by Nora Roberts
“I don’t think I’m dressed for snow wars.”
She smiled and peeled off her son’s snow-crusted cap, but Mitch noted, she didn’t look up. “So change.” He leaned against the doorjamb, ignoring the snow that fell at his feet.
“I built a fort. Please come out and see. I already started a snow warrior, but Mitch said we should check in so you wouldn’t worry.”
His consideration forced her to look up. “I appreciate that.”
He was watching her thoughtfully—too thoughtfully, Hester decided. “Rad says you build a pretty good snow warrior yourself.”
“Please, Mom. What if we got a freak heat wave and the snow was all gone tomorrow? It’s like the greenhouse effect, you know. I read all about it.”
She was trapped and knew it. “All right, I’ll change. Why don’t you fix Mitch some hot chocolate and warm up?”
“All right!” Radley dropped down on the floor just inside the door. “You have to take off your boots,” he told Mitch. “She gets mad if you track up the carpet.”
Mitch unbuttoned his coat as Hester walked away. “We wouldn’t want to make her mad.”
Within fifteen minutes, Hester had changed into corduroys, a bulky sweater and old boots. In place of her red coat was a blue parka that showed some wear. Mitch kept one hand on Taz’s leash and the other in his pocket as they walked across to the park. He couldn’t say why he enjoyed seeing her dressed casually with Radley’s hand joined tight with hers. He couldn’t say for certain why he’d wanted to spend this time with her, but it had been he who’d planted the idea of another outing in Radley’s head, and he who’d suggested that they go up together to persuade her to come outside.
He liked the winter. Mitch took a deep gulp of cold air as they walked through the soft, deep snow of Central Park. Snow and stinging air had always appealed to him, particularly when the trees were draped in white and there were snow castles to be built.
When he’d been a boy, his family had often wintered in the Caribbean, away from what his mother had termed the “mess and inconvenience.” He’d picked up an affection for scuba and white sand, but had never felt that a palm tree replaced a pine at Christmas.
The winters he’d liked best had been spent in his uncle’s country home in New Hampshire, where there’d been woods to walk in and hills to sled. Oddly enough, he’d been thinking of going back there for a few weeks—until the Wallaces popped up two floors above, that is. He hadn’t realized until today that he’d shuffled those plans to the back of his mind as soon as he’d seen Hester and her son.
Now she was embarrassed, annoyed and uncomfortable. Mitch turned to study her profile. Her cheeks were already rosy with cold, and she’d made certain that Radley walked between them. He wondered if she realized how obvious her strategies were. She didn’t use the boy, not in the way some parents used their offspring for their own ambitions or purposes. He respected her for that more than he could have explained. But she had, by putting Radley in the center, relegated Mitch to the level of her son’s friend.
And so he was, Mitch thought with a smile. But he’d be damned if he was going to let it stop there.
“There’s the fort. See?” Radley tugged on Hester’s hand, then let it go to run, too impatient to wait any longer.
“Pretty impressive, huh?” Before she could avoid it, Mitch draped a casual arm over her shoulder. “He’s really got a knack.”
Hester tried to ignore the warmth and pressure of his arm as she looked at her son’s handiwork. The walls of the fort were about two feet high, smooth as stone, with one end sloping nearly a foot higher in the shape of a round tower. They’d made an arched doorway high enough for Radley to crawl through. When Hester reached the fort, she saw him pass through on his hands and knees and pop up inside, his arms held high.
“It’s terrific, Rad. I imagine you had a great deal to do with it,” she said quietly to Mitch.
“Here and there.” Then he smiled, as though he was laughing at himself. “Rad’s a better architect than I’ll ever be.”
“I’m going to finish my snow warrior.” Belly down, Rad crawled through the opening again. “Build one, Mom, on the other side of the fort. They’ll be the sentries.” Rad began to pack and smooth snow on his already half-formed figure. “You help her, Mitch, ’cause I’ve got a head start.”
“Fair’s fair.” Mitch scooped up a handful of snow. “Any objections to teamwork?”
“No, of course not.” Still avoiding giving him a straight look, Hester knelt in the snow. Mitch dropped the handful of snow on her head.
“I figured that was the quickest way to get you to look at me.” She glared, then began to push the snow into a mound. “Problem, Mrs. Wallace?”
Seconds ticked by as she pushed at the snow. “I got a copy of Who’s Who.”
“Oh?” Mitch knelt down beside her.
“You were telling the truth.”
“I’ve been known to from time to time.” He shoved some more snow on the mound she was forming. “So?”
Hester frowned and punched the snow into shape. “I feel like an idiot.”
“I told the truth, and you feel like an idiot.” Patiently Mitch smoothed over the base she was making. “Want to explain the correlation?”
“You let me lecture you.”
“It’s kinda hard to stop you when you get rolling.”
Hester began to dig out snow with both hands to form the legs. “You let me think you were some poor, eccentric Good Samaritan. I was even going to offer to put patches on your jeans.”
“No kidding.” Incredibly touched, Mitch caught her chin in his snow-covered glove. “That’s sweet.”
There was no way she was going to let his charm brush away the discomfort of her embarrassment. “The fact is, you’re a rich, eccentric Good Samaritan.” She shoved his hand away and began to gather snow for the torso.
“Does this mean you won’t patch my jeans?”
Hester’s long-suffering breath came out in a white plume. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yes, you do.” Always helpful, Mitch packed on more snow and succeeded in burying her up to the elbows. “Money shouldn’t bother you, Hester. You’re a banker.”
“Money doesn’t bother me.” She yanked her arms free and tossed two good-sized hunks of snow into his face. Because she had to fight back a giggle, she turned her back. “I just wish the situation had been made clear earlier, that’s all.”
Mitch wiped the snow from his face, then scooped up more, running his tongue along the inside of his lip. He’d had a lot of experience in forming what he considered the ultimate snowball. “What’s the situation, Mrs. Wallace?”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that in that tone of voice.” She turned, just in time to get the snowball right between the eyes.
“Sorry.” Mitch smiled, then began to brush off her coat. “Must’ve slipped. About this situation . . .”
“There is no situation between us.” Before she realized it, she’d shoved him hard enough to send him sprawling in the snow. “Excuse me.” Her laughter came out in hitches that were difficult to swallow. “I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know what it is about you that makes me do things like that.” He sat up and continued to stare at her. “I am sorry,” she repeated. “I think it’s best if we just let this other business drop. Now, if I help you up, will you promise not to retaliate?”
“Sure.” Mitch held out a gloved hand. The moment he closed it over hers, he yanked her forward. Hester went down, face first. “I don’t always tell the truth, by the way.” Before she could respond, he wrapped his arms around her and began to roll.
“Hey, you’re supposed to be building another sentry.”
“In a minute,” Mitch called to Rad, while Hester tried to catch her breath. “I’m teaching your mom a new game. Like it?” he asked her as he rolled her underneath him again.
“Get off me. I’ve got snow down my sweater, down my jeans—”
“No use trying to seduce me here. I’m stronger than that.”
“You’re crazy.” She tried to sit up, but he pinned her beneath him.
“Maybe.” He licked a trace of snow from her cheek and felt her go utterly still. “But I’m not stupid.” His voice had changed. It wasn’t the easy, carefree voice of her neighbor now, but the slow, soft tones of a lover. “You feel something for me. You may not like it, but you feel it.”
It wasn’t the unexpected exercise that had stolen her breath, and she knew it. His eyes were so blue in the lowering sunlight, and his hair glistened with a dusting of snow. And his face was close, temptingly close. Yes, she felt something, she felt something almost from the first minute she saw him, but she wasn’t stupid, either.
“If you let go of my arms, I’ll show you just how I feel.”
“Why do I think I wouldn’t like it? Never mind.” He brushed his lips over hers before she could answer. “Hester, the situation is this. You have feelings for me that have nothing to do with my money, because you didn’t know until a few hours ago that I had any to speak of. Some of those feelings don’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m fond of your son. They’re very personal, as in you and me.”
He was right, absolutely and completely right. She could have murdered him for it. “Don’t tell me how I feel.”
“All right.” After he spoke, he surprised her by rising and helping her to her feet. Then he took her in his arms again. “I’ll tell you how I feel then. I care for you—more than I’d counted on.”
She paled beneath her cold-tinted cheeks. There was more than a hint of desperation in her eyes as she shook her head and tried to back away. “Don’t say that to me.”
“Why not?” He struggled against impatience as he lowered his brow to hers. “You’ll have to get used to it. I did.”
“I don’t want this. I don’t want to feel this way.”
He tipped her head back, and his eyes were very serious. “We’ll have to talk about that.”
“No. There’s nothing to talk about. This is just getting out of hand.”
“It’s not out of hand yet.” He tangled his fingers in the tips of her hair, but his eyes never left hers. “I’m almost certain it will be before long, but it isn’t yet. You’re too smart and too strong for that.”
She’d be able to breathe easier in a moment. She was sure of it. She’d be able to breathe easier as soon as she was away from him. “No, I’m not afraid of you.” Oddly, she discovered that much was true.
“Then kiss me.” His voice was coaxing now, gentle. “It’s nearly twilight. Kiss me, once, before the sun goes down.”
She found herself leaning into him, lifting her lips up and letting her lashes fall without questioning why it should seem so right, so natural to do as he asked. There would be questions later, though she was certain the answers wouldn’t come as easily. For now, she touched her lips to his and found them cool, cool and patient.
The world was all ice and snow, forts and fairylands, but his lips were real. They fit on hers firmly, warming her soft, sensitive skin while the racing of her heart heated her body. There was the rushing whoosh of traffic in the distance, but closer, more intimate, was the whisper of her coat sliding against his as they pressed tighter together.
He wanted to coax, to persuade, and just once to see her lips curve into a smile as he left them. He knew there were times when a man who preferred action and impulse had to go step by step. Especially when the prize at the top was precious.
He hadn’t been prepared for her, but he knew he could accept what was happening between them with more ease than she. There were still secrets tucked inside her, hurts that had only partially healed. He knew better than to wish for the power to wipe all that aside. How she’d lived and what had happened to her were all part of the woman she was. The woman he was very, very close to falling in love with.
So he would take it step by step, Mitch told himself as he placed her away from him. And he would wait.
“That might have cleared up a few points, but I think we still have to talk.” He took her hand to keep her close another moment. “Soon.”
“I don’t know.” Had she ever been this confused before? She’d thought she’d left these feelings, these doubts behind her long ago.
“I’ll come up or you can come down, but we’ll talk.”
He was jockeying her into a corner, one she knew she’d be backed into sooner or later. “Not tonight,” she said, despising herself for being a coward. “Rad and I have a lot to do.”
“Procrastination’s not your style.”
“It is this time,” she murmured, and turned away quickly. “Radley, we have to go in.”
“Look, Mom, I just finished, isn’t it great?” He stood back to show off his warrior. “You hardly started yours.”
“Maybe we’ll finish it tomorrow.” She walked to him quickly and took him by the hand. “We have to go in and fix dinner now.”
“But can’t we just—”
“No, it’s nearly dark.”
“Can Mitch come?”
“No, he can’t.” She shot a glance over her shoulder as they walked. He was hardly more than a shadow now, standing beside her son’s fort. “Not tonight.”
Mitch put a hand on his dog’s head as Taz whined and started forward. “Nope. Not this time.”
* * *
There didn’t seem any way of avoiding him, Hester thought as she started down to Mitch’s apartment at her son’s request. She had to admit it had been foolish of her to try. On the surface, anyone would think that Mitch Dempsey was the solution to many of her problems. He was genuinely fond of Radley, and gave her son both a companion and a safe and convenient place to stay while she worked. His time was flexible, and he was very generous with it.
The truth was, he’d complicated her life. No matter how much she tried to look at him as Radley’s friend or her slightly odd neighbor, he brought back feelings she hadn’t experienced in almost ten years. Fluttery pulses and warm surges were things Hester had attributed to the very young or the very optimistic. She’d stopped being either when Radley’s father had left them.
In all the years that had followed that moment, she’d devoted herself to her son—to making the best possible home for him, to make his life as normal and well-balanced as possible. If Hester the woman had gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle, Radley’s mother figured it was a fair exchange. Now Mitch Dempsey had come along and made her feel and, worse, had made her wish.
Taking a deep breath, Hester knocked on Mitch’s door. Radley’s friend’s door, she told herself firmly. The only reason she was here was because Radley had been so excited about showing her something. She wasn’t here to see Mitch; she wasn’t hoping he would reach out and run his fingertips along her cheek as he sometimes did. Hester’s skin warmed at the thought of it.
Hester linked her hands together and concentrated on Radley. She would see whatever it was he was so anxious for her to see, and then she would get them both back upstairs to their own apartment—and safety.
Mitch answered the door. He wore a sweatshirt sporting a decal of a rival super hero across the chest, and sweatpants with a gaping hole in one knee. There was a towel slung over his shoulders. He used one end of it to dry the sweat off his face.
“You haven’t been out running in this weather?” she asked before she’d allowed herself to think, immediately regretting the question and the obvious concern in her voice.
“No.” He took her hand to draw her inside. She smelled like the springtime that was still weeks and weeks away. Her dark blue suit gave her a look of uncreased professionalism he found ridiculously sexy. “Weights,” he told her. The fact was, he’d been lifting weights a great deal since he’d met Hester Wallace. Mitch considered it the second best way to decrease tension and rid the body of excess energy.
“Oh.” So that explained the strength she’d felt in his arms. “I didn’t realize you went in for that s
ort of thing.”
“The Mr. Macho routine?” he said, laughing. “No, I don’t, actually. The thing is, if I don’t work out regularly, my body turns into a toothpick. It’s not a pretty sight.” Because she looked nervous enough to jump out of her skin, Mitch couldn’t resist. He leered and flexed his arm. “Want to feel my pecs?”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” Hester kept her hands by her sides. “Mr. Rosen sent this package.” She slipped the fat bank portfolio out from where she’d held it at her side. “Just remember, you asked for it.”
“So I did.” Mitch accepted it, then tossed it on a pile of magazines on the coffee table. “Tell him I’ll pass it along.”
“And will you?”
He lifted a brow. “I usually keep my word.”
She was certain of that. It reminded her that he’d said they would talk, and soon. “Radley called and said there was something he had to show me.”
“He’s in the office. Want some coffee?”
It was such a casual offer, so easy and friendly, that she nearly agreed. “Thanks, but we really can’t stay. I had to bring some paperwork home with me.”
“Fine. Just go on in. I need a drink.”
“Mom!” The minute she stepped into the office, Radley jumped up and grabbed her hands. “Isn’t it great? It’s the neatest present I