So very much more.
Michael was shaken to the very soles of his bare feet. He slowly lowered himself to his elbows, staying inside her, reluctant to let the moment end. He brushed back her damp hair and kissed her forehead, then finally rolled to his side and settled her comfortably against him.
Damn, but it was true—wonderful things did come in small packages sometimes.
Michael lifted his head and found Libby had her eyes closed, her head nestled against his chest, and one hand possessively clutching his neck.
Michael settled against the pillows and pulled the blanket over Libby’s back, tucking her firmly against him. He thought about the three other foil packets in his pants pocket, and his smile returned. He wondered if Libby had noticed them when she’d found the first one and if she might be thinking she’d better get some rest now, while she could.
Come to think of it, he was feeling a bit exhausted himself. He stared at the roof, and his smile disappeared. Her damned truck. He couldn’t believe he’d brought Libby into the garage, into this damned truck, to make love to her. He was about as romantic as a bull moose willing to rut in a beaver bog.
No wonder she had nothing to say.
Michael was gone. Libby knew this because she was cold. Her nose was running, her feet felt like blocks of ice, and she was wrapped up so tightly in the quilt trying to keep warm that her body ached.
He’d left. The unromantic, insensitive jerk had snuck off in the small hours of the night without even saying good-bye.
He hadn’t said thank you, either.
How could a man know so much about a woman’s body that he could take her on a fantastical journey to Heaven and back and not know that he was supposed to stick around long enough to tell her he’d enjoyed the trip as much as she had?
Weren’t affairs supposed to be flaming things because of the romance? Wasn’t that why women usually agreed to have them?
Libby pulled the quilt up over her face to cover her freezing nose and groaned when she discovered aches in places she’d forgotten existed.
Dammit. What had she expected from a self-acclaimed throwback? Flowers? Music and candlelight? A note left on her pillow? Libby pushed the quilt down and looked to her right, half hoping to see a note on the pillow beside her.
Nothing. Only the cold imprint of where his head had been.
She sat up and looked around the shadowed interior of her truck. As love nests went, it could have been worse, considering the options available. She could have been waking up in the barn, she thought with a sigh of self-pity.
Libby loosened the cocoon of her quilt and crawled to the door of the truck. She opened it and backed out, wincing when her bare feet hit the concrete floor of the garage. She pulled the quilt along with her, and something fell on her feet. She looked down, picked up the packet, and stared in disbelief. She looked at the carpeted floor of her truck, saw two more packets, and her disbelief turned to horror.
Four? Michael had brought four condoms with him last night?
Every inch of Libby’s body—even her toes—instantly heated with outrage. The man had sat at her dinner table with four condoms tucked in his pocket, fortifying himself for a night of marathon sex.
Well, no wonder he’d left. She’d flopped against him like a drunkard after they’d made love and had fallen asleep before she had even finished yawning. Truth told, it had never occurred to her that he might want to do it again. In her experience with men, they’d have sex, cuddle a few minutes, and then get up and go home—but not while she’d been unconscious and only after a sweet kiss good-bye and a thank-you.
Libby turned on her heel and marched into the house. She stomped to the trash can, lifted the lid, and dropped the three packets inside.
“There. Take that, Mr. Macho Michael MacBain,” she muttered as she headed to the bathroom. He’d have to crawl on his knees if he wanted to see her again. And he damned well better have flowers in one hand and chocolates in the other.
Libby opened the bathroom door but stepped back with a yelp of surprise to avoid stepping on Trouble.
She’d forgotten about the kittens.
All three of them went scurrying past her and out the door, and Libby blew out a resigned sigh as she watched them run into the kitchen. She’d have to make sure they knew where their litter box was.
She walked to the shower, turned it on, and dropped the quilt at her feet. She stepped under the warm spray and let it cascade over her body, determined to wash away all thoughts of Michael.
But as she lathered herself up and heat slowly seeped back into her bones, Libby remembered Michael’s strong, sensual hands touching her. She remembered waking once or twice last night to find herself pulled up against Michael’s warm body, trapped in his possessive embrace. And she remembered feeling safe and secure and anchored to something more solid than TarStone Mountain.
By the time she dried off, Libby’s anger had subsided. With only a towel wrapped around her, she walked back into the kitchen and opened the trash bin. She took out the condoms, carried them into the bedroom, and put them in the nightstand beside the bed.
Dammit. She’d give him one more chance to make this affair work. And if he didn’t start living up to her expectations, she just might visit Father Daar and ask the crazy old man to turn Michael into a frog.
Chapter Fifteen
By nine-thirty that morning,Libby had unpacked most of the boxes she’d mailed to herself, and her jewelry studio was beginning to get organized. She was sitting with her feet propped up on the desk that already occupied the store and was contemplating how she wanted to display her product.
She was also halfway through her second warm, gooey, absolutely decadent glazed doughnut, which she’d bought at the bakery next-door. If she wasn’t careful, the doughnuts and hot cocoa could become a very bad habit.
She needed displays, she decided, licking her sticky fingers and picking up her cocoa. Maybe some glass-fronted cases she could hang on the wall and a glass and oak counter like the one the Dolans had in their store next-door. But instead of knives and bullets and rifle scopes, hers would be filled with glass birds, acorns, woodland mammals, and colorful beads.
And loons. She should work on designing a nice loon pendant to sell, since the aquatic birds seemed so popular in the Northeast. She’d seen them decorating shirts, hats, and paintings in the Dolans’ store yesterday. There had been almost as many carvings of loons for sale as there had been moose.
She should probably design a moose, too. But not as a pendant, maybe a small figurine that could decorate a wooden box or something.
Was there a woodworker in Pine Creek she could team up with? Maybe there were other craftsmen—and women—who could use an outlet for their work. She could form a co-op of some sort, and that way the studio could be open more hours, everyone taking turns manning the counter.
Libby dropped her feet to the floor, picked up her pen, and began making a list of the possibilities. Her spirits soared. She hadn’t been this excited since she’d taken a scalpel in her hand for the very first time.
But even that hadn’t been this exciting. The scalpel had been just the next step in a long line of steps to become a surgeon. Building a crafts studio was completely different. Grammy Bea had been right. Embarking on a new and creative career was what her soul had been yearning for. There were no rules, no strict procedures she’d have to adhere to, and certainly no one looking over her shoulder and telling her what she could and couldn’t do.
It was a very liberating epiphany.
She was thirty-one years old, intelligent, but it amazed her that it had taken so long to realize that she hadn’t been happy. She’d been fulfilled as a surgeon—giving traumatized people their lives back was very rewarding—but she’d caught herself more than once over the years yearning for more, secretly searching for something that was missing in her life.
Libby’s laugh echoed off the empty studio walls. For all her surgeon’s illusion of contr
ol, she’d never really had it. The medical establishment had been dictating her every move—medicine and the people who were supposed to love her, who were supposed to want what was best for her.
Well, nowshe was doing what was best for her.
And she was damned proud of herself.
There was a knock on the door, and Libby looked up to see Grace MacKeage peering between cupped hands through the window, a young child doing the same by her knee. Libby waved them both in, a smile of welcome on her face as she stood to greet her first guests.
“Welcome to NorthWoods Glass Studio,” Libby said, stopping in front of them. “And who have we here?” she asked, leaning down to the adorable, shy girl clinging to her mother’s leg.
“This is Elizabeth,” Grace said, pulling the young child’s thumb out of her mouth. “Elizabeth, this is Libby. You both have the same name, but she prefers to be called Libby. Say hello.”
Instead of speaking, Elizabeth popped her thumb back between her teeth and hid her face in Grace’s plump belly.
Grace sighed when she straightened and smiled at Libby. “We’re still working on meeting new people. So that’s the name, NorthWoods Glass Studio?”
Libby shrugged. “I’m just trying it out. What do you think?”
“It has a nice ring,” Grace agreed, looking around at the bare walls. Her eyes widened when they came to rest on Libby’s torch on the workbench. “You’ve set your equipment up right here in front?” she asked, walking to the workspace, young Elizabeth shuffling along with her. “I expected you’d work out back and fill the front with displays.”
“I thought people would like to see how it’s done,” Libby explained, following Grace. “That way, if they order something special, they can watch me make it.”
Grace turned interested blue eyes on her. “You’ll take commissions?”
“Sure. Or I’ll try,” Libby clarified. “Working with glass is not always an exact art, and sometimes I end up with some rather funky-looking pieces.”
“Jewelry only?” Grace asked, nodding at the glass blue jay Libby wore.
Libby lifted the bird from around her neck, leaned down, and placed it over Elizabeth’s head, deftly shortening the cord and settling it against the child’s jacket.
“I can make small figurines that can be displayed,” Libby explained. “Just not too big. I have to build up the glass in layers, and there’s a limit before it starts to get unwieldy or cools unevenly. Then it just shatters.”
Grace looked down at her daughter, who was busy admiring her new necklace, then back at Libby. “Could you make a sword, do you think? Not too big,” she said, holding her index fingers about ten inches apart. “With a tartan wrapped around it? Does the glass come in many colors?”
Libby frowned, trying to picture what Grace had in mind. “It only comes in certain colors, but I can usually melt them together, creating a wide spectrum.”
“If I draw you a picture of what I’d like, would you be willing to try?”
“Yeah. I’ll give it a go.”
“Ah—before Christmas?” Grace asked.
“Oh, sure. If you give me something to go by, I can have it done by Thanksgiving.”
“Great,” Grace said. “Then consider me your first official customer. Do you have any jewelry ready to display?” she asked, peering into one of the open boxes. “Something from nature?” She shot Libby a lopsided grin. “I have a sister-in-law who practically lives outdoors.”
Libby started pulling out some of the glass pendants, earrings, and bracelets she’d made over the years, and Grace and Elizabeth immediately started oohing and aahing as they sorted through them. Then Grace stopped and held up a necklace, turning it toward the sunlight streaming through the front windows.
“This is beautiful,” she whispered. “The colors are almost alive. It feels heavy to be so delicate, and the raspberries look good enough to eat.”
The necklace was made of bright red, bulbous berries interspersed with green raspberry leaves. The glass she’d used was transparent, not opaque, and the sunlight glittering through it cast a colorful prism on Grace’s hands.
“It’s more rugged than it looks,” she told Grace as she dug through the box, looking for the matching bracelet. “I even make key chains out of some of the beads.” She gave Grace a crooked smile. “Although the thin leaves might chip if it’s dropped.”
Grace was only absently paying attention. She was busy clasping the necklace around her neck and looking for something to see herself in. “Oh, I love this,” she said, taking the mirror Libby handed her, fingering the raspberries as she admired the necklace in the mirror. “Every August, we spend a whole day picking wild raspberries. They grow wild and abundant around here. What do you think, Elizabeth?” she asked, holding her very pregnant belly while she leaned over for her daughter to see. “Does this look good on Mommy?”
Elizabeth nodded, more interested in her own necklace. “I like my bird,” she said, holding it up.
“Then it’s yours,” Libby told her. She looked at Grace.
“If that’s okay? I forgot about your other daughters. And it might be small enough for Elizabeth to choke on,” she added, looking at the young girl.
“Thank you,” Grace said, nodding. “And don’t worry. It won’t be left around like a toy.” She turned Elizabeth to face her and lifted her daughter’s chin. “You’ll keep it in my jewelry box and only wear it when you’re dressing up to go out, right?”
Elizabeth quickly nodded agreement.
“Then say thank you to Libby.”
“Thank you, Libby,” Elizabeth dutifully repeated, all signs of her previous shyness gone. “I can wear it to my birthday party. And you can come if you want. It’s…it’s…” She looked at her mother. “What day, Mama?”
“December twenty-first this year, sweetie,” Grace confirmed for Libby. “And since I expect to be quite busy that day,” she said with a laugh, patting her belly, “I think we’ll have the party a few days early. And you are certainly invited.”
Libby was about to thank her and accept when a shadow darkened the interior of the store. All three of them turned just as a large man walked in with two cute, wide-eyed toddlers in his arms.
“Oh, my God,” Grace said, rushing up to him. “Don’t you dare set them down. They’ll be worse than two bulls in a china shop.”
“Bird,” one of the toddlers said, pointing at her sister.
“Down,” the other toddler demanded, wiggling to get free.
“You stay right where you are, Chelsea,” Grace said, adjusting the child’s blaze orange wool hat. She turned to Libby with a proud smile. “Let me introduce you to some more of my family. This is Chelsea, who’s almost four, and her twin sister, Megan. And if you haven’t guessed by now, this is my husband, Greylen. Grey, this is Libby Hart.”
“Miss Hart,” he said with a nod, his smile no less imposing than his size. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” He took a quick look around her shop, settled his gaze on his wife’s neck, and let out a totally male resigned sigh. “You haven’t even finished unpacking, and already you have a customer. Two,” he clarified with a chuckle, looking at the blue jay Elizabeth was wearing.
Libby was speechless. Was there something in the water around here that made all the men so big? She’d met Michael, Ian, Callum, and now Grey. They were all giants…all Scots…all overwhelming.
This one, though, had his hands full. Six girls and one more on the way. The man would have seven daughters to deal with by Christmas. Libby realized they were all staring at her while she stood there like an idiot, gawking.
“Er, it’s nice to meet you, too,” she finally managed to say. She even managed to smile. “And you can’t expect a woman—no matter her age—to walk into a jewelry shop and not try something on.”
A gleam came into his clear green eyes. “I’m quickly learning the minds of females.” He affectionately squeezed his two daughters in his arms, looking from one to the other
and then at his wife. “Have you told her your news yet, or have you been too busy shopping?”
“Oh, Lord, I did forget,” Grace said, turning apologetic blue eyes on Libby. “Katherine Hart and James Kessler checked into our hotel late last night. And they asked the desk clerk if he knew you, and where you might be staying.”
Libby felt a crushing weight land on her shoulders. Her feet were bolted to the floor, her head felt twice its size, and her heart started pounding against her ribs so violently she couldn’t breathe.
James was in Pine Creek?
“Wh-what did the clerk tell them?” she whispered, grabbing hold of the desk for support.
Grace stepped closer, her eyes filled with concern. “It’s a small town, Libby. He told them he thought the name was familiar, but he didn’t know where you lived.”
“Where are they now?”
Grace shot a worried look at her husband, then looked back at Libby and shrugged. “I don’t know. I assume they’re in town somewhere, looking for you. They’ll probably check with the post office, don’t you think? Have you signed up for mail delivery yet?”
Grace must have thought Libby was either going to fall over or throw up, because she guided her to the chair behind the desk and made her sit down. She took hold of Libby’s shoulder for support.
Dammit. All she had wanted was a little time to get settled before she had to face the scene that would inevitably take place. She wasn’t surprised her mother had come, since Katherine had sounded more curious than worried the last time they’d talked on the phone. But honest to God, she had never expected James to track her down and actually come here. And how had he found her, anyway? Libby knew for certain her mom hadn’t told him.
But they were both here. Now. In Pine Creek.
“You don’t have to see them, Libby,” Grace said softly, squeezing her shoulder. “If you’re not ready, you can come to Gu Bràth and stay with us until they give up and go back to California. No one has to know where you are.”
Wedding the Highlander Page 17