The Stranger in Her Bed

by Janet Chapman

  "Why not?" Anna asked, adding a log to the fire in the hearth. "You like working for Dr. Betters."

  "I love that job, and I don't care what Paul says, I'm going back to work. And after tomorrow, I won't have to watch Megan and Travis anymore, since Pete's coming home." She shut the notebook and stood up. "Is it okay if we stay in Ethan's cabin until we find our own place?"

  "Where's Ethan going to stay?"

  "He told Paul he intended to sleep at the mill, because it has running water."

  "But the cabin doesn't," Anna reminded her. "Are you certain you want to stay there?"

  "Sure," Jane said, walking to the door and slipping into her coat. "It's like camping out, sort of cozy and romantic. So can I tell Paul it's okay with you?"

  "If that's what you guys want to do. The rent's already been paid. Whatever happened to the dog? Was anyone able to find its owner?"

  "He's at our cabin with Paul," Jane said. "We're going to ask around town if anyone's missing a black Lab pup. Paul thinks he's about seven or eight months old, and we've been calling him Kent since he got baptized in the Kent River." She grinned as she buttoned her coat. "Paul said he's never seen anyone operate machinery like you— that you scooped Kent up as gently as if you were plucking an egg out of the water."

  Anna dismissed her praise with a laugh. "I've been running large equipment since I was twelve. I think Dad started teaching me as a way to make up for lost time and to bond with me when I went to live with him. Do you have food at your cabin?"

  Jane stepped out onto the porch. "We went shopping on our way home from telling Paul's family about us. My husband is cooking tonight. Stew, I think."

  Anna raised an eyebrow. "That sounds promising. You've gotten yourself a man who can cook."

  "Only stew," Jane said with a laugh, trotting down the steps, then looking back. "You're okay?" she asked. "You won't get all depressed tonight and get drunk or anything, will you?"

  "I'm going to make a pot of hot cocoa and read those notebooks. They seem to be journals Samuel Fox kept. And then I'm turning in early, so I can start working on my mill first thing tomorrow morning."

  "Okay then, good-bye," Jane said with a wave as she started walking down the muddy path.

  Anna watched to make sure she didn't slip in the mud, then called Bear, realizing she hadn't seen him for the last hour.

  "He's over at our place," Jane called to her. "He seems to be fascinated with Kent."

  "Okay. Just send him home if he becomes a pest," she called back with a wave, turning and going inside. "Well, Charlie," she said when the chickadee fluttered down off the curtain rod and landed on her shoulder. "You want to go to a benefit dance with me this Saturday night as my date?"

  * * *

  Anna woke up at the feel of the comforter moving and the bed dipping beside her. "Ethan," she whispered.

  He said nothing, rolling to cover her with his body, his naked weight pressing her into the mattress as he captured her hands reaching for him and stretched them over her head. He kissed her full on the mouth with gentle aggression, as if expecting her to push him away. But even before she could respond, his lips began a familiar journey over her jaw and down her throat, not stopping until they came to her breasts, and he started suckling her nipple through the thin silk of her nightie.

  Anna gave a cry of pleasure and tried to wiggle free to touch him, but he merely moved both her hands into one of his and continued his gentle assault. His free hand began its own journey then, sending shivers of anticipation sparking through her as his fingers kneaded her flesh, moving down her ribs and slipping under the elastic of her panties.

  He'd learned her body quite well in only two nights, and knew right where to touch her to make her writhe beneath him. His strong, calloused fingers dallied over her hip bone, teasing the soft fleshy indent between it and her pelvis as his mouth moved to suckle her other breast. She cried out again, fighting his hold on her hands, but her struggles only settled him deeper into the juncture of her thighs.

  "Ethan," she rasped, desperately needing to touch him.

  He abandoned her breasts to kiss her again, turning her next petition to a moan as he slowly moved his hips intimately against her, the thin material of her panties compounding her pleasure. Anna realized her only hope of participating would come when he had to put on the condom, so she simply surrendered to her growing desire. But when he lifted his hips, stripped off her panties, and settled back between her thighs, she realized he had already seen to that chore. He slowly began to enter her while stroking her intimately, then held both her hands beside her head and gently embedded himself deeply inside her.

  He set a rhythm that was totally focused and maddeningly tender, staring down at her in silence as he worked his magic, building her passion so subtly that when she crested Anna cried out in surprise.

  "That's it, come for me," he coaxed, increasing the force of each thrust but not the speed. "Beautiful Anna."

  Her pleasure went on in endless waves as he filled her deeply and rocked her gently, his mouth drinking in her sounds of fulfillment. And before she could even catch her breath he began all over again, making love to her body as he held her suspended in emotional awe. And over the next hour she climaxed again and yet again at his tender urging before he finally found his own release. In silence he pulled her against him, wrapping her in his comforting strength as she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  As the sun crept through the window come dawn, Anna awoke to find herself alone in bed. She sighed. Poor Ethan. Unsure of his reception, he'd come in like a thief in the night… and come dangerously close to stealing her heart all over again.

  * * *

  Anna sank into the claw-foot tub of steaming lavender-scented water, laid her head back with an appreciative sigh, and listened to the soap bubbles softly pop around her. She didn't know if she was more exhausted from working on her mill all week or from spending a good part of the last five nights making love to Ethan.

  No, he had been making love to her.

  Since he'd fired her on Monday, Ethan had shown up each night after Anna had gone to sleep, crawled into bed, and made tender yet passionate love to her. And in all that time, she could count on her fingers the actual words they'd exchanged. Which was why sometime around Wednesday morning, when she'd been tearing apart Fox Run's old saw engine, Anna had decided that instead of confronting Ethan about his nocturnal visits, it might be wiser for her to wait him out.

  The only thing Anna could figure was that the silent intensity was rooted in Pamela Sant's death. It must have been very traumatic not only to witness but possibly to have caused the accident, and then to have failed to save Pamela. That's why he'd gotten so crazy when he'd seen her in the middle of an ice jam, risking her life for a dog. He just needed some time to rebury the memories her stunt had dredged up.

  But dammit, she wanted her lover back! She wanted to laugh with Ethan again, wrestle him to exhaustion, and push his buttons until he exploded. The man had been living up to every one of her childhood fantasies, which was precisely why she intended to shatter his maddening mood tonight.

  Claire, André Segee's wife of twenty-five years, had taught Anna most of what she knew about men— as well as how to use that knowledge to her advantage. Though she had inherited four young sons when she'd married the widowed logging baron, then found herself the mother of a frightened eleven-year-old girl just seven years later, Claire had taken Anna under her wing without question or hesitation. She had taught Anna not only to be proud of her femininity, but how to dress, how to subtly hold her own in a relationship, and especially how to be comfortable in her own skin. Most of this Claire had done by example, as Anna had never known a man as contented as her daddy.

  Which made Claire Segee the polar opposite of her real mother; Anna remembered Madeline Fox as a woman who was desperately searching for wholeness in the arms of a man. And she was still searching; last Anna had heard, Madeline was living in Arizona or Florida with her si
xth or seventh husband.

  Anna didn't hate Madeline, much less blame her for anything; she didn't judge her one way or another. She accepted that some people were doomed to spend their entire lives searching for happiness outside themselves.

  That Madeline had been leading her young daughter down the same dead-end path eighteen years ago… well, Anna knew she owed her maternal grandfather an immense debt of gratitude for selflessly asking André Segee to come get his daughter before she followed in her mother's footsteps. Though she hadn't understood just how much Gramps had loved her then, she certainly did now, after reading the notebooks that were eighteen years of daily letters Samuel had written to his lost granddaughter.

  "I love you, too, Gramps," she whispered. "And I'm going to restore your mill and make you proud. Just as soon as I take care of a little problem with my Knight in shining armor."

  Anna lifted her sponge and squeezed it over her shoulders and across her chest, drawing in the calming lavender scent as she smiled in anticipation of tonight's benefit dance.

  Claire not only had sent down the condoms and new undergarments, but also some of Anna's dressier clothes, her collection of perfumes and lotions, and her jewelry box— into which she'd tucked a note asking Anna not to sell any of her jewels, that André would eventually come to his senses. The envelope containing the note had also held two thousand Canadian dollars, which Anna had added to the four thousand Damon and Jean-Paul had tucked in her hand before they'd left. That was why she hadn't been in much of a hurry to look for a new job. She'd dumped some of the money on her back taxes, saving the rest for a rainy day.

  Things had been blessedly quiet at Fox Run all week. The newlyweds had moved into a rented house in Oak Grove on Wednesday, and Anna hadn't had any more ghostly visitations. Apparently getting shot at by a crazy woman was an effective deterrent.

  The only nightly visitor she'd had to deal with lately was a recalcitrant lover, and that was about to change. Anna slipped under the water to wet her hair, then surfaced and reached for the shampoo. The poor man was about to get the surprise of his life this evening, when his ex-foreman showed up at the dance wearing makeup, a cute little black dress, and three-inch heels.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I've changed my mind," Daniel Reed said as Ethan downed the last drop of beer in his bottle. "I'll fight you for her if I have to."

  "What are you talking about?" Ethan asked over the sound of the band playing on the far side of the school gymnasium.

  "Anna. You Knights can't have a monopoly on all the beautiful women around here," Daniel said, glancing at Ethan before looking across the room again. "I'm going to ask her out."

  "Anna only invited you to dinner that day to be nice. She won't actually date you."

  Daniel snapped his gaze back to Ethan. "Why not?"

  "Because she hates guns," he said, straight-faced. "And you carry one for work."

  Daniel stood up. "Then I'll quit my job." He took a long swig of his beer, set the bottle back on the table, and smoothed down the front of his shirt as he looked across the room again. "For her, I'd quit breathing."

  Turning to see what had his friend so riled up, Ethan immediately shot to his feet. Apparently he wasn't the only male in the place who felt like he'd just been punched in the gut; to a man, conversations stopped, heads turned, and mouths dropped open.

  "That's the tomboy you've been working with all winter?" a woman at the next table hissed, which she followed up with a loud smack to her husband's arm. "She's no tomboy."

  Ethan was torn between running across the gym and stuffing Anna back in her coat and bursting out laughing. The little witch was showing enough leg to make a giraffe envious. Most of the men appeared shocked to realize Anna actually had legs. And she'd piled her wild curls on top of her head, exposing her long sexy neck and cute little ears— which were adorned with glittering studs. Jewelry? Legs? A dress?

  What in hell was she up to?

  Daniel took another gulp of his beer, cleared his throat, and smoothed down the front of his shirt again. But he didn't exactly rush over to Anna— probably because he was afraid to trip over his own tongue.

  "You're going to have to get in line," Ethan drawled, watching Frank Coots walk up to Anna. "I hope she brought a dance card. She's going to need one."

  "God dammit," Daniel growled, sitting back down and grabbing his beer again, only to realize the bottle was empty.

  Ethan pulled two more beers out of the cooler he'd brought, repositioned his chair to watch the show, and sat down. "Don't worry," he said, sliding over one of the beer. "She'll chew up Coots and spit him out in under five minutes."

  "What's he doing back here? I thought we got rid of that bastard years ago. Isn't he living in Boston or something?"

  "Rumor has it he's offering Kent Mountain to a group of developers if they take him on as a partner."

  "Hell," Daniel said, his scowl returning when Frank and Anna started to dance. "Just what we need, another resort."

  Ethan only half listened as Daniel disparaged their old high school buddy, and instead watched the dance floor, unable to take his eyes off Anna. As beautiful as she was naked in bed, wrestling him to exhaustion, she was far more stunning and even sexier in that tight little black dress, dark nylons, and heels tall enough to bring her eyes level with those of most men.

  Apparently it was payback time for the way he'd been treating her all week. But he wasn't ready to let Anna kick him out of her life. Not yet. Not until he scratched her surface enough to find something about her that would allow him to walk away unscathed. And there had to be something. He just needed to find her fatal flaw, and then he'd be freed from the spell of her challenging eyes, quick mind, and explosive energy.

  * * *

  "I guess you do clean up nice," Frank Coots said, his smile appreciative as he led Anna onto the dance floor and took her in his arms. "Daddy finally come through?" he asked, his gaze locking on her simple diamond stud earrings.

  "They were a sixteenth-birthday gift."

  "Have you thought any more about selling Fox Run?"

  "Not really. In fact, I've already started restoring it."

  Frank's congenial expression immediately cooled, his arm around her back tightening perceptibly. "You're not really serious about reopening that mill?"

  "I dismantled the saw this week, and I'm looking for someone who can tool the parts I can't buy." She shrugged. "The saw house will have to be rebuilt, but most of the equipment is in surprisingly good shape."

  Frank suddenly guided her toward the edge of the crowd, then led her to an isolated table and sat her down. He then pulled up another chair that put his back to the gymnasium, effectively giving them some privacy.

  "How would you like to be part of a deal that would be a lot more lucrative than running a mill?" he asked quietly over the music. "I'm in contact with a group of developers who want to build a multifaceted resort near Oak Grove." He glanced over his shoulder when the music stopped, leaned closer, and lowered his voice. "If we were to offer them my mountain and your shore frontage on Frost Lake, we'd have a package they couldn't resist. They'd make us full partners, and in three or four years you'd be able to buy a lovely necklace to match those earrings," he said with a promising grin, his gaze dropping to her bare throat. "Hell, you'd be able to buy all the diamonds your little heart desires."

  "These are all the diamonds I desire," she said, touching one of her earrings. "Fox Run's not for sale, Frank."

  His eyes hardened. "Did you know your deed is questionable?" he asked, his voice threatening. "And that half of your land used to belong to my father? Five years ago he sold Samuel Fox a thousand-acre plot that runs from the main road down to the lake." He leaned closer, crowding her a bit. "For only twelve thousand dollars," he growled, his complexion turning ruddy. "That's barely ten dollars an acre, for a chunk of land worth over a million."

  "My lawyers researched all the titles to Fox Run thoroughly when I acquired it," Anna to
ld him, refusing to lean away. "And I specifically remember seeing that deed from your father to Samuel. All the i's were dotted and the t's were neatly crossed. The sale was legal."

  "Not if my father wasn't of sound mind at the time," Frank rebutted. "He's been in a nursing home in Dover for the last three years, wearing a diaper and talking to imaginary people."

  "So it's your intention to contest your father's sale of that acreage to Samuel Fox?"

  "Unless you decide to come in on the deal. It'll be more cost-effective than for each of us to rack up huge lawyer fees."