
JOANNE ROCK
A Blazing Little Christmas Part 2
Contents
Find moose-shaped form for holiday lights. Finish invitations. Hang Christmas cards in foyer. Test new cocktail recipes (ask Trish when she's free so I don't get toasted alone). On and on it went. Heather Dillinger's preholiday party to-do list covered four single-spaced pages on her computer screen, her schedule of expectations and obligations as vast as her mother's guest list. Not that her mother had asked for Heather's help, but she certainly expected it the same way she'd assumed her Type A daughter would jump in and help every year since she'd turned---what, twelve years old?
The problem that came with a lot of competence---and perhaps taking a smidge of pride in the fact---was that Heather had snowballed into the family workhorse.
Which reminded her. She needed to find a recipe for a drink called a snowball. It would be pretty to serve a white concoction on a silver tray full of prism-like snowflakes---the closest she'd ever come to the real thing in Savannah, Georgia.
"Have you mentioned the party to Gary, dear?" Loralei Dillinger-Digby floated into Heather's home office on a cloud of White Linen perfume, her arms full of the lemon-yellow tulle she insisted Heather use on her summer collection of household furnishings. Heather's start-up fabric company, The Attic, was enjoying its second year in the black and her mother was working hard to put her creative stamp on that success, not realizing she influenced Heather's designs without lifting a finger. Loralei Dillinger-Digby had that effect on people.
"Mother, I'm not inviting my former fiancé." The list in front of Heather's eyes seemed to stretch and grow as she anticipated the inevitable next ten suggestions for the annual event that had morphed from a family celebration into a neighborhood open house, into an opportunity to showcase her mother's coveted historic house on one of the city's oldest thoroughfares.
The thought reminded Heather she needed to hunt down that snowball recipe very soon. The party was next week and it was already Tuesday. Sampling each attempt at the recipe beforehand would definitely be in order if she expected to make it through this planning with her sanity in check.
"Gary is a wonderful catch, Heather, and if he's not to your liking we might as well at least steer him toward someone we know."
"We won't be steering him anywhere." She clicked closed her to-do list to face her mother, only to discover Mom pulling samples out of Heather's swatch books faster than she scooped up sales at Neiman's. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to find a color that would complement Trish's eyes so you can whip her up something suitable to wear for the party. Don't you think Gary would just love her?" Her mother turned to wave a scrap of ice-blue silk and a roll of silver piping. "How about something along this line?"
Heather's heart squeezed tight at the suggestion---for so many reasons she could barely untangle them all to address every facet that bothered her. She'd broken off an engagement with a wonderful guy three months ago and her family couldn't let it go. They'd loved Gary---a golf pro with a summer home on Hilton Head that had her mother planning vacations a decade in advance---and Heather's realization that she didn't love the man had caused a huge family uproar. Bad enough she'd been personally devastated to realize she didn't feel as deeply about him as she should. But having to defend the choice every day while trying to run a business and planning the party had been seriously draining.
Screw the snowball recipe. She'd head directly to the bourbon.
"Mom, Trish is my sister---"
"Half sister."
"---and she'd never go out with my ex-fiancé, even if he wasn't totally wrong for her. He's a golfer. She's in a rock-and-roll band."
Her mother's grip on the silk tightened.
"You never learned that opposites attract?"
An image of a tall, dark and killer-looking military man sprang immediately to mind along with one hot weekend Heather had never been able to forget. Seductive memories swamped her in a fast-forward scroll the second she let thoughts stray to that man. She'd tried her damnedest to forget Lieutenant Jared Tyler Murphy since he'd left for a stint overseas without even waking her to say goodbye...
Hell yes, she understood exactly how much opposites could attract and it pissed her off to no end when she'd never been able to settle the score with him. She found herself thinking of him more recently since she'd broken up with Gary. Part of her blamed her inability to settle down on the fact that she'd never put her past to rest with Jared.
"You're right, Mom." She spoke through clenched teeth, unwilling to release her jaw for fear a year's worth of stress would come flying out of her mouth and Heather's workaholic tendencies truly weren't her mother's fault. "I wish Trish all the best if she'd like to date Gary, but I don't have the time to make a dress before the party."
Trish could handle their mother's insane suggestion in a minute with one withering look, so Heather didn't need to borrow stress over nothing. It was just the party and the family expectations that were getting to her, especially with Heather's canceled wedding date looming.
While her mother launched into a tirade about the need for a good dress, Heather turned to check her e-mail after the chime of a note arriving in her in-box. She didn't recognize the sender---NiteStalker12---but she figured it had to be spam since she didn't know anyone with that screen name. Still, the subject line intrigued her.
Have you seen snow yet? Probably an ad pitch for a ski weekend up north, something that was worth a read considering the alternative entertainment was her mother's wheedling attempts to interest Heather in the dress project. Didn't she know Trish would rather wear distressed denim and leopard print than blue silk?
But all thoughts of the dress, the party and her mother dissipated as she read the contents of the note.
Heather,
After our first snowfall this year, I got thinking about you. I hope I'm not out of line contacting you after all this time, but according to the articles I found on you and your business---congratulations on that, by the way---it sounds like you've remained unattached. If that's true and you want to see a snowfall firsthand, I'd really appreciate the chance to see you again this Christmas. No strings attached, obviously. I live close to a nice bed-and-breakfast and I can get you a room there so it's not awkward. I know this is out of the blue, Heather, but it is the season for making peace and I never could forget you....
Jared
At the end of the note, he included a few details---a phone number for a place called the Timberline Lodge and some flight times out of Savannah if she wanted to make the trek to Lake Placid, New York, to see him.
Her heart was beating so fast she thought she'd launch into cardiac arrest. Jared wanted to see her again? Well, déjà vu, since she'd just been thinking about him. But maybe that wasn't such a coincidence since they'd met during the holiday season.
"So I assume from the long, drawn-out silence that you're coming around to my way of thinking?" Her mother laid the blue silk on Heather's keyboard before she could close the e-mail, but thankfully, her mother didn't take any notice of the invitation from the One-Who-Got-Away.
The only man to ever leave her wanting more. Maybe that's what had upset her most about Jared's hasty exit from her life. He'd gotten to her the way no other man ever had and it hurt to think he'd been able to walk away without looking back. Until now...
"Actually, I am." Heather didn't need to compare her four-page to-do list to Jared Tyler Murphy's sparse invitation five years too late. She'd already made up her mind that spending time with the ghost of her Christmas past would be too interesting to pass up. Especially in light of her former fiancé's inevitable appearance at the family holiday festivities. "I was thinking that you seem to have a lot of great ideas for the party and it is your party after all."
Her mother nodded, a smile curving lips carefully drawn in fuchsia pencil.
"I'm so glad you agree---"
"So I think it's only right you take the reins this year and do it all the way you'd like." Heather knew most of the work was done anyhow---her four-page list had been more than double that last week---but still she savored her mother's moment of obvious dismay at the possibility of being outmaneuvered.
"Honestly, Heather, I'm sure---"
"I just got an invitation to the mountains this weekend, Mom." She grinned, enticed by the prospect of escape from obligation and lovingly pushy relatives for a few days. And the idea of settling an old score tantalized her more than it should.
Loralei appeared ready to breathe fire as she drew her shoulders back and pursed her lips tight, but Heather fully acknowledged she might be exaggerating the moment. Trouble was, she had one-upped her mom so few times in her life she had to make the most of it.
"You're not serious."
Heather's gaze flicked back to the screen and the promise of a little sensual revenge on her partner from the best weekend fling imaginable. A weekend fling that had pretty much ruined her for all other men from a sex point of view since he'd never given her the chance to take the relationship to its natural burn-out conclusion.
"Mom, I'm very serious. I'm going to Lake Placid to watch a real live snowfall."
And, with any luck, she'd come home next week with a little of that northern ice on her heart where a very real wound used to be.
\*
Jared Murphy's breath whooshed out of his lungs and he could have sworn someone took a crowbar to the backs of his knees when he spotted Heather Dillinger. Five years had passed since he'd last seen her asleep in her bed, naked and spooned against him at five-thirty in the morning before he left for a yearlong stint in Afghanistan. But she still had the same effect on him even after all this time, a powerful surge of primal interest that left him struggling for a rational thought.
Five years ago, he had tried convincing himself it was the beer goggles that had made him think she was the hottest woman he'd ever seen. Now, stone-cold sober and freezing his ass off outside the small municipal airport, he knew better.
"Heather." He wasn't sure if he spoke her name or just thought it, but she looked his way as she cleared the fence, tugging a small overnight bag on wheels behind her.
His Georgia peach. And yes, he'd actually called her that in those shared forty-eight hours that had burned hot in his brain for months and then years afterward. Her hair was longer than he remembered, the wavy chestnut mass tied close to the ends with a green velvet ribbon that trailed over her shoulder. Her dark wool coat grazed her calves, the tie cinching her small waist and accentuating her curves even through layers of winter clothes.
"This is incredible." She pulled off a pair of oversize amber shades and smiled in a way that would have warmed any man's heart.
Except that, as he watched her peer around in wonder at the small parking lot in the middle of the woods, he realized she wasn't talking about their reunion being incredible.
She only had eyes for the snow.
He definitely had to get his head out of the past if he wanted any chance with this woman. They'd fallen into bed together too fast last time, unsettling all the traditional rules of dating. He wouldn't make the same mistake this weekend.
"You like it?" He took the suitcase from her as she watched a handful of new flakes land on her palm.
"It's fluffier than I imagined." She brushed the melting snow away and met his gaze for the first time. "Nice to see you again, Lieutenant Murphy."
Her blue eyes remained straightforward, but he thought he heard something a bit "off" in her tone. Did she have mixed feelings about seeing him again? Or maybe she just thought he had appalling manners since she was standing in a snow squall without a hat or gloves.
"It's Captain now, actually. And it's good to see you, too. Let me walk you to the truck before you freeze." He nodded toward a silver 4x4 he used around town and they made their way through a handful of other vehicles toward it. Seeing how many cars had miniature wreaths attached to their front grills next to his bare fender reminded him how little he'd celebrated the season in recent years.
Stowing her suitcase in the extended cab, he helped her into the passenger seat and figured this had to be the most awkward reunion of his life. They were strangers who'd slept together, people from totally different walks of life. But---bottom line---he had to see her again.
"So you live up here now?" She craned her neck to see the peak of Whiteface as he pulled out of the lot and onto the main route. Holiday tunes filled the cab.
"I'm from downstate originally, but the scenery is nice up here. My uncle had a cabin in the mountains when I was a kid and I always liked it. He left it to me last year and I've been finding local work so I can stay."
He still had family downstate, but he didn't have all that much in common with his sisters who were all married with kids. He'd sort of disconnected in his years overseas. This place now felt more like him and his first investment was already paying off nicely with the demand for ski properties increasing. He'd been purchasing plots around town to build new or refurbish old cabins.
"You're out of the military?" Her voice carried that cryptic tone again, the odd note he couldn't identify earlier when she'd said it was good to see him.
"Yes." He was proud of his time served, but he could definitely understand the high burn-out factor. The stuff he'd seen would stay with him his whole life. "I still fly a little. I'm on standby for a Medivac copter and I do some rescue work on the mountains."
"So you've been out of the service for a while?" She kept her eyes trained out the windshield, as if mesmerized by the miles of pine trees drooping under the weight of snow. They passed a handful of houses with inflatable snowmen in the front yard and decorated trees on their porches.
"One year." It had been strange adjusting to his life after he got out, but he didn't plan to share the sleepless nights and a sort of survivor's guilt he sometimes experienced. That wouldn't exactly launch this reunion in the right direction.
"It's been a long time since we saw each other," she observed lightly, folding her hands in her lap. The backs of her knuckles were red from the cold. "I was surprised to hear from you."
Jared sensed the need to tread carefully, unsure of the emotional undercurrents he suspected were at work between them.
"No more surprised than I was that you agreed to come up here." He still couldn't believe she'd said yes after the way they'd parted with virtually no goodbye. All these years he'd wondered if she'd held a grudge about that, but she seemed genuinely pleased to be here if a little distant. Reserved.
"The timing turned out to be fortuitous." She rubbed her hands together. "I only wish I brought gloves."
He steered the truck onto the long driveway that would take them to the Timberline Lodge, a five-star property that drew guests from all over the world.
"You can pick up some clothes at the lodge, or you're welcome to wear a pair of my gloves. I can pick you up some things at my place and bring them back here when we meet up for dinner." He pointed out the lodge as they neared the building. "I made reservations in the dining room here, but we can go somewhere else if you'd rather."
He didn't want to sound presumptuous about dinner or anything else for that matter. He was determined to prove to her he wasn't the same guy he'd been five years ago---a live wire who thrived on the thrill of the moment. He'd talked her out of her clothes long before he'd considered how wrong that was when he had to ship out forty-eight hours later.
These days, he wanted to show her there was a hell of a lot more to him than that. And it didn't hurt that having her here for the holiday might help him banish a few ghosts of Christmas past.
"You're leaving?" She tore her gaze away from the lodge to look at him. "So soon?"
She sounded genuinely surprised and he hoped he wasn't playing it too conservative. Just sitting next to her in his truck cab was seriously turning him on. And oh, man, there were some big-time memories associated with this woman. Her lips were slicked over with something shiny that drew attention to the perfect bow shape, the luscious indent in the center of the top lip calling him to take a taste.
He'd done that and so much more with her mouth before...
He cleared his throat and willed away thoughts that would make him start sweating if he didn't get a handle on himself.
"I figured you would want to get settled---"
"Then you must not remember me very well." Grinning, she wiped clean a fogged-over spot on her window that the defroster had missed. "I'm not the type to settle. I've only got a weekend here and there's so much I'd like to do. I'd be surprised if I'll even be able to sleep tonight."
She sent him a look that sizzled over him like a fresh sunburn, reminding him they hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time when they'd last been together. They'd both been keyed-up. Wild. Hungry.
But her glance disappeared faster than it had arrived and he wondered if he'd read into the whole thing. Damn but he sucked at playing the gentleman with this woman.
"In that case, I'll put your bag inside and let them know you're here while you think about what you'd like to do." He parked the truck and pocketed the keys. "Just name your pleasure, and we're there."
"Really?" Her blue eyes seemed to light from within as she considered the prospect. "I'm going to hold you to the promise of giving me my pleasure, but first I'm going to find out if this is the kind of snow you can use for a snowball fight."
She was out of the truck and in the parking lot a second later, her boots kicking up a snowy rooster's tail in her wake as she ran. He scraped his chin off the steering wheel at her deliberate use of provocative words---damn it, that had been deliberate---and pulled her suitcase out of the back. He had almost recovered from swallowing his tongue when a snowball pelted him hard between the shoulder blades.
Heather's hands had warmed up enough to make only one snowball but thankfully, her aim was perfect.
It felt good to nail her former lover right in the middle of his sexy-as-hell shoulders, especially after the way he'd played it so cool with her from the moment she'd stepped off the plane. Just what exactly did he have in mind to invite her all this way after all this time? Heaven knows he hadn't sent out any sex vibes the way he had once upon a time....
\*
"Excuse me." She sauntered up to the mega-hot Army-man in camo who'd been watching her all evening from a darkened corner table on a patio overlooking dark Georgia marshlands.
He'd been drinking with another camo-clad hottie up until about half an hour ago when his buddy left the outdoor bar with a squealing blonde draped around him like a wet towel. Heather had thought Mr. Eyes-All-OverHer would finally make his move then, but he remained in his seat, his boots propped on a nearby stool as he tipped back his beer and stared unapologetically at her.
The season had been warm that year and the managers had brought in a rock band that cranked out butchered holiday tunes while waitresses wearing reindeer antlers served candy cane martinis.
"Yes?" He didn't bother to stand, his manners definitely not of the old-school Southern variety. He rattled a low-hanging crepe myrtle branch between his fingers where the garland-laden foliage crept over the back of his seat.
"I can't help but notice you've been staring at me all night." She'd like to think the martini she'd had earlier made her bold, but she tended to act on instinct anyway, a habit engrained in her head years earlier.
"You've been putting on quite a show." Camo-man grinned and there was something wildly feral about the display of white teeth in the dark. They were far from the dance floor here, and this part of the patio had grown deserted as more of the bar's patrons came under the spell of the oddly hypnotic, guitar-charged Christmas music.
"Excuse me?"
His big boots slid off the stool where he'd propped them and he unfolded himself from his chair to stand. She'd misjudged his height from his slouch and now she felt the full impact of the man, the muscle and the uniform.
She swallowed.
"You don't have to excuse yourself with me." He reached out to touch her cheek with the back of one knuckle in a move that was too familiar by half and yet the slow drag of his skin over hers made her eyes flutter dazedly in response. "I'm liking everything I see."
Her heart rate kicked up a notch as her rational mind acknowledged he stood too close to her. Still, having zero experience with this level of immediate sexual attraction, Heather found the magnetic pull too strong to step away.
"It's not polite to stare." Her mother's words leaped out of her mouth before she could stop them, the automatic response kicking in because her own thoughts were all deeply engaged in wishful physical scenarios with the man in front of her.
His bark of laughter was the sort of blatant amusement she often took at her mother's attempts to instill manners on the world around her.
"Do you want me to stop?" His question was direct and to the point and she didn't know if she could answer it honestly.
His dark eyes bored into hers, seeking the truth, and something about the way he posed the question assured her he would respect her wishes. He wasn't playing games.
"No." Even though she took pride in acting on instinct, this was pushing it. But damn it, that was the truth. This man's eyes were pure aphrodisiac. "But if you're going to stare I think you at least owe me the courtesy of acting on those powerful looks you keep sending my way."
His hand fell away from her cheek and she could tell she'd surprised him. He might not be playing games, but he'd expected her to play them.
"Not here." He withdrew his wallet and slapped a twenty on the table, securing it with his half-empty beer bottle. "Will you take a walk with me?"
He gestured toward the wooden boardwalk that led out into the marshes among the tall grasses. The walkways snaked all through the wetlands before winding up back at the bar that sponsored the outdoor entertainment every Friday night.
Heather knew what kinds of things went on out on those darkened paths even though she'd never ventured out there herself. Extending her hand to him, she gave the high sign to her girlfriends and nodded her consent.
"It's about time, Army-man..."
\*
The stinging in her hands pulled Heather from memories of that unseasonably warm Savannah night and the man who'd seduced her with his eyes long before he'd touched her. She wondered where that man had disappeared since the Jared Murphy standing in front of her now bore little resemblance to him. Physically they were the same. But the eyes that had captured her right from the start five years ago were shuttered now. Distant.
That remoteness would make it a lot tougher to seduce him in order to take a little sensual revenge.
"You really need a pair of gloves." Apparently unconcerned about the snowball to his back, Jared lifted her hands and cupped them between his own.
The unexpected touch set off trip wires all over her nervous system, sending her whole body into hyperawareness mode. It didn't help that she'd just been daydreaming about their first meeting, a time when she'd allowed herself to be hypnotized by the delicious pull of sexual chemistry.
She'd been so wrapped up in those old memories she hadn't noticed him leave her suitcase on the dry sidewalk while he followed her into the snow-covered courtyard in front of the lodge.
"I've got a better way to warm up." She blurted the statement with all the finesse she'd used when she first met him and she'd parroted her mother's words. Of course, her comment now was a hell of a lot less starchy.
And she had to start somewhere if she was ever going to get him in bed this weekend.
Jared didn't speak for a long moment, as if weighing the wisdom of continuing the conversation. Now this facet of him, the brooding thinker---she recognized. He might have grown more aloof in the past five years, but at least now she'd spotted a hint of the fiery depths she remembered beneath the controlled surface.
"As a veteran of North Country winters, I think I might know a little more about warming up than you." Still cupping his fingers around hers, he drew their interlaced hands up to his mouth and breathed into the gap between his thumbs.
The warmth of his breath soothed her raw fingers stinging from those moments when she'd plunged them into the snow. Their eyes met over their joined palms and she felt the electric jolt of that connection clear down to her toes.
She swayed toward him like a hypnotized woman, her whole body responding to the source of heat that could set all of her on fire with the merest of prompting. She licked her lips in preparation for more.
"Is that better?" Jared's roughened voice cut through her romantic notions as he released her.
Her hands hovered helplessly in midair for a few seconds until she pulled herself together. What kind of seductress would she make when she fell into a swoon like some hapless teenager every time this man came near her?
She had to get the upper hand here, and fast. Heart racing with thwarted longing and more than a little bruised pride, Heather did her best to shrug off her dazed attraction so she could channel her inner temptress.
"Not bad, Army-man." She let the old nickname drawl off her tongue like a verbal caress. "But I'll bet we would have created a lot more heat with my method."
Tucking her hands safely into her coat pockets, she swished past him with a hip strut in full swing.
In your face, Murphy. Her performance wasn't bad for a woman who hadn't flirted in years. But she would have her small slice of revenge if it killed her, and judging by the heart palpitations churning her blood into hot surges, she figured it very well might.
\*
So that's the way she wanted to play.
Jared watched Heather walk away for so long he nearly didn't make it in time to hold the inn door for her. Damn it. He'd changed so much in the years since he had last seen her and he thought she would have, too. When he read about her linen business online there had been interviews with her that made her sound more...sedate.
But in person, Heather Dillinger was as much a firecracker as she'd ever been. He didn't know if he should be worried or insanely grateful at his good fortune.
Locking down the mess of reactions she stirred in him, Jared stalked past the huge decorated tree in the lobby to help her check in at the front desk.
The Timberline Lodge was a Lake Placid historic site, built as a great camp in the 1800s and converted to a bed-and-breakfast by owners who had fallen on hard times just before the Olympics came to the small town in 1932. Apparently the family had discovered a real affinity for the business, because the inn had been in continuous operation since then. The current owners, Roland and Helen Krause, had added several self-sufficient cabins to the grounds since taking over the operation, including five that Jared helped to restore when he first came back home.
"Jared Murphy, thank goodness you're here." Helen stepped out from around the reception desk to wrap him in a hug, the google eyes of her bright red reindeer sweater jabbing him in the chest. "Have you heard the forecast? We're expecting a major snowstorm."
"Really?" Heather stepped closer to the counter and Jared could see Roland was smitten in about two seconds.
The older couple had raised five kids of their own but still had room in their hearts to lavish affection on newcomers of all ages. At least, that's why Jared figured the Krauses showed up on site at his restoration projects every day with food from the kitchen and lots of approving feedback on his progress. They were first-rate people in his book and Jared hadn't been able to beg his way into paying for Heather's room for the weekend. They'd insisted his friends were family to them, end of discussion.
"It's a bona fide nor'easter." Roland leaned his elbows on the counter, the jingle bell on his Santa hat clanging on his shoulder as he made himself more comfortable. "I hope you brought a hat."
"Actually I'm in the market for one, but I saw lots of great stores along the water as we drove in." Heather signed her name in the leather guest register. "I thought I packed enough warm clothes, but it's hard to appreciate what this kind of cold feels like until you're in it."
When Roland discovered Heather was a Savannah native, he started regaling her with stories of a family trip down South when his children were young. Helen took the opportunity to pull Jared aside.
"Weren't you stationed in Savannah?" She had that knowing matchmaker look in her eyes and Jared hated to disillusion her that his only meeting with Heather had been more carnal than romantic.
"Yes, ma'am." He figured it would be better to offer up as few details as possible than stretch the truth.
"And you met her while you were there." Helen smiled away, her reindeer's eyes jouncing around as she practically bobbed on her toes at the idea of romance at the inn.
"Yes, but we didn't really have time to get to know each other all that well." That was true enough. "I just thought of her again recently and---"
Okay, this was where the truth stretching began since he'd thought of her many, many times before recently.
Shrugging, he didn't bother trying to salvage his story.
"I thought she might like to see snow," he finished lamely just as Roland had gotten to a punch line that had Heather laughing so hard she clutched the counter for support.
"Well I hope you show her more than just some snow-seeing," Helen advised in a conspiratorial whisper before she hurried back to her spot behind the counter and intervened in the start of her husband's next tale. "Roland Krause, that's quite enough for our guest who needs to shop for a hat and find her room."
Taking his wife's hint with the ease of a man who'd been married for more than half his life, the innkeeper straightened and pulled his Santa hat off his head before settling it on Heather's.
"The missus is right, but this will at least tide you over until you find something else." He affixed the hat at an angle so that the jingle bell fell right above the green velvet ribbon holding Heather's hair. "You make a right pretty elf."
"Thank you." Heather jingled the bell as if to test it. "I'm looking forward to this weekend."
Helen passed an envelope with a key over the desk to Jared.
"We won't let you leave until you've had a marvelous time, will we, Jared?"
He braved a glance in Heather's direction and wondered what a sexy Southern Christmas elf would expect from him in order for her to have a good time. The teasing look in her blue eyes communicated wicked intent.
"Not a chance." He thanked the older couple as he rolled Heather's bag away from the desk and deeper into the hotel.
Right out the back door.
"Are you sure you're going the right way?" Heather paused on the threshold of the door to check the packet containing her key card.
"The cabins are in the back. You can come up to the main building for meals, but this way you can watch the snow fall from all four sides and the fireplaces are wood-burning." He took a left at an intersection in the sidewalk toward the cabins he'd worked on. "Gas fires are pretty but---"
"Less atmospheric." She walked more slowly behind him and at first he thought she wanted to take in the scenery, but when he looked back to check on her he realized the walkways were getting slick as the snow fell in earnest.
Damn it. Could he be any more clueless? He was so busy running away from an overwrung sex drive that he'd ended up being downright rude. Leaving the suitcase, he jogged the couple of steps between them to give her his arm.
Just as he reached toward her, her boot skidded on the sidewalk, sending her flying forward. She careened into his arms and he caught her easily, but the quick step he needed to make caused his feet to slide, too.
He squeezed her tighter, protecting her if they went down. But he was able to find his footing again. He met her gaze in the swirl of white all around them and what he saw there shifted the ground out from under him faster than any icy walkway.
No teasing. No flirtation. Just simple hunger and want she didn't bother to disguise as anything else.
In other words---the exact same thing he was feeling as he held her for the first time in far too long. Her fragrance was exactly the same, a heady mix of floral and musk that had remained in a pink hair scarf she'd tucked into his pants pocket without him knowing.
He'd sniffed that silk dry in those first few months overseas, a tangible reminder of life and joy in a stark hell.
Something about that memory prodded him into action despite all the talks he'd had with himself about restraint. Bending over her, he covered her lips and damned the consequences.
Heather had never thought of herself as having an addictive personality. But Jared's kiss made her rethink that position.
Far away in the back of her mind, some obnoxious little piece of herself shouted shrilly that she should be the seducer and not the seducee yet again. But, dear, sweet Lord. The shrew within probably just needed to get laid because a kiss this good didn't deserve to be stopped under any circumstances.
Her arms tightened around his neck, savoring the wall of solid shoulders beneath them. The heat of him around her fired away any chill at being outdoors in a snowstorm, his body a furnace of taut muscle and rigid angles. And speaking of rigid...
She was wrapped around him so thoroughly she felt the full extent of his desire for her, every impressive inch of him tattooed against her stomach.
He broke the kiss before things got any more carried away and he tipped his forehead to hers while she caught her breath. Or maybe he was waiting to catch his. She noticed their ragged inhalations rasped in synch.
"I swear I didn't ask you up here to take advantage of you." His words took a long moment to make sense inside her scrambled thoughts.
When they did, they stung.
"Since when would I allow myself to be taken advantage of?" Did she look like a woman who wasn't in control of her own desires? Okay, not counting the way she allowed her family to maneuver her. And even then, she drew lines when necessary.
She stepped back, out of his reach.
"I didn't mean---"
"Furthermore, if and when I let you take me, I can assure you it will only be to my advantage." She stressed the last word, turning his phrase back on him as she spun on her heel and walked away.
For all of two steps. Before she remembered she had no idea where she was headed. She'd never possessed her mother's flare for dramatic exits, but then, she had precious little practice since she preferred to run her life based on hard work instead of high emotions. Unfortunately her practical nature seemed to fly out the window around Jared.
"It's the second cabin on the left." He pointed the way, apparently guessing her dilemma. He already had her suitcase in hand and he held out his arm to her.
A nice enough offer since she would have fallen on her butt earlier if not for his quick reflexes. And decidedly strong arms, a mutinous voice in her head reminded her.
"Thank you." She took his arm for the rest of the trek, hoping against hope she could pull herself together and stay focused for the weekend.
She didn't come to Lake Placid just to see snow or escape the family resentment over her failed engagement. Her number one reason for this trip was to leave Jared Murphy naked and alone in his bed on Sunday morning so he would know how if felt to be abandoned and left wanting...
As they reached the cabin, Jared slipped the key card from her hands and used it to open the lock. Their arrival chased away her dark thoughts for the moment and she allowed herself to take in the charm and beauty of the place.
White clapboard siding made the cabin blend in with the snowy landscape, but the numerous windows were bracketed by black shutters and a small wreath with a red bow had been hung on each set of glass panes. The classic holiday decorations continued with a length of fresh greenery roped all around the entryway. Scented smoke puffed from nearby chimneys, lacing the snowy air with the smell of burning hickory or maybe pecan---something nutty and sweet. A six-foot toboggan rested against the cabin as if waiting for her to take it for a spin down one of the neighboring hills. Mountains, actually.
Peering over her shoulder she took in the pristine scenery once more. The inn property nestled on a mountainside as the faint smudge of sunlight sank deeper in the sky.
"Heather?" Jared held the door for her, waiting for her to enter the cabin and she experienced a twinge of guilt for her thoughts of sensual vengeance.
What if Jared had really gotten in touch with her to smooth over their past or make some kind of amends? He'd certainly chosen a charming setting and not some cheap interstate motel that smacked of a one-nighter.
"Sorry," she murmured, too confused to sift through what this weekend together
might mean. For now she simply stepped into the cottage and out of the snow. "Wow. This is really wonderful."
Tugging off Mr. Krause's Santa hat, Heather peered around the cozy space with a practiced eye, enjoying the authentic touches to make the place look more like an Adirondack great camp.
"You like it?" Jared set her suitcase inside and pulled the door shut behind him before approaching the fireplace where a bundle of wood had already been laid.
"It's so full of warmth and character." She ran one hand along the rough-hewn boards that made the interior look like a log cabin.
At the far end of the room, Jared used a long stick of fat wood to light the fire inside a gray stone hearth. The living area furniture all faced the fireplace, the pieces just mismatched enough to make it look like a family homestead instead of a hotel. A pair of old skates hung on the wall, the silver blades polished to gleaming even though the leather was worn and cracked.
Framed pictures of Olympic events hung in a grouping near the entry while an antique game table sat to one side of the living room. The hallway that must lead to a bedroom was at the far end while the kitchen was situated on the opposite side, the appliances small and well-proportioned for the scale of the space. And although the gas range was antique-looking with cast-iron grills, Heather knew the model was modern.
"I'm glad you like it." Jared stirred the pile of sticks with the poker until the flame he'd fanned began to steady.
"If I tossed a few pieces of fabric across the couch, this place could be an advertisement for The Attic." She worked hard to incorporate this same kind of easy timelessness in her designs. An antique sensibility minus the fussiness.
Standing, Jared walked toward her, lighting sparks within her faster than he'd ignited the blaze in the fireplace.
Thankfully he dropped onto the arm of the couch a few feet away, sparing her wound-up emotions the agitation of his physical nearness.
"I read some about your business online. It sounds like you're doing very well."
The compliment pleased her, as did the interest she read in his gaze. Slipping out of her coat, she prepared to tell him about The Attic but the phone rang before she could speak. Frowning, she searched for the handset and found an old-fashioned black telephone with a round dial on a table behind the sofa.
"Excuse me." She picked up the receiver, expecting to hear from the innkeeper or his wife.
"Heather, thank God you're there. Why aren't you picking up your cell?" Her sister's voice blasted into her ear on the other end. With the vocal cords of an opera diva and the projection of a kindergarten teacher, Trish never had a problem making herself heard. "Never mind. What's important is that mom is trying to set me up with Gary. Have you heard about this?"
Heather tried not to let her frustration show in front of Jared. Not that she was angry with Trish, because heaven knew if her mother tried to set up her up with Trish's former fiancé, Heather would have wanted to vent, too. Especially since Trish's exes tended to be heavily tattooed, pierced and emaciated by the rock-and-roll lifestyle.
Mostly Heather was frustrated because her problems had followed her a thousand miles north.
"I know and I'm sorry."
"Don't you be sorry." Trish sounded offended that Heather would dare apologize and she roundly cursed family politics.
"If it makes you feel any better, she's mad at me for not sewing you a dress for the party so you could make a good first impression."
Trish snorted. "I think my nose ring was all the first impression Gary wanted from me."
"Yes, well, the fallout pressure from The Wedding That Wasn't turned out to be more than I could take, so I'm hiding out for a few days if you could just burn this phone number, okay?" She shifted uncomfortably, unable to leave the room since the phone in the cabin was circa 1940.
Jared stood to peer out the window at an incredible lake view Heather hadn't even gotten to enjoy yet. Damn it, she shouldn't let her family intrude on this weekend. When she wasn't seducing Jared into making him regret walking away from her, she could be outside playing in the snow.
"You? Being the bad girl for a change?" Trish squealed on the other end of the phone and Heather thought she slipped into that octave range that would make animals cringe. "Well, I can't wait to hear what made Little Miss Junior Peach Blossom turn rogue, but I'll let you get back to whatever hell you're raising up there at the North Pole or wherever you are."
In the interest of temporary peace, Heather said goodbye, ignoring her sister's---half sister's---implication that Heather could never raise hell.
As she hung up the phone, she glimpsed at Jared's back silhouetted against the window where the scarcest of daylight now illuminated the lake. She opted to skip mentioning the phone call altogether and joined him by the window, hoping they could resurrect their talk about her business. Maybe he hadn't even heard about the wedding she'd mentioned.
She didn't know how or when she'd get back to seduction tonight, but Trish's phone call had taunted her to follow through on the plan. Being a good girl had given her one broken heart, one broken engagement and a reputation as the Woman-Most-Likely-to-Answer-Her-Cell-Phone.
Tonight would be different.
\*
Jared waited outside a store in the Olympic Village in downtown Lake Placid while Heather bought a hat later that evening. Over a foot of snow had fallen since she'd touched down that afternoon and the inches kept accumulating. He hadn't bothered to drive his truck into town since the village was walking distance from the Timberline Lodge. Heather had already made a few comments about the fact that he'd never be able to drive home tonight, implying he should sleep over at the cabin although she'd never said it outright.
Peering over his shoulder at her through the glass panes in the store's front window, Jared watched her charm the guy behind the counter in that effortless way she had. He'd gotten so much pleasure out of watching her that first night they'd met, observing how she turned heads everywhere she went. Not because she was exceptionally beautiful, but because of the comfortable way she carried herself, the ease with which she worked a room or bartered down the price on a knit hat. People wanted to make her happy, partly because her smile was an addictive drug that could bring a man to his knees, but more because she radiated a warmth of spirit that people could spot a mile away.
He knew he wasn't the only one who'd noticed this. That first night at the outdoor bar, he'd seen the way her girlfriends listened to what she had to say, the way she was always at the center of the group and still managed to be the first to reel in an outsider. The bartender looked to her for the group order. The bouncer flirted with her first. The band sent out a tune to her. And judging by how fast her cabin phone rang earlier, Jared guessed her family relied on her. She'd admitted her half sister had been on the other end but then she'd clammed up about the call, including a mystery wedding in the family.
Hell, he hoped it hadn't been hers she skipped out on this weekend. Maybe she'd just had a spat with a family member Bridezilla or something.
"What do you think?" Heather appeared in front of him suddenly as he heard the jingle of the store door chime while it closed.
She wore a sky-blue knit cap with a snowflake stitched on the front and gloves that matched. She'd taken her hair down from the ribbon that held it earlier, so the mass of chestnut waves spilled haphazardly over the shoulders of her dark wool coat.
"All you need are some ski poles and the locals would never know you're not a genuine snow bunny."
"I'm not even going to ask about snow rabbits or why I resemble one." She looped her hand through his arm and his insides contracted at the ease with which they moved together.
The kiss they'd shared earlier had never been far from his thoughts. Of course, fantasizing about what that kiss might have led to only hurt his cause to make Heather look at him as a man with more to offer than being able to last all night long. Damn it, he needed to make things right between them if he ever hoped to expel the memories of one crap Christmas after another. Even last year---when he'd first come home from overseas---he'd spent the holiday holed up in a stripped-down cabin to work on renovations in the hope of blasting away bad memories.
This weekend, he'd be making some new memories to replace those and who better to supplant all those dark thoughts than a woman who could light up the whole freaking village with one sexy grin?
"Ski bunnies are the visitors who are new to the slopes." He steered her past a couple of antique shops and a street vendor selling hot chestnuts. "They usually dress better than the pros who wear their gear every day."
"Kind of like the northern golfers who show up on Hilton Head with spiffy new clubs and no idea what they're doing?"
"Bingo." He tossed his pocket change into a bucket for a bell-ringing Santa, then stopped by the wooden toboggan run erected over the frozen lake.
"So you've just insulted me and my new snowflake hat." She peered up at the weatherworn contraption where kids climbed a winding set of stairs to the top with sleds of every color. "No wonder tourism is so much bigger down South where we are gracious and welcoming to our guests."
"You realize we only show up in the South so we can make fun of your accents, right?" He could listen to her talk all day long, and he had the feeling if he ribbed her about that sweet Southern drawl she'd only pour it on thicker.
"We just like to speak s-l-o-w-l-y to y'all as a subliminal cue to take a deep breath and relax once in a while before y'all keel over from the self-importance of your frantic pace." She smiled sweetly and pointed to the toboggan run. "Now, if you're done trying to make me out to be Ellie Mae in mittens, could you tell me what that is?"
She craned her neck to see where the network of wooden tunnels and archways ended but trees hid the outlet over the water.
"It's a sled run that shoots you out onto the ice." He figured they'd be better off out in the snow than in the all-too-heated atmosphere of her cabin back at the lodge, so he planned to push outdoor fun to the limit tonight. "Want to try it?"
She was already picking up a toboggan at the foot of the platform.
Jared paid for the rental and the ride and followed her up the stairs to the chute, taking the toboggan from her. At nearly six feet long, the wooden sleds were awkward but fast as hell.
They moved through the line quickly since the families were beginning to disperse now that it was almost nine o'clock. The sled run was lit all the way down to the ice, the snow shimmering in the reflected glow as they reached the top.
"Oh, my God." Heather watched as the kids in front of them fell off to one side on their way down the shoot. "Is this dangerous?"
"It's one hundred and sixty-six feet of fun, babe." He plunked the sled down at the top and waited for her to get on. "But just in case, you'd better sit in front."
"The front?" Her question was accompanied by shrieking from the next trail over as another group went down the twin chute.
"That's the safest place." He helped her get settled on her knees and then realized he'd need to wrap his legs around her if he wanted to keep her steady.
The position shouldn't be a big deal since she wore a long winter coat that tucked around her where she sat.
"Well?" She turned around to peer at him, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold. "Ready?"
He remembered other times he'd seen her fair skin suffused with color like that, right before she hit her peak...
"Yeah," he lied, straddling the sled and lowering himself to sit behind her.
"Oh." She let out a note of surprise at his sudden proximity, his boots tucking under the front of the sled so his thighs bracketed her hips. "Ooh."
She settled against him, leaning her back into his chest and shifting her legs to fold beneath her. The movement wriggled her butt right into his lap and he acknowledged all the snow in the world wouldn't be able to cool him off if they kept this up.
Ah---poor choice of words.
He ground his teeth against a surge of primal possessiveness.
"Hold on," he warned her, using his arms to tip the sled forward down the chute.
Gravity shifted, pushing them into their seats as they tore across the icy run. Heather screamed and wrapped her arms around his knees, squeezing him tight to her. It was probably the ideal date for a hormonal teenager, but damn it was killing him. Her hair blew back on one side of his face, the silky strands whipping in the wind and couching him in her scent. He slipped his arms around her waist to anchor her to the sled, his hands aware of the exact distance between his thumbs and the underside of her breasts.
Are we there yet? Jared squeezed her hips with his legs as they flew over a small rise in the run that had them airborne for a few heart-stopping seconds. Heather murmured something that sounded like "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod" under her breath then squealed with delight when they touched down on the frozen ice and skidded to a stop midway across the lake.
For a tantalizing moment, they sat there, breathless from the run and seared together by the soaring temperatures wherever their bodies touched. If he shifted his arms or his weight a little bit, he could roll her right underneath him, his body perfectly aligned with hers...
"Don't let go." She whispered the words a fraction of a second before he would have bolted from the sled, her hands tightening on his knees.
He froze there, oblivious to the other tobogganers who must be coming down the chutes. Luckily their combined weight had propelled their sled much farther than the younger kids who took the ride, so they were fairly out of view beyond the lights of the run.
"I don't think---"
She turned sharply in his arms, the movement applying exquisite---excruciating---pressure between his legs.
"Then maybe you need to stop thinking so damn much," she chided him in a wispy voice that sounded as strangled with want as he felt inside. "There is such a thing as overthinking, Murphy, and the reason we got along so famously five years ago is that neither of us worked so hard at it that we got confused. Some things you need to just let happen."
His brain told him she was dead wrong. He'd seen the effects of let it happen mentality play out when his brother had gone into the service a year before him, leaving behind a new bride he didn't know was pregnant. Jessie had missed the birth of his son and alienated his wife because he'd married a woman he didn't know very well without taking the time to build a relationship first.
But Jared stopped listening to his brain when Heather brushed her lips across his, her body splayed against him with total abandon. She was every bit as wild and willing as he remembered, and he was as captivated as ever by that.
Heat blasted through him as her hips settled against his, her hands fumbling with the zipper on his jacket before she eased it down a few inches, just enough to expose his chest. A growling sigh wrenched up his throat at the feel of her fingers spread across his shirt.
He unbuttoned her coat, his leather gloves sliding on the fabric as he opened it wider. Just for a minute, he told himself. The lights shut off on the run behind him, signaling the close of the chutes and deepening the privacy of their corner of the frozen lake.
He cupped a breast in one palm, hating the barriers between them even after he slipped beneath her sweater. Still, her muffled moan into his mouth told him she found the caress of leather pleasurable so he kept the glove in place, fondling the tight peak of her breast.
"Take me," she mumbled against his mouth, her hips twitching with new urgency between his legs.
\*
"Here?" He blinked through the fog of lust to gauge their position and saw her white teeth flash a smile.
"No. Take me home and then take me. Or take me anywhere. Just---" She nipped his lower lip with a damp bite. "Please let's go somewhere."
"Amen." He gave her nipple one last soft pinch before extracting his hand from her sweater. "I've got to turn in the toboggan, but if you wait for me here, the lodge is fairly close on the other side of the lake."
"Hurry." She eased off of him and peered around the ice before pointing to a nearby warming shed. "I'll wait over there."
He was already on his feet, cursing the raging erection that kept him from sprinting back to the sled rental place.
"I'll be back in five minutes, no more."
"Make it four and we can relive our last outdoor make-out session on the way home." Her hand drifted down his thigh and squeezed.
Memories of their walk through the Savannah marshes steamrolled him, flooding his head with images of Heather sinking to her knees...
"Four," he promised, heart sledgehammering his chest because he was an idiot to have thought this weekend could have led anywhere else but to bed.
His feet were moving fast in spite of the heavy desire flooding his veins because he was a man on a mission now. Heather might think they were just reliving the past this weekend, but he knew the outcome was going to be different from anything she expected.
Heather was practically crawling out of her skin and they hadn't even reached the halfway point on their trek to her cabin.
Jared had been insistent about no quickies in the woods even though she'd made a couple of attempts to convince him otherwise.
"Talk about role reversal," he muttered under his breath as he tugged her up the next hill in the snow.
"What?" Her brain was so passion-fogged it only seemed to click along at half speed.
She'd forgotten how he could make parts of her ache with a fierceness close to pain.
"I remember a time when it was me trying to sweet-talk you into a close encounter in the woods."
Trudging through a drift behind him, she had to smile at the memory....
\*
"No one can see you except for me." Jared's words wound persuasively around her in the moonlight.
They'd walked so far away from the outdoor bar that the band's holiday riffs faded into a dull rumble. The breeze blew in off the marsh, enveloping them in the scents of briny water and mud. She had her back to the marsh, her spine pinned to a wooden railing that ran the length of the boardwalk snaking through the wetlands.
"You think knowing that I only have an audience of one is going to make me strip naked for you here? Now?" Her heart had developed an all-new rhythm around him, sort of a cardiac hyperspeed. In fact, all of her senses felt elevated to a higher pitch with him nearby.
"I thought we weren't going to play games with each other." His hands curved around her waist, his fingers on one hand brushing under her tank top while his fingers on the other dipped into the waist of her denim miniskirt.
She didn't know which felt better, but she knew she wanted more time to figure it out.
"I'm not playing games." Her fingers tunneled under the sleeves of his black T-shirt, savoring the rock-hard muscle of him.
She had to remember to write Uncle Sam a letter to thank him for the superb conditioning that resulted in such a magnificent male specimen.
"Then why can't you admit you want to get naked with me as much as I want to start peeling your clothes off?" His penetrating stare made his words a challenge.
Coming from any other guy, she could have balked at the level of he-man arrogance in that statement. But with Jared, that would have amounted to more game-playing and they'd said they weren't going that route tonight. Jared traced the hem of her panties around the curve of her hip and her knees buckled.
"I can admit it, but there's nothing wrong with me saying I'm not taking off my clothes in a Georgia swamp after midnight with a perfect stranger." A woman had her standards after all. "Maybe we could see each other tomorrow."
She could get naked with him then, after she'd had time to think rationally when she wasn't under the influence of hormones and peppermint schnapps.
"We could do that." His other hand splayed across her spine, covering an incredible amount of terrain. "Although I ship out of Savannah in---" he checked his watch "---twenty-nine hours. And technically it is tomorrow."
Her heart stuttered in her chest.
"That's not some kind of line, is it?" She hadn't grown up in a city home to both an Army and an air force base without hearing about that kind of ploy before. His hands stilled on her body.
"No games. I had a drink with a friend tonight because I'm Afghanistan-bound first thing Sunday morning. I'm looking at a yearlong stint."
The news sucked for him more than her, and after only knowing him for all of an hour, it damn well sucked in her book. But then, his intensity, his refusal to play games, his ability to lay all his cards on the table for her tonight made perfect sense. She'd found out earlier that he was a helicopter pilot---a dangerous job in a war zone. No doubt he was living for the moment tonight.
The silence stretched as she thought about that. About him and the reality of what he'd signed on for.
And in the space of another heartbeat, she made up her mind. She was already so hot for this man she was about to catch fire. Besides, didn't she consider herself a patriot?
Well, cue the "Star Spangled Banner," because Jared Tyler Murphy was one American soldier who would head off to his overseas assignment with all the fireworks he could handle.
"Then it looks like you're coming home with me, Army-man."
\*
When they reached her cabin, Heather handed Jared the key card, her nerves too jangled to use it. She felt as though she'd received a shot of that peppermint schnapps from all those years ago, her whole body humming with energy and pulsating sensations. She stepped back and bumped into a reindeer made of willow branches with a wreath around its neck.
Jared unlocked the door and pulled her inside before sliding the bolt. The sound of the security lock shooting into place had a finality that sent a shiver up her spine while she bent to plug in the lights on a tabletop tree decorated with red bows.
He turned to look at her, their eyes connecting for an instant before he pulled her into his arms and started pulling off her clothes. Her hat. Mittens. Coat.
"You're back." She smiled to see the laser intensity of his eyes, the heat steaming off of him as he watched her.
"What?" He didn't break his stripping stride as he turned his attention to his own clothes. Jacket. Shirt. T-shirt.
Clearly getting out of the Army hadn't affected his dedication to his workout routine. Her mouth watered at the sight of sculpted abs and sinewy arms.
"The look in your eyes that I remembered from five years ago. I wondered earlier where it went, but it seems to have returned."
With a vengeance.
The phrase popped into her head unbidden and she remembered her own plans for a taste of revenge. Right now all she cared about was having a taste of him.
"I wanted to move slower this weekend." He unbuttoned her blouse while he looked in her eyes, demonstrating extraordinary deftness with women's clothes. "I tried."
"I would have had to hurt you if you tried any harder." Her threat didn't carry much weight considering she melted in his arms.
"God, I missed you." He growled the admission into her neck as he lowered his mouth to kiss her there.
His lips covered a pulse point under her chin and he paused there, circling the throbbing vein with his tongue. She shivered at the heat of it, the tenderness of his words echoing in her ears.
I missed you. She'd have to be made of stone for those words not to affect her. Wrenching herself away from the kiss, she placed her hands on his chest to hold him back, her pink polished fingernails appearing seriously outmatched by the strength of his pecs. She studied him in the dim light from two miniature lamps on either side of the fireplace. And damn it, she'd bet anything that he wasn't lying. He had missed her. Thought about her. Felt something for her.
And didn't that just shift her whole perspective?
"Kiss me." She heard herself say what she'd been thinking, the veil between actions and feelings stripped away along with the blouse he shoved off her shoulders. "Take me."
\*
Jared knew a green light when he saw it and nothing would be stopping him now.
His lips found hers. Tasted. Savored and devoured by turns. Her tongue stroked his, her whole body pressed into him. Slipping a hand under her hair, he stroked her nape.
She made a sighing sound at the back of her throat, her fingers working the
clasp of his belt. Restless. Hungry.
"Bed." He walked her backward toward the hall leading to the bedroom.
"No. Here." She tugged the belt free of the loops and started to work on his fly. "We've walked far enough tonight, haven't we?"
Her scent filled his nostrils, that floral blend from the silky scarf that had carried him through so many hellish nights stationed in a war zone.
"The lady calls the shots." He unfastened the pink satin bra she wore while she unzipped his pants.
"Mmm." She shoved aside his boxers and wrapped her hand around him. Her cool skin felt so damn good on his hot flesh.
He cupped her breasts in his hands, her pale skin tinged pink as he bent to lick a path down the valley between them. Her breath caught in her throat and her hand tightened around him.
The heat scorching through him spiked a few more degrees. He could run for miles without getting winded, but one touch from this woman had his lungs heaving as though he'd been doing sprints for an hour.
He backed her into the couch, only two steps away so that he honored her preference not to go anywhere. When her calves bumped into the sofa, he tipped her until she fell into the cushions.
Easing her hand out of his pants, he undressed her as fast as possible. And damn but he hoped he'd have more chances to enjoy the view. Now, he could only follow the dictates of his body that demanded Heather all around him as soon as possible.
When she was naked, he shoved off his pants, his eyes never leaving her. Her pupils dilated, and a soft moan escaped her lips.
"For me?" She ran her finger up the vein at the center of his shaft while he looked for a condom in his pants pocket.
A damn impossible task when his eyes were crossed. Thankfully he could find the thing based on feel. He came up with the packet and slapped it on the sofa beside her.
But first, he needed one quick taste...
"Oh!" She cried out when his tongue touched the slick heat of her sex.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, her whole body arching up off the couch in immediate response. He stroked her with slow swipes of his tongue, listening to the way her breathing shifted into high gear. She covered her mouth with one hand, muffling the soft whimpers of pleasure that hummed from her throat.
"Please." She panted as if to catch her breath. "I'm going to lose it in another minute and I want you deep inside me when I do."
He stretched over her, retrieving the condom. Heather kissed his neck, his cheek, his shoulder, anywhere she could reach while he opened the packet. She helped him roll it on, her knuckles brushing his abs. His muscles twitched in response.
He planted one leg between hers, parting her thighs. She whispered his name in a feverish little chant, urging him on when he was already half out of his mind for her.
He entered her in one deep thrust, and he watched as her eyes lost focus and her head tipped back in total abandon. Giving herself to him completely.
Her legs wound around him, her heels clamped on the backs of his thighs. She curved her hips into his, meeting his thrusts, her fingers clutching his shoulders.
His world narrowed until it was filled only with her. Her wants, her sighs, her body clenching his tight. He wrapped her in his arms, wanting her closer, wanting to feel every inch of her pressed into him.
Her spine arched with his touch and he cradled her thigh with his other hand, holding her steady against the heat, the force that pounded through him.
And then her whole body stilled. A high note vibrated in her throat, growing louder until an all-out scream wrenched free. She convulsed with her release, her muscles contracting so tight around him he thought he'd pass out from the pleasure.
Instead he followed her into mind-blowing bliss.
"Tomorrow would have been my wedding day."
Jared blinked.
They'd made love a second time and Heather had given him the best sex of his life so he'd been feeling no pain afterward. Maybe he'd fallen asleep and just dreamed the strange words he'd thought he heard her say.
"Jared?" she called to him, finally propping herself up on one elbow beside him in bed. They'd made it to the bedroom the second time, but they'd only gotten as far as an overstuffed chair. Afterward, they'd fallen into the bed, exhausted.
"Yeah?"
"Are you even mildly curious about my wedding date that wasn't, or should I consider this weekend more of the strictly carnal variety?"
Crap. She must have been talking about her own wedding during the phone call to her sister---half sister---the day before.
"No." He sat up beside her, his head totally clear and ready to hear what she had to say. "I didn't plan on today unfolding like this. I had every intention of sleeping at my place and---"
"That's okay." Her hair was tousled and sexy as hell. There had to be five shades of brown in there depending on what kind of light she was in. "I wouldn't have wanted you to sleep anywhere but right here."
The sheet gaped away from her breasts and he knew one little tug of the cotton flannel would expose her completely. But damn it, that was not the direction he wanted his thoughts to take. And hell, had she meant it about a wedding date?
"You---were getting married?" The news blindsided him even after he'd given it time to sink in.
"Yes." She drew her knees up to her chest under the covers.
He'd started a fire almost an hour ago and the scent of hickory smoke wafted through the cabin along with the fragrance of fresh-cut pine from the garland draped over the wood mantel. The night had been just about perfect until she'd chosen to cut him off at the knees with that news. News which, apparently, he'd have to drag out of her now.
"When I wrote to you, I asked if you were still unattached." He planned to handle this one like a homemade explosive device.
That is to say, he wasn't touching it until he'd tiptoed around it first.
"And I wouldn't have come here if I'd been involved with anyone. Even if you had planned to sleep in your own bed."
She shot him a smile and he relaxed. Marginally.
"So what happened? Did you break things off?" He couldn't imagine anyone walking away from her---that is, unless the military had tapped him to serve overseas for twelve months at the minimum.
"I realized I didn't love him. At least, not the way I was supposed to."
Listening to her talk about some other guy didn't exactly fulfill Jared's agenda of making this a Christmas to remember. He'd invited her up here to revisit one of the best memories of his life and take away the emptiness of the Christmases ever since they'd met. But color him a sucker for punishment because he had to know more.
"So who is this guy? Someone you work with?"
She shook her head. "I met him at a charity golf tournament. He's a professional golfer. Sort of laid-back."
"Sounds too tame for you." Although, if Jared were honest about it, that's exactly the type of guy he pictured her taking up with after he left Savannah. Some rich Southern boy who would inherit an old mansion like the one she'd grown up in. Jared had seen her mother's place on their ride back to Heather's apartment that night after they'd left the bar.
"I'm not exactly a wild woman. You've seen my linen business. I sell pretty pieces of history. Very sedate stuff."
"That doesn't make you sedate." He brushed her hair back from her face, wondering how she could be blind to the things he saw in her after knowing her for such a short time. "People like being around you because you're a live wire. And selling antique linens wasn't enough for you, I noticed, since you expanded your business eighteen months after it began. Who knows how much your company might expand in five or ten years? That doesn't define you. You are as passionate about your work as you are about the rest of your life, and that makes people respond to you. Trust me, your golfer would have been in over his head."
Which made him realize that he was no better suited for her than this guy she'd dumped. But it also reminded Jared that if he let her go back to Savannah alone this time, he would never have another chance with her. It had been a miracle no one had snapped her up for good before now.
His chest tightened at the thought because, damn it, he wanted a second chance with her and he would do whatever it took to keep her here after this weekend.
"I like seeing myself through your eyes." She tilted her head to lay her cheek against his arm as he sifted his fingers through her hair. "It sure beats my family's view of me as the most capable and responsible one in the gene pool. But enough about me. Are you going to tell me why you sent me that invitation after all these years?"
And the hits kept on coming.
Just when Jared thought he had a grip on the currents at work here tonight, Heather changed the whole playing field. Now he needed to figure out---should he play it cool to keep her from running? Or gamble everything and confess that he was hoping for a Christmas miracle with this reunion?
\*
After the incredible way they'd made love tonight, and all the emotions this man could churn inside her with one sizzling look, Heather figured she owed it to him to at least ask why he'd wanted to see her again.
She couldn't ditch him in the middle of the night if there was any hope of a compelling desire to be with her. Three simple words---I missed you---had opened her heart to other possibilities.
"I always regretted that I didn't say goodbye to you." He stared into the flames crackling in the stone hearth across from the bed. He looked a million miles away.
Or maybe just five years into the past.
"I regretted that, too." She didn't mind admitting it, at least not now that he had confessed it first.
As soon as she formed the thought she remembered a time in her life after another breakup when her mother had told her that you couldn't keep score in a relationship. Was Heather still doing that? It had seemed like a rare piece of practical Loralei advice and Heather had meant to put the wisdom into practice.
"I didn't know what to say. My life at that point seemed a far cry from yours and I didn't think it would be fair to ask anything of you since we'd only just met."
"We did more than just meet." At least in her book, that constituted more than casual flirting.
"Which is why I couldn't get you out of my head."
He massaged her shoulder and her whole body hummed in sensual response. She'd been with him for less than twenty-four hours and already she was attuned to the possibilities of his touches. This particular touch had a decidedly provocative meaning.
In the back of her mind, she knew she should probably hang on to this thread of conversation. Hunt through the layers of meaning in what little bit he'd said to understand his motives for having her here.
But oh, sweet temptation, it was hard to maintain a conversation with his fingers sliding down her collarbone to trace the curve of her breast. Her eyelids fell to half-mast, her nipples tightening into hard points at the promise of his touch.
"I've thought about you a lot since then." One hand found her ankle beneath the covers and he cinched it, tugging her down until she lay on her back. "I've thought about doing this a lot, too."
His lips found one taut peak and rolled it between his tongue and teeth. The liquid heat sent shock waves of pleasure rippling over her, concentrating in her belly and sinking lower in her hips.
She'd never been with someone who held so much sexual sway over her. He made her hot and needy, out of control. That put him in a position of power she didn't want on a mental level. But oh, sweet stars in heaven, she loved it on the physical plane.
Love.
She shut down her thoughts, squelched a word she didn't want to think about. Instead she let his mouth ravish her and welcomed his hands roaming all over her body. He stroked her belly and drifted lower. Lower.
He cupped her sex in one palm, his fingers playing in the wetness. How could she be so ready for him all over again?
"How many times will you come for me tonight?" He did something magical with his finger, plucking at the most tender of places. "At least once more?"
Her body answered him in a way her words no longer could, her hips rising off the bed to meet his touch. Pleasure wound up inside her, concentrating wherever he stroked her. She made pleading sounds in a mindless hum of want.
He stroked and circled, his fingers closing in on what she needed and then backing off again until her skin flamed with hot desire. She reached for his arm, guiding his fingers near what she wanted, but he stopped her with his other hand.
Pinning her wrists above her head, he held her where he wanted her.
Something about the helplessness of the moment stirred her. She lay in front of him, exposed and at his mercy, and the situation stroked something inside her that went deeper than any physical caress. She gave herself over completely.
Her orgasm shattered over her, tightening every muscle as the spasms clinched her again and again. His name wrenched free from her lips and he caught the cry in his mouth.
And while she lay there beneath him, bucking with aftershocks and murmuring his name, she knew she wouldn't just be hurting him when she walked away this weekend. Leaving Jared Murphy would require superhuman strength and there wasn't a chance she'd go back to Savannah any happier than when she'd left.
Because whether or not Jared ever admitted it, Heather knew they shared something special.
Something had gone wrong the night before.
Jared didn't know how he knew that, but he understood it on a gut level. The sex had blown his mind. Heather had fallen asleep in his arms as though she belonged there. He should have been walking on clouds today, except that he hadn't really confessed why he wanted her here.
Would she run if she knew how tangibly he'd pinned his hopes on her? But if she was only returning to Savannah on Sunday night anyway, what did it matter if he sent her sprinting back?
Heather was still drying her hair so they could go for a walk in the newly fallen snow. They'd had breakfast in the cabin and even though he'd been tempted to keep her hostage in the bed all day, he thought he had better get to the point of why he'd asked her here soon.
Maybe the walk would present an opportunity. Now, while he listened to the blow dryer whirr away in the bathroom, he watched the family next door out the window as they trooped into the snow.
The father picked up the toboggan that rested by their door while the mother zipped a little girl's coat and tucked a boy's scarf around the kid's pudgy neck. Every one of them wore a reindeer scarf, even mom and dad. Something about that elemental bond grabbed him by the throat.
God, he envied that easy sense of family. He saw his brother struggle to be a part-time father after his marriage had buckled under the stress of too much time apart and Jared had no plans to go that route. He had put off that kind of happiness in an effort not to make the same mistakes, but at some point it had become easier to not take the risk.
And he'd never manage to take that gamble if he kept allowing Heather to think he'd invited her up here for nonstop monkey sex. But damn. He couldn't look at her without wanting her.
"Ready?" She appeared in the hallway wearing a pale green sweater layered over a pink thermal shirt.
He liked the girly way she dressed. No sophisticated dark colors or suits. She had curves and she showed them.
"I've been ready." He tossed her the hat and gloves she'd bought the day before. "Better bundle up."
The phone rang while she was putting on her mittens. He remembered her call from someone who sounded like family the day before and diplomatically made no comment.
"I'm not getting that," she announced, reaching for her jacket.
She set it back down two seconds later and frowned.
"What if it's an emergency?" She seemed to ask herself more than him.
"Do you want me to step outside?" The phone started a fourth ring.
"No." She dived on it at the last minute, picking up and answering in a rush. "Hello?"
He turned his back on the conversation, hoping Joe Golfer Dude wouldn't call her here. He hated the idea that she'd been engaged and---damn it---today would have been her wedding day.
"I'm not going to plan this party from a thousand miles away." Heather's frustrated tone spoke to him more than the words he was trying not to overhear.
Scowling, he clicked on the remote to the TV, hoping some sports scores would distract him from her conversation about a life that didn't have jack to do with him.
Unless...
Unless he made a serious play for her.
He looked back at her where she spoke on the phone, her eyebrows crinkled in worry. Or was it anger? It bugged him he didn't know her well enough to distinguish between the two. He'd let a long-ass time elapse since he'd met her. Some of which he'd had reasons for, some of which he'd spent not wanting to seem like a stalker dude reappearing out of nowhere when she might very well have been married. If not for her business success and the articles he'd seen about her online, Heather might still be just a vivid memory.
The way she would be next week if he didn't figure out how to make her stay. How to make her understand that he wanted so much more than he'd been able to tell her back then.
"I had every intention of coming home to finish up the details, Mom. I just wanted to take some time away for a change. This event gets bigger every year and---"
Okay, he couldn't help but notice that snippet of conversation since it was clear she was getting upset. Her tone pitched a notch higher and when he stole a glance in her direction, she sort of paced in circles.
She needed to relax. Something he was good at helping her do. He smiled with satisfaction at his memories of last night. Too bad he hadn't flat-out told her how badly the past few Christmases had sucked for him and that his need to see her came with a core-deep knowledge that she could fill the parts of his life that were empty.
That was going to change today. No distracting her---or himself---with sex. It was past time for him to show her something about himself and his life here. Only then would she be able to decide if her future might have a place for him in it.
\*
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Heather tromped through the snow to some secret destination Jared had in mind, her legs getting a workout with two feet of snow on the ground.
Who would have thought something that looked so fluffy on the way down could be so heavy to trudge through?
They'd spent all day outside since her phone call from her mother. Heather had learned how to snowshoe, which was fun, but didn't compare to ice-skating. Maybe those two hours she'd spent on skates were part of the reason her thighs protested the drifts they walked through now in the middle of nowhere. Supposedly this would be a path back to her cabin at the Timberline Lodge.
"I'm sure. We're following that star." He pointed to a bright point of light in the sky even though night hadn't fully fallen. The sun set noticeably earlier this far north.
She smiled at the idea of navigating by the star, which seemed the right thing to do at Christmastime. The quiet trek through the forest provided welcome time for reflection, something her holidays had lacked the past few years.
After having spent such a wonderful day with Jared, Heather knew her love 'em and leave 'em strategy seemed horribly immature, a petty revenge to take on someone whose company awakened a new joy in the season for her after years of succumbing to the massive holiday party and demands of family and business. Holding hands with a compelling man---an Army helicopter pilot turned rescue worker---seemed like a much nicer way to spend Christmas.
But she'd been the one to make herself vulnerable last time and look how that worked out. She refused to be the one who lost her heart only to end up cold and alone on Sunday. Again.
Relationships aren't about keeping score. Was she doing it again? Making tally marks next to their names to decide whose turn it was to give in?
"Too bad we don't have camels," she said, the quiet of the night made all the deeper by the two feet of icy insulation on the ground.
She didn't want to think about the fact that her holiday trip would end tomorrow morning and she'd have to figure out how she would handle leaving Jared. Her heart ached at the thought.
"We're almost there," Jared assured her, holding back a slender tree limb for her to pass under. "I actually took us a little bit out of the way to show you something first. I hope you don't mind."
"My seductive techniques must be sorely lacking if you can put off our return to the cabin to play tour guide." She'd enjoyed their time today, but she had tossed out a few comments to make sure he knew she was his for the taking anytime he wanted to head back to the bedroom. He'd resisted, insisting on showing her all that Lake Placid had to offer.
He halted his progress and pivoted on his heel to block her path. She fell into him at close range, her body thumping into his so they were chest to chest, his gaze glittering above her.
"Don't tempt me to show you how much it's costing me to wait." His hands gripped her by the elbows, steadying her. "And if I'm only going to have a weekend with you, I need to make sure I cram in a lot. That means I can't necessarily put what I want ahead of everything else."
Words escaped her for a long moment, the heat between them assuring her he wanted her. A thrill shot through her, sparkling over her insides like the moon on the snow. Sweet heaven, but this man did incredible things to her.
"Right." She couldn't match Jared in eloquence when he decided to speak his mind, although she still couldn't imagine what he wanted to show her in the middle of nowhere. "Then I guess we'd better get going."
They stood unmoving in a silent showdown for a moment, although what exactly they were battling for, Heather couldn't say.
"It's just up here," he said finally, calling over his shoulder. "You can almost see it."
Squinting into the distance, she could see the outline of some low buildings ahead, although there were no lights in the windows, making their features difficult to distinguish. But even with a bright moon and the last remains of twilight to illuminate the night, the surrounding shelter of pine trees didn't allow her to see anything special.
"Is this where you live?" She remembered he mentioned living close to the lodge and she wondered if he wanted to take her to his place tonight. Curiosity bubbled as she wondered what kind of home he would keep.
Everything about Jared seemed dark and mysterious since her knowledge of his intimate preferences was wide but her understanding of what made him tick was minuscule.
"No." He crushed any hope she had of dragging him into a nearby bed and having her way with him. "This is my building project."
"I thought you flew a Medivac helicopter." She remembered he also said something about local rescue work on the mountains on his days off. "Just how many jobs do you have, Army-man?"
Stepping out of the trees into a large clearing she could see six log cabins of varying sizes and shapes with multi-gabled roofs and small porches. They looked like new construction although there was a definite old-fashioned appeal to the cottages. Space had been cleared that could fit at least six more of the buildings.
"This is more a hobby than anything, right now. My grandfather was a carpenter and he taught me how to build. In fact, I restored a few of the cabins at the Timberline Lodge when I first moved back here. Yours included." He led her toward the closest cabin, the moonlight picking out a few more details on the structure now that they'd stepped out of the trees.
The windows were expanses of multiple panes in keeping with the old-fashioned appeal. Heavy stone chimneys bracketed both sides of each building. The porch rails were rough-hewn split timber and the steps up to the cabins were natural stone.
"And you liked that so much you decided to make your own village?" Peering around the small development she realized they were still close to the lake and that the property led down to the frozen expanse. Whoever had the rights to this land was sitting on a gold mine.
"I thought about building some houses like a Habitat for Humanity community, but Roland Krause---the innkeeper---convinced me I'd be better off using my grandfather's land for something profit-generating so that I could finance more humanitarian buildings down the road and well into long-term."
This was his land. Jared Murphy possessed the gold mine and the way he planned to use it tweaked her heart and conscience right along with it. She felt herself teeter on the brink of...oh, God.
Love?
The possibility blindsided her as much as the emotion behind it. She'd kept the lid on her feelings for Jared for so long that now, at this sweet provocation and the proof of his generous spirit, she fell headlong into what she'd tried to avoid five years ago.
"So you're going to sell these for a tidy sum and use the proceeds for more practical housing." Her boot collided with a stone and he reached to steady her.
He'd been doing that a lot this weekend. But then, she had reason to be unsteady in his presence after five years of fiercely mixed emotions. She blinked hard to process this new facet of him that she never knew existed. God, she hadn't known him at all.
The more she got to know him, the more she cared about him, wanted to be with him. That warmth of feeling would make it impossible to sprint out of his bed at dawn on Sunday. He deserved better, even if he didn't want her for keeps.
"Actually, Roland encouraged me to develop a hotel property like the Timberline Lodge, something that would continue to generate income for years." He released her waist now that she had her footing. "The lodge is just over this hill. Sorry if the trek has been a little long."
"That's okay." She fought to find her bearings, wondering why he'd show her his project in the dark and not, say, tomorrow morning. "The cabins are beautiful."
"Thanks." He helped her up the start of the incline, making sure her boots found traction. "You said some nice things about the materials around your cabin so I thought I'd show you these in case you were...I don't know...creatively inspired."
She stopped, her treads sliding a few inches.
"You want to recruit me for your project?" Did she understand him correctly?
She should be flattered that he wanted to work with her. It was a great opportunity to contribute to a community that needed a boost and could draw attention to her fabric business.
Furthermore, it would be fun. But she couldn't help but wonder if that had been an ulterior motive for inviting her up here after all this time. He'd never felt compelled to contact her while he'd been overseas or during the year he'd been back in the States.
The implications of his simple invitation...his assurances that he hadn't invited her up here to renew a hot relationship...it all made sense now.
"Only if it's something that would be a good fit for your business." He wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her up the slope in spite of her sluggish feet. "I actually found your contact information on the Web site for The Attic while researching companies that specialized in design for historic properties."
The revelation pricked her heart with a powerful sting. He hadn't even been searching for her. He'd been trying to find a company to decorate his damn cabins.
All the fun she'd had today---the skating, the snowshoeing, an exhilarating run down the Olympic bobsled track---seemed tainted somehow. He'd told her from the moment he picked her up Friday that he hadn't been trying to get her into bed. But damn it, she'd been convinced he wanted to see her for more personal reasons.
She struggled to speak, to move forward. To pretend this news didn't cut her to the quick.
Yeah, he remembered her all right. Just not the way she'd wanted and dared to dream.
"One of my first jobs was decorating the historic home that belongs to my mother." Not that her mother had paid her. But at least Loralei had always been up-front about her motives. "Most of my business is selling antique linens that work well in historic properties, but I do some original designs as well."
"It blew my mind that some people think it's cool to use a two-hundred-year-old tablecloth." Jared grinned over at her in the moonlight. "Sorta makes you think twice about what you throw away if someone might pay five times the value for it in another generation or two."
They cleared the rise of the hill and she could see the lodge in the distance and her cabin only a hundred yards away. White lights shone in the windows of all the cottages, giving the place a festive glow she didn't feel.
On the plus side, however, was her realization that she didn't need to feel guilty about her seduce-and-run scheme.
Trouble was, she didn't know that she had the heart for it anymore.
\*
Jared couldn't wait to get back to the lodge to propose his plan for a future together. He'd thought about her every second of his quick trip back to his place to retrieve some clothes for dinner tonight. He had nothing with him since he hadn't planned to spend the night before with her. He'd told her as much when they got back to her cabin and she'd assured him she was looking forward to trying out the hot tub while he was gone.
Now, speeding back to the inn, he was tortured by visions of her in the hot tub, slippery wet. He'd wanted to join her. Hell, he'd been dying to. But he figured a quick time-out to get enough clothes to take her out tonight would help him get his head on straight before he asked her to consider making a bigger commitment to a possible future.
He'd wanted to romance her yesterday, but she'd made it clear she had seduction on her mind. Since they had spent five freaking years apart he could hardly argue the point. Then today, he'd started off strong between showing her every fun thing Lake Placid had to offer. He wanted to ask her to consider life in the North Country over dinner tonight and he figured he needed as much ammunition as he could muster. He'd taken her to see the project he was building earlier so that his plans for the future would seem more concrete.
But something had gone very wrong out on the construction site. Whether she didn't like the cabins or her woman's intuition sensed he was working his way up to asking her for a commitment, he didn't know. He did know that she'd pulled back afterward and that had him worried. She'd bolted into the bathroom as soon as they'd returned to the cabin, promising him she would be ready for dinner by the time he returned.
Should he have stuck around and tried to figure out what was wrong? He could have asked her right then to think about sticking around Lake Placid long enough to see snow on a regular basis. But he wanted to do things right this time after the way he'd left her five years ago.
Now, driving back through the village lit up with white lights and busy with last-minute holiday shoppers, he struggled to see the road ahead of him and not visions of Heather's slippery, wet body in a tub full of bubbles. But he couldn't even dream about joining her when he needed to figure out what was going through her head now.
He definitely needed some discipline when it came to her. There was no way he'd let himself set foot in that tub until he'd figured out what was wrong and told her he couldn't spend another Christmas apart....
\*
The alarm clock turned on the radio at five-fifteen, waking him up to holiday tunes a hell of a lot more optimistic than he felt.
He stared at Heather spooned against him, her big bed a decadent antique in an otherwise barren apartment. She'd only been out of college for a couple of years, but she had said she was working full-time and putting all her funds into building a business rather than making her apartment into a real home.
Not that Jared had noticed much of anything about her place besides the fact that she was in it. He was halfway in love with her by midnight on Saturday, but he told himself that his emotions were keyed-up because he was about to leave life as he knew it for at least a year.
Shutting off the alarm, he sat up in bed, wanting to wake her to see her gorgeous blue eyes on him one more time before he had to report in. His chest tightened with regret that he'd met her too late. If only they'd crossed paths sooner.
Angry with himself for this swell of emotion he didn't understand, he stuffed it all down and packed up his things. He needed to leave enough time to go back to base and dress. Pack. Hell, he needed to hurry.
He'd spent every last possible second with this woman who had blazed into his life Friday night like a comet. And he knew whether he woke her or not, the impression she'd made would be singed into his memories for the rest of his life.
His watch alarm blared an electronic beep, a backup he'd set to be sure he got his ass out the door in time today. Scrambling to shut it off, he glanced back at the bed to see if she'd stirred. She hadn't. Maybe a kiss goodbye wasn't meant to be.
He found all his clothes and dressed. There was nothing keeping him here because he'd made sure not to give her any information to get in touch with him while he was gone. It was better that way, he knew. Jared's brother had been overseas for eight months and Jessie had missed the birth of a daughter by a girlfriend he'd rushed to marry on his last leave.
With Jessie's crumbling personal life as a cautionary tale, Jared planned to leave well enough alone with Heather. He wouldn't make his brother's mistakes or foist off that kind of loneliness on Heather, no matter that his first instinct was to ask her to write to him. See him again when he came home.
If he came home.
No. This was the right decision. He sat beside her on the bed and stroked her silky hair where it spilled over on her bare shoulder. She gripped the pillow beside her head, fingers flexing in the down as she sighed in her sleep.
She slept hard and she played hard. He'd learned that much about her in the past thirty hours. He didn't always meet a lot of women because he tended to be more quiet and intense than the easygoing types who could lay on the charm and score every night. That didn't bother Jared, necessarily, but he appreciated Heather for seeing his interest and seeking him out. Damn but she turned him on.
She rolled to her back, her breasts lifting high over the top of the sheet for one breath-catching moment.
And just like that his brain tripped into imaginative high gear, thinking how easy it would be to slip under the covers right now and wake her up as he slid inside her. But they were out of time.
He bent to kiss her forehead in the darkened room, knowing damn well some lucky bastard would probably snap her up while he was gone. And while he wouldn't try to hold her back from moving forward with her life, that didn't change the fact that he would be leaving a piece of himself in Savannah, Georgia.
\*
He drove back to the main building at the Timberline Lodge, knowing damn well what he had to do. He'd started off the weekend thinking he had to test if Heather could be the missing piece of the puzzle that made his life feel so empty these past few Christmases. He'd tried telling himself it was the war, the posttrauma of war, the stress of getting acclimated to life outside the military, but now he couldn't pretend it was anything other than the loss of a woman he'd fallen in love with in the course of one hot weekend.
His cell phone rang as he pulled into the long driveway that wound through the woods to the lodge. The ID showed the inn, so he picked up expecting Heather.
"Hello?"
"Jared, I'm so glad I found you."
Helen Krause's voice on the other end of the phone surprised him. She seemed to be whispering on the other end of the line while a piano banged out "Jingle Bell Rock" somewhere in the background.
"What's up?" He hoped she didn't need him to fix anything. He'd made sure he wasn't on call for flying this weekend while Heather was in town, but he'd done a fair amount of work for the Krauses over the past year.
"It's Heather." The two words commanded his full attention.
"What about her?" He speeded up his pace on the winding road.
"Roland just saw her pulling a suitcase up the path behind the lodge." She hesitated while the piano in the background ended the tune with a flourish and a round of clapping ensued, probably a special entertainment in the dining room.
"A suitcase?" He repeated the word blankly, wondering if there could be any reasonable explanation for her toting around her weekend bag.
"We don't mean to pry, dear, but we had a good feeling about her when the two of you checked in yesterday and we wanted to make sure---"
"You did the right thing and I'm going to build you that whole damn new kitchen you want for the inn to thank you." He didn't take the turnoff road down to the separate cabins but stayed on the main road to take him directly to the lodge. "I think I see her, Mrs. K."
Up ahead, he spotted a dark green coat and blue knit hat in the blaze of white lights decorating the front of the inn. Heather sat on her small rolling suitcase a few feet from the curb as if waiting for a ride.
"Don't you let her leave, Jared," Mrs. Krause counseled while a small group of voices broke out into carols in the background.
"Not a chance." He disconnected the call, determination firing through him as he rounded a corner past some lighted Christmas trees.
Heather stood, apparently spotting his truck barreling toward the inn. He didn't bother to park in the lot, pulling up beside her and turning off the engine. He shoved open the door and walked around the vehicle, facing her.
Heart in his throat, he knew what her packed bag signified. That didn't mean he
had to accept it. He wouldn't accept it, because walking away from her last time had cost him more than even he had realized until recently.
No way would he make that same mistake twice. Clearing his throat, he nodded toward the suitcase.
"Going somewhere?"
"I can't do this." Heather hated being such a Scrooge on Christmas when the sounds of carols from inside the inn drifted out into the courtyard. The whole place looked like a winter wonderland, more warm and welcoming than any holiday card she'd ever seen with the wreaths and bows adorning window after window and a wealth of tall pines covered in miniature lights around the parking lot.
"That's excellent news." Jared spoke softly, his gentle tone at odds with the dark emotions in his eyes, his big warrior's body tense. "Because I wouldn't let you do this even if you wanted to."
He grabbed her suitcase off the curb and faced her while she tried to gauge his mood.
"Do you want to talk in the lodge or back down at the cabin?" he prodded when she said nothing.
"Neither." She shook her head, hoping her cab wouldn't arrive too soon since she at least wanted to give him an explanation---more than they'd given each other the last time they'd parted company. "What I mean is, I can't stay here pretending that everything is all fun and frivolity between us when I had every intention of walking away from you tomorrow morning before you even woke up."
The plan had turned sour on her somewhere during their time together and she wouldn't sit across from him and smile over dinner while she plotted her exit.
He hadn't worn a hat and snowflakes fell on his dark hair, the lacy crystals doing nothing to soften the hard edges of him as his jaw tightened.
"You came here for revenge." He shook his head as if disappointed. "But then you decided you'd had enough fun with that plot, so you thought you'd bail out even earlier than planned?"
She swallowed her regrets enough to call up some indignation.
"Since your motive in inviting me up here wasn't exactly all hearts and flowers, I didn't think you'd mind. Or did you hope that I would be so thrilled at the prospect of new business that I wouldn't care you had an ulterior motive? Did it occur to you that I might not want to do business with a man who once walked away from me so easily?"
"You think I asked you up here for a business proposition?" He sounded genuinely surprised. Thunking her suitcase back on the curb, he stalked toward her, his dark eyes narrowing.
In spite of everything, her heart sped its pace, her body slow to get the message that Jared wasn't the man for her.
"I have good reason since you made it a special point to drag me into the middle of the woods to pitch your project." She'd been taken advantage of by her family enough times to recognize a maneuver when she saw one. Heather had been taught the art of the wheedle from a master, and next to Loralei, Jared was a novice.
"You're right." He confirmed her worst fears as easily as he'd trotted out of her bed to travel halfway across the globe.
God, she'd been a fool to come here.
And still her body contradicted her, straining against her will to be near him.
"I was trying to give you a pitch." He closed the distance between them, his hands settling on her shoulders. "And I did a piss-poor job of it if you came away thinking I wanted your help decorating the cabins for---well, just for the sake of a business relationship."
She tried to follow that reasoning and couldn't, but then she knew that having his hands on her had a track record of making her brain disconnect.
"Heather, I asked you up here because I wanted to show you what my life is about these days and who I am now that I'm not bound to the military."
Inside the windows looking out onto the courtyard, Heather noticed Mrs. Krause peering out at them, her bright Santa sweater a flash of color that was hard to miss. She hurried away again, leaving Heather to puzzle through what Jared was saying.
"And I respect what you're doing, but I can't do business with you when---"
"Heather, I don't care if you never want to work with me professionally." He said it in that no-games tone she remembered from a long-ago conversation when she had first been captivated by him and an approach to life so different from what she was used to.
"You don't?"
"I don't." He brushed a dusting of snow off her collar and tipped her chin up, the leather of his gloves smoothing along her jaw. "I just wanted you to see that you would at least have some potential work income to tide you over if you ever wanted to consider moving up here to be with me."
She blinked. Attempted to process that.
"Are you asking---"
Her cell phone rang in her jacket pocket, spearing through her thoughts and interrupting them.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, reaching into her overcoat to retrieve it. "I turned it on after I called a cab and---"
Jared pulled the phone gently from her hands and pressed the button to answer it.
"Heather can't talk right now. She's in the middle of the most important moment of my life." He thumbed the off button along with the power switch, never taking his eyes off her.
"I don't understand." She was so confused. She didn't want to return to the demands of her family early, either, but she couldn't stay and grow more attached to Jared.
She knew the moment he'd shown her those damn cabins that she had fallen in love with him. Knowing that prohibited her from playing any stupid game of revenge, but it also meant she couldn't sleep with him on a casual basis.
"I didn't have a choice about leaving you five years ago. It would have been unfair of me to ask you to wait because we hardly knew each other. I didn't understand until years afterward how much our time together affected me, but waking up night after night thinking about you finally pounded it into my head."
A couple walked out of the lodge, laughing and kissing as they wove through the parking lot as one body. Heather envied that happiness even as she began to wonder if Jared's words meant there was still hope they might one day share that.
"I couldn't forget you, either," she confessed, knowing the time had come when keeping score didn't matter. She owed him the truth about how deeply he affected her. "You're the reason I'm not getting married today."
"Thank you." He cradled her face in his hands, his big body warming hers with his nearness. "I'm so glad you didn't end up with someone else, because I honestly don't know what I would have done if I couldn't have a second chance with you."
Her breath caught.
"Marry me, Heather. Move up here and be with me and---Hell, I'm doing this wrong and I've had five years to think about it."
"No!" She put a finger over his lips, an eagerness rising up in her chest in spite of her head's cry for caution. "I like where this is heading. I---I want to hear more."
"I want to be with you and I'm willing to go wherever you are. Here. Georgia. The Arctic. A tropical island. I don't care. I just want to have you in my life because I love you."
Her heart beat so hard now she couldn't even hear the dining room carols anymore, her whole world bubbling with new possibilities when she'd been five minutes from leaving Jared forever because she was too caught up in her wounded pride to understand what he really wanted from her this weekend.
"You invited me up here to court me."
The idea appealed to her every old-fashioned notion of romance.
He grinned.
"I figured we had already successfully conquered the chemistry aspect of a relationship, so I tried my damnedest to show you we could get along out of bed."
The warmth in her heart bubbled into happy tears that spilled from her eyes.
"Except I kept pulling you back into it."
"I didn't exactly fight you off---"
"I love you, Jared." The sentiment rose up from the depths of her soul, the secret truth that had kept her from loving anyone else. "I didn't want to acknowledge that because no one falls in love during a one-night stand. Or---in our case---a weekend stand. But I guess I should have realized you meant a lot to me when I was still mad at you for leaving me years after the fact."
"I'd like to make it up to you." Jared waved to Mrs. Krause who had returned to the window to look out at them. The older woman brightened up like one of her trees, waving back at triple speed.
"I'd like that, too." Heather hoped at this point her cab was never coming. She could stay here staring into Jared's eyes forever. "You mentioned some very intriguing scenarios for the future."
"You mean the part about living in the Arctic?"
"Uh, snow is nice, but that might be a bit much even for me. I was thinking more about marriage, or did I mishear something?"
Behind them, the inn doors opened and the Krauses spilled out into the courtyard with Roland holding an overcoat over their heads like a tent.
"You didn't mishear anything." Jared kissed her long and slow on the lips, a kiss full of promise that made her forget about anything else but enjoying the shivery delight of his tongue stroking over hers.
When he lifted his head to look into her eyes, he smiled. "I don't have a ring right now, but I've got a couple of witnesses."
Roland and Helen arrived just then. The older gentleman smiled while his wife bit her lip.
"Heather dear," Mrs. Krause began, "let me just apologize for calling our local cab company to cancel your ride. I know it was wrong of me but you two looked like you could use a little time to talk and---"
"This time of year brings out the matchmaker in my wife, you know." Roland winked at Heather. "And we are awfully fond of Jared."
"I'm glad." Heather blinked away the seductive tenderness of Jared's kiss. "I don't have any need for a cab so you saved me the trouble of canceling it. As it turns out, I'm going to be staying in Lake Placid for quite a while."
"I've asked Heather to marry me," Jared informed his friends. "And I think I just received confirmation that she's going to say---"
"Yes." Heather wrapped her arms around his neck, throwing herself into his chest and into his life. "Yes, Army-man. You're the one I've been waiting for."
Helen squealed beside them and Heather suspected her husband tugged her away because by the time Heather let go of Jared, the innkeepers had disappeared.
"What about your family?" He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her. "Do you think we should call them?"
Pleasure filled her that he would think of them. Her future with this man would be so full of happiness. Joy. Every day would be like Christmas with him in her bed and by her side.
"I've got a much better plan." She kissed his cheek and kept her arms around his neck, not sure when she'd be able to let go of him again. "How do you feel about a trip to Savannah tomorrow to help me pack a few things for my move up here?"
"You really don't mind leaving your family? Because I'm serious about moving down there with you. I don't have family ties up here."
"My business can move anywhere and I think you'll see why my family will be really fun to visit a few times a year." She couldn't wait to see Loralei swoon at the sight of Jared. "We can arrive just in time for a Christmas party my mother's been planning."
"Your mother, huh?"
"Yes." Heather adored her mother, but they would probably both extend their wings all the more with a little more room. "It will be a fun way for you to meet everyone at once."
"Even the ex-fiancé?" Jared quirked an eyebrow, but he didn't look the least bit worried.
Heather had the feeling he was going to handle the family far better than she ever had.
"I think my ex-fiancé will be glad to have you take his place after my mother tries to set him up with my half sister."
She had movers to call, clothes to pack, a business to transfer...and a man to ground her through it all.
"Heather?"
"Hmm?" She still couldn't let go of him. Couldn't believe that Christmas had brought her a little peace on earth and very, very goodwill toward this man after so many years of being a source of stress.
"No one will ever take my place." He stared at her with those no-games eyes, the ones that had followed her everywhere she went that night at an outdoor bar halfway across the country.
"Are you suggesting you'd fight for me?"
Leaning down to kiss her, he stole her soul with one brush of his lips.
"Right down to my last breath, angel."

