A TEMPTING ENGAGEMENT

by Bronwyn Jameson

  "Daddy!" A four-year-old dervish tore through the doorway and threw himself at his father. Whatever she'd been about to fetch quit Emily's mind, knocked out of the park by the scene before her. One of Mitch's broad hands cupped his son's fair head; Joshua's sturdy arms circled his father's neck. Bowled over, like Emily, by Mitch's unexpected appearance, he didn't say a word for at least twenty seconds, but then the questions erupted, a volatile stream of whys and hows and didyas with no space for answers. Mitch laughed, a deep, rusty sound packed full of tenderness, and told him to put a brake on it.

  Emily started to back away, wishing she could put a brake on her emotions. This was her birthday wish. To be down there on the floor, part of that embrace, belonging. Loved. She started to back away but she couldn't look away, couldn't tear herself away.

  "Didya bring me anything?" Joshua asked for at least the third time.

  "A hug?"

  Clearly delighted, he giggled. "What about Emmy? Didya get her a hug, too?"

  Emily's breath caught in her throat as Mitch looked up, right into her eyes. A memory of that earlier heat flared between them, quick, deep, insidious. Then he smiled and said, "No. Better."

  Better than belonging in that embrace? Impossible.

  "What, Daddy, what?" Joshua captured his father's face between his hands, forcing his attention away from Emily, which was perfectly fine by her. She needed to start breathing again, to school her face and her responses, to remember she was only the nanny.

  "A car," Mitch said casually, and her heart stalled.

  "Is it a sports car? A red one like Chantal's?"

  "If it was a sports car like Chantal's—" with quick hands, Mitch flipped Joshua onto his shoulders "—how would we get the skis on top?"

  A car with skis on top? Was he teasing? She opened her mouth to ask but he was already striding for the door, Joshua calling back to her in excitement. "Come on, Emmy. Come see your new car. It's got skis."

  * * *

  Three sets of skis, she counted from her vantage point on the verandah. Her heart plummeted faster than an out-of-control ski lift … which happened to be approximately the same speed she had plummeted down the mountain the last time someone had strapped planks of timber to her feet. Head over ski over tail.

  But right after that initial response came a second thought. Annabelle's parents ran a ski lodge. That's how Emily had come to take that tumble, the one winter holiday she'd taken with the family. Did this mean Mitch had changed his mind, taken her advice, contacted the Blaineys?

  Eyes wide, she swung around to ask, but was immediately distracted by his grin as he lowered his frenetically excited son to the ground. "So, what do you think?"

  "Are you going to Corrong?"

  His grin dimmed. "Yes, but not because of Randall and Janet, if that's what you're thinking. A group from TVTWO had a weekend planned, and they suggested I join them – there are some ideas floating around for a second series."

  "But you will contact them? I mean, if you're going to be right there in the same village?"

  Before he could answer, Joshua finished his first lap of the new vehicle and stopped, his brow puckered. "Where's your truck, Daddy?"

  "I had to leave it in Sydney, at the apartment. I'll pick it up next time we're in town." He switched his attention to Emily. "You haven't said what you think of the car?"

  The car. Right. That would be the thing wearing the skis. She took her first good look at the compact SUV, silver, sporty and brand-spanking-new. She frowned. "It looks … expensive. I don't think—"

  "It's safe," Mitch cut in. "For Joshua and for you."

  "D'you like it, Em?" Joshua asked earnestly. He kicked a tire. "It looks like it goes fast."

  How could she not smile? And how could she object to the safety argument? It wasn't her car, really, it was Joshua's. As his nanny, she got to drive it, that's all.

  "How's the driving going?" Mitch asked. Via his regular phone calls from Sydney, she'd kept him informed, albeit in a cautious manner. He hadn't said a word about her making her own plans for the lessons, about not waiting for his return.

  "Coming along," she answered now, cautious as ever.

  "Emmy drived on her own," Joshua supplied. "It was her first time."

  "I'm sorry I missed that."

  At that quiet admission – or perhaps the flash of intensity in his expression – her heart did a crazy little two-step. "This afternoon. And I drove into Julia's, before the party."

  One brow arched. "I'm impressed."

  "Don't be," she said quickly. "I'm pretty sure I would have wimped out on the driving-home-in-the-dark leg, even if there'd been no champagne as an excuse."

  "Quade drived us home. His car's got six gears. How many does Emmy's have?"

  While Mitch rattled off a list of features that made her head spin and opened a door so Joshua could check it all out for himself, Emily absently rubbed her hands up her arms, back down again, recalling the heady wave of relief when Quade said she couldn't drive home. She was such a coward.

  "Cold?" Mitch asked, back at her side.

  She shook her head. She was never cold with him standing so close, telling her things like, "You did great, Em, driving on your own," and looking for all the world as if he meant it. She ached to thank him for those words, to wrap her arms around him, to simply be held. But she was such a coward.

  "Hey!" Joshua yelled. "Is this for me? It must be for me 'cuz Emmy's already got a hun'red bears."

  An embarrassed flush warmed her face. "Not quite that many."

  Joshua clambered down from the vehicle, clutching a fierce-faced brown bear. "You want to go introduce him to Bruiser?" Mitch suggested. "His name's Halt."

  Emily followed Joshua into the house. "Strange name."

  "Halt, Who Goes Bear," Mitch explained, closing the door behind them. "I thought he might be a useful addition to sentry duties at night."

  "Nice thought," Emily said softly. He grinned, and her heart turned over.

  "I have my moments."

  Oh, yes, indeed he did.

  * * *

  How could she not be crazy about a man who chose such a perfect gift for his son?

  Crazy. Emily shook her head. That was the only word to describe her state of mind following Mitch's return, because half an hour later she had agreed to go skiing, even though she classified her only experience on the slopes as a disaster, grade A. But, humming with the warm and fuzzy remnants of the father-son-bear episode and her birthday party and her modest driving success, she would likely have said, "Sure, Mitch," if he'd asked her to go jump off the top of Mount Tibaroo.

  Instead he'd asked her along on the ski weekend, and she'd said, "Sure, Mitch," because even though the lodge where he'd booked an apartment provided a Ski Kids program, he needed her to look after Joshua while he schmoozed with the TV crowd. So, here she stood in her borrowed clothes – Chantal to the rescue! – juggling skis and poles and gloves because Mitch insisted she try skiing one more time. And because when he smiled at her a certain way, she forgot to think and made crazy choices.

  "Can I help you?"

  "Probably not," Emily told the young ski instructor. "But I'm here to give it a go."

  "You haven't skied before, huh?"

  "Not successfully," Emily admitted.

  "Well, that's about to change. I'll have you gliding down this mountain before you can say ski bunny."

  * * *

  Mitch enjoyed his first hour on the mountain. He'd have enjoyed it more but for a nagging sense of unease. Not due to Joshua – he was carving up the slopes in the Ski Kids squad. He knew because he'd checked.

  As for Emily…

  He shouldn't have left her. Sure, she'd chosen a lesson at the ski school, preferring to fall on her butt without him watching, thank you very much. Sure, she'd pasted a carefree smile on her face as she waved him off from the lesson area. But just before he took the first bend, he'd looked back, and that last visual had burned itself into the back o
f his brain.

  One small figure in a red jacket, standing all alone. Halfway up the long haul from Demon Gully on a stalled lift, he checked his watch again. Cursed again. Fifteen minutes since her lesson finished and he'd aimed to be there. Just to check she was all right. Fifteen bloody minutes on a stalled chairlift.

  With a grinding lurch the lift started, stopped, started again. A mocking cheer rolled through the passenger load. "About time," his neighbor muttered.

  Yeah. Mitch smiled politely, felt the tension in his facial muscles and grimaced. What was with him? Letting this vague, unfounded concern for Emily sour what should have been a perfect morning. Hell, she was probably relaxing in a café by now, enjoying time to herself, sipping her hot chocolate, a satisfied smile softening her lips because she'd slayed the first lesson. Because she'd had a ball flirting with Fritz or Alberto or whichever-the-hell-ski-instructor had helped her up when she'd fallen on her butt.

  Thinking about Emily's butt didn't relax him a whole lot. Skiing off the lift and seeing her did. Despite the crowd and the distance, he picked her out immediately, red jacket vivid against the blinding whiteness, her platinum hair equally dramatic against her jacket. As he watched her tramp along the trail leading to their lodge, relief whistled from his lungs. Obviously, she was fine. Obviously, she'd had enough for her first day and was heading home.

  Obviously, he needed to make sure.

  On skis he quickly cut down the distance between them, weaving in and out of traffic until he caught up just shy of the lodge. Slogging it out, skis on shoulder, head down, she didn't see him until he swooshed to a stop in her path. Her head came up, her shoulders straightened.

  "Hey." Mitch smiled down at her, warmth washing through him, until he realized she looked more than surprised by his sudden appearance. She looked … shaken.

  "Hey, yourself."

  Despite the glib reply, her smile was as wan as her face, as pale as the snow in her hair, on her jacket, her pants. He brushed a clump from her sleeve. "You been rolling in this stuff?"

  "Not intentionally." Her shoulders slumped forward again. "It just kind of happened every time I tried to get up."

  "Fritz wasn't there to help you?"

  A small frown drew her brows together. "Fritz?"

  "Private joke." Private and hardly a joke, since it made him steam instead of laugh. He clicked out of his skis, relieved her of hers and jammed the lot into a thick snowdrift beside their lodge.

  "Shouldn't they go in the racks?" she asked.

  "They'll be fine here until we go out again."

  She held up a hand, gloved and not quite steady, and shuddered. Actually shuddered. "Speak for yourself."

  "You didn't enjoy your lesson?"

  "Skiing is way overrated. Not to mention dangerous."

  Everything inside him stilled. "Dangerous, how? Did you hurt yourself?"

  "It was nothing—"

  "Hell, you're shaking like a leaf. That's not nothing."

  "I have snow in my pants, I'm cold." She started tugging at her gloves and when one refused to budge, she swore. So un-Emily-like. "You know I was having fun. I fell over a few times but by the end of the lesson I was starting to get it. And I decided to do one more run, on my own, and I took a wrong turn and it was steep and I…I…"

  "It's okay, Em—"

  "It's not okay!" Her voice shook. Her hands shook. And he could see she was perilously close to tears. "I can't even get these rotten gloves off!"

  "Here, let me."

  Being Emily, she tried to stop him – she'd been looking out for herself for so long, she didn't expect help – but Mitch brushed her objections aside. Then he picked her up and carried her to the lodge. She clung to him awkwardly as he clumped up the metal steps, murmuring something about being too heavy.

  "You? Heavy?" To prove his point, he tossed her a little, caught her closer to his body. He enjoyed the gasp of surprise, the way color returned to her cheeks and the fit of her curves against him.

  That he enjoyed a little too much.

  At the locked door she started to squirm, wanting down, a perfectly sensible thing to want. Remember the last time she wiggled in your arms. Remember how that ended. Is that what you want? Kissing, angst, passion unresolved.

  "Where's the key?" she asked, her breath warm against the side of his neck. Put her down, get out the key, open the door.

  "Inside jacket pocket, right-hand side." He stared straight ahead at the door, listening to the echo of his voice, low, gruff, turned on. Ignoring the voice of logic in his head.

  "I'll have to undo your zip."

  "That would definitely make it easier."

  Upper body twisting, she angled herself to gain purchase on his zipper, and he felt the soft pressure of one breast against his chest – momentary, momentous – before she shifted again. Then he heard his breath catch, his pulse hike, and the soft rasp of his jacket opening. Heat hummed in his blood and his ears as her small, soft hand reached inside. It's only your jacket, for cripe's sake, not your pants. Get a grip.

  "Got it," she declared much too quickly, twisting the other way, bumping her rounded backside against his body, dragging the smooth line of her thigh against that part of him that craved contact.

  Mitch sucked in a hot breath, rocked back on his heels, and her eyes widened. Knowingly. For a moment he let the knowledge of his arousal wrap them in heat, a binding fire of want acknowledged. Then he expelled the air on a fragmented sigh. "I'm guessing I should reassess my plan to get you inside and out of those wet clothes."

  He tried for light, a quip to take an edge off the stifling tension, but she didn't smile. Her mouth opened, closed – yeah, she had a right to be speechless – and her dark eyes churned with uneasy, misty heat. He put her down, right there beside the door, but he couldn't for the life of him move away. Despite that uneasiness in her eyes. He unpopped the top two buttons of her jacket, started unwinding the scarf from her neck.

  "I'm guessing," she began, her voice husky edged, "you think I'm incapable of getting out of them by myself."

  "You were experiencing some trouble with the gloves."

  "Yeah." She blew out a breath, hot, exasperated. "I was half-frozen and spitting mad with myself."

  "Because you fell? You did fine. You need more practice is all." He touched the side of her face, was surprised to find it cool. Unlike her eyes or her voice.

  "Please don't patronize me," she blazed. "I did not 'do fine' and that seems to have become a feature of my life lately."

  Mitch frowned. "What about your driving?"

  "I drove in the daytime, on country roads. Give me night in the rain in the city and let's see how fine I do." She huffed out another breath. "I couldn't even keep a job cleaning hotel rooms, for pity's sake. I ended up taking charity accommodation from your sister and a job with you—"

  "Is that so bad?" he asked.

  "Yes. No." She laughed, a low, rough sound full of self-derision. But then she looked up at him, all big, troubled eyes, and his chest tightened with an almost painful depth of emotion. "I hate feeling like a victim, Mitch. I want to feel strong, I want to have choices. I want to be able to … do stuff."

  "From where I'm standing you're not doing so bad on the important 'stuff.'" When she opened her mouth to protest, that tight ache in his chest flared with impatience. "You cared for your sick grandfather when no one else gave a damn, you know how to soothe a child's night fears and build his esteem. You turn a household routine from a shambles into a smoothly oiled machine, and you're upset because you can't ski?"

  "Not upset," she returned, as if she'd missed everything that went before. "Weak. Mad. Frustrated."

  You and me both. He shook his head, far from understanding. "You want to ski? Fine, we'll ski."

  Her gaze leaped to his, wide and edgy. "Now?"

  "Do you want to learn to do this or not?" Although she straightened her shoulders and nodded, she didn't look at all certain. "Yes, but Joshua finishes Ski Kids in an hou
r. And aren't you supposed to be meeting up with the TV crew for lunch? Isn't that the reason we're here?"

  She was right, on all counts, but he wasn't letting this go. "Tomorrow morning, then." He hunkered down and looked into her face. "I'll get you skiing, Em."

  "Funny, but my instructor said the self-same thing."

  "No doubt," he said shortly. "But I mean it."

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  «^»

  Heart thumping wildly, Emily studied the ski run before them, a ski run that appeared to plunge away from the summit like a roller-coaster descent.

  "Are you sure you have time for this?" she asked the man at her side, hating the desperate edge to her voice. Hating that her painful confession the previous day had led to this current predicament. "I mean, I did pretty well on the bunny slope and I'm happy with—"

  "You wanted to ski," Mitch interrupted mildly. "So quit trying to get out of this."

  Emily made one last attempt to deflect his attention. "You could be spending this time with the Blaineys, you know."

  "I'm spending time with them later."

  Emily's eyes widened. "You did call them? Why didn't you tell me? When are you meeting them?"

  "I left a message, said I'd call at their lodge at twelve," he said cautiously. "It's just a meeting."

  "I'm glad you made the first move." So very, very glad for Joshua's sake and for Mitch's sake. He needed to make this peace.

  "Yeah, well, if it doesn't go so well I have the perfect antidote lined up." An unholy light gleamed in the depths of his eyes. "We're skiing Devil's Revenge."

  She didn't know anything about that ski run, but its demonic name conjured images of a near-vertical drop with jagged rocks and bodies plunging out of control. A cold thread of fear wound through her. "We … who?"

  He laughed – he actually laughed out loud – at her squeaky, terror-filled question. "Not you, sweetheart. A few of the guys."

  And something in his eyes, in that laugh and the way he said "guys," raised Emily's hackles in a completely different way to her previous fear. "Is this one of those macho, chest-thumping, male-bonding things?"