by Myrna Temte
Dan shot him a surprised glance. “I thought you must have heard by now, or you wouldn’t have stopped in.”
“Heard what?”
“Julia’s gone. She went back to Colorado last Saturday.”
Sam’s first inclination was to protest. She hadn’t told him she was leaving. She hadn’t even said goodbye to him.
And why would she do that, Brightwater, you idiot? The voice of his conscience demanded. You yelled at her last Friday and told her you weren’t interested in anything she had to tell you. You’re the one who drove her away.
Guilt lashed at his insides, and the sense of loss he felt astonished him. He’d wanted her gone. Now she was gone. So why wasn’t he happy about it?
It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense, not his perceptions of his distant past or of his immediate future. In the space of a few measly hours, Wayne, who was supposed to be dead, was back. And Julia, who he’d expected to hang around just to make his life miserable, was gone. Just like that.
Somehow, he never thought she would give up and go away so easily. Which only went to prove that you couldn’t trust anybody to do or be what you expected. Hell, maybe he was going completely and totally nuts.
“You okay, Sam?”
Dan’s worried voice startled Sam out of his mental turmoil. He didn’t feel okay at all, but Dan was the last person who could help him regain his objectivity regarding Julia.
“Yeah. I’m, uh…fine. See ya later, Dan.” Sam forced a smile, pushed open the screen door and beat a hasty retreat.
Dan Talkhouse waited until the dust had settled behind Sam’s pickup, then lit a cigarette, uttered a soft chuckle and added, “She’ll be back with her furniture any day now, Sam. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”
Eight
“Home at last.”
Grateful to finish two long days of driving, Julia climbed out of her little car. She raised her arms over her head, groaning in relief as she stretched out the cramped muscles in her back, shoulders and hips. Studying the house she had rented from Sara and Nick Dean, she smiled.
It was old, a little dowdy and painted a rather startling shade of blue, but it had a cute front porch and big windows that gave it an old-fashioned sort of charm. Used to decorating on a garage-sale budget, she looked forward to the challenge of making this house into her home. She couldn’t wait to haul her things inside and get settled.
Her father and Jackson and Maggie Hawk would be along within the hour to help her with the heavier pieces of furniture, but in the meantime, she could start carrying in the smaller items. She hurried around to the rear of the rented trailer she’d hauled from Colorado and swung the doors apart. Using the key Maggie had secured for her, she opened the house, then carted the first load from the trailer into the living room.
The sound of squealing tires, followed by the distinctive thunk of a pickup door slamming, brought her back outside in a hurry. She spotted Sam Brightwater’s pickup parked at an odd angle in front of her car and halted in the doorway. Uh-oh.
Crossing the front porch to the top step, she watched him inspect her car and trailer. He must have been on his way home from a job site, because he still wore his work clothes, jeans, boots and a sleeveless blue shirt that showed off his muscular arms and massive shoulders. His hair was pulled into a ponytail at the back of his neck, and it gleamed a midnight black in the late-afternoon sunlight.
It didn’t seem fair for a man who disliked her so much when she hadn’t done anything to deserve it, to be that handsome. He looked up at the house, and she braced herself for his reaction. To her amazement, Sam smiled at her—a real, honest-to-goodness, sincere smile, as if he was truly glad to see her.
Her heartbeat stumbled, then picked up a faster cadence. She told herself not to be absurd. It had to be some kind of trick. Curling her hands into fists and propping them on her hips, she stuck out her chin and forced herself to stand her ground.
Whatever his game was, she intended to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she was not going to tolerate any bullying from him. She didn’t care how handsome he was. She had as much right to be here as he did, and if he didn’t like the idea of her moving onto the res, he could go stick his head in a bucket of muddy water.
He approached her slowly, as if he half expected her to throw something at him. She had to admit, if only to herself, that if she’d had anything close at hand, she probably would have done so. He reached the base of the steps without incident, however, his smile still in place.
“Hi,” he said.
His gaze searched her face for something; she couldn’t imagine what. Nor did she trust the warmth she thought she saw in his eyes. Good Lord, was it possible that her own eyes were failing?
“It’s good to see you again, Julia.”
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Is it?”
He lifted one foot onto the bottom step and leaned closer, as if he might be getting ready to share a secret with her. “Yeah. Really good.”
She’d never felt more attracted to him, and the realization irritated her worse than running a brand-new pair of panty hose. “Somebody drop a boulder on your head, Brightwater? Or did the body snatchers stop by while I was gone?”
His deep, husky chuckle grated on her nerves. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Yeah, you did. If you’ll pardon me, I’m busy.” She’d hoped he would move, but he stayed right in front of her, trapping her on the porch.
“What’s going on?” he said.
She pointed toward the trailer. “That is a moving van.” Her voice contained more sugar than a pound of cotton candy. “I put everything I owned in it, down south in a place called Colorado. Then I pulled it with my car all the way to Montana. Now I’m going to carry my things into this nice little house. So you see, I don’t have time to stand here and chat with you.”
He chuckled again, but it didn’t improve her mood any more than the previous one had done. “Want some help?”
“From you? No, thanks. I’ve asked some friends for help, and they’ll be here soon.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why you’re moving in here?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t be interested. I’m positive it was you who told me that. Wasn’t that you, Sam?”
His eyes glinted with laughter. Dammit, she didn’t want to entertain him. It probably would be a far better strategy simply to shut her mouth and keep it shut. He’d eventually get tired of annoying her and go away. Silence stretched out between them like a bungee cord pulled to the limit.
Finally he heaved a quiet sigh, then said, “I was wrong, Julia. I apologize for talking to you that way.”
While her previous remark about body snatchers had been a joke, now she almost wondered if such a thing might be possible. This man wasn’t the same Sam Brightwater she had known before. He seemed younger, more relaxed, nicer. She liked this Sam better than the tense, impatient, cranky one, of course, but could she trust him to stay that way? Not likely. Maintaining an impassive expression, she studied him without speaking.
As if to confirm her suspicions, he became restless under her scrutiny, shifting his weight from one leg to the other and frowning at her. “What’s the matter? My apology wasn’t good enough for you?”
“Did you mean it?”
“Yeah.” He scraped the toe of his work boot across the walk, pushing a small rock over the concrete surface.
“Why?”
He glanced up at her. “Why did I apologize?”
“Why did you act like such a jerk in the first place?”
Making a comical grimace, he climbed the steps. “Ouch. You don’t pull any punches.”
“Neither did you.”
“I know.” He reached out and tucked a windblown strand of hair behind her left ear. “Hurt your feelings, too, didn’t I?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but it was a lie and they both knew it. He brushed a quick, gentle
kiss on her forehead. When he spoke, his voice came out barely above a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Julia. Please…forgive me?”
Leaning so close she could feel his warm breath on her face, he gazed directly into her eyes, communicating, coaxing, almost compelling her to understand emotions he didn’t know how to express with words. She believed in his sincerity this time, and it put a funny little ache in the center of her chest.
“All right,” she murmured. “Apology accepted.”
She thought she glimpsed a flicker of relief in his eyes, but then he gave her a broad grin that blinded her to everything else going on around her. Lord, but he looked boyish, and handsome, and…sexy. She could just sink into his gorgeous eyes and wallow in their intensity. It felt as if she had a sappy smile on her face, but for the life of her, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Something important had changed. She couldn’t define it, but she certainly could feel it. There was an energy between them now she hadn’t felt before, or perhaps it was simply the absence of negative vibrations coming from Sam. Whatever it was, she liked it. She liked it a lot.
He cleared his throat, then turned halfway toward the street. “Sure I can’t give you a hand unloading your stuff?”
“Well, I guess so.” She walked down the steps, joining him on the narrow sidewalk. He seemed much taller and broader across the shoulders from this vantage point. “If you want to.”
“Be glad to,” he said. “There’s no such thing as too much help when you’re moving.”
As if by some unconscious agreement, they walked to the trailer together. He studied the rows of boxes stacked from floor to ceiling along the right side and turned to her with a questioning look.
“What’s all that stuff?”
She laughed. “Books and files. Maggie’s committee offered me a full-time teaching job this fall. I get the fourth-graders.”
“I hadn’t heard.” Sam grabbed a couple of the boxes and balanced them against his chest. “When your dad told me you were gone, I thought you’d left for good.”
“No such luck, Brightwater.”
She picked up another box and led the way back into the house. They started a new pile of boxes in her living room. Julia stopped and studied Sam all over again. He headed for the front door, realized she wasn’t following and glanced over his shoulder as if to see what had become of her.
“What?” he said, turning to face her.
“You’ve been trying to get rid of me from the minute I told you my father’s name. I expected you to be angry that I’m moving up here, not help me haul boxes.”
“Maybe I’m just accepting the inevitable.”
“You?” She laughed and shook her head. “Not your style, Brightwater.”
“Oh yeah?” He leaned back against the door casing and crossed one foot in front of the other. “So what’s my style?”
“You’re more like one of those rams with the big round horns. The kind that keeps bashing his head against a brick wall until the wall crumbles.”
At first he eyed her as if he wasn’t sure how to take what she’d said. Pushing himself away from the door, he walked slowly and deliberately toward her, one side of his mouth curved up. “You callin’ me stubborn, Jules?”
“Stubborn?” She closed her eyes halfway and tapped her chin with an index finger, pretending to give the word serious consideration. “Now that you mention it, I suppose that covers it nicely.”
His low, rough chuckle sent a shiver of anticipation along her nerve endings. He stopped in front of her, so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body. “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got a smart mouth?”
She nodded. “Once or twice. It’s part of my charm.”
“It’s charming, all right,” he said, studying her lips with an intensity that made them tingle.
He raised his hands to the sides of her face and slid his long fingers into her hair. Her heart responded to his touch with a sudden, frantic pounding. He was going to kiss her again, and she honestly didn’t know whether she wanted him to or not. Bracing her palms against his chest, she stopped him from coming any closer.
“Wait a minute.” She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear her thoughts. “I still don’t understand what’s going on here. Between us, I mean.”
“Neither do I, Jules.” Giving her a wry smile, he stroked the back of her neck with his fingertips. “I just know I’m tired of fighting this…attraction we have.”
“Why have you fought it so hard?”
“Right now, I couldn’t begin to tell you.” His voice softened to a husky murmur that eroded her resistance almost as much as his words did. “You are one beautiful woman. And I really do need to kiss you.”
It seemed utterly natural to slide her palms over his hard chest and shoulders, link her hands behind his neck and go up on tiptoe to meet his descending mouth. As before, his kiss set off a storm of sensations that touched her in the deepest parts of her heart, body and mind. Who would have thought a single kiss could be as sweet and romantic as something out of a fairy tale, while at the same time it aroused such fierce desire?
The tip of his tongue probed coaxingly at her upper lip and she admitted him, then sighed with pleasure. Hot, slick and wet, his tongue mated with hers, tasting like rich dark coffee and escalating the power of the kiss beyond her immediate control. The desire of a moment earlier blossomed into a need so blatantly sexual, it shocked her. She felt delighted, exhilarated and recklessly alive.
He pulled away. Chests heaving, they stared into each other’s glazed eyes for a second, five seconds, five minutes—she couldn’t have said which with any degree of certainty. With a hungry sound rumbling from his chest, he brought his lips back to hers, and the magic started all over again.
His hands caressed her shoulders, her arms, her back, nudging her closer, always closer. His palms learned the shape of her waist, the curve of her hips, the firmness of her bottom. Wanting to be closer yet, she slid her hands into his back pockets and pressed her breasts against his chest. He groaned, then grasped her hips and molded her pelvis to the hard ridge beneath the fly of his jeans.
The resulting ache deep inside her body made her want to whimper with frustration. Too much heat, too many clothes, too little time to explore these wonderful new discoveries with Sam before the others arrived… The pleasure-drunk part of her mind tried to skip right over that idea, but a tiny, still-functioning part repeated it over and over, louder and louder, like a mental warning flag. Others arriving. Others arriving. OTHERS ARRIVING!
The sounds of a pickup door banging shut and voices raised in greeting pierced the fog in her brain. She jerked away from Sam. He frowned and reached for her. Batting his hands away, she hurriedly checked to make sure her clothes were properly tucked and buttoned where necessary.
Sam tipped his head slightly to one side as if he was listening for something. His eyes widened when her father’s voice and Jackson’s drifted through the open front door. Then he glanced at the front of his jeans and shot her an appalled, deer-trapped-in-the-car-headlights look that almost made her laugh out loud. She shooed him into the kitchen, smoothed down her hair and went out to welcome her volunteer work crew.
Her father wrapped her in a loving embrace. Maggie kissed her cheek and Jackson gave her a brotherly, one-armed hug. Her heart swelled with affection for these warm, generous people who had already enriched her life beyond anything she had expected. But it was the man in the house, struggling to hide the evidence of his desire for her, who dominated her thoughts.
Good heavens, they’d been so hot and hungry for each other… If interruption hadn’t been imminent, would either one of them have stopped? Or would they be making mad, passionate love on the bare floor of her living room at this very moment?
It wasn’t like her to ignore her rational brain when she kissed a man. Sam was hardly the first man, or even the most handsome man, she’d ever kissed, but he was the first one ever to have such a
devastating effect on her inhibitions. She had no clue what it all meant—to herself or to Sam—but she looked forward to finding out.
She hoped he wouldn’t back away from her again now, and try to pretend nothing important had happened between them. If he did, she would have to start playing rough. She caught a flash of motion at the top of the porch steps and turned her head to see Sam standing there, looking down at her.
When their eyes met, a sexy half smile slowly spread across his mouth. Oh, wow. She felt that smile all the way down in some very intimate parts of her anatomy. It might be…fun to play rough with Sam Brightwater. And where did earthy thoughts like that one come from, anyway?
Just what kind of charisma did this guy have?
Sam inhaled a deep breath, steadying himself to walk down the porch steps. Maybe if he just kept his mouth shut and started moving Julia’s stuff into the house, he could avoid answering the questions he’d already seen in Dan’s and Jackson’s eyes. What are you doing here, Sam? Thought you didn’t like her much, Sam. Change your mind about her, Sam?
The truth was, he still felt too damn confused to explain himself to anyone. He didn’t like that feeling. He was a man who had his whole life figured out, and Julia Stedman didn’t fit into his blueprints anywhere.
But when he’d seen her car parked in front of this house and that little trailer…well, he’d had to stop and see if it was really her. When he’d actually seen her, a huge wave of relief had smacked right into him. It was like getting a second chance to pass an important test he’d already failed once.
She didn’t fit into his life plan, but the attraction between them was so intense, he could no longer ignore or deny it. He suspected there was something he was supposed to learn from her. Maybe once he’d learned that lesson, he would finally meet the woman he was destined to spend the rest of his life with.
Julia looked up at him, and he felt a jolt of connection so strong it rocked him back on his heels. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have to go hide in the kitchen again, and soak his head under the cold-water faucet this time. The thought made him want to laugh, and he saw an instant understanding and response in her eyes.