First Impressions

by Nora Roberts

  garden. Once the car had been moved, Shane had become involved with the unloading of lumber and had promptly forgotten it. Now, it was sunk deep in mud, firmly resisting all efforts to get it out.

  She pressed the gas lightly, tried forward, then reverse. She gunned the engine and swore. Slamming out of the drivers side, Shane sloshed ankle-deep in mire as she stomped back to the rear tire. She gave it an accusing stare, then kicked it.

  “That’s not going to help,” Vance commented. He had been watching her for the last few minutes, torn somewhere between amusement and exasperation. And pleasure. There was a simple pleasure in just seeing her. He’d stopped counting the times over the last few days that he’d thought of her.

  Out of patience, Shane turned to him, hands on hips. Her predicament was annoying enough without the added benefit of an audience. “You might have let me know you were there.”

  “You were … involved,” he said, glancing pointedly at her mired car.

  She sent him a cool look. “You’ve got a better idea, I suppose.”

  “A few,” he agreed, moving across the lawn to join her. Her eyes snapped with temper while her mouth pouted. Her boots were caked with mud past the ankle. Her jeans, rolled up to the calf, had fared little better. She looked ready to boil over at the first wrong word. A cautious man would have said nothing.

  “Who the hell parked it in this mud hole?” Vance demanded.

  “I parked it in this mud hole.” Shane gave the tire another fierce kick. “And it wasn’t a mud hole when I did.”

  He lifted a brow. “I suppose you noticed it rained all night.”

  “Oh, get out of my way.” Incensed, Shane pushed him aside and stomped back to the driver’s seat. She turned on the ignition, shoved the shift into first, then stepped heavily on the gas. Mud flew like rain. The car groaned and sank deeper.

  For a moment, Shane could only pound on the steering wheel in enraged impotence. She would have dearly loved to tell Vance that she didn’t require any assistance. There was nothing more infuriating than an amused, superior male … especially when you needed one. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she climbed back out of the car to meet Vance’s grin with icy composure. “What’s the first of your few ideas?” she asked coolly.

  “Got a couple of planks?”

  Even more annoyed that she hadn’t thought of it herself, Shane went to the shed and found two long, thin boards. Without fuss or conversation, Vance took them and secured them just under the front wheels. Shane folded her arms and tapped one muddy boot as she watched him.

  “I’d have thought of that in a minute,” she muttered.

  “Maybe.” Vance stood again to walk to the rear of the car. “But you wouldn’t get anywhere the way your back wheels are stuck.”

  Shane waited for him to make some comment on feminine stupidity. Then she would have an excuse to give him the full force of her temper. He merely studied her flushed face and furious eyes. “So?” she said at length.

  Something suspiciously like a smile tugged at his mouth. Shane’s eyes narrowed. “So, get back in and I’ll push,” he said, then put a restraining hand on her arm. “Gentle on the gas this time, hot rod. Just put it in drive and easy does it.”

  “It’s a four-speed,” she told him with dignity.

  “I beg your pardon.” Vance waited until she had waded her way back to the front of the car. For the first time in months, perhaps years, he had to make a concentrated effort to control laughter. “Let the clutch out slow,” he instructed after clearing his throat.

  “I know how to drive,” she snapped, and slammed the door smartly. Frowning into the rearview mirror, Shane watched him until he gave her a nod. With meticulous care, she engaged the clutch and gently pressed on the gas. The front wheels crept slowly onto the planks. The back tires slid, then stuck, then ponderously moved again. Shane kept the speed slow and even. It was humiliating, she thought, glaring straight ahead, absolutely humiliating that he was going to get her out without a hitch.

  “Just a little more,” Vance called to her, shifting his weight. “Keep it slow.”

  “What?” Shane rolled down the window, then stuck her head out to hear his answer. As she did, her foot slipped and fell heavily on the gas. The car shot out of the mud like a banana squeezed from its peel. With a gasp, Shane hit the brake, rocking to an abrupt halt.

  Closing her eyes, she sat for a moment and considered making a run for it. She didn’t dare glance in the rearview mirror now. It wouldn’t be difficult, she reflected, to make a U-turn, then keep right on going. But cowardice wasn’t her way. She swallowed, bit her lip, then climbed out of the car to face the music.

  Vance was kneeling in the mud. He was thoroughly splattered and hopping mad. “You idiot!” he shouted before Shane could say a word. Even as she started to agree with him, he continued. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Pea-brained little twit, I told you to take it slow.”

  He didn’t stop there. He swore at length, and fluently, but Shane lost track of the content. It was enough to know he was in a justifiable high rage, while she was fighting a desperate battle with laughter. She did her best, her very best, to keep her face composed and penitent. Feeling it would be unwise, as well as useless to interrupt with apologies, she folded her lips, bit the bottom one and swallowed repeatedly.

  At first she concentrated on keeping her eyes directly on his, hoping the fury there would kill the urge to giggle. But the sight of his mud-splattered face had her sides aching with restrained mirth. She hung her head, ostensibly from shame.

  “I’d like to know who the hell told you you could drive,” Vance went on furiously. “And what person with a brain cell working would have parked the car in a swamp to begin with?”

  “It was my grandmother’s garden,” Shane managed in a strangled voice. “But you’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m so sorry, really …” She broke off here as a gurgle of laughter rose dangerously. Clearing her throat, she hurried on. “Sorry, Vance. It was very”—she had to look over his head in order to compose herself—“careless of me.”

  “Careless!”

  “Stupid,” she amended quickly, thinking that might placate him. “Absolutely stupid. I’m really sorry.” Helplessly, she pressed both hands to her mouth, but the giggles came through. “I am sorry,” she insisted, giving up as he glared at her. “I don’t mean to laugh. It’s terrible.” Dizzy with the effort of trying to hold back, Shane bent over double. “Really awful,” she added on a howl of laughter.

  “Since you think it looks like fun …” he muttered grimly, and grabbed her hand. Shane landed on her seat with a gentle splash and kept on laughing.

  “I didn’t—I didn’t thank you,” she said on a peal of giggles, “for getting my car out.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Most women, he mused, would have been infuriated to find themselves sitting in a pile of mud. Shane was laughing just as hard at herself as she had at him. His grin was completely unexpected and spontaneous. “Brat,” he accused, but Shane shook her head.

  “Oh no, no I’m not, really.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “It’s just this terrible habit of laughing at the wrong time. Because I really am sorry.” The last word was drowned in a flood of laughter.

  “I can see you are.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t get it all over you.” Scooping up some mud, she wiped it across his cheek. “I missed that part right there.” She made a little choking sound in her throat. “That’s much better,” she approved.

  “You aren’t wearing nearly enough,” Vance returned. He trailed both muddy palms down her face. Trying to avoid him, Shane slid, ending up flat on her back. Vance’s boom of laughter broke into her shriek. “Much better,” he agreed, then spotting the handful of mud she was about to heave, he made a grab for her arm. “Oh, no, you don’t!”

  As he laughed, she shifted. Vance landed half on his chest, half on his side. With a muttered curse, he propped himself up,
studying her out of narrowed eyes.

  “City boy,” she mocked on a whoop of appreciation. “Probably never been in a mud fight in your life.” She was too pleased with her maneuver to see the next one coming.

  In a flash, Vance had her by the shoulders. Rolling her over, he straddled her, holding a hand to the back of her head. Lying full length, Shane looked wide-eyed at the mud inches away from her face.

  “Oh, Vance, you wouldn’t!” The helpless laughter bubbled still as she struggled.

  “The hell I wouldn’t.” He pushed her face an inch closer.

  “Vance!” Though she was slippery as an eel by this time, Vance held her firmly, clamping his knees around her while his hand urged her down. As the distance between revenge and her nose lessened, Shane closed her eyes and held her breath.

  “Give?” he demanded.

  Cautiously, Shane opened one eye. She hesitated a moment, torn between the desire to win and the image of having her face pushed into the mud. She didn’t doubt he’d do it. “Give,” she said reluctantly.

  Abruptly, Vance rolled her over so that she lay in his lap. “City boy, huh?”

  “You wouldn’t have won if I weren’t out of practice,” she told him. “It was just beginner’s luck.”

  Her eyes were mocking him. Her face was streaked with mud from his own fingers. The hands pressed against his chest were slippery with it. The grip on the back of her neck lightened until it was a caress. The hand at her hip roamed absently down her thigh as he lowered his eyes to her mouth. Slowly, without any conscious thought of doing so, Vance began to draw her closer.

  Shane saw the change in his eyes and was suddenly afraid. Did she really have the defenses she had bragged to Donna about? Now that she was certain she loved him, could there be any defense? It was too fast, she thought frantically. It was all happening too fast. Breathless from the race of her heart, she scrambled up.

  “I’ll beat you to the creek,” she challenged, then was off in a flash.

  Pondering on her abrupt retreat, Vance watched her run around the side of the house. Normally, he would have considered it a ploy, but he found it didn’t fit this time. Nothing about her fit, he concluded as he rose. Oddly, he realized he didn’t seem to fit either. He hadn’t realized he could find anything amusing or enjoyable about wrestling in the mud. Nor had he realized he could find a woman like Shane Abbott both intriguing and desirable. Trying to organize his thoughts, Vance walked around the side of the house to find her.

  She had stripped off her boots and was wading knee-deep in the rushing creek water. “It’s freezing!” she called out, then lowered herself to her waist. At the shock of cold, she sucked in her breath, “If it was warmer, we could walk down to Molly’s Hole and take a quick swim.”

  “Molly’s Hole?” Watching her, Vance sat on the grass to pull off his own boots.

  “Right around the bend.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the main road. “Great swimming hole. Fishing too.” Shivering a bit, she rubbed at the front of her shirt to help the water take off the worst of the mud. “We’re lucky it rained, or else the creek wouldn’t be high enough to do any good.”

  “If it hadn’t rained, your car wouldn’t have been stuck in the mud.”

  Shane shot him a grin. “That’s beside the point.” She watched him step into the water. “Cold?” she said sweetly when he winced.

  “I should have pushed your face in,” he decided. Stripping off his shirt, Vance tossed it on the grassy bank before scrubbing at his hands and arms.

  “You’d have felt really bad if you had.” Shane rubbed her face with creek water.

  “No, I wouldn’t have.”

  Glancing up, Shane laughed. “I like you, Vance. Gran would have called you a scoundrel.”

  He lifted a brow. “Is that praise?”

  “Her highest,” Shane agreed, rising to rub at the thighs of her jeans. They were plastered against her, molding her legs while her shirt clung wetly to her breasts. The cold had her nipples taut, straining against the thin cotton. Involved with cleaning off her clothes, she chattered, sublimely unaware they left her as good as naked.

  “She loved scoundrels,” Shane continued. “I suppose that’s why she put up with me. I was always getting into one scrape or another.”

  “What kind?” Vance’s torso was wet, cleaned of mud now, but he stayed where he was. Her body was exquisitely formed. He wondered how he hadn’t noted before how perfectly scaled it was—small round breasts, wasp-thin waist, narrow hips, lean thighs.

  “I don’t like to brag.” Shane worked the mud from the slippery sleeves of her shirt. “But I can show you the best way into old man Trippet’s orchard if you want to snitch a few green apples. And I used to have a great time riding Mr. Poffenburger’s dairy cows.” Shane sloshed over to him. “Here, you haven’t got it all off your face.” Cupping some water in her hand, she lifted it and began to clean his face herself. “I tore my britches on every farmer’s fence for three miles,” she went on. “Gran would patch them up saying she despaired of my being any more than a hooligan.”

  With one small, smooth hand, she methodically scrubbed Vance’s face. The other she held balanced against his naked chest. He made no protest, but stood still, watching her.

  “ ‘That Abbot girl,’ they’d say,” Shane told him, rubbing at a spot on his jawline. “Now I have to convince them I’m an upstanding citizen so they’ll forget I filched their apples and buy my antiques. No one takes a hooligan very seriously. There, that’s better.” Satisfied, Shane started to lower her hand. Vance caught it in his. Her eyes didn’t waver from his, but she became very still.

  Without speaking, he began to wash the few lingering traces of mud from her face. He worked in very slow, very deliberate circles, his eyes fixed on hers. Though his palm was rough, his touch was gentle. Shane’s lips trembled apart. With something like curiosity, Vance took a damp finger to trace their shape. He felt her quick, convulsive shudder. Still slow, still inquisitive, he ran his fingertip along the inside of her bottom lip. Under his thumb, the pulse in her wrist began to hammer. The sun broke briefly through the clouds, so that the light shifted and brightened before it dimmed again. He watched it play over her face.

  “You won’t run away this time, Shane,” he murmured, as if to himself.

  She said nothing, afraid to speak while his finger lingered on her lips. Slowly, he traced it down, over her chin, over the throbbing pulse in her throat. He paused there a moment, as if gauging and enjoying her response to him. Then he allowed his fingertip to sweep up over the swell of her breast and lie lightly on the erect peak covered only by the thin wet shirt.

  Heat and cold shot through her; her skin was chilled from the water, her blood flamed at his touch. Vance watched the color drain from her face while her eyes grew impossibly large and dark. Yet she didn’t draw away or protest the intimacy. He heard the sharp intake of her breath, then the slow, ragged expulsion.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked, bringing his hand up to cup the back of her neck.

  “No,” she whispered. “Of me.”

  Puzzled, he drew his brows together. For a moment he looked hard and very fierce. Though his eyes weren’t cold, they were piercing—full of questions, full of suspicion. Still Shane felt no fear of him, only of the needs and longing running through her. “An odd answer, Shane,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You’re an odd woman.” With his fingers, he kneaded the back of her neck while he searched her face for answers. “Is that why you excite me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, struggling for breath. “I don’t want to know. Just kiss me.”

  He lowered his lips, but only tested hers with the same lightness as his fingertip. “I wonder,” he said softly against her mouth, “what it is about you I can’t quite shake. Your taste?” He dug his teeth almost experimentally into her bottom lip. A low moan of pleasure was wrenched from her. “Fresh as rain one minute and honey soaked the next.” Lightly, languidly, he traced
her lips with his tongue. “Is it the way you feel? That skin of yours … like the underside of a rose petal.” He ran his hands down her arms, then up again, gradually bringing her to him until she was caught close. The thud of her heart sounded like thunder in her ears.

  “Why do you have to know?” The question was low and shaky. “Feeling’s enough.” They might have been naked, pressed body to body with only wet clinging clothes between them. “Kiss me, Vance, just kiss me. It’s enough.”

  “You smell like rain now,” he murmured, telling himself to resist her but knowing he wouldn’t. “Pure and honest. When I look in your eyes, I’d swear there isn’t a lie in you. Is there?” he demanded, but he crushed his mouth to hers before she could answer.

  Shane reeled from the impact. Even as she gasped, his tongue was probing and exploring. The anger she had sensed in him before was now pure passion. Hunger, the rawness of his hunger, thrilled her. The water ran swiftly, grumbling as it hurried on its way to the river, but Shane heard only her own heartbeat. She no longer felt the stinging cold, only the warmth of his hand as it ran up her spine and down again.

  He wasn’t content with only her lips now, but took his own wild journey of her face. It was still wet, tasting of the cold freshness of the creek. But wherever his kisses wandered, he was drawn back again to the soft sweet taste of her mouth. It seemed always to be waiting for him, ready to open, invite, demand. Beneath the pliancy, beneath the willingness was a passion as great as his own and a strength he was just beginning to measure.

  Vance told himself he needed a woman. That was why he was so desperate for Shane. He needed a woman’s softness and flavor, and she was here. There was no exclusivity to it. How could there be? Yet there was something about her slight body, her fascinatingly different taste that drove every other woman to some dark corner of his mind, leaving only Shane in the light.

  He could take her now, on the bank of the creek, in the dim daylight on the rain-damp grass. As her mouth moved, moist and warm under his, Vance could imagine how it would be to take full possession of her body. Her energy and hunger would match his own. There would be no false, foolish pretense of seduction, but an honest meeting of desires.

  Her small round breasts pressed into his naked chest. Vance thought he could feel the aching need in them—or was it his own need? It raged in him, drove at him, until she was all he craved. Her mouth was small too, but avid, never retreating from the savageness of his. Instead, she matched it, propelling him further