by London, Cait
He’d had his reasons, Alek argued against himself.
At ten o’clock, Amen Flats was settling in, lovers getting steamy and older folks holding hands.
The old tomcat who had claimed Alek yawned and curled into a corner. Sporting a chewed ear-and-a-half, the gray-striped torn yawned and yellow eyes looked at Alek as if to say, Well, this is what to expect, chum…one ear chewed to hell and lonesome on a Saturday night. You get used to it.
“Speak for yourself.” The shawl, light and soft, whispered across his skin, the fringes tangling in the hair on his chest. He rubbed them against him and wished for Elspeth’s hair. Alek propped his western boots on the railing, settling in for a long, lonely night. An owl soared across the sky, and Elspeth’s front door creaked. She was probably coddling the hungry strays at her back door. Alek grimaced…maybe he was a stray needing a home and he certainly was hungry. He tried to ignore the lurch of his heart and damned his weakness for her.
Marcy Longfeather cruised by in her convertible and blew him a kiss. Gossip said that Marcy could age a man in hours. “Call me anytime. I’m in the book,” she called to him.
Marcy held as much appeal to him as cold oatmeal. He’d never liked a woman who slid her hand into his back pocket when he wasn’t prepared. A hefty supply of multicolored, super-duper condoms, waved beneath his nose at the local coffee shop, brought out her cold-oatmeal appeal. He preferred—He preferred Elspeth.
Alek glanced at Elspeth’s darkened studio. She was probably weaving those mind-blowing hangings by candlelight, the graceful movements of her arms telling a story that would ignite any red-blooded male. Alek groaned because now he knew that Elspeth sometimes wore only a T-shirt to weave. Visions of the taut peaks of her breasts, the gentle, soft weight swaying to her movements, had haunted his sleepless nights.
He inhaled the cool night air and watched newly hatched moths cluster around a street lamp. Caruso’s music drifted from a distance away, and dogs howled. Alek smoothed the shawl across his chest. It was going to be a long night.
The torn sniffed the air; he leapt to his feet like a young cat, arched and stretched. With his tail high, he pranced lightly down the steps, headed for Elspeth’s house and welcoming female company.
“Deserter.” Alek reached for a can of beer and stroked the shawl. His fingers curled to the can, then released it as Elspeth moved quietly up his porch. The single black braid swung down her neat white blouse and dangled at her waist. He admired the loose fit of her gray slacks and wanted to strip her then, taking her on the front porch.
“Here.” He tossed the shawl at her. “It’s yours. Forget about the contract. You’re free.”
“You don’t like my work?”
Alek spread his scarred fingers and studied them. He didn’t want to hurt her on any level. “You’re talented. There’s not another artist like you. But you’re not under any obligation to produce for the gallery. I’ll see to it. It was a stupid move on my part.”
“How kind of you. And you’re right. It was stupid. Mark agrees.”
Was that a smile lurking in her tone? Because he felt too exposed, too raw and aching, and wanted his pride, Alek plopped the chair to its feet and stood. He pushed his hands in his back pockets to keep from grabbing her. “Well?”
Elspeth’s slender fingers flowed over the shawl, and his body jerked into a tight knot. She touched it reverently. “It’s beautiful. No wonder Una loved it so.”
“It’s yours. You should have it.”
“Thank you.”
She placed it around her, and Alek went weak. He brushed the tangled, fiery fringes with his fingertips and found them shaking. The shawl flowed, clinging to her slender body, fringes catching the soft night breeze. She looked exotic and yet untouched. But Alek had touched her, had taken away something that she would never get back. “You look good in it.”
Unused to compliments, Elspeth bowed her head. When her head came up, her expression sent him reeling. She frightened him, and Alek took a step backward. “I don’t want you to feel…obligated on any level.”
Her lips curved, enchanting him, and she slanted him an amused look. “For a shawl? Come on, Alek. I could have taken it any time I wanted.”
“From me? I doubt it.”
“You know, there’s just something about taking you down that appeals.” She took another step toward him, and the look in her eyes caused him to blink. He hadn’t expected the sultry look, as if she had chosen to feast upon him and was considering where to start.
He took a step back and found his hips against the railing.
She came close to him, placed her hands on his shoulders and watched him. She was taking him apart, examining him with those smoky gray eyes and trying to see beyond bones and scarred skin. He wasn’t a mystery, yet Elspeth kept hunting what ran beneath the surface. The shawl’s fringes caught on his skin, lifting with his sudden breath.
“What are you doing, Elspeth?” he asked unevenly, uncertain of himself and of her. In another minute, he’d be lifting her in his arms and devouring her. He had to get her out of here, to a place where she’d be safe.,.. He sucked in his breath as she leaned closer.
“I’m waiting for you to kiss me, Alek. To see if you’re all show for my brothers and the town, or if you really mean it.” Her fingers touched his face, smoothing the stubble there.
She touched the earring, and Alek’s knees began to weaken. “Games, Elspeth?”
Her mouth curved again, secret and feminine. “Are you going to show me your house? You’ve been in mine often enough. You’ve been hammering and sawing until all hours of the night Something must have changed.” Elspeth moved to the door and waited, the slender line of her nape as vulnerable as Alek felt. He opened the door, and she moved inside to the darkness.
Inside his house, Alek’s fingers found the shawl, gripped it and tugged her back against him. His arms instantly encircled her, his face pressed close to hers, caught by the fresh and exotic scent of her skin and hair. “You like playing with fire, do you?”
Against his cheek, her smooth one moved in a smile. “Maybe you’re the one in danger.”
She eased away, and Alek let her go. He pushed his hands in his back pockets to keep from grabbing her.
The shawl whispered secrets as Elspeth studied the house, and Alek sensed that another woman had worn it and had called up a man, beckoning to him. In the dim light, the soft material gleamed and dipped into her waist, traced the slender curve of her hip. Alek washed a fast, hard hand over his unshaved, taut jaw; in another minute, he’d be drooling.
“You’ve opened up the rooms…there’s more space. I’m glad you didn’t use contemporary furniture.” Her fingers smoothed an old piano, battered from years of use at Maddy’s Hot Spot. Alek had liked the thought of happy people, clustered around the old piano and singing to the music. She glanced at the mantel, filled with framed pictures, and picked her way around unpacked cartons. Her fingers trailed over the shells he’d collected and set to catch the dawn’s light. She wandered into his office, touched the paper clutter and his computer. She studied his desk—two file cabinets set a distance apart and topped by an old door. “This is the heart of you, isn’t it?”
The heart of him thudded heavily, needing her warm and soft against him. Because he was afraid he’d frighten her if he pushed too hard, he asked, “What about going down to Maddy’s?”
Elspeth lifted an elegant eyebrow. “And face what you did to me earlier today?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Thank you for that much.” She picked up a rock painted with a child’s hand, then moved to the swatch she’d woven in Scotland. She turned and studied the room, littered with bits of his traveling years, bits of people he wanted to remember. When she touched a framed picture of a little Eurasian boy and girl, Alek said, “Marta and Ben. I help them by one of those foster-adoption plans.”
“And these?” Elspeth touched other pictures of children and Alek nodded.
&
nbsp; There was a picture of an Asian girl, blushing as a bride with her husband standing proudly near her. “Those two were young teenagers, living in cardboard boxes. They entered a medical training program and now they’re married.”
“With your help?”
When he nodded, she lifted a picture of Doug Morrow, an arm draped around Alek. “The frames are new.”
“This is the first time I’ve stayed in one place long enough for frames. The pictures were getting battered. That’s Doug Morrow, a friend. When I was in Scotland this last time—I had some notion of finding a woman I’d met years ago.”
Alek shook his head. “It seems so long ago, and it was just months. I thought I’d go there and…find you…see if you were happy. It didn’t turn out that way. I was on my way here when Doug got sick, calling me to complete his assignment. I said I would. The assignment delayed my trip here.”
She glanced at her work, a blend of earth and sky and mountains wrapped in mist and sharpened by a spear thrust diagonally through it. Elspeth roamed to the pictures of his immigrant great-great-grandparents. “All immigrants of that time have a look, don’t they?
Dressed in black, half afraid and half joyous that a new life was theirs for the taking. I can picture Una lugging her precious dowry, some of it in the shawl on her back.”
“Mine came from Russia. They were probably thinking about how soon they could get to Texas heat.”
Heat. Despite the cool night, Alek’s palms were damp, and his hands shook. If he touched her—He jammed them deeper in his pocket.
Alek followed her to the kitchen, remodeled and gleaming, too clean and uncluttered. Her fingertip traced an open manual to the pasta machine. “Very nice…a new bread machine and a pasta machine and an electric wok.”
He didn’t want her to know that he ached for her fresh bread and that he’d tried to make his own, that he didn’t know how to make a home. “I’m not exactly a homemaker, but I’ll learn.”
If she found that old stew pot under the cabinet, she’d really think him off center. He loved the idea of that old pot bubbling with enough food to feed an army of kids.
She glanced down at the assortment of kitchen gadgets on the counter. “You’re certainly prepared. No more dishes from gorgeous blondes?”
“I’m waiting for a herd of them to turn up now.”
She opened the cupboards to see the old dishes he’d bought at an auction. Talia had teased him ruthlessly; she had relented when she saw how he treasured them despite the chips. “These are lovely. They’re from the Winscotts, one of the first pioneers in the valley. They had eleven children and loved each other deeply. The table was theirs, too. Mr. Winscott had to make more leaves and supports as their family grew. He wanted the entire family to sit down at once, every meal, and so they did.”
Alek had felt that, the love in the chipped dishes and the handcrafted table, scarred by years of use. He sensed the children eating greedily and then bouncing up from the table, filled and ready to play. It pleased him to eat from the same dishes, to imagine that his children would be settling on his knee to be rocked and cuddled and burped. Lost in that dream, he could forget that the meals he ate were prepackaged and frozen.
“The rocking chair in your living room is the Mulveneys’. Mrs. Mulveney was six feet five inches and of ample proportions. She loved rocking children, sometimes three at a time. All of their children were rocked there, and most of the Tallchief clan, too,” Elspeth added, jarring him. He sensed that she had dipped into his thoughts.
The seed packets on the table embarrassed him. He wanted to grow herbs, to wallow in the scent of them in his house as he had in hers. Comfortable in the shadows, Elspeth touched and smoothed and explored—he wanted her touching him in the same way. Elspeth probed into the desperate, lonely heart of him and exposed his raw edges. “Why are you here?”
She touched his cheek, then stood on tiptoe to nibble on his lip. “Questions. Ever the journalist, aren’t you? You’ve been over here, hoarding a collection of things that no one wants anymore. Why?”
“My lifestyle hasn’t exactly allowed me to have a houseful of furniture or dishes.” That was true enough, but he wanted bits of happiness of other homes. Because he wanted a family and a home and was too proud to admit his need.
Alek gripped her upper arms, then her wrists as her arms slid up to his neck, around it, drawing him close to her curved body. Elspeth, on the prowl, could frighten any man who thought he could control what lay within him. “We’d better go somewhere else.”
He’d hurt her now if they made love. He wanted to make this time tender and last until the dawn came and then start all over again. Elspeth moved against him, and Alek hardened instantly. The sound of his voice came raw and uneven as the shawl whispered between them. “Elspeth…”
For an answer, she held him tighter. Alek eased aside the folds of the shawl to lock his hands on her waist. “Elspeth!”
She held him tightly, refusing to be eased away. Her thumb ran along the scar on his shoulder. Then she looked up at him and grinned for the first time. “I’ve shocked you, Petrovna. Admit it.”
He blinked, uncertain if Elspeth had really sent him an impish, five-thousand-watt grin that sent him reeling. Tonight he wasn’t certain of anything. The shawl’s fringes clung to his fingers as he forced her away gently. “You’re inexperienced, Elspeth-mine. You have no idea of what you’re doing.”
“Not up to it?” Her tease was followed by a quick smile that enchanted him. Her hand lay flat on his chest, toyed with the hair there and slowly, slowly moved downward.
“You wouldn’t—” When her fingers skimmed down his stomach, he jerked back against the counter and gripped it with both hands. “Elspeth!”
“Yes, Elspeth. Remember my name, Alek. It’s Elspeth.” Elspeth slowly unbraided her hair, combing it around her. The shawl slid from her shoulders to rest over the back of a chair.
Alek latched his fist in the soft material, warm from her body, and found that he couldn’t think as Elspeth began to undress. She unbuttoned her blouse and tossed it to a chair. Alek’s mouth went dry when she reached behind her to unfasten her bra.
She tossed the white cotton scrap at him, and he crushed it in his fist. She kicked aside her flats and, veiled by the heavy swath of hair, she stripped away her slacks. Her practical white panties slid down her slender thighs, revealing the dark triangle between her thighs. Alek shuddered, every muscle in his body tightening into a knot.
The moonlight coming through the window slid to caress her body, to outline it in silver as she took the shawl from him. Then she draped it around her and began slowly ascending the stairs. Alek, taut and shaking, traced the flowing movements of her body beneath the shawl, the fringes swaying along the slender, strong backs of her thighs, the cloth caressing the sway of her bottom.
Alek realized that he was alternately cold with fear that he would hurt her and hot with need that rose with stubborn pain within his body.
Then Elspeth paused, looked down at him over her shoulder and lifted an elegant, expressive eyebrow.
Elspeth listened to the movements downstairs as Alek locked the doors. The cats howled near her house, the sound grating on her nerves…not exactly romantic music for her adventure into tasting Alek.
“Untitled” hung on Alek’s wall, mocking her. It was very sexual, a woman’s translation of intimacy, colors locking together, exploding—Elspeth groaned silently. She should have known he’d buy the wall hanging, outlined in the moonlight, a monument to what she was about to do.
It was no casual thing coming to Alek, following the needs of her heart and body. She studied the room, bits of other people’s lives mingling with Alek’s family, his friends. The braided rag rug on the floor, well washed and familiar, probably had once belonged to Mrs. Potts, who was fond of cutting off buttons from ruined shirts and braiding them into rugs. The buttons were likely in the antique blue glass jar. The lovely old quilts neatly folded on a chair ached
for a proper bed.
She’d passed a small room, cluttered with tools and lumber and a crib folded against a wall. There was a tiny rocking horse.
Alek wanted a family. While he could afford better, Alek preferred to retrieve old pieces, to lug bits of lives back to his house.
Elspeth pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. He wanted a home, deserved one.
He’d gone to hell and back when he’d discovered there was no child. He knew more than her family knew about her—
Oh, fine. She’d gotten herself worked up, raging and pacing in her house and mourning her lost powers given to her by her seer and shaman ancestors. She’d meant to set Alek on his ear, to define the rules of his life interrupting hers, and then she’d seen into the very heart of his need to have a home and family.
Oh, fine. She should have walked away. She should have placed their night in Scotland into a drawer—wove it into her wool or buried it. Some secret part of her, uncontrolled by her will, wanted to tuck that night close to her—Elspeth forced down the panic streaking through her.
Alek had been pushing her and she didn’t like it. While her mind didn’t quite trust his motives, on another level she needed Alek to prove that she had emotions, that she was a woman and not a shadow. Alek definitely made her feel feminine, exciting.
Was she using him? Definitely. She needed him to complete a restlessness within her. To be cherished and held and yes, loved.
Was she wary of him? Yes. Alek wanted her to have the shawl, giving the prize to her too easily.
Elspeth had never liked easy, or trusted it. She preferred to claim the shawl herself, as a matter of pride. Was he yielding the field to her? Not likely. Alek Petrovna had definite fighting tendencies that excited her own.