by Ann Major
"What do you mean?"
"You're used to more glamorous settings-New York, Europe. You've been all over the world."
"I feel at home here… with you."
She stared into her teacup. "We're nothing alike."
"In a way that's true. But there's an old cliche. Opposites attract."
"You never liked me." Her voice was low, whispery.
The knowledge that she had run away and hidden from him for five years weighed heavily on his heart. "I liked you too much," he said through gritted teeth.
Her teacup rattled precariously in its saucer, and she looked up. "Can we talk about something else?"
"Fine. What?"
"I-I don't know. What can two people as different as we are find to talk about?"
Hard pellets of ice pinged on a piece of tin nailed to the roof.
"Maybe the weather." His tone was derisive. "Bad night."
"Yes, it is."
That was all either of them could think of for a very long time. He was too aware of her beauty, too conscious of his need to run his hands through her black hair, to kiss her lush red lips. He felt white-hot with need. There was an awful, passionate, unbreakable tension in that silent room that was tearing them both to pieces. What was going on here? Suave, sophisticated Grant Hale never had trouble talking to a woman.
Desperate for distraction, he forced himself to remember the past. Norie had always been different, unconventional. She'd been an enormous amount of trouble to him. First he'd tried to stop her from marrying his brother. The problem was, she hadn't even known Larry was that interested in her until Grant had told her. Larry had written that letter to his mother when he'd been drunk, in the hopes of stirring her up. Hales were like that. Stirring was in their blood. Larry liked to be the center of a family drama.
Norie had been so upset about what happened between herself and Grant that night in Austin that she'd begun to see Larry in a more favorable light. She'd felt sorry for him for having such a materialistic mother and brother; she'd believed that was why he was so wild and unhappy. In the end she'd acted on impulse for the first time in her life and married Larry. But the marriage had never been a happy one. Not with Georgia's continual interference. Not with her threats to disinherit Larry because he'd chosen such an unsuitable bride. Not with Larry's weak, wavering nature.
They were married for two years. A month before he died, Larry had left Norie to please his mother.
It was the most horrible irony to Grant that he'd driven the only woman he'd ever loved straight into the arms of his brother who had never really cared for her.
Then, right after Larry had killed himself on his motorcycle, Norie had run off for no reason at all.
Norie didn't care about success or money. In fact, Grant wouldn't blame her if she was terrified of money and how it could twist people. She didn't care about knowing the right people, or traveling to the right places. She didn't have a single status-seeking cell in her body. She didn't know anything about fashion or fads. There was no way she could ever fit into his life. Their values were nothing alike. He needed a woman who could shine at cocktail parties, a woman who knew how to be an elegant hostess. A woman his mother could brag about to her friends.
He had had all that.
And it was empty as hell.
He wanted this woman. And he didn't care if it cost him everything he had, everything he was.
Maybe they could talk about the cookies.
The Christmas cookies really were quite interesting. Some of them were expertly painted. There were green Christmas trees with silver balls and red-and-white Santa Clauses. But some of the cookies were painted with a violent, primitive awkwardness. Grant picked up a particularly brilliant, clumsily painted cookie.
"Who painted this?"
She shut her eyes. Her voice was trembly. "A-a little friend."
He remembered Larry telling him about all the neighborhood children that flocked to their house whenever Norie was home. She'd baked for them. Larry had been bored by children.
Norie's teacup rattled again in its saucer, and she quickly changed the subject. "How did you find me?"
"Yesterday morning, I was reading the paper. There was a mention of a UIL meet in Karnes City. I read through the students' names and the names of the teachers and school personnel accompanying them. I saw Noreen Black. I'd been looking for Noreen Hale. After that all it took was a few phone calls. Imagine my amazement when I found out that you were living only fifty miles away. If you hadn't run from me yesterday, we could have settled everything then."
"Settled what?"
"Larry left you an estate, of course. Did you imagine you were penniless?"
"I don't want Larry's money." Her dark eyes flashed. "I never cared… about his money. Anyway, we were separated when he died."
"It's yours, nevertheless. I've been managing it for you ever since."
"I'm sorry to have put you to so much trouble."
His voice was velvet soft. "I didn't mind. I liked knowing I was helping you, Norie."
"I don't want your help."
His gaze roamed her shapely length as heatedly as if he touched her. She began to tremble. Then she stiffened.
"You're afraid of me," he said gently. "Why?"
"I'm not afraid." But her voice was a slender thread of sound.
"Then why did you run from me in San Antonio?"
"Grant, I… " Her throat constricted.
"I came here to help you, Norie."
"I'm perfectly fine. I-I don't need your help."
"I know that I wasn't always your friend. In the beginning Mother and I-"
"I don't need either of you," Norie pleaded desperately.
He felt just as desperate. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe we, that maybe I, need you."
"No. No… " She set the teacup down, her hands fluttering in protest. She got up and was slowly backing away from him.
"None… "
"You need to go to sleep now. I'll be back to turn off the heater later."
"Norie!"
But she was gone.
Norie was in her bed in a warm flannel nightgown, removing her heavy earrings. She picked up a book review of a children's story. But the black print blurred when she tried to read. She kept thinking of Grant. She felt a throbbing weakness in the center of her being. He seemed so hard and tough, so masculine. So sexy with every muscle rippling against the soft black cloth of that sweater. She'd always been both fascinated and disturbed by him. She still was-and he knew it.
But he was a Hale, and even if he wasn't the weakling Larry had been, he was still Georgia Hale's son.
Grant was so smooth with women, so experienced. And Norie knew next to nothing about men, especially men like him.
What did he really want with her?
One thing she knew. She had to get him out of her life before Darius returned on Sunday.
Darius! A shiver of apprehension raced coldly over her flesh.
Why hadn't she thought? She remembered the way Georgia had used her money to turn Larry against her. Georgia could be subtle; she could be ingratiating. But she liked to control everything and everybody. Especially Larry, her favorite son. If she found out that Larry had had a child, what might she do to get control of Darius? Would she use her money to destroy Norie's relationship with her own son as she had used it to destroy her marriage to Larry? What if Georgia found some way to take Darius away?
In a flash Norie threw back her covers and got up. In her bare feet she scampered across the cold floors, removing every trace of Darius-his Christmas stocking laid out in front of the tree, his gifts, his tennis shoes and socks that he'd taken off by her bed. She dashed upstairs, hid these things in his room under his bed, and pulled the door tightly shut.
And to think that after Larry's death Grant had been so grief-stricken she'd almost told him that she was pregnant.
On her way downstairs she saw the pale thread of golden light under Grant's door. The d
oor creaked when she opened it, but Grant didn't stir. For a second longer she studied him. He was beautiful with his long inky lashes, his tanned skin, his dark unruly hair, his powerful body. He had thrown off some of his covers. She watched the steady rise and fall of his powerful shoulders. Hesitantly she tiptoed to the heater and turned the knob at the wall.
The room melted into darkness.
The room would cool down quickly, so she went to Grant's bed to arrange his covers.
She was about to go when suddenly his warm hand closed tightly over hers.
She was caught in a viselike grip.
"I-I thought you were asleep," she murmured breathlessly. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"I'm glad you did." His voice was like a hot caress. "What have you been doing? Your hand is as cold as ice."
His concern made her pulse leap. "A few household chores downstairs."
"It's a shame for a woman as lovely as you to live out here all by yourself. To have to do everything by yourself."
She couldn't answer. She felt all choked-up inside, and she was too aware of his nearness, of his warm call used hand imprisoning hers.
There was a long moment of charged silence. She caught the musky scent of him, felt the warmth of his body heat.
"Why did you run away?" he murmured. She felt his fingertips stirring her hair. "Was it because of the way I felt about you?"
"What are you saying, Grant?"
His fingers were smoothing her hair down around her neck, and she wanted nothing more than to be pulled into his arms.
"I wanted you from the first minute I saw you," he murmured huskily. "I thought you belonged to my brother. Not even that mattered."
"I was a challenge."
"Once I might have agreed with you. Mother sent me to end your relationship with Larry, but the minute I saw you, I had my own reasons for wanting to end it. I wanted you even when you belonged to my brother. That's why I was always so nasty the few times I saw you after your marriage. I couldn't deal with those feelings." Grant's hand kept moving against her scalp in a slow circular motion that was mesmerizingly sensuous. "I've persecuted myself with guilt because I drove you away. I haven't always been the kind of man a woman like you could admire."
No__She remembered the holidays they'd been forced to share when she'd been Larry's wife. Georgia had been coldly polite, but Grant had been unforgiveably rude.
If only he hadn't been touching her and holding her, Norie might have fought him. But she felt his pain and she had to relieve it. "Georgia wanted me out of Larry's life. When he left me, I felt completely rejected by all the Hales. After he died, I thought you wanted me gone, Grant. That's why I left," she admitted softly.
"What?" His hand had stilled in the tangled silk of her hair.
"I overheard your family talking after the funeral. Your mother had worked so hard to break up my marriage. She said Larry never would have died if he hadn't married me, that I'd made him unhappy. You can't imagine how terrible that made me feel. It was clear everyone wanted me gone. Everyone. I thought I heard your voice."
"The Hales can be a crazy bunch. Maybe they did say those things, but I didn't. After the funeral I had to get off by myself. I felt so bad about Larry. He was so spoiled, so young. He died before he ever knew who he was or what he wanted. He couldn't stand up to Mother. I left the house for the rest of the day. When I came back, you were gone."
"It doesn't matter now."
"It does to me." Grant's voice was hard and grim, determined. "I should never have left you alone with them."
He pulled her closer, so close she was quivering from his heated nearness. So close her pulse throbbed unevenly.
"What are you doing?"
His lips touched hers, gently at first. A gasp of heady pleasure caught in her throat.
"Honey, I think it's obvious. For seven years I've wanted you more than I've ever wanted anything. Or any woman. You thought I didn't. I should have done everything in my power to stop you from marrying Larry. After the wedding I couldn't admit to those feelings, not even to myself. We've always been at cross purposes. For five years I've searched for you. Now there is nothing to keep me from claiming you."
Nothing but her own common sense and her will to preserve the placid life she'd made here for herself and Darius. Her heart raced in panic.
"Grant, no-" Norie twisted to evade the plundering fire of his mouth.
He covered her parted lips with his, and with heated kisses teased them to open wider. His hands ran over her body and lifted her gown. She felt dizzy. Uncertain.
"Please, don't do this," she murmured helplessly. "We're all wrong for each other."
"I know." There was the hint of cynicism in his tone of voice, but his eyes were dark with passion.
"But-"
"I don't care. Not anymore. I just want you, Norie. And if I can have you-even if it's only for one night-I will."
"Your family- "
"To hell with my family. If I can have you, I don't want anything else."
"You're a Hale."
His breath drew in sharply. "Not really, gypsy girl. I told you that my real father deserted Mother shortly after I was born. When Mother married Edward Hale, she forced him to adopt me. She wanted both her sons to share the same name so people would think of us as real brothers instead of half brothers."
Norie had heard all that before. To her he was a Hale, and that was that. She tried to pull away, but Grant held her fast, with hard, powerful arms. And he kissed her.
She tasted him. Her tongue quivered wetly against his. A thousand diamonds burst behind her closed eyelids. She drew a breath. It was more like a tiny gasp. Suddenly she was clinging to him with quaking rapture. His male attraction was something she could no longer fight. He ripped back the covers and pulled her down against the solid wall of his chest.
"Norie. Norie… "
Her name was sweet as honey from his lips.
Inexpertly, she caressed his rough, hard jawline with trembling fingertips. Her dark eyes met the smoldering blue fire of his gaze.
"You're mine," he said inexorably. "Mine."
Then he began to kiss her, his mouth following every curve, dipping into every secret female place, lubricating her with the silky wet warmth of his rasping tongue until she was whimpering from his burning hot kisses.
Her dark eyes flamed voluptuously, and she was as breathless as he in a mad swirling world of darkness and passion and wildness that was theirs alone.
She wanted him more than anything in the world.
And yet…
"I-I can't," she pleaded desperately, placing her fingertips between her lips and his. "I want to, but I just can't."
His grip tightened around her.
A sob came from her throat.
On a shudder that was half anger, half desperation, he let her go.
For a long moment she hesitated.
"Go," he commanded, a faintly ragged edge to his breathing. "Go, before I change my mind."
Then she fled, away from Grant's warmth, out into the cold, empty darkness of the house.
Chapter Five
Norie lay in her icy room, in her bed, her nerves and muscles wound so tightly she jumped with every blast of the norther outside. At last she drifted into fitful sleep, only to be plagued by dreams of Grant. She would then awaken with her pulse throbbing unevenly and lie listening to the wind. Yet it wasn't the storm outside that was battering her heart and soul, but the one within her.
Her slim fingers curled and uncurled like nervous talons, twisting and untwisting the sheets. She wanted Grant. More than she ever had.
His presence made her aware of the emptiness of the past five years. She had accomplished nothing by running away. If she didn't send him packing soon, she knew she would be lost. There was only one thing to do-call the wrecker first thing in the morning. The sooner Grant left, the sooner she could start all over again to try to forget him.
But the next morning when she picked up
the phone, it was dead.
No sound came from upstairs, so she assumed Grant was still asleep. She dressed quickly in the dark, cold house, ate a bowl of bran with a banana, and went out to her truck.
The road into town was glazed over with ice, and she went only a quarter of a mile before deciding to turn back. Better to spend the day with Grant, than to kill herself trying to get rid of him.
Only when she got back to the house and found him in her kitchen scrambling eggs, she wasn't so sure. There he was, large and male, making himself at home, dominating the room with his virile presence. He was watching her. His blue eyes flamed in a way that told her he was remembering last night. Treacherous, delicious shivers danced over her skin, and she blushed uneasily. That made him smile.
"The phone's dead," he murmured without the faintest note of regret in his voice.
She was toying with her woolen scarf nervously. "That's why I thought I'd try to make it into town to try and get a wrecker, but the road's too icy."
"I'm glad you had the sense to come back." There was a quiet, intimate note in his low-toned remark.
She was pulling off her coat and scarf, and he was watching her again. His intent, hot gaze savored the beauty of her flushed face and the soft curve of her breasts.
"You'd better keep an eye on those eggs." She pivoted sharply and hung her things on a peg by the door.
"Looks like you're stuck with me for another night," he said mockingly. "I've got one more day… and one more night to change your mind." His voice was a honeyed caress.
She gasped uneasily. "That's not going to happen."
His eyes darkened to midnight blue as he stared at her thoughtfully. "Something tells me you're not so sure."
She felt another treacherous blush creep up her neck and saw his quick smirk of male triumph. What was he, a mind reader? "You think you know so much!" she snapped, exasperated. "Those eggs are going to be dry as dust."
He turned off the stove. "I never was much good at talking and cooking at the same time. I get distracted easily." His voice grew huskier. "The eggs didn't have a chance against a distraction as lovely as you." He grinned in an impish, teasing way that made him even more incredibly handsome.