d never had. Their time. Their attention. Riley taught me to ride—”

“On Buttercup.” He grinned.

“That’s right.” She glanced toward the door to the back porch, thinking she should get out there and check on the old mare. Soon.

But it was so…comfortable. Sitting here with Justin, talking about the things that had made them who they were. “So you don’t blame your mother for leaving you alone in that cabin?”

He shook his head. “It’s tough for a woman on her own, with a kid. She’d been left high and dry, pregnant with me by the no-good bastard who used her and then walked away from her when she told him she was having his baby. She was…a good mother and she took damn good care of me. But there was no getting around that she had to make a living and that meant when the storm blew in, I was at the cabin, and she wasn’t. It’s the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.”

“It’s the kind of thing that could scar a child for life, that’s what it is.”

He pressed a fist to his chest right over the row of reindeer prancing across the front of his sweater. “That’s me. Deeply damaged.”

She tipped her head to the side, considering. “Well. I guess it’s good that you can joke about it.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It happened. I survived. And I’ve done just fine for myself, though I never had a father, never had much formal education and started, literally, from scratch.”

“In…development?” She laughed. “What does that mean, exactly, to be a ‘developer.’”

“Well, a developer ‘develops.’”

“Sheesh. It’s all clear to me now.”

He grinned. “Property, in my case. We start with several viable acres and we develop a project to build tract homes. Or say I got hold of just the right business-district lot. I’d start putting the people and financing together to build an office complex. A developer is someone who gets the money and the people and the plans—and most important, the right property—and puts it all together.”

He hadn’t told her anything she couldn’t have figured out herself, but she was discovering she enjoyed listening to him talk. She liked the way he looked at her. As if he never wanted to look away.

She said, “Like Caleb’s ski resort? He’s got the property and you’ll work with him to ‘develop’ it.”

“That’s right. But don’t misunderstand. It’s his project, his baby. He’ll be in charge, though I’ll be involved every step of the way.”

She looked down at her folded hands. She was just about to tell him how much the project meant to Caleb. Caleb was getting older and Katie knew that sometimes he worried he was losing his edge—but no.

Katie kept her mouth shut. Yes, she was finding she liked Justin. A lot. However, the last thing Caleb would want was for her to go blabbing his secret doubts to a business associate.

She glanced up and found Justin studying her again, his dark head tipped to the side. “Question.”

“Ask.”

“Yesterday. Didn’t you mention that you went to college in Colorado?”

“That’s right. CU.”

“I’ll bet you had straight A’s in high school.”

She gave him a pert little nod. “You would win that bet.”

“High scores on the SAT?”

“Very.”

“Then why not Bryn Mawr, like your mother, and Adele Douglas? You’d have been a legacy, right—pretty much guaranteed to get in—even if your grades and test scores hadn’t been outstanding?”

“I liked CU. They have a fine curriculum. Plus, it was closer to home.”

“Home being here, in Thunder Canyon.”

“That’s right—and you? Where did you go to college?”

“I told you. No real formal education. I went to real estate school and then got my broker’s license a couple of years later.”

“You started in real estate because of your mother’s connections?”

He chuckled at that, though there wasn’t a lot of humor in the sound. “My mother had no connections. She’d been out of the real estate business for years when I started. It didn’t work out for her. Like a lot of things…”

She might have asked, What things? But he wore a closed-in, private kind of look at that moment and she didn’t want to pry. She coaxed, “So you started in real estate…”

He blinked and the brooding shadows left his eyes. “Yeah. By the time I was twenty-five, I’d branched into property development.”

“A self-made man.”

“Smile when you say that.”

She was smiling. But to make sure he noticed, she smiled even wider. And then her conscience reminded her that she had Buttercup to think of. She stood.

He put on a hurt look. “Just like that. You’re leaving. Was it something I said?”

“What you said was fascinating. Honestly. And I’ll be back soon.”

“The question is, where do you think you’re going?” He tipped his head toward the window and the still-falling snow outside. “I hate to break it to you, but I doubt you could get beyond the front porch.”

“I want to check on Buttercup.”

He rose. “I’ll come with you.”

She started to argue—that it was cold out there and she could take care of the job herself and he didn’t really need to go. But then again, it wasn’t as if he had a full schedule or anything.

He ushered her out to the back porch, where they put on their antique outerwear. Then they pushed open the door to the breezeway.

The snow had piled four feet or so on either side, sloping to the icy ground, leaving a path maybe a foot wide. “After you,” Justin said. “Watch your step. It looks pretty slick.”

In the shed, Buttercup snorted in greeting and came right to Katie. She stroked the old mare’s forehead and blew in her nostrils. “How’re you doing, sweetie? Kind of lonely out here?” The horse whickered in response. “And I’ll bet you wish I had some oats. Sorry. That hay’ll have to do you for a while.” She patted Buttercup’s smooth golden neck and pulled out one of the brushes she’d brought from inside. It was hardly a grooming brush, but nothing else was available.

She brushed the old mare’s knotted mane and spoke to her in low whispers for a while. Then she and Justin broke open another bale of hay.

“Watch out,” he warned when they were spreading it around a little. “It’s damned amazing how much manure one horse can produce in a sixteen-hour period.”

“It is at that.”

“Just don’t step backward without looking behind you first.”

She found a shovel in the corner and took it to him. “Get to work.”

“Shoveling horse manure?”

“That’s right.”

“But where am I going to put it?” The gleam in his eyes said he already had a pretty good idea.

“Just shovel it up, carry it out those open main doors there and toss it as far as you can into the snow.”

“That snow’s piling up pretty high out there. This could be dangerous.”

“So pay attention when you throw it. Wouldn’t want it to come flying right back at you.”

He pretended to grumble, but he started right in. She looked around and found another shovel. With both of them scooping and tossing, they had the mess cleared away in no time at all.

As they went to put the shovels up, Justin remarked that if the snow got much higher, swamping out the shed was going to be a real challenge.

“We’ll manage,” she told him. “Somehow…” She set her shovel against the wall and turned so fast, she almost ran into him.

“Watch it.” He laughed down low in his throat, the sound emerging on a cloud of mist.

She laughed, too.

And then, all at once, she wasn’t laughing and neither was he. They were just looking at each other—staring, really. And the cold air seemed to shimmer between them.

Oh, my goodness. Those lips of his…

Too full, for a man’s lips. Really. Too full and yet…

Exactly perfect.

If only she didn’t already know how delicious those lips felt pressed against her own. Maybe, if she didn’t know what a great kisser he was, she wouldn’t be standing here, sighing out a big breath of misty air and lifting her mouth to him.

He said her name, on a fog of breath. “Katie…”

She was so busy imagining what it was going to feel like when his lips met hers, that she didn’t register how close Buttercup was behind him—not until the mare let out a low whinny and head-butted Justin a good one.

“Hey!” He surged forward, right into Katie. She went over backward and down they went into the newly spread hay. He ended up on top of her.

Katie blinked up at him and he looked down at her and there was a lovely, strange, breath-held kind of moment. He was so…warm and solid, pressed all along the length of her—and heavy, too, but in a good way. He looked deep in her eyes and he said her name again and she held up her lips to welcome his kiss.

But Buttercup wasn’t finished. She bent her head and started nipping the back of Justin’s baggy old coat.

He rolled away from Katie to glare up at the mare. “Knock it off.”

Buttercup whinnied again and clopped off toward the double doors. A moment later, she was outside beneath the overhang, lipping up snow.

Justin canted up on an elbow and looked down at Katie. “That animal has it in for me.”

Katie was thinking that she really ought to sit up. Her hat had come off when Justin landed on top of her. She knew she had hay in her hair. But she felt kind of…lax. Lax and lazy and oh-so-comfortable, lying there in the hay on the frozen dirt floor.

“Hmm,” she said, and the sound was every bit as low and lazy as she was feeling. “Maybe Buttercup thinks you’re up to no good.”

He leaned in closer. She gazed up at his thick black lashes and his red nose and that wonderful, soft, oh-so-kissable mouth. “I’m perfectly harmless.”

“Perfect?” she heard herself answer, her tone as husky and intimate as his. “Maybe. Harmless? Oh, I don’t think so…”

There was a silence, a quiet so intense she could hear the soft sound of the snow falling outside and the faint rustling noises Buttercup made beyond the shed doors. Slowly, his mouth curved into a smile. And his eyes…

Oh, it was just like right before he kissed her, in front of everyone, back in the hall. His eyes kind of sucked on her. They drew her down.

“I don’t think that mare wants me to kiss you.”

And she probably shouldn’t kiss him. “Well, Justin. Okay, then. Let me up and we’ll—”

He cut her off by placing a gloved finger against her lips. “Not yet.” She probably should have protested, told him firmly to let her up.

But she didn’t. She watched, entranced, as he lifted his hand, took the tip of the glove’s finger between his white teeth and pulled it off. He dropped the glove beside her and then he touched her lips again—skin to skin this time. That brush of a caress made her mouth tingle, made her whole body yearn.

He let his hand drift over until it lay against the side of her face. “Soft,” he whispered. “So pretty and soft…” He lowered his mouth.

She expected a hot, soul-shattering kiss. But he only brushed his lips sweetly, one time, across hers—and then he lifted away again and she was looking in those haunting eyes once more. “What’s another kiss? Between a man and his wife.”

Now she felt truly torn. She longed to kiss him—yet she knew it was probably a bad idea. “We shouldn’t…get anything started, you know? We hardly know each other and—”

“But that’s just it. I want to know you better. What about you, Katie? Do you want to know me?”

She did! And that seemed…dangerous, somehow. That seemed foolish and scary and simply not right. “I—I don’t really want to start anything casual, you know?” She found her throat had gone desert-dry. She paused to swallow and then rushed to continue before he could do anything that would make her thoughts scatter and fly away. “I know it’s probably every guy’s fantasy to get stranded with a woman who, uh, knows what she wants and knows how to get it—not that I don’t know what I want. It’s just, well, I don’t want…that.”

He only smiled. “That, huh?”

“Yes.”

“That…what?”

Oh, this wasn’t going well. “Look. I just don’t want to start anything I know I’m not going to finish. Okay?”

“Katie?”

She glared at him. “What?”

“It’s only a kiss.”

“Oh, I just don’t—”

“Katie. Do you want to kiss me?”

“We’ve just about talked this to death, don’t you think?”

“But do you want to kiss me?”

“Oh, all right, damn it.” Katie rarely swore. But right then, damn it seemed the only thing to say.

“But do you?”

“Yes.” The word came out breathless-sounding. “I do.”

“Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

Katie sighed once and she sighed again.

Her hands slipped up to encircle his neck and she held on for dear life as he played with her mouth. With that clever tongue of his, he traced the seam where her lips met, teasingly at first and then with a more insistent pressure. She couldn’t resist him—didn’t want to resist him. Shyly, she let her lips relax and he swept that tongue of his inside.

It was a shocking, thrilling thing, the way Justin Caldwell could use that mouth of his. And it was a truly wonderful thing, the way his body felt, so warm and close, pressed against her side, the way he smelled of soap and shaving cream.

His cold nose touched hers and his hot breath burned her icy cheek. As he kissed her, he stroked her with his hands. That was wonderful, too. Each separate caress left a burning trail of longing in its wake. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled a little, so they were both on their sides, and his hand moved lower, to the small of her back. He rubbed there, a sweet, firm pressure, soothing muscles cramped from sleeping on that lumpy ancient mattress last night.

She moaned and pressed herself all the tighter against him. His hand swept lower. He cupped her bottom and tucked her up into him.

That was when she felt the hard ridge in his jeans.

Oh, my.

Time to stop.

Time to stop right now.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and tore her mouth away from his. “That’s enough.” She looked at his face and she feared…

What?

She realized she didn’t know. Her fear was formless, and yet she did feel it.

Remember the others, she reminded herself. They were after your money. They hurt you. He could so easily do the same…

But even as she thought of that, she didn’t believe it. Oh, he might hurt her, yes. But in her heart, she simply didn’t believe it would be for her money.

Which probably made her the biggest fool in Montana.

He loosened his hold on her. With a deep sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re right,” he said. “Enough.”

She slid her hands down to his hard chest. Beneath her palms, she could feel his heat, and his heart racing. His breath came out in ragged puffs—just like hers.

She whispered, “We’d better go in.”

He touched her hair. She thought that she’d never felt anything quite so lovely in her whole life as that—the tender caress of his hand on her hair. He threaded his chilled bare fingers up under the tangled strands and cupped the back of her neck. She took his cue and tipped her head up to look at him.

“Yeah,” he said. His mouth was swollen from what he’d been doing to her, his eyes twin blue flames. “We’ll go in. Now.” He pressed one more quick, hard kiss on her lips—as if he realized he shouldn’t, but couldn’t resist. Her mouth burned at the contact.

Then he reached across her to grab his discarded glove. Rolling away from her, he rose. She scuttled to a sitting position.

“Here,” he said.

She stared at his outstretched hand. It seemed…too dangerous to take it.

Her gaze tracked upward, to his face. She knew by the heated look in his eyes that if she reached out, he would only pull her close and start kissing her again—and the thrumming of her blood through her body left her no doubt that she would end up kissing him right back.

No. Not going to happen. She’d known this man less than twenty-four hours. And she refused to end up rolling around naked with him on a bed of hay in a freezing old shed.

“I can manage, thanks.” She pulled off a glove and felt in her hair. It was just as she’d suspected: threaded through with bits of hay. “Oh, just look at me…”

Justin let his hand drop to his side. “I am.” His voice was husky and low. And in his eyes she saw desire—real desire. For her.

And not only desire, but also something dark and lonely, something that might have been regret.

Katie’s mouth went dust-dry. This was danger—a danger far beyond any threat a mere fortune hunter might pose. Peril to her tender heart, to her very soul.

No doubt about it. She wanted him—with a kind of bone-melting yearning, with a merciless desire the like of which she’d never known before.

It was…a physical aching. A hunger in the blood.

Oh, she would have to watch herself with him. She would have to exercise a little caution, or she’d be in way over her head.

Somewhere far back in her mind, a taunting voice whispered, Katie. Come on. You’re already over your head. Over your head and falling fast…