Читать книгу New Year's Resolution: Romance!: Say Yes / No More Bad Girls / Just a Fling - Leslie Kelly, Christie Ridgway - Страница 11
ОглавлениеWALKERS WERE NOT COWARDS, Ashley reminded herself, sitting in the back of a limo that was taking her from the florist to her own small house. She’d dropped the van in the parking lot behind the business. Now, once again in her New Year’s Eve dress but sans the stockings, she was headed home to pack a bag for her week at the Bradley estate.
She could do this, she assured herself again, despite that midnight kiss.
Her gaze slid toward the man sprawled on the seat beside hers. “You didn’t need to escort me, you know,” she said.
He’d been looking out the window and now turned his head. “Maybe I was afraid you’d change your mind.”
“We made a deal.”
“Right.” He crossed his legs at the ankle. Today he wore a pair of black boots, black jeans and a cashmere sweater the same gray as his eyes. At least she thought it was cashmere. She’d have to touch it to be positive about that, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to be reaching out and fondling him anytime soon.
Last night she’d squeezed his hard arm as he’d taken her mouth in the softest, yet most carnal kiss she could imagine. Her toes curled just thinking about it, and she quivered.
Chase’s hand went to the climate controls. “Cold? I’ll edge up the heat.”
Exactly what he’d done the night before. Edged up the heat.
But she said nothing as warmer air blew through the vents. “Over there.” She leaned forward to speak to the driver. A driver! “The bungalow with the wreath on the door.”
The man pulled into the rutted driveway alongside her little house. She didn’t have a garage, but the one-bedroom was spacious, and she didn’t cringe too much when Chase followed her inside. Sure, it wasn’t a fancy home like he was used to, but it was hers.
He looked around as he stood in the tiny foyer, taking in the living room that opened to the updated kitchen. “I like this,” he said, and walked toward her fireplace, his gaze trained on the photos sitting on the mantel. None of Stu or of Stu and her. She’d put those away years ago in a fit of self-preservation. These were black-and-whites of the Walker ancestors, posing with shotguns, wearing low-slung hats and the wooden expressions typical of the times.
“They seem nice,” Chase commented, glancing over his shoulder with a small smile.
Even that quick flash of white teeth made her knees soft. She slipped out of her shoes to pad toward her bedroom at the back of the house. “The Walkers came to the mountains a hundred and fifty years ago, traveling up the hill with oxen and wills of iron.”
Behind her bedroom door, she quickly slipped out of her dress and hung it in her closet. In seconds she was in jeans, a sweater and a pair of suede boots. Chase’s mother had taken her themes for the house party from the designated “holidays” of the month. Besides being New Year’s Day, Ashley had been told, January 1 was “Daydreamer’s Day.” Before they’d left the Bradley estate that morning, Chase had led her to a room on the third floor, an immense space she hadn’t been instructed to fill with flowers. Instead, table after table held buckets of plastic bricks, wooden blocks and hundreds of pieces of railroad systems, including houses, trees, people and locomotives. The plan was to encourage the guests to “play” to their heart’s content by creating worlds from their imaginations.
As Ashley gathered clothes and toiletries in stacks on her bed, she smiled at the idea of it. Where one would find all those toys for a temporary period she didn’t know, but she knew she’d enjoy experimenting with them. Wasn’t that what she did with flowers every day? Creating things from the pictures in her head was a delightful way, she’d found, to make a living.
And to escape.
She ventured back to the kitchen and the utility closet there. “I won’t be much longer,” she called to Chase. “Just have to get my suitcase and fill it.”
He strolled into the room, distracting her. How could he look so good? A quarter-inch of the ribbed neckline of a blinding white T-shirt showed at his throat. The sleeves of his sweater were pushed up to expose powerful forearms she didn’t think he’d achieved by merely working a calculator on a daily basis. His attention was on the framed photo in his hand.
She stared at him, noting the bristle of whiskers on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning. If he kissed her now, the small, scratchy hairs would leave a telltale trail of reddened skin in their wake. Then she’d be able to see proof of the meeting of their lips. When she’d been in her assigned bedroom the night before, she’d studied herself in the mirror.
There’d been no overt sign of the first kiss she’d experienced in more than four years. But she’d touched her mouth with her fingertips, aware her lips felt puffy and oversensitized. Thinking of that, it had taken her a long time to fall asleep in the nightshirt that Chase had unearthed from somewhere. His sister’s, he’d said of the utilitarian flannel. Thank goodness it hadn’t been something silky or sheer she’d have to assume was left behind by an old girlfriend.
He looked up now and almost caught her staring. She let her gaze drop to the frame he held and she drifted closer to glance at it. “Uncle Handlebar,” she said. “Aunt Clunky Shoes.”
“Not their real names, I take it,” he said, grinning.
“Mustache,” she said. “Clunky Shoes is obvious.”
“They’re really part of your family?”
“Oh, yeah. We go way back at Blue Arrow Lake. Came early, have scrambled for years to keep our toeholds in the mountains.”
“Something we have in common,” Chase said. “You have a family history in a place. I have a family history in a business.”
“Oh?”
“Bradley Financial was established by my great-grandfather.” He narrowed his eyes as if thinking. “Based on photos I’ve seen, I think we can call him Grandpa Potbelly.”
“A fan of beer?” she guessed.
“No idea. More likely he enjoyed whiskey and cigars. But he definitely had the expansive midsection.”
Ashley couldn’t help but take a quick glance at Chase’s lean hips and flat abs. “You’re not carrying on the family tradition.”
His slow smile appeared gratified. “Not in that particular way, I hope.”
With a quick turn, Ashley directed herself away from him and his ever-so-attractive features. “Did you feel pressure to take that on?” she asked, pulling open the pantry door. “Your position in the company, I mean.”
“No.” She could feel him coming up behind her. “I have a head for numbers. I like the game of finance.”
Frowning, she glanced at him. “Surely it’s not a game. In your business I’d think you have to take it all quite seriously. Be levelheaded at every moment. Ponder all the possibilities before making your decisions.”
“Whatever you say,” he murmured. “Here, let me get that.”
On tiptoe, she was reaching for the suitcase hanging from a heavy utility hook overhead. “No, I can...”
But he was already crowding her farther into the corner closet, his chest brushing her back. As she turned to protest again, he shoved the picture frame into her hand and stretched to lift the piece of luggage down. “Where should I take this?” he asked.
He was so close she could smell his skin, his toothpaste, a hint of laundry detergent. The T-shirt, she figured, because the cashmere sweater was too refined to have any kind of odor at all. With the photograph against her breasts like a shield, she just gaped up at him. The quarters were too close...but deliciously so.
Chase’s eyes heated. “Ashley...”
The note of desire in his voice snapped her out of her trance. “I’ll take it to my room,” she said. “The suitcase.”
“I’ll carry it.” He strode across the kitchen with her following behind. “This way, right?”
“Mmm,” she said, distracted again by the wide pair of shoulders that made the narrow hall that much more constricted. Come to think of it, no man had ever been in the passage leading to her bedroom. She’d had Jackson and Suze and a few others over for dinner sometimes, but no male had gotten so close to her inner sanctum. She’d moved to this house after Stu’s accident. The room Chase just stepped into had always been her private place.
Her retreat.
It would never be the same, she thought with a sudden clutch to her stomach, now that he’d brought his tall and broad presence into her feminine space. Feigning calm, she gestured toward the bed. “You can set it there. Then maybe you can go, um, wait in the living room. I’ll bring it out when I’m done packing.”
His brows came together. “I’ll wait here. Take it for you once you’re finished.”
No one had ever carried her luggage for her, she realized. Well, maybe her dad when she was a little girl. But Stu hadn’t. He’d considered her perfectly capable of carting things around, whether it was when she was hauling in groceries or lugging her snowboarding gear about. “I’m not a weakling,” she told Chase now, thinking of how he’d grabbed the flower arrangement from her yesterday afternoon.
“It’s not a question of muscles, Xena.”
She shook her head at the reference to the warrior princess.
“I don’t mind doing things for you,” he continued. “I like doing things for you.”
What to say to that? Ashley didn’t try to come up with anything. Instead, she wished she hadn’t spent the past four years home alone nearly every night. If she’d gone on a date or two, maybe she’d be able to handle Chase’s smoothness, his charm, his sophistication with a bit more aplomb. As it was, he just bowled her over in every way.
Or maybe no experience could provide her with the skills to manage the way this man made her feel.
“Ashley,” he said now, his voice quiet. “Will you look at me?”
See? Even now he overcame her reluctance. Though she didn’t want to, she found herself turning to face him. “What?”
“You don’t have to come back to the estate,” he said. “If you don’t want to go through with our deal, I won’t hold it against you.”
But it would go against her resolution! She couldn’t say no to the first thing that came along during her year of yes, right? Walkers weren’t cowards. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m not afraid or anything. A deal’s a deal. Walkers don’t renege.”
Her face heated. She was babbling, right? He had to realize she was babbling.
His eyes were doing that binocular/dual microscope thing again, giving her the feeling he was watching every doubt flash through her brain, every desire cross her heart. “Ashley?” he said, his voice so soft it was almost tender. “Should we talk about last night’s kiss?”
She jolted, the backs of her knees hitting the end of the bed. “Oh, no. Not necessary. Not at all. New Year’s. Just a midnight kiss.” Then she whirled to toss her clothes into the case.
Her palms were sweating and her heart was hammering, as they used to do when she was poised at the top of a black diamond run. It was then Ashley realized that though the Walkers might be brave, it didn’t mitigate the bad feeling she had that all the courage in the world wouldn’t keep her free from danger.
* * *
CHASE DESCENDED ON the breakfast buffet the next morning in a cheerful mood. His guests had enjoyed themselves the day before, settling in and then venturing to the third floor to check out the goings-on in the playroom. Even the most reserved of them had ended up devising elaborate communities from the bricks, blocks and railroad parts. A contemporary of his father’s, Declan Hart, had talked another man into a joint development, and Chase couldn’t help but laugh when they decided to charge a fee to anyone wanting access to the amusement park they’d built.
The fourteen dollars that had been collected was promised to charity, but Chase wouldn’t be surprised if Declan didn’t consider his pocket a legitimate 501(c)(3).
Ashley had seemed to have a good time, too. She’d constructed a fantastical skyscraper upon which butterflies built of plastic blocks had decided to roost. It reminded him of her flower arrangements: colorful, eye-pleasing and worth a second look.
As was she, of course. He hadn’t dropped his intention of getting her into bed.
But yesterday he’d left her mostly alone, allowing her a chance to catch her breath. He’d known she was nervous after their New Year’s kiss, so his strategy was to back off. Just a little.
His conscience wasn’t bothered in the least by making this play. At her house, he’d given her ample opportunity to back out of the hostess deal. She could even have lied and expressed distaste of his kiss. He wouldn’t have pushed any further then.
But he remembered her taste and her trembling body at midnight. And he’d watched her pack her bag and come with him anyway. This attraction wasn’t one-sided.
As if to underscore that fact, when he entered the dining room, his gaze went directly to her, standing by the sideboard. Her eyes hit his, too, and he saw her twitch at the same time that becoming color flushed her face. She was dressed in tight dark jeans and brown boots. A long, oatmeal-colored thin-knit sweater covered her torso, but when she turned back to continue filling her plate, he saw that the loose garment buttoned up the back. It was half sliding off one shoulder, revealing more creamy skin and parts of a skinny-strapped tank top.
“Good morning,” he said, strolling up to her side. As yet, they were the only two in the room.
“Morning.” She kept her head down as she scooped up Mrs. Erwin’s famous egg-and-potato scramble.
“Again, great job last night. Thanks for getting the washer and dryer going when Lynn wanted to take care of that spill on her corduroys.”
“No problem.” As she sidestepped to get to the next chafing tray, the ends of her hair swept across her shoulder blades and he wondered what they would feel like tickling his naked chest.
Then he wished he hadn’t wondered, because the idea of nakedness and him and her was leading to other thoughts. Before breakfast. When they were in the dining room and both fully clothed.
Damn, but she got to him.
He cleared his throat. “Still, I didn’t expect you to take on laundress duties.”
She peeked at him through her thick lashes. Her eyes were still that winter-water blue. “No problem.”
“So accommodating,” he murmured, and smiled at her with a wiggle of his brows.
A dimple poked a little dent in her cheek. Triumph! he thought. His small foray into flirtation didn’t immediately turn her shy.
“What’s the agenda for today?” she asked.
He followed her to the table, where he placed his plate beside hers. Then he reached for the nearby carafe and poured her a cup of coffee. “Did you know it’s National Science Fiction Day?”
There was that dimple again. “I had no idea.”
Seated, she unfolded her napkin and spread it across her lap. He liked how she moved, precise and controlled. The man in him wanted to destroy that precision, wreak havoc on that control. If he brushed aside her hair and nuzzled her neck, would she drop her fork? Would he taste the heat on her skin?
“...Chase?”
Taking the chair beside hers, he forced his mind away from fantasy. Take it easy, Bradley. You’ve got hours before you can get her alone to do what you’ve been dreaming of. “Sorry. Say again?”
“What are we doing on National Science Fiction Day?”
Lifting his coffee, he blew across the top, hoping it would cool him down some, too. “Not that much, really. The library has been raided for all the Ray Bradburys and Ursula K. Le Guins, etcetera. They’re upstairs, along with an easel and an oversize pad of paper. For those to whom inspiration strikes, we’re to try our own fiction story, one sentence at a time.”
“How?” She frowned, putting a crease between her brows.
He rubbed at the little line with his forefinger, and a jolt transferred from her flesh to his and back again. When she gasped, he just said, “Yeah,” and dropped his hand.
“Chase...”
His steady gaze met her anxious one. “Yeah,” he repeated with a little more force. “I felt it, too.”
When she shifted her glance to her plate, he continued on as if the moment hadn’t happened. “To answer your question,” he said, “one person writes a sentence, then a second person picks up the pen. I think there’s a rule that there must be three additional sentences before the first author can write another, but I’m not going to count.”
Because I’ll be too busy counting the minutes until bedtime, when I intend to escort you to my room where we’ll take care of all this wanting and wondering.
“I’m not sure how good I’ll be at that,” Ashley said.
He shrugged. “Critiquing is outlawed.” Leaning close, he put his mouth an inch from her ear and breathed in the cool, sweet fragrance of crushed roses. “And for the record, I think you’ll be very good. As a matter of fact, I’d bet on it.”
She froze, and then her chin lifted. “You’re very practiced at that,” she said, her little smile communicating she wasn’t taking him seriously.
“I—” But he was forced to break off before his denial could be fully uttered as a handful of couples wandered into the room, calling out greetings.
Ashley moved into hostess mode, and the moment was lost. People began peppering her with questions about the nearby ski areas.
“I’m guessing most everyone will hit the snow today,” he said.
“Arch and I are going snowboarding for sure,” June put in. “What about you, Chase?”
Drawing his friends’ cups closer, he poured them coffee. “Not this time. I’ll stick around and entertain anyone who stays at the house.”
June turned her attention to Ashley. “How about you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Don’t?”
“Hit the snow.”
June’s brows rose over her pretty brown eyes. “I would think everyone who lives in the mountains skis or boards.”
“Nope.” Ashley’s lips curved, but it wasn’t a smile.
What it was, Chase thought, was weird. But before he could give it further thought, more guests arrived, and he was drawn into other conversations. A few hours later, he’d sent the bulk of the visitors off with gear or with directions of where to rent gear, and the house had quieted. He found Declan and his wife, Miriam, playing cards in the library. Another older couple was perusing the books arranged on the tables upstairs in honor of National Science Fiction Day.
It didn’t appear he was needed.
Maybe now he could get to work on his own agenda: Ashley in his bed.
No daytime nookie—he still had enough hold on himself to wait until the cover of darkness—but he could seek her out. Soften her up a little.
Tease her in preparation for the night to come.
But she’d disappeared. It wasn’t until afternoon, when the first of the guests returned to the house, that she made her way down the stairs and went about offering up the hot tea, coffee and cookies that Mrs. Erwin had prepared for a snack.
Delicious smells of dinner cooking were drifting from the kitchen, and Chase and the bartender were setting out glassware in the great hall when the house’s landline rang. He strolled toward the phone in the library. Ashley was closer, and he nodded to her when she glanced his way.
“Bradley residence,” she said into the receiver. Then she grabbed the back of her desk chair as her face drained of color.
Alarmed, Chase rushed forward. “What—”
She held the phone his way. “The ski patrol. Asking for you.”
He continued to watch her with concern as he took the call. The information imparted relieved him somewhat, but he remained puzzled by Ashley’s wan face as he set the receiver back in its cradle. “Are you all right?” he asked, placing his hand on her stiff shoulder.
“What’s happened?” she asked, her voice low.
“David Albright,” he answered, naming one of the guests. “He fell, and in doing so sprained an ankle and busted his cell phone.”
“He’s okay other than that?” She searched his face with anxious eyes. “You’re sure?”
“He’ll be fine. I’m going to the ski resort in the limo and I’ll settle him into the rear seat. Then I’ll take the wheel of his car and drive it here. Can you handle drinks and hors d’oeuvres until I get back?”
“Sure.” She released her death grip on the chair and managed a weak smile. “I’ve got this. Don’t worry.”
But he did, both going to and returning from the Mountain Magic Resort. At the Bradley house, David managed to get himself into the great hall just fine on a pair of crutches. As a matter of fact, he looked better than Ashley, who still appeared shaken. She soldiered on through dinner, though, only to disappear on Chase again.
Carrying a snifter of brandy in each hand, he searched the house for her as most of the guests tromped up the stairs toward the playroom in order to try their hand at science fiction. Chase was interested in storytelling, too—but Ashley’s story...the one that had caused her distress.
Maybe he should question this protective side she brought out in him. But instead, he wanted to question her.
It took him several minutes to discover her hideout. As a matter of fact, he’d walked past the half-lit kitchen three times, presuming it was empty because Mrs. Erwin and her staff had left an hour before. But finally he found Ashley, seated at a banquette in one corner of the large kitchen, tucked behind the table and sitting in near-dark.
“There you are,” he said, keeping his voice soft so as not to startle her.
She started anyway, and then glanced over. “Did you need something—”
“Only to find you,” he said, and realized it was true. Skirting the table, he seated himself on the cushioned bench beside her. Not touching, but close enough to settle his unease a little. “I was concerned.”
“About me?”
He took a sip of one brandy and placed the other snifter in front of her. “Why do you sound so surprised? You’ve seemed...off since this afternoon.”
“I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“I don’t think ‘anyone’ did. Just me.” Another truth. From the moment he’d seen Ashley, he’d been attracted. But upon talking to her, he’d somehow...found her wavelength. Or she operated on the same as his. Chase didn’t know. He’d never experienced this with any other woman, this heady rush of recognition.
He recalled a night out with Arch, very soon after he’d met June. The other man had been drinking heavily, and Chase had come to understand it was because he’d been so knocked on his butt by the brown-eyed woman whom he’d been introduced to at the wedding of mutual friends.
We just...worked from the first moment, Arch had said, as if he could hardly believe it. Our edges line up. She fits with me like a baseball in that old glove of mine.
At the time, his friend and his baseball analogy had amused Chase. He wasn’t laughing anymore.
Slightly unnerved, he focused on Ashley once again, nudging the brandy toward her. “Have a drink of this.”
Maybe she was getting sick, he thought, and lifted his hand to press the back of his fingers against her cheek.
She drew away. “What are you doing?”
“Checking if you have a fever.” Good God, he wasn’t going to admit it was the same move his mother had made when he was a kid. What was it about Ashley that made him want to care for her so? He looked about the room. “Are you cold? Should I get you a blanket?”
“I’m fine.”
“You hardly ate any dinner.” Now he really did sound like his mother. But the thought didn’t stifle his concern. “Ever since that call...” His voice petered out as he realized there was his answer. Since the ski patrol had phoned, she hadn’t been the same. “What’s going on, Ashley?”
She shook her head.
He struggled against his impatience. “Okay. Let’s start over.” Whatever was wrong, he’d fix. “Are you sick?” Whatever it took, he’d make her well.
She shook her head again.
“No? You’re not sick?” He might have growled. “Ashley, talk to me. Your silence is making me nuts.”
“I’m not sick,” she said, looking down at the snifter she was cradling in her hands. Lifting it, she took a sip, then set it down as she shifted her gaze to his. “What I am...is a widow.”
“A widow,” he repeated. A widow? How could someone so young have been married and then...not?
“It happened four years ago last month.”
“I’m—” no, he was never speechless “—so sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” she whispered. “I’ve had time to get used to it.”
“But something about today...”
He saw her fingers tighten on the snifter. “We only had a season together.” She glanced up at him again. “We have those here, you know, not like in other parts of Southern California. We have four true seasons. Stu and I had an autumn of married life.”
“His name was Stu.” Maybe Chase should tell her he didn’t want to hear any more, but of course he did.
“Stuart Phillips. Mountain kid, like me.”
“You loved him.”
“Of course,” she said, lifting her hand. “My first and only love.”
Those words felt like five separate stabs. And he asked for more pain when he questioned her again. “What happened?”
“He was an avid snowboarder. That year...it wasn’t like this one, when snow came early. The white stuff didn’t come down for the first time until mid-December. We were both excited to get on the slopes. Stu couldn’t wait.”
Ah. “You used to go with him? Snowboard?”
“Yes, though not that last time. The conditions weren’t good and I was willing to postpone gratification until another day.”
“But not Stu.”
She smiled a little. A sad smile. “Stu was not about postponing gratification.”
“What was he about?”
“Flash. Fun. Speed.” She sipped from the brandy again. “Everyone loved him.”
Chase decided not to tell her that he didn’t because it was ridiculous to feel like this—jealous, he could admit only to himself—about a dead man. “You like the reckless type.”
“Not anymore. I’ve learned my lesson.” She sighed.
Tossing back the rest of his brandy, Chase decided he had to know everything. “So what happened?”
“He was racing with a friend. Those two were always egging each other on.” Her finger traced the rim of the snifter, going around and around and around. “It was nearing dark and they should have headed back much earlier. They took a short cut... He hit a rock and ended up slamming into a tree. The impact caused a massive head injury.”
“He wasn’t wearing a helmet?”
“As you said, reckless.” She addressed the brandy instead of Chase. “Today, when I took that call...I was reminded of when the ski patrol phoned me.”
Chase couldn’t stand the inches of distance between them. Reaching out, he drew her close. She went stiff for a moment before relaxing against him, her cheek to his chest. Her warmth and her willingness did little to assuage the ache in his heart. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry you took that call today.”
Her arms came around him, their light weight propped on his shoulders. She lifted her chin. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I—”
His mouth came down on hers, stifling anything else she might have said. Chase told himself it was a kiss of comfort, like the hug, but that was only so much baloney. Not when he traced his tongue over the seam of her lips. Not when his heart exulted when she opened for him. The taste of brandy combined with the light scent of roses evaporated his good sense. He hauled her closer, into his lap, as his mouth ate at hers.
Greedy. He was greedy for her.
She made a noise deep in her throat. A moan? He cupped her cheek in one palm to change the angle of her head. His thumb brushed over her soft, heated skin and he felt wetness. No. God, no.
Breaking the kiss, he stared at her. There were tears on her face. As he watched, another rolled over the rim of her eye, caught for a moment in her bottom lashes, then trailed toward her chin.
Oh, God, he thought again, as knowledge hit him like a snowplow knocking over a mailbox. As much as he might want her well, it wasn’t in his power, was it?
Although she wasn’t “sick,” she was definitely hurt. And how could he possibly fix that? Chase was helpless when it came to healing Ashley’s heart.
