She nodded as she began stripping half the blankets from the bed and piling them in her arms.
‘The storm’s bad. And that road must be a nightmare.’ She plucked a pillow from the bed, too. With the stuff in her arms piled high enough to almost hide her face, she maneuvered past him. ‘It was bad enough when I drove up, hours ago.’
‘Well, yeah. I just thought—’
‘Do you remember where the linen closet is?’
‘No. Yes. I…’ He was right? How could that be? He’d never been right, not where Holly was concerned.
‘It’s next to the bathroom. Grab a couple of sheets and bring them down with you.’
He watched, bewildered, as she made her way to the stairs. The bedlinens were piled higher than her head.
‘Hey! Holly, wait a second. I’ll take that stuff. You can’t see…’
‘I can manage fine, thanks. You just bring the sheets.’
Holly dumped the blankets on a chair near the sofa. Her hands trembled as she took the throw pillows and tossed them aside.
What on earth had she been thinking? She’d never have made love with Nick, not even if he’d begged! She was done with all that, done with wanting him—
‘Are these okay?’
She looked up. Nick was holding out a pair of flannel sheets.
‘Fine,’ she said, and took them from his outstretched hands.
‘Can I help?’
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said briskly. ‘I can manage just fine.’
Nick frowned. He had the feeling she was right: she could manage fine. Something about her had changed, but what was it?
Maybe he’d been right, and there was a man in her life. It wasn’t his business. It was just that he was curious.
She bent over the sofa and smoothed down the bottom sheet. She was wearing an outlandish outfit—he hadn’t really noticed it before but now he took in the details. Sweatshirt, long johns, heavy socks. He’d never seen anything less feminine. No. That was a lie. The sweet curve of her back was—
‘Toss me the other sheet, will you?’
His eyes followed her every movement. The heavy sweatshirt disguised her breasts, but he didn’t need to see them to remember their conical shape or silken perfection. The rest of her was outlined clearly by the clinging long underwear. Her gently rounded bottom. Her long legs—legs that had once locked around his waist to drive him deeper as they’d made love…
Nick swung away and walked to the fireplace.
‘Heck of a thing,’ he said gruffly. ‘A fieldstone hearth, plenty of kindling and matches…’
‘And no firewood. I know. It was the first thing I checked, after the electricity went out. Well, the second thing, after the candles.’ She plucked a blanket from the chair, shook it out, then laid it across the improvised bed. ‘Too bad. I’ve gotten really good at building fires.’
‘Yeah? I’d have figured it took a small army to get anything started in those walk-in fireplaces at Pinetops.’
‘Oh, it pretty much does.’ She straightened, blew a strand of wheaten hair out of her eyes. ‘I meant in my place, in Boston.’
Nick nodded, his face a perfect blank.
‘Nice town, Boston.’ He bent down, stared intently into the fireplace. ‘Live alone?’
Holly hesitated. The desire to tell him that she lived with a man was almost overpowering, but what was the point? He wouldn’t care. Not that she wanted him to.
‘Yes. I live alone. And you?’ She knew the answer, knew that he hadn’t remarried, thanks to the media’s interest in him, but why tell him that? ‘Do you live in New York?’
‘Uh-huh.’Alone, too, he almost said…but she didn’t ask. Why didn’t she ask?
‘I don’t know how anybody stands the pace.’ Holly added the other blankets, smoothed them neatly and folded back a corner. ‘I mean, whenever I fly down to visit Belinda, my agent, or my publisher—’
‘Your what?’ he said, as if she’d suddenly told him she paid visits to a psychic.
‘Belinda, my agent, or my publisher.’ She turned towards him, her hands on her hips. The look on his face said it all. He knew nothing about her career. Well, why would he? Just because she knew all about his… ‘My publisher,’ she said again, with a little smile. ‘I write cookbooks.’
Nick’s brows lifted. ‘You?’
‘Me.’ Holly folded her arms. ‘I know you never figured I could do more than boil water—’
‘That’s not true. You were great.’ He grinned. ‘All those ways you came up with to cook hamburgers.’
‘Be honest, Nick. You hated every last one of them.’
‘That’s not true. I just figured—’
‘You figured I was playing house.’
‘Look, I knew you’d never been inside a kitchen in your life, until we got married. It wasn’t fair to ask you to take on—’
‘No.’ Holly’s tone was polite, but her eyes were cool. ‘You’re right. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask. But I didn’t need to be asked. I was your wife, Nick. And wives cook. They clean. They iron. Wives do lots of things…but not your wife.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ Nick folded his arms over his chest. ‘Six years, and it’s still the same old thing. Well, you’re right. I didn’t marry you for free maid service.’
Holly picked up the pillow and hurled it onto the sofa.
‘You know something?’ She spun towards him again, her eyes dark with anger. ‘I never really figured out why you did marry me. I used to think it was for sex, but it wasn’t that, was it? It didn’t have to be, considering that I fell into bed with you days after we met.’
‘Are we back to that, too? Listen, baby—’
‘Don’t call me that! I am not your baby. I am not anybody’s baby.’
‘One argument at a time, okay?’ Nick slapped his hands on his hips. ‘I married you, dammit, because I loved you! Because I wanted to give you everything you deserved, everything you wanted…’
‘Bull! What an incredible ego you have, Nicholas Brennan! How could you possibly have known what I wanted?’
‘A man knows, that’s all. When he loves a woman—’
‘On the other hand,’ Holly said coldly, ‘what you wanted was no secret.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I’m waiting.’ Nick’s jaw shot forward. ‘Tell me what I wanted, since you know so much about it.’
‘You wanted success. Recognition.’ She threw her arms wide. ‘You were determined to show them all that they were wrong!’
Nick laughed. ‘Who’s this “them”? What in hell are you talking about?’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Nick. You wanted just what you got. Your name in headlines. A fat bank account.’
‘Ah, the horror of it all.’ He shook his head and put on a mournful face. ‘To think of it, that a guy would want to make good in this world. Lord, what a tragedy.’
‘Don’t laugh at me!’ Holly stamped her foot. ‘You and that—that monster-sized chip you wore on your shoulder—’
‘Chip?’ His voice rose as he stomped towards her. ‘Hey, baby, I’m not the one with the chip. While I was out there, working my butt off, there you were, just waiting for me to come in the door at night so you could pounce on me and tell me about all the mistakes I was…Holly? Holly!’ Holly had turned and was striding away. Nick followed her to the foot of the stairs, watching as she began climbing them. His voice rose, along with his temper. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
She swung around and glared at him, cheeks pink with anger.
‘I never pounced on you when you came through the door, and you know it!’
‘You damn well did. Everything got the Holly Cabot Brennan vote of disapproval. The people I knew. The places I went. The things I did…’
‘You know, I used to think we never quarrelled. Even just a little while ago, I was thinking about how—how civilized our divorce had been. Some tears, some polite conv
ersation, and it was over.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘My point,’ Holly said bitterly ‘is that I lied to myself all these years and never realized it until this minute.’
‘Well, you’re realizing wrong. We didn’t fight. Never.’
‘You’re the one who’s wrong, Nick. We fought. I did, anyway. It’s just that I never let the anger out. I kept it all bottled up because I was this—this good little girl who wanted to please you. To make you look at me the way you… Oh, this is stupid! It doesn’t matter anymore. The past is dead, and our disaster of a marriage with it.’ She turned away, her back rigid. ‘And I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am for that!’
‘Holly, wait a minute—’
‘Goodnight, Nick. If we’re lucky, and they plow the road during the night, please have the decency to be gone before I get up.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Actually, if you really had any decency at all, you’d—you’d take those blankets and that pillow and make your bed in a snowbank!’ She stormed up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door behind her.
Nick stood there for a long minute, staring blindly at the empty hall and the closed door. Then, very slowly, he made his way to the sofa, sat down, and buried his head in his hands.
CHAPTER FIVE
MAN, it was cold!
And late, too. At least three or four in the morning, Nick figured. No question but that he had to have been tossing and turning for hours, ever since Holly had stormed out of the room.
He lifted his arm and peered at the lighted dial of his wristwatch.
Midnight? It was only midnight?
Nick groaned and fell back against the pillow, except the pillow wasn’t there. The arm rest was, and he managed to connect it perfectly with the bump on his head. He winced, mouthed an oath, and rubbed his skull with the tips of his fingers.
‘Great,’ he muttered. ‘Just great.’
What a night this had turned out to be! The laugh of it was that he’d come to North Mountain for a break. Considering how things were going, he’d have found more relaxation if he’d decided to camp out in the middle of Times Square.
And the weekend was only just beginning.
Nick rolled over, picked up the pillow and punched it into shape.
The room lay in total darkness. Not a good sign, he thought sourly. If the clouds had rolled in again, if it snowed…who knew when the road would get plowed? With his luck, he might be marooned here until New Year’s.
The thought made him shudder.
No way.
‘No way at all,’ he said, as he flipped onto his back, folded his arms over his chest and glowered at the ceiling.
Plow or no plow, he was getting out of here at sunup. Holly could keep the cabin and her distorted memories of their marriage all to herself. The way she’d talked, anybody would think he’d been the one who’d screwed up their relationship.
‘And it wasn’t,’ he growled into the silence. ‘She knows damn well it wasn’t!’
When he’d married Holly, she’d been everything he’d wanted, every dream he’d ever dreamed. She was beautiful. Bright. Kind. Caring. He’d wanted to put down roots, build a marriage, a family, a life they’d both be proud of.
What he hadn’t figured was that she’d only wanted to play at being married. Either she still hadn’t realized it or she wouldn’t admit it, even now. All the self-righteous accusations she’d hurled at him tonight, accusing him of fighting with her and then turning her back on him before he’d had a chance to respond…
Damn, but she’d made him angry!
Angry, hell. He’d been furious. After she’d slammed the bedroom door, he’d paced the living room, muttering to himself, until, finally, he’d run out of steam, peeled down to his shorts and climbed under the blankets on the sofa.
Sofa? Nick grimaced. This wasn’t a sofa. It was a slab of concrete, with an occasional steel bar built in for effect. Only an Indian fakir would call it suitable for a night’s sleep. It was short and too narrow. His feet dangled over the arm and hung out from under the blankets. And every time he rolled over he risked getting dumped onto the floor.
To top it all, he was freezing. He felt as if he’d curled up on a shelf in a walk-in freezer for the night.
What he needed were his thermals, his wool shirts, sweats and heavy socks, all the stuff still packed in his carry-on, which he’d thoughtlessly left upstairs.
‘Another brilliant move in a night of brilliant moves, Brennan,’ he muttered in disgust, and dragged the blankets up over his shoulders—a truly brilliant idea, since all he accomplished was to leave his shins hanging out in the cold.
Nick sighed.
Amazing, that a fight with a woman who didn’t mean a thing to you anymore could be so upsetting.
Holly’s rage had caught him off guard. He could hardly recall her so much as raising her voice, during their marriage. They’d never quarrelled, not even at the end. Sometimes, when he’d found her looking at him with that hurt-little-girl expression, he’d had all he could do to keep from demanding that she tell him what was wrong. He could have dealt with that, with some yelling and anger, even with some flying crockery.
But there’d been none of that. Holly’s silence had damn near killed him. That, and the pained look in her eyes.
‘What do you want from me?’ he’d said to her once. Okay. He hadn’t said it, he’d shouted it.
‘If you don’t know,’ she’d said in a broken whisper, ‘I can’t tell you.’
That was the night he’d finally admitted defeat. He’d packed his things and moved out, and the lawyers had taken it from there. He’d never set eyes on his wife again.
His ex-wife. How come he kept forgetting that?
Now it turned out that Holly had just been waiting for the chance to tell him off. And tell him off she had. The clipped words. The flashing eyes. The regal posture, when she’d walked away.
Holly had changed, all right. Changed a lot.
The Holly he’d married had been a girl who’d spent her life in a world of fairy-tale privilege. And he’d taken her away from all that. Holly the Princess had tied on an apron and become Holly the Housewife.
At first, he’d thought it was sweet. After a while, he’d realized there was nothing sweet about watching his beautiful wife transformed into a drudge, and knowing he was the cause.
She’d baked. She’d cooked. She’d made curtains for their hovel of an apartment. Curtains, by God, when she’d probably never so much as sewn a button on a blouse in her entire life. And the way she’d stood at the door each night, those first few months, breaking into a big smile as he came in filthy and tired and irritable from a day spent building houses for rich people who’d never done a thing in their lives to deserve them, lifting her face for his kiss as if he weren’t dirty, and smelly, and her old man’s worst dream come true…
Not that her housewife act had lasted. Just about the time he’d finally gotten a handle on how to go from wielding a hammer for the rest of his life to finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Holly had come to her senses. Instead of smiling when he came in at night, she’d sulked. No. That was the wrong word. She hadn’t sulked. She’d seemed…hurt. As if he’d somehow let her down when, dammit, what he’d been doing was working his ass off to give her the life she deserved.
Holly the Princess had become Holly the Silent.
It was anybody’s guess who she was now, and none of his business.
Nick sat up, pummelled the pillow a little, jammed it behind his head and lay down again. He turned on his right side, turned on his left…
And rolled right off the sofa, in a tangle of blankets.
‘That’s it,’ he snarled. He shot to his feet and began pacing.
Sleep was not a possibility. He had to do something or go crazy, but what could you do in a cabin without electricity in the middle of the freaking night, with the temperature someplace around zero and your ex in the bed upstairs…?
Bloo
dy damn!
He came to an abrupt halt. He’d been so busy counting his own miseries that he’d forgotten that Holly had to be freezing, the same as he was. Worse, probably. She’d given him half her supply of blankets. And she’d never dealt well with the cold. He used to tease her about it, when she’d curl up against him at night, those first months of their marriage, with her hand spread across his chest and her thigh over his.
‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you, baby,’ he’d say, as he drew her to him, and she’d give a sexy little laugh and say that if he couldn’t think of something she certainly could…
‘Stop it, Brennan,’ Nick growled. What was he trying to do? Drive himself crazier than he already was?
To have come to this cabin in the first place was crazy. To find your ex-wife inside and come back after she all but tossed you out was certifiably loony. Forget the snow. He’d have been better off taking his chances with the road. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than where his thoughts were heading but it was only logical to think about waking Holly and suggesting they share the blankets.
Oh, yeah. That was just what he needed, all right. Snuggling down under the blankets with Holly was definitely the way to go.
Nick sighed. He was losing it. What he needed was to do something constructive. Like build a fire in the fireplace, to throw some warmth into the room.
He squatted down before the hearth and looked it over. Somebody had cleaned it, laid out kindling, made sure there were two boxes of safety matches within easy reach—and then forgotten to arrange delivery of firewood.
That didn’t make much sense.
There’d been wood waiting, the last time he and Holly had come here. A whole cord of it. Well, no. There’d been some logs stacked here, beside the hearth, but the rest had been neatly stored in a little shed that was built onto the back of the garage…
A grin spread across his face. Hastily, he pulled on his trousers, his shirt and his shoes. Then he made his way through the silent cabin to the kitchen, opened the back door and stepped outside.
Ten minutes later, Nick’s soaked clothing was draped over the back of the sofa. And he had a big, beautiful fire glowing on the hearth.
The Millionaire's Snowbound Seduction Page 5