C.J.'s Fate C.J.'s Fate C.J.'s Fate

by Kay Hooper

  Attacking her blissfully in showers and elevators, on ski lifts. Singing love songs naked. Solemnly reading slightly obscene love letters and poems. Holding her hand with the cheerful abandon of a teenager. Making love tenderly, and passionately, and lustily.

  As changeable and unpredictable as the sea…

  Her cup hit the table with a muffled clatter as C.J. stared toward the fire in amazement. And only the crackling fire and the empty room heard her disgusted voice.

  “C.J. Adams, you are a fool. A total and complete idiot. The damn thing’s been staring you in the face, and you didn’t have the sense to see it!”

  A challenge. That’s what she needed so desperately—a man who could challenge her on every level. Fate. And her stupid, elusive fear was the fear of losing that challenge. She was afraid that boredom would creep over her, the restless urge to move on to something new.

  But that wouldn’t happen with Fate.

  Propping her forehead on one hand, C.J. stared down at the rough surface of the table and muttered unprintable descriptions of her own intelligence. A gypsy with a crystal ball could have seen the truth quicker than she had, for heaven’s sake! Ruefully, she was aware that Fate had unwittingly aided her in being blind for so long.

  That first week had been bewildering and unnerving. She had found herself pitchforked into the middle of a torrid romance with no idea of how to play her part. And Fate’s unpredictable behavior—though definitely catching her interest—had only made things worse. She had believed that he had been acting and, in doing so, had felt no desire to examine her own motives.

  And this last week…Almost constantly in his company, being wooed delightfully, she had had precious little time or energy to wonder what was going on inside her own head.

  Now, C.J. felt a sense of overpowering relief flood her. No man could have played a part so well, or for so long. Fate was Fate—ten men rolled into one—and she would never have to worry about becoming restless or bored with him. There would always be another facet to be explored, another layer of the man to be absorbed and fascinated by.

  He would always stir her mind and excite her senses. Irritate her, amuse her, move her, slightly bewilder her. Make her laugh and think and cry. Make her whole for the very first time.

  Characteristically, C.J. was suddenly almost frantic to race back to the lodge and fling herself at him. Smother him with kisses. Seduce him. Woo him, damnit! She had an awful lot to make up for; he had made himself vulnerable to her, and she had said not word one to assure him that he would not suffer for his openness.

  Jumping to her feet, C.J. hastily grabbed a large pot and headed for the door. She’d put out the fire with snow, leave the cabin as she’d found it, and make tracks back to the lodge as fast as her suddenly energetic legs could manage. She’d tell him that she loved him and would be delighted to marry him, and then—

  The thought was never completed. Flinging open the door, she paused on the threshold, staring outside. Snatches of conversation she’d only vaguely heard in the ski shop suddenly etched themselves in her mind like neon signs.

  “Forecasters are predicting a storm by noon…. Looks like it’s going to be a real monster…. Haven’t had a real blizzard around here in years—guess we’re due for one…. Don’t stray too far away, now, you never know….”

  “Oh, no…” C.J. breathed softly.

  Snow was falling in huge, fat flakes. The fall was not heavy at the moment, but the sky had darkened to slate gray, and wind was beginning to stir the tops of distant trees.

  “Damn. Damn, damn, damn!” C.J. closed the door slowly and leaned back against it, staring blindly at the interior of the cabin. No matter how anxious she was to get to Fate, she was not fool enough to go charging off into the middle of a blizzard. It was miles to the lodge, and she hadn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs. And even an excellent sense of direction could become muddled in a storm.

  She wasn’t particularly frightened by the possibility of being forced to spend as much as several days here alone. There was food enough; the wood in the corner would last through the afternoon and coming night, and she had noticed that a woodshed on one outside wall of the cabin held at least a three-day supply of cut logs. And, if worse came to worse, she could always employ the hatchet she had discovered in one of the cabinets to chop up the table and chairs.

  The mental image that last thought left failed to bring a smile to C.J.’s face. What she was concerned about was the fact that no one at the lodge would know if she was safe. Her friends would be frantic, and Fate…She didn’t like to think of Fate’s reaction.

  She glanced at her watch and frowned, feeling suddenly uneasy and more than a little frightened. For Fate. She had been gone from the lodge for slightly more than five hours; it was quite possible that he had started out after her. She knew a sudden impulse to clamp on her skis and start out anyway, but squashed it. That wouldn’t help; it’d only make things worse.

  The cabin was darkening, as though it were dusk. Sighing, C.J. went to light the lamp. There was nothing to do but wait out the storm and try to keep from going stir-crazy. Deciding that it would be pointless to faint for lack of food, she began rummaging in the cabinets, ignoring the increasing howl of the wind.

  She found the bottle of wine again, and debated briefly before setting it on the counter. “That’s it, my girl,” she murmured to herself, “get drunk on vintage wine. Play cat’s cradle if you can find a piece of string. Find a broom and clean the place up. Fix yourself a nice supper. And when you run out of things to do, you can always talk to yourself. They say that’s the first sign of insanity.” She reflected for a moment, then added wryly, “Particularly when you answer yourself.”

  C.J. fixed herself a tasteless meal of canned chicken and dumplings, drank three glasses of wine, and started to feel sorry for herself. Ruthlessly swallowing the self-pity, she corked the wine again, found a broom, and started to clean the cabin. Energetically.

  At the end of half an hour, she had one very clean cabin, a blister on one palm from the rough broom, watering eyes from the dust, and a childish inclination to stick out her tongue at Mother Nature.

  Where was the Maestro, damnit? Surely he hadn’t started out after her? No. No, he was safe at the lodge. Probably mad and worried, but safe, at least.

  Trouble was, she couldn’t put much faith in that hope. She knew her Fate, and if he was anything, it was a doer. He was about as likely to sit around and wait for news as she was to take the next shuttle to the moon. And the fact that he was an expert skier did very little to ease her worry. Expert skiers got lost in blizzards.

  And if she lost Fate now, because of her thoughtless stupidity in skiing off alone, life wouldn’t be worth living.

  Standing in front of the blazing fire, C.J. stared into orange flames, her mind very far away. Then a sound caught her attention, and she looked toward the door with a faint, uneasy frown. It was difficult to tell exactly where it had come from, due to the steadily increasing howl of the wind, but something told her that she was no longer totally alone. And she jumped a foot when the door was suddenly flung open with a crash.

  He didn’t look like a maestro, or an Indian, or a troubadour. He looked like a tired, worried man, the hard anxiety of his face softening with relief as his dark eyes regarded the figure slumped in the aftermath of shock.

  He was dressed for warmth and covered with snow, and she heard his rueful voice over the wail of the wind.

  “Trust my pixie to go barreling out into an approaching blizzard, and then find the one shelter for miles around. Stay put; I’ll let the others know you’re all right.” Pulling a walkie-talkie from the pocket of his thick jacket, he stepped back outside and closed the door behind him.

  Belatedly, C.J. realized that her mouth was hanging open, and hastily shut it.

  TEN

  WHEN HE CAME back inside the cabin, Fate propped his skis and poles by the door, tossed his knapsack onto the table, and then removed his jac
ket and hung it neatly on a peg. Silently.

  Weak with relief at his safety, C.J. was nonetheless a bit wary. She had a feeling that she was about to experience yet another facet of the man she loved, and this one didn’t exactly promise to be comfortable. Any other man would have raged at her for being such an utter fool; this calm silence was a bit unnerving.

  Having shed his outer gear and brushed the snow from his person, Fate strolled over to her and placed his hands quite gently on her shoulders. And then he shook her. Hard.

  “Don’t—you—ever,” he gritted fiercely, “do that to me again!”

  “I won’t do it again,” she managed breathlessly, but Fate wasn’t listening. Hard on the heels of the physical shaking came a sensual shaking that was quite wonderful. Emerging from the embrace with her senses spinning, C.J. managed one weak statement. “You shouldn’t have come after me—you could have gotten lost.”

  Fate showed his utter contempt of that by kissing her again.

  She finally, reluctantly, pushed him toward one of the chairs. “Sit down. I’ll get you some coffee; you look frozen.”

  Fate pushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead and gave her a mild glare. “I ought to turn you over my knee, you know that, don’t you?” he asked wryly, moving to the chair and sitting down.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, disregarding that.

  “Followed your tracks until about an hour ago. Then I lost them, so I just crossed my fingers and kept going.”

  “Who did you talk to on the walkie-talkie?” She busied herself making him a cup of coffee.

  “A small rescue team combing the slopes for stray skiers, of which you were one. I told them we’d stay here until the storm passes. One of them said this place was always kept stocked with food and wood just in case.”

  C.J. silently refused to abandon her fanciful story of star-crossed lovers. Before she could say anything, Fate was going on briskly.

  “Stop changing the subject, pixie. The point of this little adventure is that you need a keeper. Now, I know that I promised to be patient, but every man has his limits, and today has pushed me well past mine. We’re getting married on Valentine’s Day—if I can wait that long—and that’s all there is to it.”

  C.J., her back to him and busy with the coffee, said casually, “I think that’s a terrific idea.” There was a long silence from behind her.

  “C.J.?” His voice was almost inaudible.

  Forgetting the coffee, she turned to find him on his feet and looking at her with undisguised hope shining in the purple eyes. Her own voice was very husky when she answered the question there. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”

  Two long strides brought him to her side. “Pixie…are you sure?” he breathed, something about him suggesting that he was holding himself under tight restraint.

  She stood on tiptoe to slide her arms around his neck. “Sure? Of course I’m sure. I love you, Fate…darling Fate…more than anyone else in this world.”

  For a long moment, he seemed content to drink in the softened, love-drenched expression on her face, the adoring tawny eyes. And then he bent his head, his lips touching hers with shattering tenderness. “Oh, Lord, I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I thought I’d have to drag you to the altar kicking and screaming.”

  “Never.” She gloried in the feel of his hard body pressed against hers, the closeness of their mingling breath. “I know a good thing when I latch on to one! Every woman should have a slightly crazy Indian brave by her side.”

  He rested his forehead against hers, a light glowing in his dark eyes which was wonderful to see. “When did you know?”

  C.J. smiled wryly. “Unconsciously…since that first night. Consciously…Remember the party? Everything was happening that day. You’d met the guys for the first time; I’d finally decided that it was time I joined the parade; and then I realized that not only were you wanting some kind of real relationship between us, but I had fallen in love with you without being aware of it.”

  Fate frowned slightly. “That dance—by the time the music stopped, you looked as though you’d been kicked in the stomach.”

  “I was scared to death,” she admitted softly, planting a kiss on his chin, the only place she could reach since he’d raised his head. “It happened so fast I didn’t know if it was real or insane.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “That I loved you, or that I was afraid?” she asked.

  “Both.”

  “I didn’t tell you how I felt because I was afraid—and you knew that I was afraid of something.”

  “Will you tell me now what you were afraid of?”

  C.J. picked her words carefully. “You said once that I only truly came out of myself when I found a challenge; and that was right on target. You challenged me, Maestro—on every level. And I was deathly afraid of losing that.” When he would have spoken, she pressed gentle fingers against his lips. “Then—out here alone—I realized that every day with you would bring a new challenge. You’re so—damned—unpredictable!” she finished with a laugh.

  Fate lifted a hand and caught her fingers, kissing them lightly. “I told you that I did crazy things when I fell in love with a beautiful pixie,” he teased gently. “And I promise to be totally unpredictable every day of our lives.”

  “What more could a woman want….”

  Still kissing her fingers, and gazing adoringly into her eyes, he murmured, “I love you, pixie.” And then, without altering his tone of voice, added, “The coffee’s boiling over.”

  C.J. blinked at him and then laughed, snatching her hand away and giving him a push toward the table. “Peasant! Go sit down, and I’ll make another pot.”

  Chuckling, Fate walked over to the table while C.J. hastily removed the boiling pot from the stove and set it on the counter. “There’s no need,” he told her cheerfully. “I brought a Thermos of coffee with me.” He dug into the knapsack.

  “You might have told me sooner,” she scolded.

  “I forgot,” he explained disarmingly.

  C.J. turned off the stove and went to sit in one of the chairs. “We have to talk,” she announced and, reading the gleam in his eyes, added firmly, “about practical things.”

  Fate cast a longing glance toward the bed. “Do we have to?” he asked mournfully.

  “Yes!”

  He sighed and poured out a cup of coffee. “Want some of this?” His voice was resigned.

  “No, thanks.” Pleased to have won a minor point, C.J. was caught off guard when he placed his cup on the table, calmly picked her up, and then sat down with her on his lap.

  “Fate!”

  “If we have to talk, I’m going to make myself comfortable.” He started nuzzling her neck.

  She leaned determinedly away. “Stop that! Look, if we’re going to trip merrily down the aisle, there are a few problems needing to be ironed out first.”

  “Not if, love—when.”

  C.J. hastily caught a wandering hand. “When we get married, then,” she corrected. “But we have to solve the problems first.”

  “Minor difficulties,” he dismissed casually.

  “You consider nearly two thousand miles a minor difficulty?”

  Fate gave her a mild glare, frustrated because she was now holding both his hands firmly. “I can’t think straight when I’m having withdrawal pains,” he complained.

  “Try,” she instructed heartlessly.

  “All right, you hard-hearted pixie.” He lounged back in the chair and freed one of his hands to pick up the cup of coffee. Sipping the drink, he added, “Let’s hammer it out, point by point.”

  “First point: you live in Denver, and I live in Boston.”

  “And you don’t want to move so far away from your friends,” he finished dryly.

  “That’s part of it,” she admitted, still reluctant to tell him the major reason why it just wouldn’t be practical for her to leave Boston. But he was smiling.

  �
��I’m way ahead of you, sweetheart.” His voice was casual. “The phone calls this morning finalized a deal I set in motion the day after I met you.”

  She blinked at him, fascinated. “Really?”

  “Uh huh. A friend of mine lives in Boston. He and I graduated law school together, and we’ve talked from time to time about the possibility of opening our own office. Nothing ever came of it until last week, when I called to find out if he was still interested. He was. Pending your approval, everything’s settled.”

  On the verge of losing her temper at his highhandedness, C.J. was considerably mollified by his last statement. “Taking a lot for granted, weren’t you?” she asked tartly.

  “Not at all. I meant to follow you to Boston, pixie, whether you liked it or not. And since a man likes to demonstrate his ability to support his future wife, I thought I’d better make sure I had a job in that fair city.”

  C.J. stirred uneasily and spoke hastily when he placed his cup back on the table with pointed emphasis. “Which brings us to point two. And I don’t know if it’s going to be a problem—it all depends on how you react to it.”

  “You terrify me,” he said calmly. “What’s point two?”

  C.J. traced an absent finger along his jaw. “Well…do you remember this morning, when I told you I was rich?”

  “I remember everything you’ve ever said to me,” he said, his hand—once again free—creeping up underneath her sweater.

  She caught his wrist, saying rather desperately, “I wasn’t kidding, Maestro.”

  His expression altered slowly from lusty interest to comical surprise. “You weren’t?”

  “I thought you should know,” she replied, torn between laughter and uneasiness.

  “What kind of salary does a research librarian command? Maybe I should change professions,” he said wryly.