by Cherry Adair
"Did you?" Lily's hazel eyes, always slightly wary when she looked at him, widened. She looked around for her coat. "Thanks. But I'll grab something at home."
"No, you won't. Come on. Take an extra ten minutes and eat with me. I'm starving. If you don't want anything, just stay and keep me company." He herded her over to a picnic table. "You're the one who instructed me to bulk up beforehand. Better eat something and practice what you preach." At first he'd become interested in the dog races because they were Lily's passion, had given him a chance to spend time with her. But the more he'd learned about the sport, the more he'd enjoyed it. Enjoying something with Lily had made it that much more attractive.
She stopped in her tracks. "Damn it, Derek. You're going to race anyway, aren't you?"
"Damn straight." He maintained an easy, taunting smile, knowing it would piss her off.
He was delighted to hear her robust laugh instead. That laugh was seldom heard these days, so he enjoyed it. That and the sharp intelligence in her eyes as she shot him a half-amused, half-exasperated look. "What am I going to do with you?"
He wiggled his eyebrows just to see her grin. "How many suggestions can I make?"
"I'm going to hit you if you don't stop flirting with me."
"Will you tie me up first?"
She shot him an inquiring look. "Have you—Never mind."
Derek laughed. "I have my own handcuffs, wanna play?"
"I have my own sticks, wanna be staked out for the coyotes?"
He shook his head and grinned. "Different game. But I'll be happy to play." It took everything in him not to wrap his arms around her and taste that smile. She shook her head back at him and gave him a mock scowl. Lily had guts, and a wicked sense of humor. She was also prickly, argumentative and fiercely loyal—and a royal pain in the ass—and he wanted all of it. All of her. In his life, in his bed.
He was done waiting.
And by race's end, it would be mission accomplished.
But first things first. "Sit," he told her, nipping open the lid of the basket. She circled the table and plonked herself down on the bench seat opposite.
"Feed me then."
"Yes, ma'am." He started unloading Annie's offering.
Lily didn't stand a chance. All the Wright men were warriors, and Derek was no exception. He was a lover and a fighter. A tactician and a foot soldier. She was under siege. She just didn't know it yet.
This time things had to be done in the proper order, so as not to scare her off again. Friends, then lovers. He'd waited six years. What were another few weeks?
"Fine." Hands in her lap, Lily watched him spread the contents on a blue-checkered cloth. If he'd thought he'd get away with it, he would've brought candles and wine. Another time.
"If you insist on entering the race," she said, eyeing the selection of foil-wrapped packages on the table, "I can't stop you. Just promise you'll do your own thing and leave me alone."
Hard to do when she was his thing, Derek thought with an inward smile. "Not only am I going," he told her cheerfully, "I'm going to beat your time. Again."
"In your dreams," she scoffed. "What did Annie send me?" She fisted her hands in the small of her back and stretched out the kinks.
Her nipples were hard little pebbles beneath the thin cotton T-shirt that she wore under the flannel shirt. Derek felt an answering twitch in his groin at the sight. God knew, he never got used to this intense physical reaction he'd always had to her.
"Here." He scooped up her sweater, shook out bits of hay and handed it to her. "Since you're not moving around, put this on before you catch pneumonia. That shirt's not enough. And how do you know Annie put the basket together? How do you know I wasn't the one to fix our meal?"
She shrugged into the sweater without comment, a silken filament of hair clinging to her cheek. Derek resisted reaching out to brush it away.
"Because this isn't an amorous encounter, Wright. Because this is me. The widow Munroe. That's why."
Derek finished setting out the food. His housekeeper had thrust the filled basket into his hand when he'd paced, one too many times, across her kitchen, glancing through the window toward the barns.
"Who said this isn't an amorous encounter?" For a second, he saw in her eyes something that stopped the fog of his breath, and then the look was gone.
"Could we resolve this flirting crap once and for all?" she snapped, reaching for a foil-wrapped packet without knowing what was in it. She frequently forgot to eat, but when she finally did, she more than made up for it.
"We both know you're not really interested in me. And even if you really were, and I know you're not, it's way too soon—what's this?—it's only been six months."
"Crab. Try it, you'll like it." In Sean's case, six months in mourning was too long. Derek watched her take a cautious bite. "Six months is plenty," he told her, wishing she'd look at him like she was looking at the crab sandwich. "Time you started dating again."
She made a rude noise. "What would be the point? I'm never marrying again—God, this is good…" She paused to chew and swallow. "Besides, who would I date around here? Pop Skyler? What is he, eighty?" She shook her head. "Six months is hardly a decent mourning period. Besides, who has the time—other than you, of course?"
"There's the solution right there. Go out with me. That would solve that problem."
"Oh, please." She shook her head. "We've done this to death. Don't waste your time. I'm immune. We tried that once, remember? Didn't take." She uncapped the Thermos and poured two fragrant mugs of Annie's great coffee. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll leave you to spread yourself thin on the state of Montana's female population."
"Scared?"
"Of you?" she mocked. "Try not interested.'"
"Sure you are," he said easily, his dark eyes glinting in the amber light as he glanced at her neck. "I can see the frantic pulse right there at the base of your lovely throat."
Lily rolled her eyes, and resisted, with admirable restraint, covering the telltale pulse with her hand. "That's the superior vena cava, found in most humans," she told him, cool as a cucumber. On the outside. "Not something you'd find in one of your blow-up Party Pattys."
Derek laughed. "Party Pattys? Is there such a thing?"
She gave him a patient look.
"Come on, Lily, give me a break here. Test your self-control. Go out with me before we leave for Alaska. Hell, you might even enjoy yourself."
"I wouldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to date. Not you. Not anyone," she said quietly, watching his face for a reaction.
"You had dinner with Don Singleton on Wednesday."
Talk about the bush telegraph. She didn't bother asking him who his informant was. It could've been anyone at the Dipsy Diner. "I went in for a piece of pie after going to the feed store. He was there. We shared a table. Hardly a date. After Pop, Don would be my second choice as date material, however."
Derek's expression went several degrees cooler.
Game, set and match, Lily thought with satisfaction and took a sip of rapidly cooling coffee. Time to go home. "It's been a long day." She rose and walked over to pick up her coat. "Are you home for a while, or do you have somewhere else to run off to?"
He ignored her question. "I know you loved Sean, Lily. But someday soon you're going to have to start living your life again."
"My life is exactly the way I want it, but thanks so much for your concern." Lily let her impatience color the words. The man was as damn relentless as Mrs. Simpson's bull terrier, Beasly. "Sorry if your enormous ego can't stand rejection. But there you are. Put me in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only woman to ever tell you no."
Even when she was pissed off, Lily had beautiful eyes. A rich hazel, long-lashed and luminous. And Derek spent way too much time thinking about them.
"I need to tal—" She waved her words away with a brushing gesture of her hands and shake of her head. "Never mind."
Derek sto
od. "No. What were you about to say?"
"It'll wait." Lily covered a yawn. "I'm too tired for another confrontation with you tonight." She leaned over and picked up her sandwich from the napkin on the table and bit into it, barely chewed before swallowing.
"Sit down again and finish that before you dash off. When are you leaving for Anchorage?"
She didn't sit, but she took another bite. "In the morning."
"Tomorrow morning?" he asked with a frown, and at her nod, said, "Why so soon? The race doesn't start for three weeks."
"I'm driving, first of all. And second, I want to get in a couple more weeks of training before the race starts."
"Jesus, Lily. Fly. It's a hellishly long drive from Montana to Alaska. Especially at this time of year." He handed her another sandwich as soon as the first was finished. "I can fly us both up to Anchorage when I get back at the end of next week."
Lily peeled off the foil and bit into the sandwich. "You're going on another trip? You just got back."
"Business."
"I'm sure. Monkey business. No thanks. I don't want to wait."
"Then let me have one of my people take you."
"No thanks," she said around a mouthful of—Hmm. Ham on rye.
"You don't want to fly."
"That's right. I don't… I'm surprised Annie had time to make me a picnic while she's so busy with the wedding preparations."
"She has plenty of help." Derek didn't want to talk about his housekeeper or his father's upcoming nuptials. He knew Lily was afraid to fly. She'd been in the plane crash that had killed her mother when she was a child. "Flying is perfectly safe," he told her gently. "Come up with me a few times—hell, let me teach you to pilot a plane. I guarantee if you felt in control the fear would go away."
"It's not fear," Lily told him briskly. "It's a phobia. I'm dealing with it." She took another big bite of her sandwich, barely swallowing as she changed the subject again. "There can't possibly be enough help for a woman pushing sixty who's preparing for a hundred wedding guests to descend on her in six weeks." She tilted her head, making the long silky rope of her braid fall over her shoulder. Derek wanted to wind that shiny, honey brown skein around his hand and—
"Why's he getting married in the dead of winter anyway?"
Because it was the only time his sons could shake free at the same time. "You'll have to ask him."
"You could bow out of the race and stay to help," Lily suggested, reaching for her coffee mug.
It was his turn to snort. "And let you win?" Lily wasn't going to talk about what else was bothering her until she was good and ready, apparently. So they might as well get this settled. No way was he allowing her to head off to Alaska without him being close by. And no goddamn way in hell was he going to let her freaking move to Alaska. Not without a fight anyway.
He made a rude noise. "I'm going to win this year. Why not save yourself the embarrassment?"
It was a pleasure to see her cheeks pink and her hazel eyes sparkle as she got caught up thinking about the race, forgetting Sean for a while.
"You are so going to lose," she laughed.
"Come around here and give me your hand."
She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
Derek reached across and pulled her around to his side of the table. "Sit."
Lily's butt hit the bench seat beside him. "Woof."
"It always amazes me," he said, sliding his fingers through hers and then using his thumb to deeply massage her palm, "how such small hands can be so amazingly strong." He ignored the initial pulling back of her arm, and kept massaging until he saw her eyes lose focus and her lashes flutter to her cheeks. He tamped his sigh of satisfaction down deep, and continued the spontaneous massage.
The woman worked too hard. He rotated her wrist, worked through the resistance and manipulated her fingers between his. Her skin was as pale and fine-grained as a baby's, yet she sported some serious calluses across her palm and dozens of fine white scars, presumably from the whittling knife. Her hands were as slender and strong as her body. Her nails were cut short, no polish. Lily's fingers curled against his hand and the sensation shot directly to his groin.
"God. That feels amazing. If this is what you do for your girlfriends, it's no wonder you have to beat them off with a stick."
Keep it light. "I only do hand massages for partners who've spent the night pulling a calf."
"Mmm." Lily let her eyes drift shut, then pretended to snore.
"Okay," he said, releasing her hand reluctantly. "When the lady starts falling asleep during a sensual hand massage, it's time she went home."
He was right. It was past time for her to go. But oh, she really didn't want to leave the cozy warmth of the barn for the frigid wind and the long drive back home.
"Go home and get some sleep," Derek told her quietly, hating to ruin a peaceful moment between them, but seeing the lines of exhaustion on her face.
"Um-mmm," Lily agreed, not opening her eyes. "Still going to beat you."
"Dream on, Doc."
Lily opened heavy-lidded eyes. "You're right. I need some sleep."
Derek rose when she did, snagged her heavy parka out of her hand and shook off the bits of hay before holding it out for her to slip on.
"Thanks." She pulled her braid haphazardly from the neckline and tugged up the zipper.
"Spend the night. Why waste time driving when you could be sleeping?"
"It's only five miles. I'll be fine. I'm camping out with the dogs anyway." She slanted him a look. "And so should you be."
He gave a mock shudder. "I prefer the comforts of a nice warm bed for as long as I can get it. Plenty enough time during the race to sleep with a snow blanket."
"You're a high-maintenance guy, Mr. Wright," Lily said with a small edge to her voice.
"I like my creature comforts," Derek told her, absently pulling one side of her collar straight, and tugging her braid all the way out of the back of her coat. The long rope felt cool to the touch, and, God—sleek, soft, sweet-smelling. His fingers lingered before he dropped the silky length.
While meticulous in her care and treatment of animals, Lily barely spared a thought for her own. There wasn't an ounce of vanity in her. No makeup, no perfume. Just the clean fragrance of her soap and the incredible texture of her skin. Her eyes gave off more bling than a thousand diamonds.
He walked beside her and pulled the door open wide enough for them both to step through. The still, frigid air hit them like an ice pick. "You sure—"
"Positive, but then…" The snow lay thick and crystalline on the ground. Icy-cold air made Lily's words visible. She frowned as she glanced round. "What happened to my truck?"
"In the garage."
His foreman, Ash, had moved it. Lily, being Lily, had arrived in a spray of snow and gravel and left the truck parked—barely—and still running outside the barn. If it had been left sitting outside, it wouldn't have started.
The snow had stopped an hour ago, and the moonlight sparkled on the banks of bright white, shimmering like diamonds.
Their boots crunched and the rhythmic beat accompanied them to the side of the house where an eight-car garage housed Derek's collection.
"Boys and their toys." Lily shook her head as he opened the side door and she preceded him inside the heated garage.
"But there's always that one toy you can't have, isn't there?" Derek said quietly behind her.
Three
Everything was perfect. Or it would've been if Derek had stayed in Montana.
Lily glanced at the crowds while a reporter and her television crew set up their cameras and equipment to interview her. She'd drawn number twenty-nine at the start line, and so far Derek was nowhere to be seen in the churning, cheering mass of humanity lining the streets.
"Ready?" the attractive blond anchorwoman asked Lily, while a gaunt-looking man followed her with a blush brush in one hand and a comb in the other. "Stan, thanks, I'm done. No—thank you. My hair's great. Lily? Could you s
tand near the sled? We'll pan down the line as we talk."
"Sure," Lily said obligingly, waving to several people she knew. She'd much rather be talking race than standing conspicuously before a camera crew from the San Francisco station. But there were relatively few women running the race, and although she wasn't comfortable with a camera pointed at her, the publicity was good for the sport.
"Seventy-three teams are gathered in Anchorage for the start of the race," the KPIX anchor said smoothly. "As you can see, excitement is pumping through the crowd." She smiled, "With us is Dr. Lily Munroe, a veterinarian from Montana who has run the race—how many times?"
"Five," Lily said obligingly.
"Dr. Munroe has won the Iditarod once, and placed in the top twenty twice. An amazing accomplishment. Historically more than half of the eager teams gathered here on Fourth Avenue today have no hope of reaching the finish line. Isn't that true, Lily?"
Lily smiled at the little red light. "It wouldn't be called a race if anyone and everyone could win, or even complete the race," she said easily. "Forget not winning, very few of us will even make it to the top twenty cut. For most competitors, the main goal is simply to complete the grueling race. Crossing under the famous burled arch at the finish line in Nome with our dogs will, for many of us, be victory enough."
Lily answered most of the reporter's questions by rote. The noise level made a lengthy interview almost impossible. Fans, volunteers, photographers, radio broadcasters and television crews focused on the start line beneath the fancy banner fluttering overhead. Raised voices coupled with the crush of thousands of onlookers, and the keening and barking of hundreds of dogs eager to get started, gave the whole event a circus feel. Adrenaline was the drug of choice and everybody was high on it.
The reporter and her crew went down the line of Lily's dogs while Lily identified tug lines, gang line, and parts of the sled, and introduced her dogs. Hooked up to the sled in pairs, her team stretched more than eighty feet from the noses of her leaders, Arrow and Finn, to the back of the sled. Longer than an eighteen-wheeler. They were fired up and rarin' to go.