Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance)

by James, Maddie

  Lowering, his lips narrowly an inch from hers, he continued. “Little girls shouldn’t go messing around in places they’re not welcome.”

  Blaire’s voice squeaked out. “I’m not a little girl.”

  Darian smiled. “Yes you are. You’re a pixie.”

  “I’m not a pixie, I’m a woman.” Her eyes narrowed.

  Darian felt her body soften under him. Dammit! He dropped down and cradled her into him. Both of their breathing slowed. He wanted to push back the red strands of hair at her temple with his free hand and kiss right above her ear.

  Fuck, he was so conflicted. “Hmm.” He gazed at her lips. “Maybe you are a woman.”

  She squirmed and pushed against him. “Let me go. I want to get out of here.”

  Darian shook his head from side to side slowly. “No. You can’t.”

  “But you just said…”

  “What I just said was that you don’t mess around where you shouldn’t…unless you’re prepared to go places you haven’t been before.” Her lips were like a perfect strawberry set in cream. They parted, slightly, and her eyes half-closed. Then he realized, she was just as aroused as he.

  Retreat. Dammit, MacGlenary. Back off. You aren’t prepared to go there, either.

  He snapped his head back. “The thing is this,” he growled. “I don’t want to be kissed, lady. I’m not free game, understand? And we’re stuck here together for a few days. So, if you get those urges to kiss somebody again, you can just hightail your little fanny up the holler a mile or two. I’m sure there will be somebody there who will oblige. I can’t guarantee how well they know how to treat a woman, but I’m sure they won’t turn you away.”

  Blaire sat silent staring up at him, and he immediately hated his crassness. “I can’t leave, remember?”

  Darian sat up and swiped at his beard. “Oh, yes. Believe me. I remember.” Quickly then, he pushed off the bed and crossed the room. He went to the sink, grabbed the kettle, and started pumping water into it. The thought of her not being able to leave hit him square in the chest. How in the hell would he avoid her, and how she made him feel, for the next day or so until he could get her out of here?

  “MacGlenary? Just one question.”

  His back stiffened.

  “Just what do you do when you get the urge to kiss somebody? Is there somebody up the holler there that obliges your needs?”

  ****

  For a long moment, everything in the room stilled. Silence. Blaire watched the muscles tense and ripple across his back. The tendons at the side of his neck popped out. The pumping motion stopped. She waited for several long seconds; then just when she thought he was going to turn around and face her, he stalked away from the sink, put on his outerwear—insulated overalls, thick woolen socks, work boots, knit cap, a heavy insulated jacket, and gloves. Then without saying a word, he went to the door, opened it and left her alone in the cabin.

  She winced as the door slammed shut. “Guess not,” she muttered. “Or you wouldn’t be so damned horny.”

  ****

  Darian tramped through the frost-fragile weeds and briars, huffing spurts of semi-transparent breath out his mouth and nostrils with each hurried step he took, until he reached the woods. Nearly twenty minutes passed before he allowed his gait to slow and his brain to decipher exactly what had just happened back at the cabin.

  He hiked deeper into the woods and then, finally, stopped. His eyes closed. After inhaling deeply, he exhaled long and hard, forcing every molecule of oxygen out of his lungs. With the expulsion of air from his body, he also felt the tension of the past day and a half flow off his shoulders. Rolling his head from side to side, the muscles in his neck semi-relaxed, as much as they could in the cold; then he twisted from side to side to rid his back of the stiffness there. And felt somewhat better.

  Snapping his eyes open, though, he realized there was nothing he could do to release the physical tension he felt below his belt. Absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, that the pixie in his bed couldn’t cure.

  Dammit. Darian sat on a fallen log and dropped his head into his hands. This couldn’t be happening. He had taken every precaution. He’d purposely seen to it that he had no opportunity to ever get involved with a woman again. A woman! Damn it all to hell! He’d gone to the ends of the earth to avoid seeing any woman—and a woman had gone to the ends of the earth to find him. And why?

  He needed to find out. Quit skirting the obvious.

  He rose quickly. “It’s about high time I find out who the pixie is who’s been occupying my bed the past two nights.”

  ****

  Blaire stood at the window watching MacGlenary stomp off across the hill toward the woods, her breath fogging up the window. She trailed him until she saw the last of his knit cap go down over the hill and out of sight. Exhaling with a harrumph, Blaire watch the ice crystals form on the inside of the window, radiating out in an intricate and beautiful pattern etched across the glass. She started to reach up and scratch it off the window but then stopped herself. It was too pretty, she thought, but all too soon it would be gone.

  She shivered and folded her arms about her. It seemed rather chilly next to the window but as the temperature of the room rose, she knew, the ice would melt. Unlike her. The intricate patterns of ice within her had never been beautiful; they’d only pierced her with icy shards, cutting her to ribbons. And at times, the pain was excruciating. The ice princess. The frost queen. The goddess of chill. The femme fatale of frigidity. She’d been called them all. Nothing would warm her, they would say. Nothing. And Blaire had tried. God knows, she’d tried, but there had never been any man desirable enough to crack her frosty exterior, let alone penetrate the layers of ice underneath. So she’d simply given up on that ever happening. And in this day and age when a man came upon a twenty-nine year old virgin, they either backed off wondering what was wrong with her, or they decided they would be the first to travel where no man had gone before. Both of which disgusted her to no end.

  Blaire stepped away from the window and glanced back at the bed. Sudden warmth swept over her and she shook away the sensation. No, she thought. Not this man. This man would not be the man to kindle the flame in the ice princess. Not the one she’d dreamed of. Not her white-hot knight. The one she needed to melt her. No. She didn’t want him to be the one. She wouldn’t let it happen, that was all there was to it. He was all hairy and cuddly and muscular and tender, all at the same time. Desirable characteristics, yes. And quite a welcome change from the staunch, eager, sex-hungry ladder-climbers she usually dated. The men Mastin threw at her. But no, Darian MacGlenary was not the one.

  He would not be the one to light her fire.

  She hoped.

  Blaire stepped away from the window, favoring her right ankle. The swelling had gone down, but there was still a twinge when she put any pressure on it. Glancing over at the fire, she knew why she felt so chilled. MacGlenary had left in such a huff, he’d left the fire untended this morning. The fire. In the fireplace, she reminded herself. Not the one embedded deep inside her, however small it might be. Funny. Before now she never even knew it was there. Fearing the flames were beginning to lick at her from deep inside somewhere, Blaire panicked, for she didn’t know how to put them out.

  Or did she? Perhaps it was because she’d never really tried before.

  She was thirsty. And a bit hungry. And needed to find the little girl’s room.

  Good luck with all that, Blaire.

  ****

  Darian lifted the door handle of Pixie’s car. A late model Acura—very out of place in this world. It broke free from the frost and he breathed a sigh of relief that she’d not locked the door. She’s damn lucky the vehicle is still here, which only told him how trusting she could be, in some ways. Of course, that naiveté could get her into trouble. Almost already had. He sat in the driver’s seat and began what he came here to do. Snoop for information.

  First he rifled the glove compartment of the sports car, bri
nging forth several interesting items: a folder that held the car’s registration, several state maps, a daily planner, and some feminine hygiene products. He tossed those back in and thumbed through the other items. Pulling various papers out of the folder, he soon came upon half of the information he sought.

  Pixie now had a name.

  The car was registered to a Blaire Crystal Kincaid of Trenton, Vermont. Darian frowned. Vermont. Trenton, Vermont, no less. Not a thirty-minutes’ drive from his hometown of Oxford. Darian breathed deeply, trying to stave off the waves of panic rippling through his chest. Why in the hell is a woman from Trenton trying to find him?

  He shoved the registration back into the folder and then dropped it on the seat next to him. Picking up the logbook, he thumbed through it. The pages were all blank until he reached October; then suddenly, her scribblings rambled across the pages. Nothing specific, just locations and travel times, when she put gas in the car and where, how many miles to the gallon she got, people she talked to—each city and town she visited snaking further and further south from Vermont until she finally ended up in Kentucky. And at the bottom of each page a simple notation: subject not yet located—until he reached the entry for the day before yesterday.

  Darian flipped through the pages once more from the first of October until two days ago. There was something odd, he thought, something very familiar. Then it dawned on him. Her journey led her from Oxford to Albany, from Rochester to Pittsburgh, and then on to Columbus and Louisville, with several stops at small towns in between. Small towns like Fallwater, Paint Lick, New Holland, Bloomfield and Nonesuch. Towns not generally on the travel circuit. Towns he’d briefly lived in over the past eighteen years. In fact, her entire trip itinerary nearly mapped out the past eighteen years of his life. How in the hell had she done that? He’d even lost track of them since he’d settled down in Appalachia four years ago.

  He had to hand it to her though. It probably took a hell of a lot of time and gumption for her to trail him that closely. How she did it, he’d never know, especially when the trail was years cold. Then he panicked. Just what had she found out about him in her search? Had she found out about Nicky?

  Darian closed the book and tossed it aside with the other things and then stared out the windshield at the frozen morning. Crisp snowflakes lazily drifted from the sky. “Well, where do we go from here, MacGlenary?” We find out why she came and we better do it quickly.

  With that thought, Darian let his gaze fall lower and then grinned. Naïve Pixie, indeed. She’d left her keys in the ignition.

  ****

  Resigning herself to the fact that MacGlenary wasn’t coming back anytime soon, Blaire decided to throw a couple more logs on the fire. After all, she was an independent woman. She could handle herself. After she’d stirred the dying embers to life once more and added fuel to feed it, she also decided that she might be able to do the same to the wood burner. She’d not eaten for two days and her stomach rumbled incessantly. Perhaps a cup of coffee, she thought. Maybe it would calm her jumpy stomach as well as soothe the savage beast when he returned.

  She’d watched MacGlenary through a fuzzy haze the morning before. It didn’t seem to be so difficult, she thought. She opened the door to the wood burner. Some kindling, a match, a small log or two was all she needed. And they were within easy reach outside the front door, she’d noticed earlier. So within minutes, she’d hobbled around the kitchen in the corner of the cabin, built the fire in the wood burner and started water boiling for coffee.

  Then Blaire, quite pleased with herself at her accomplishments, spanned the room. With a huff, she bopped herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “You idiot!” she said out loud. “He’s been gone over an hour and you haven’t done the thing you’ve been dying to do since you got here—snoop. What a private investigator you are!”

  So she snooped. The cabinets in the kitchen revealed nothing. The chest of drawers had only clothing—lots of ragged blue jeans, T-shirts, thermal underwear, and flannel shirts. She shut the drawer quickly. Again glancing around her, her gaze finally settled on an old cabinet across the way. Making a beeline toward it, she grasped the small wooden knob at the center.

  She tugged. It didn’t budge. Winding the fingers of both hands around it, she pulled a little harder. It was shut fast. Locked? Blaire looked a little closer, no, couldn’t be. There was no lock. Okay, Blaire thought, just a little stuck. Makes the challenge all that more…challenging.

  Suddenly she was out of breath from the exertion.

  God, I’m weak.

  Wiping the palms of her hands on her hips, she tried once more with both hands. She pulled; she jerked. Then finally, she propped one knee up on the opposite door for leverage, took a deep breath, held it, and yanked the handle with all her might.

  To say the door merely came open was a contradiction in terms. It burst open. Blaire flew backward landing her bare behind on the cold plank floor, with numerous items falling off the shelves around her. She blinked and then surveyed the mess surrounding her on the floor.

  Actually, all that came tumbling out of the cabinet was an old boot box filled with memorabilia. One by one she picked up and studied the items. It was an odd assortment, to say the least: a high school class ring, canceled checks, pictures, an assortment of greeting cards, a baby’s pacifier, an old wallet, a small stuffed toy, and the last item, a man’s wedding ring.

  Blaire picked up the ring and examined it. A simple gold band, perhaps wider than most, no inscription. As she held it in her hands, she contemplated the meaning of the band. Had he been married? Why hadn’t her investigation revealed that? Perhaps she wasn’t as thorough as she thought. She tossed the ring into the box and reached for the cards.

  Every single one of them was addressed to Darian and signed by one woman, always with love, Angelina, except for the last one, which was signed, in the same handwriting as the others, love Nicky. Confused, Blaire set the cards in her lap and let her gaze fall on the other objects around her. A stuffed toy, a pacifier. A child? Did MacGlenary have a child?

  After placing those items in the box along with the ring, Blaire picked up and leafed through the snapshots. Picture after picture was of a woman, long brown hair and leggy, smiling to the camera. Then she was pregnant. Others revealed the newborn child. Turning a picture to the back, Blaire read the words there: Nicholas Allen MacGlenary, 1-27-2005. She turned the picture back to the front. So he has a child. Then where was this child and his mother, and why was MacGlenary hiding out here in the woods from them? Were they divorced? Was he a dead-beat dad, skipping out on child support payments? Maybe. Shirking his responsibilities once more, just like he had when he left his grandfather and aunt all those years ago.

  He was a nomad, a drifter, a hermit. A man who could be tied down to no one or no place, for any length of time. The kind of man who couldn’t handle marriage or fatherhood.

  The kind of man she couldn’t get mixed up with.

  Blaire put the pictures and other items back into the box and hurriedly placed them on the shelf in the cabinet, stunned at what her snooping had revealed. As she closed the door, she turned her back to it and leaned against it for support. How could Darian MacGlenary be such a heel? How in the world could a man give up on a child? A child?

  It was obvious, Blaire decided, that Darian MacGlenary was a man who desired no responsibilities save his own. The type of man she desperately wanted nothing to do with in her own life. For she’d seen first-hand what a man like that could do to a child. She was living proof. And it wasn’t pretty.

  Blaire closed her eyes, lost in a world of her own making. One in which there was someone, anyone, who would love her for what she was, not for what that someone else wanted her to be. Or who wanted her simply to get to her father. Someone who would light the fire within her and hold her and love her unconditionally—not just when there was something to be gained from it.

  And no matter what fleeting thoughts she may have had earl
ier, Darian MacGlenary was definitely not that man.

  As the door flew open in front of her, Blaire snapped her eyes open, and jostled herself back into the real world. MacGlenary had returned. And in what seemed like only two strides across the floor, he stood in front of her, his angry gaze pinning her against the cabinet. He reached out then and threw her duffel bag and brief case on the floor at her feet with a resounding thud.

  Blaire jumped.

  ****

  After he’d crossed the ridge, he’d noticed the smoke rising out of the chimney. At least she’d had the smarts to rekindle the fire. Perhaps she had a lick of sense about her after all.

  But Darian didn’t let his mental compliments of her go any further than that. He’d not acquired any more information about her than he had earlier. Her duffel bag held nothing but her personal items and the briefcase, regrettably, was locked. And not one key on her key chain opened it. He had tried every one.

  So he simply brought them with him. He was tired of seeing her wrapped in a sheet or in his T-shirt and he was certain she would welcome some clothing. After all, things were becoming rather sticky between them. Perhaps her state of undress was one of the reasons. At any rate, he felt she’d want her things, so he brought them back with him.

  As Darian walked back to the cabin, he looked up to the blanket of white. The few snowflakes that drifted lazily by earlier had now turned into dense, wet fluffy flakes that blanketed the hills around him. Although it was unusual for snow to fall and stay for very long in late November in Kentucky, up in the mountains, anything could happen. It wasn’t entirely unheard of. Looking into the sky as the flakes began to pelt around him, he wondered if this might be one of those rare November blizzards.

  Thanksgiving, he remembered, was tomorrow. Thanksgiving. As if he’d have anything to be thankful for. He felt more like an old scrooge than he did being joyous and thankful during the holidays. That’s why living alone suited him more than anyone knew. And now, now that she was here, he was going to have to share the holiday with her. And from the looks of the weather, it may be a longer stay than he anticipated.