A drowsy Marsha entered the room, rubbing her sleep-filled eyes and hugging her storybook in front of her. She pattered quickly to her older sister's side and curled onto the edge of the pillow, sitting cross-legged and yawning.
Brock took a sip of his coffee and murmured to Stephanie, "This bed is nearly as full as mine was last night."
"Were you going to wrestle?" the oldest brunette girl inquired innocently.
His look was amused, yet narrowed. "Why do you ask?"
"Because mommy and daddy do that sometimes in the mornings," she explained. "Daddy tickles and tickles her. It makes mommy laugh so hard she cries. Then daddy kisses her like you were doing."
"I see." The corners of his mouth deepened with the containment of a smile. "Then what happens?"
Stephanie gasped in sharp embarrassment, drawing the wicked glint of his gaze.
"Then mommy's cheeks get pink like Stephanie's are," Amy admitted with guileless charm. "She shoos us to our own rooms and helps us get dressed so we can go outside and play."
The answer didn't put Stephanie any more at ease under Brock's disturbing and mocking look. "Is your mother awake?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.
"Not yet." It was obvious it didn't matter much to either of the girls. "Do you have any children?" Amy directed the question to Brock. Like any female, she was drawn to the male of the species.
"No," he replied as his gaze roamed over the two little girls.
"Wouldn't you like to have a little girl of your own?" Amy seemed puzzled. "Daddy says it's wonderful, especially when you have two."
"He does, does he?" Brock was deliberately noncommittal although he glanced almost automatically at Stephanie.
"Yes. You can have little boys, too," Amy hastened to add.
"But they can be mean sometimes," Marsha piped in for the first time. "Jimmy Joe Barnes stepped on my doll and broke its head on purpose."
"But daddy fixed it," Amy reminded her, before turning back to Brock. "Which do you think you'd rather have?"
"I don't know. Do little boys crawl in bed with their parents in the morning, too?" he asked with his tongue in his cheek.
"I think so." Amy's frown revealed she didn't understand the relevancy of that question.
"Which would you rather have, Stephanie?" Brock eyed her with deliberate suggestiveness, stealing her breath. "Boys or girls? Or one of each?"
"I—" She was spared from answering that provocative question by the interruption of Madge Foster's voice coming from the bedroom.
"Amy? Marsha? Where are you?" she called in sleepy alarm.
"We're in here, mommy," Amy answered immediately.
"What are you…" the question was never finished as the young woman appeared in the doorway.
The sight of Brock sitting half-naked with Stephanie and her daughters made the woman suddenly and embarrassingly conscious of the revealing nightgown she was wearing. Quickly she stepped behind the door, using it as a shield.
"You girls come here right now," she ordered. "You haven't brushed your teeth yet," she added, as if that was the reason.
The pair hopped blithely to their feet and dashed into the bedroom. Madge sent Stephanie a grimacing look of apology before closing the door.
"Now—" Brock caught at Stephanie's hand to pull her off-balance and into his arms "—where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" His mouth had barely touched her lips when there was a knock at the hall door. Releasing her, he muttered, "This place is turning into Grand Central Station. You'd better hand me my pants, there's likely to be a parade through here any minute."
Before she answered the door, Stephanie handed him the trousers draped over a nearby chair. It was one of the housekeepers doing a room check. When Stephanie turned around after closing the door, Brock was on his feet, semidecently clad in the dark pants.
"More coffee?" she suggested.
"Since circumstances don't allow anything else, why not?" he shrugged with a wry smile. She had just started to fill his cup when the telephone rang. Brock motioned her to stay where she was. "I'll get it." He answered it, then hesitated, glancing at Stephanie as he responded to the caller, "Just a minute, please." He held the mouthpiece slightly away. "The young woman occupying the bedroom—is her last name Foster?"
"Yes, it is," Stephanie nodded.
"It's her husband on the phone," he explained. "Evidently the telephones are back in service. There's an extension by the bed she can use."
"I'll tell her." She handed Brock his cup before she walked over to knock on the connecting door. "Madge, your husband is on the phone."
The delighted shrieks of the two young girls came first from the bedroom, then echoed into the sitting room through the phone in Brock's hand. He set the receiver on its cradle and let a glance slide at Stephanie.
"How do you suppose she's going to explain that a man answered?" he mocked.
"With the storm and all, I'm sure her husband will understand." She dismissed it as a problem and retrieved her coffee cup from the side table to refill it.
As he was pouring the coffee from the thermal pot, Brock came up behind her, sliding an arm around the front of her waist and bending to kiss the side of her neck. "Believe me, if I called you and a man other than your brother answered the phone, you'd have a lot of explaining to do."
A delicious tingle danced over her skin at his nibbling kisses. "I'll remember to always answer the phone myself from now on," she mocked, "especially when I'm entertaining male friends."
His arm tightened with a sudden fierceness. "I'm not joking, Stephanie. Just thinking of someone else touching you—"
Someone rapped very softly on the hall door. Brock cursed savagely as he broke away from her and crossed the room with long, impatient strides to jerk the door open.
Perry stood outside, briefly startled. "I wasn't sure if you were up yet."
Brock's laugh was a harsh sound. "I'm awake, all right. Thanks to two little girls, then their mother, then a telephone call from their father, and a housekeeper fits in the order of things somewhere. Come in—everybody else does." Irritation negated the attempt at humor. "I suppose you need Stephanie."
"Indirectly." Perry's gaze was ruefully apologetic when it met hers. "I need the revised rate schedule we made yesterday afternoon. I looked on your desk, but I couldn't find it."
"It's in the folder in the top, right-hand drawer of my desk," she quickly supplied its location.
"What's it like getting out of here?" Brock demanded unexpectedly. She stared at him, not wanting to believe the implication of that question. Brock didn't even glance her way.
"The airport is closed still, but the highways are open. The snow is drifting in places, but otherwise it's in good shape, according to the highway-patrol report we got this morning," her brother replied.
"You aren't leaving?" Stephanie almost accused.
"I have to." Then he flashed her an angry look, noting the sharp hurt in her expression. "Dammit! I don't like it any more than you do!"
Very quietly, Perry slipped out of the room, leaving them alone. Stephanie turned away from Brock, trying to hide her bitter disappointment. She heard him set his cup down and walk up behind her. His hands settled hesitantly on her shoulders.
"Twenty-four hours was all I could spare, Stephanie," he explained grimly. "I've already used more than that, most of it trying to get here."
"I understand that." She turned and was confronted by the naked wall of his chest. Lifting her gaze she looked into his face. "Honestly, I'm glad you came…for however long or short it has to be."
His gray eyes no longer smoldered with a resenting anger, but burned with a sultry fire as they lingered for a long, disruptive moment on her parted lips, There was no longer any hesitation in the touch of his hands as he drew her up to meet his descending mouth.
His kiss seared her with the rawness of his hunger, arousing her to the full awareness of his need and making her ache for male aggression of his want
s. Her arms wound around his neck as she was crushed willingly against his chest. Before the embrace erupted out of control, Brock set her from him with a groan.
"You'd better go now," he advised tightly. "We aren't going to have any more time alone. And I'd rather say goodbye now."
"Brock!" It was a silent protest.
"Believe me, it's better this way," he insisted, "I'll see you when I can, you know that, don't you?"
"Yes," she nodded, and tried not to think about how long that might be.
He walked her to the hall door, brushing her lips with a kiss before she left the room. Her throat was raw and her eyes burned, but she didn't cry. An inner voice warned her that these farewells were something she had better accept. They would be very numerous in any prolonged relationship with Brock Canfield.
Perry didn't say anything when she walked into her office to find him going over the schedule he had removed from her desk drawer. There was gentle sympathy in his look and a suppressed concern.
For nearly two hours she waited, clinging to the hope that Brock would stop by to see her one last time before he left. But he went without seeing, her again. Squaring her shoulders, she began concentrating on her work.
Keeping busy was the one sure way to make the time pass faster until she saw him again. The feeling that he cared as deeply about her as she did for him made it seem easier somehow. There was strength to be drawn from that.
Chapter Seven
"MISTLETOE?" PERRY HELD UP the sprig by its red bow and cocked an eyebrow at Stephanie, kneeling in front of the fireplace to arrange the Nativity scene on its snowy blanket. "What on earth do we need mistletoe for in this house?"
"That's a good question." She sent him a teasing glance over her shoulder. "Maybe for that new schoolteacher, Miss Henderson. I understand she came into the restaurant for dinner again last night. I also understand that you just 'happened' to take your break at the same time."
"The restaurant was crowded," he defended himself, a redness spreading upward from his neck. "It seemed logical to ask her to sit at my table."
"But twice in half a week?" she mocked. "I didn't realize schoolteachers were paid the kind of wages that would allow them to eat at an expensive restaurant on Monday night and again on Wednesday. Or did she pay for her own meal both times?"
"Pattie really has a big mouth," Perry sighed in disgust.
And Stephanie laughed at the reference to the cashier, her source of information that had betrayed the fact that Perry had bought the young, attractive teacher's dinner the night before. "Pattie is just worried about your single status."
"It's none of her business."
"Maybe not," she conceded. "But in case you decide to invite Miss Henderson over for a glass of holiday cheer, why don't you hang the mistletoe from that center beam? It looks like a strategic location to me."
"Who said I was going to invite her over?" Perry bristled.
"Not me," Stephanie countered with wide-eyed innocence. "But if you do, let me know. I can always spend the night at the inn."
"Hang up your own mistletoe." Perry tossed it aside in ill humor and reached into the box of Christmas decorations to take out the wreath for the door.
"Get me the ladder and I will," she agreed, realizing that the new schoolteacher was an unusually touchy subject.
A sigh slipped from her lips as Perry stalked out of the room to fetch the ladder. She regretted ribbing him. It must be more than a casual flirtation for Perry to be so sensitive about it.
She certainly wasn't in any position to make light of someone else's relationship. She hadn't heard from Brock since Thanksgiving, which was two weeks ago. And two weeks could seem an eternity.
Perry returned with the ladder, not saying a word as he set it up beneath the beam where Stephanie had suggested that the mistletoe be hung. Leaving behind the smaller hammer, he took the heavier one and a couple of tacks, as well as the Christmas wreath of evergreen garlands, pinecones and red bows, and flipped on the outside light. He stepped outside and closed the door to keep the cold night air from chilling the living room.
Finished with the Nativity scene, Stephanie took the sprig of mistletoe, the hammer and a tack and climbed the ladder. One step short of the top she stopped and stretched to reach the hardwood beam.
Even though there was only the two of them, they traditionally hung their Christmas decorations after the tenth of December. The Christmas tree wasn't put up until the week before Christmas. Stephanie realized, a little ruefully, that neither of them was in the Christmas spirit on this night.
The phone started ringing before she had the mistletoe tacked into place. Stephanie hesitated, then continued to tap with the hammer, ignoring the commanding ring of the phone. The front door opened and Perry glared at her.
"Can't you hear the phone?" he snapped.
"That's only the third ring," she retorted just as impatiently.
"Fourth," he corrected, and walked briskly over to pick up the receiver and silence the irritating sound. "Hall residence," he answered with ill-tempered shortness, then paused. "Just a minute." He laid the receiver on the table with a thump. "It's for you."
The tack bent on the last strike of her hammer, which meant she had to start all over again with a new one. "Find out who it is and tell them I'll call back."
"I already know who it is—Brock." Just for a moment his expression softened. "Do you really want me to tell him you're too busy to talk right now?"
The mention of Brock's name sent her scrambling down the ladder, nearly upsetting it in her haste to get to the telephone. When she grabbed for the receiver, it slipped out of her fingers and crashed to the floor. Terrified she had broken it, Stephanie clutched it to her ear.
"Brock? Are you there?" Her voice was a thin thread of panic.
"My God, Stephanie! What did you do?" he demanded.
"I dropped the phone. I was on the ladder hanging the mistletoe when Perry answered the phone." She hurried her explanation. "I didn't realize you were the one who was calling until he told me. Then I was…" It was too revealing to admit how excited she had been, so she changed her sentence. "I was in such a hurry to get to the phone that I became all thumbs."
"Are you glad I called?" His voice changed its texture, becoming warm and searching.
"You know I am," Stephanie murmured, and noticed her brother slipping out of the room so she could have some privacy. "It seems so long since I've heard your voice. I…" She stopped, unable to actually admit the rest.
"You what, Stephanie? What were you going to say?" Brock insisted that she complete it. "Have you missed me?" He guessed her words.
"Yes, I've missed you." Her voice vibrated with the force of it.
"Why didn't you tell me that in your letters?" he demanded. "I couldn't stand it any longer, not knowing whether you were going through the same torment I've been suffering. The way you write, I get the feeling that everything is white and wonderful back there."
"Have you really missed me, too?" She hardly dared to believe it was true.
"I've been out of my mind." An urgency entered his tone. "Stephanie, I have to see you. I can't wait any longer."
"I want to see you, too." Her hand tightened on the telephone, trying to hold on to this moment. "C-can you come here?"
"No." He dismissed it as out of the question. "I'm in Palm Springs. I don't have a chance of getting away, not until around the holidays, maybe." He stressed the questionable status of that time. "I want you to come here, honey. I'll make all the arrangements. You can leave tomorrow morning and be here by noon. I'll only be able to spare a few hours in the afternoons to be with you over the weekend, but we'll have the nights—all of the nights."
"Brock!" She was overwhelmed by the invitation and his determination to see her, whatever the cost.
"Don't worry about packing much or digging out your summer clothes. We'll go on a pre-Christmas shopping spree—just you and me."
"You don't need to buy me anything
," she interjected swiftly.
"I want to," he replied. "I wake up nights, thinking you're going to be lying beside me. I can't describe the hell I go through when you aren't there. Stephanie, will you come?"
A positive answer was on the tip of her tongue when she realized, "Brock, I can't." Disappointment throbbed in her voice, acute and painful.
"Why? What do you want me to do—beg?" He was angry and vaguely incredulous that she was refusing. "Why can't you come?"
"I have the payroll to finish. Tomorrow is payday for the employees at the inn," Stephanie explained.
"To hell with that! I want you here with me. Isn't that more important?" Brock argued. "Let someone else finish it."
"But there isn't anyone else who's qualified?"
"Your brother can do it. And don't tell me he doesn't know how," he retorted.
"He's overworked as it is, with the inn booked solid and temporary winter help. I couldn't do that." What Brock was asking was unreasonable and Stephanie tried to make him understand. "It isn't that I don't want to come, Brock. I can't."
"You can if you want to badly enough." Stubbornly he refused to listen to her explanations. "Tell everybody they'll have to wait until next week for the paycheck. I don't care. Stephanie, I've got to see you. I want you to fly here."
"It's impossible. I can't do what you're asking. If you'd think about it, you would understand why." Her voice was growing tight with a mixture of anger and hurt confusion. "You aren't being fair."
"Fair? The way I'm feeling isn't fair," Brock argued. "I need you."
"Please don't do this." She was close to tears. "I can't come."
There was a long silence before his voice returned grimly to the line. "All right, if that's the way you feel about it."
"That isn't the way I feel. It's just the way it is," she choked.
"Have it your way." Brock sounded disinterested and very distant. "Goodbye."
Stephanie sobbed in a breath as the line went dead. She stared numbly at the telephone for a long time before she finally wiped the tears from her cheeks. She was sniffling when Perry entered the room a short while later. He handed her his handkerchief, but didn't ask what was wrong.
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