by Julia Harper
“I think that’ll do,” he said now. He rose and replaced a box of matches on the long fieldstone fireplace mantel. Then he stretched, completely oblivious to her arousal.
Or maybe not. His eyes caught hers and he stilled for a moment, his arms raised behind his head. Something seemed to flare in their bitter-chocolate depths. But perhaps it was the reflection of the flames.
He cleared his throat and looked away. “I’m going to have a look at the stores. Tom might’ve left some canned food.”
He turned on his heel and walked into the kitchen area—open like the rest of the house. There was a big stainless-steel refrigerator, the door propped open to keep it fresh while not in use. Beside it, the huge stove was also stainless steel—and a little intimidating, to tell the truth. A long black granite countertop divided the kitchen area from the great room. Several stools stood under the counter, so that it could double as a breakfast bar. To one side of the kitchen was a door with what must be a walk-in pantry. Dante disappeared inside.
Zoey sighed and rested her cheek on Pete’s soft curls. She’d just about kill for a bath right now. She’d taken a shower last night, but that had been two gunfights and a chase before. She eyed the fire. Maybe if they set a kettle on top of the coals . . .
Dante reappeared with a can in each hand. “We’ve got a choice. Chicken noodle soup or baked beans.”
“Oh, soup, definitely.” If he could be cool about all the sexual tension flying through the air, so could she.
Of course, that was assuming he even felt any sexual tension. Wouldn’t that just be a bummer? If all the heat was on her side? He’d think she was some kind of desperate single chick if he knew. Just the impression she wanted to make.
Some of her thoughts must’ve shown on her face.
His head reared back. “You sure?”
“Yep,” she chirped like a lunatic chipmunk.
“Uh, okay.” He started to say something else, but Pete twitched and woke up at that moment.
Zoey glanced down at the grimacing baby. “I really ought to change her. And she needs a bath. Can we heat a little water, do you think? Can you find a kettle or pot to put on the fire?”
“Sure. I’ll get it.” He began rummaging in the kitchen.
Pete let out a squawk.
“Come on, stinky.” Zoey knelt on the rug in front of the fire and began unwrapping Pete. Even through the layers of clothes she could tell this was going to be a major diaper change.
Ten minutes later, Pete was naked and trying to get away.
“It’s cold in the rest of the cabin, can’t you tell that?” Zoey muttered as she grasped a leg.
“Gah!” Pete shouted.
“Here.” A hand appeared over her shoulder with a big metal spoon. Pete immediately grabbed for it. “I’ve got some water heated on the fire.”
“Thanks,” Zoey panted.
She snatched up Pete, spoon and all, and plopped her in a huge soup pot placed on the floor beside the fire. Dante poured a little warm water into the pot. Pete immediately hit the water with her spoon, splashing it all over the place.
“Hey,” Zoey muttered and wiped water out of her eye.
Pete giggled.
“Can you hand me the dish soap?” she asked Dante.
He gave her the blue bottle. “Aren’t you supposed to use baby soap on babies?”
“Yeah,” Zoey grunted, soaping a wiggling arm. “But I think in this case, filth wins out over delicate skin.”
“But what if it gets in her eyes?” Dante persisted. Who knew a man could be so concerned over a baby’s bath?
“I won’t let it get in her eyes.”
An epic struggle later, and Pete was cruising a brown and red sofa, one hand holding on for balance, one hand still clutching her spoon. She wore a diaper and a white adult T-shirt Dante had found. The T-shirt was down to her toes and she looked like a little angel in a robe.
“She looks adorable,” Dante said. He sounded perplexed.
“Yeah, adorable.” Zoey pulled her soaked sweatshirt away from her chest. “It’s either perfectly adorable or child of Satan. There’s no in between.”
She shivered. Pete seemed to be oblivious to the chill that hung in the rest of the room, starting only feet from the fire, but Zoey wasn’t. Especially with her sweatshirt now sopping wet.
“God, I wish I could take a bath, too,” she muttered.
“Why don’t you?” Dante asked. “Pete and me can try out the chicken noodle soup. The fire should’ve warmed it by now.” He gestured to the small pot sitting on the edge of the coals.
She glanced at him. “I think I might freeze.”
“Ah.” He looked at the fireplace and then Pete. “Well, ah, we—I—can turn my back. You can stay in front of the fire. Really, it’s okay. The baby will keep me occupied.”
“Well . . .”
“I think I saw some clothes in the upstairs bedroom. Let me get you something.” And he dashed up the stairs before she could say anything.
Zoey looked at Pete.
Pete grinned and blew a spit bubble.
If only the rest of the house was as warm as it was by the fire. But the heat had hardly made a dent in the bone-deep chill of the room, and the only hot water was what they heated over the fire. She’d have to take a sponge bath with the kettle of water if she wanted to get clean.
Dante came back down the stairs with a bundle of clothes in his arms. “See if any of this will fit.”
Zoey picked out a red cotton T-shirt, a Nordic cardigan, and a pair of silk long john bottoms. “If you’re sure.”
“Sure I’m sure,” Dante said. He was watching Pete and didn’t seem to be worried about Zoey at all.
“Okay.” Zoey turned to the fireplace and pulled her damp sweatshirt over her head.
Chapter Fifty-one
Saturday, 5:13 p.m.
So, apparently he was trying to nominate himself for the Martyr of the Year award.
Dante sat on the floor facing the couch. He watched Pete sidestep down the couch. He watched the baby, but his entire attention—his entire focus—was on the small, quiet sounds going on behind him. The rustle of cloth against skin. The sigh as she drew something over her head. The sounds of Zoey undressing.
The baby sidestepped over to him, grinning, and he held out a spoonful of noodles. “Want some soup, kid?”
She gurgled and snatched a chubby fistful of noodles, which she then smashed into her mouth. The baby moved away from him along the couch, chanting, “Mm. Mm. Mm.” as she went.
“Guess she likes soup,” Zoey said from behind him.
“Sure looks like it.” Could he be any more lame? “There’s some more in the pantry. I’ll heat up another can when you’re done.”
“Thanks. Hot soup would be wonderful.”
“Too bad we can’t make grilled cheese sandwiches, too.”
“Ooo! With tomatoes? That would make it perfect.”
She gasped a little and he heard a splash. Was she washing her face? Smoothing the cloth over her shoulders? Soaping her bare breasts? And could he just keep his mind from conjuring up the images?
He cleared his throat. “Is the water warm enough?”
“Yep.” A sigh. “It’s warm, but not hot, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, God, I wish,” Dante said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He scooped up some broth and a piece of chicken for Pete, who had cruised near again. The baby opened her mouth wide like a baby bird and then chomped down on the spoon. She grinned up at him, a dribble of soup at the corner of her mouth. He dabbed at it with the spoon.
“You’re good with her,” Zoey said.
“Thanks.”
“I thought you said you didn’t spend much time with your nephews and nieces.”
“I don’t.” He stared down into the cooling pot of chicken noodle soup.
“Then you must be a natural with kids.”
“I guess.”
“I
don’t think Ricky knows what to do with her. He gets impatient that she doesn’t have a real long attention span at the moment. He’ll try to tickle her right before bedtime and get her all worked up. It’s like he doesn’t know how to play with her.”
“There are a lot of guys who aren’t too sure what to do with a kid.” Jesus, he wasn’t defending Ricky Spinoza, was he?
“Actually most of the time he just ignores her.”
He frowned. What kind of an asshole ignored his own kid? He wasn’t too sure what to do with a kid himself, but if he fathered a child, he damn well would learn. “What does your sister see in him, anyway?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. Nikki has always been a magnet for guys who aren’t good for her.”
“Yeah?”
“She used to run around with the biggest losers when Mom was taking care of her.”
“What about you? Were you wild as a teenager?”
Behind him he could hear the sound of trickling water as she squeezed the washcloth over the kettle. He stared up at the ceiling. There was a stain around the fan, indicating water damage. Probably a leak from the roof. He’d only been in the cabin once before—a guys’ boating weekend two years before. He hadn’t noticed the water damage at that time, but then again, he hadn’t spent a whole lot of time gazing at the ceiling, trying not to hear the sounds of a beautiful naked woman taking a sponge bath right behind him.
Not that trying not to hear was working out all that well.
“Not really. I guess I kind of felt that Nikki had the wild-child act covered for both of us. Mostly I went out with artsy guys or the computer geeks at school.”
“So you had to be the good girl.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Clothes rustled behind him.
“Really? You sure spend a lot of time taking care of your sister now.”
“But—”
“And what about your mom after she divorced? You said you were angry, but it sounds like you didn’t act out. What did you do, repress all your anger?”
“Now, wait—”
“Or did Nikki end up being the surrogate for the anger you felt?”
“What are you, a shrink?” The words sounded like a joke, but her voice was stiff.
Way to turn off the lady, Torelli.
Pete sat suddenly, her diapered bottom thumping against the floor. She abandoned her spoon and scurried on all fours toward Zoey.
“Hey.” Dante instinctively followed her with his eyes, only remembering just in time not to look behind him.
“What’re you doing, you little imp?” he heard Zoey ask. He could almost make out her shape on the edge of his vision. He swallowed.
“No, that’s my water.” A splash. “Can you hold her?”
“Uh . . .”
“It’s okay, you can look.”
He looked.
Actually it was both okay and not okay. On her lower half, Zoey wore panties. On her upper half she wore the wiggling baby. Between her and the baby was a T-shirt, but as far as Dante could tell, Zoey wasn’t wearing it. The thin cloth was held in place by Pete’s little body. With every squirm, the baby threatened to dislodge the T-shirt. Squirm, baby, squirm! Oh, he was going to hell for his thoughts.
“Uh, let me take her.” Dante reached for Pete, but she evidently didn’t want to move. She started kicking, nearly propelled herself from Zoey’s arms. When Dante did get a grip on her, the back of his fingers were pressed against soft feminine flesh.
“Thanks.”
Zoey wasn’t looking at him. She had the T-shirt pressed against her chest like one of the more modest goddesses in a Renaissance painting. He could see the side of her breast, the part that curved just under her arm, and the sight made him aware that he was fully—painfully—hard.
Dante blew out a breath. “No problem.”
He took the child and stood. When Pete started to whine he swung her in a wide circle that took them both across the room. The baby squealed with joy. Dante felt the pull of his injured leg, but he ignored it.
“Like that, do you?” he muttered to the little girl. He swung her up again. Anything to get his mind off the half-naked woman across the room.
“Don’t let her get cold,” Zoey warned.
“I won’t.” Dante still wore his black leather trench coat. He tucked the baby into it now and tied the front so that her head stuck out the top like a little papoose. He walked to the window with her.
It was dark outside already.
“Too bad we can’t see the stars,” he whispered to the small face.
The wind moaned outside as it battered snow against the window. A crust was frozen to the glass in an arc at the bottom. Trees seemed to be blowing across the field that surrounded the house, but it was hard to tell in the blackness.
“It’s cold and stormy outside, but we’re safe and warm in here,” he murmured to Pete.
The baby sighed and laid her head against his chest. Dante paced slowly in front of the windows, careful to always keep his back to the fireplace and Zoey. He should’ve been bone tired, but every cell of his body was on the alert, attuned to the woman across the room.
“How is she?” Zoey asked quietly.
He turned.
She half lounged on one hip in front of the fireplace in an unconsciously classical pose, holding out long strands of hair to the warmth of the fire. Her hair was drying in red-blond corkscrew curls. Titian. That was what the color of her hair was called. After the Renaissance painter.
It was an old-fashioned color, not much favored by twenty-first-century style. When women deliberately chose a color for their hair nowadays, they went for white blond or deep red or stark black. Not soft, glowing orange, a color that picked up the firelight and seemed to throw it back. And of course her skin was that translucent white that only seemed to exist in paintings anymore. She wasn’t even wearing the sweatshirt he’d found for her; instead she had a towel wrapped around her upper half, her white shoulders gleaming in the firelight. She was a siren sent from some distant past to tempt a mostly modern man. If she—
“Dante?”
He tore his gaze from her and glanced down at the baby. She was drooling on his shirt. “She’s asleep.”
“Oh, I’m—”
“It’s too cold in the rest of the house still.” He strode to the fireplace and gently laid Pete on the couch. He took off his trench coat and dropped it on the couch beside the baby to keep her from rolling off. “I’m going to get some pillows and blankets and bring them down here.”
“Well, that’s—”
He turned his back and fled into the cold upper story of the house. But even as he did so, he knew.
He was going to have to return and face Zoey.
Chapter Fifty-two
Saturday, 6:54 p.m.
Zoey sighed and turned to the fireplace. Dante had seemed okay earlier in the evening, but now he was being curt with her. Maybe it was just fatigue. Maybe she was just imagining the whole thing, but she didn’t think so.
Pete made a sound and turned on the couch cushions, and Zoey leaned over to check on her. She didn’t want the baby to roll off the couch. When Dante returned, maybe they could make a bed for Pete on the floor and—
“Why haven’t you put on that sweatshirt?” Dante’s harsh tones made her start.
Zoey looked up. He was standing over her like a censoring father, his arms full of bedding.
The image had all sorts of bad connotations for her, but she cleared her throat before she spoke to keep her voice calm. “I didn’t want to get the shirt wet while my hair dried.”
He tossed the bedding on the floor, nearly hitting her feet. “It’s dry enough now, isn’t it?”
“Almost, it should—”
“Then put on a shirt, for chrissake.” He stalked off without waiting for an answer.
Zoey jumped to her feet and viciously jerked some pillows and a blanket into a little bed for Pete on the floor.
When Dante stomped back
into the room, she was pulling blankets into a bed for herself on the floor several feet from Pete. Except Dante didn’t really stomp—he made no noise when he walked—but the emotion behind his walk sure was a stomp.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
He dumped his new load of bedding right on top of the pallet she’d been making.
Zoey straightened slowly. “I was making a bed for myself.”
“We’re sleeping together,” he said flatly.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He thrust aside the pile of bedding, including her little pallet and unzipped a sleeping bag. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again. You took off last time I did that. We’re sleeping together.”
“First of all, I am not sleeping with you—”
“You never struck me as a prude,” he shot back.
He shrugged out of his gun holster and placed it on the fireplace mantel. Then he squatted to spread the open sleeping bag on the big rug in front of the fire.
“And secondly, you don’t have the right to talk to me like that!”
It was his turn to straighten slowly, and when Zoey saw his face she almost took a step back.
“I don’t have the right?” he asked softly.
“No.” She stood her ground, feeling her own anger begin to crest her levee. “I’m not some stupid piece of ass you’ve picked up for the night. I’m—”
“You’re the woman who’s been using me for the last three days.”
“I didn’t use—”
He stepped into her personal space, so close his chest nearly brushed the towel covering her breasts. “You lied to me. Abandoned me in that rest stop—”
“I was trying to protect my niece!”
“And took off without a backward glance,” he ground out.
In any other circumstances, his nearness to her would mean that he was going to kiss her, but Zoey wasn’t about to mistake the anger in his face for lust. She felt a twinge of guilt. She had lied to him. She had used him. But there had been extenuating circumstances.
“Listen,” she tried in a lower tone. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, but my loyalty to my sister, to Pete, superseded anything I owed to a guy I hardly knew.”