Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) (13 page)

Sarah looked more carefully. And then she saw what he saw. Up on the wide verandah, pressing their noses against the honeyed warmth of a lighted window, were two large brown deer.

“They're cold,” Parker whispered. “They want to go in where it's warm.”

Sarah realized she was holding her breath. “They don't look real. Will they be all right?”

“Sure.” Parker clicked his tongue softly, and Dusty began again to walk sedately down the treelined street. “The yard may be missing a few plants by tomorrow morning, but the deer will be fine.”

Sarah watched the deer over her shoulder until she and Parker were too far away to make out the dark, still silhouettes against the golden windowpane. Then she settled back into the warm circle of Parker's arm.

“Did your uncle ever tell you how we got our Season Houses?”

Sarah thought back. “No. He just told me that Firefly Glen had begun as a tiny settlement of loggers and trappers, but that some millionaires from New York City discovered it around the end of the nineteenth century.” She snuggled down into the rugs happily. “Why? Is it a good story?”

“It's a little unusual,” he said. “Do you remember the Summer House?”

Sarah thought back. “Yes, I think so. A huge Italian villa? Seems to be deteriorating? Some crumbling mosaics, big empty swimming pool, long colonnades
filled with leaves. I remember thinking it looked haunted.”

“That's the one. Well, that was the first mansion built here—almost a hundred years ago by Dr. and Mrs. Mark Granville, the darlings of New York society. Mark, they say, was tall, funny and kind. Moira, the story goes, was tiny and elegant and sweet. Anyhow, everybody wanted to do whatever the Granvilles did, so within a couple of years several other rich young couples had moved here, too. They built the Spring House, the Autumn House—”

“I remember that one, too,” Sarah said eagerly. “Huge, out in the woods. Wood and glass and stone, kind of a ranch house.”

“Yep.” Parker grinned. “You have a good memory.”

“The houses are fairly spectacular,” she said. “And of course since my uncle lived in one of the Season Houses, I was extra curious about the other three.”

“That makes sense. Anyhow, the Winter House was the last one built by the Granvilles' friends. After the Winter House, no new mansions were built here for thirty years.”

Sarah turned to look at him. “Why on earth not?”

“That's where the story gets good. I guess a lot of women were jealous of Moira Granville. And suspicious, too. They didn't know anything about her family, about where she came from. In a small town, that's important. They investigated the heck out of her, and eventually they discovered something shock
ing. Apparently Dr. Granville had met his sublime young wife in a brothel in Boston.”

At Sarah's raised eyebrows, Parker chuckled. “Yes, a brothel, where, by the way, an hour of her company had undoubtedly cost him considerably less than it did
after
the wedding.”

Sarah caught her breath. “Oh, no,” she said.

“Oh, yes. The judgmental old witches were furious. Jealousy happily switched to hatred, and Moira Granville was immediately ostracized.”

“How awful,” Sarah said sadly. “How cruel.”

“It's always struck me that way, too. But the women meant business. Have you ever noticed that half-painted ceiling in your uncle's house?”

Sarah sat up excitedly. “Yes! Of course. But when I was here at thirteen, he said I was too young to hear the story of why it was never finished.”

Parker smiled. “You
were.
Apparently the original Winter House wife came bursting into the parlor, frightening the poor artist half to death, demanding that he cease painting immediately. She was, by heaven, not going to live next door to a
whore.
She moved out the next day, and for thirty years the Granvilles lived in the Summer House alone, with only loggers and trappers and three empty mansions for neighbors.”

Sarah shook her head helplessly, almost unable to believe the story wasn't exaggerated, as legends often are. How unforgiving everyone had been! It felt almost shameful to be descended, however distantly, from such a judgmental woman. Sarah could only
imagine the humiliation and loneliness the lovely Moira must have endured.

“Later, new, less finicky millionaires moved in—eventually even a descendent of that original outraged Mrs. Winters came back. There hasn't been a shortage of millionaires since.” Parker laughed. “Now, as your uncle points out, the only problem is keeping them away.”

But suddenly Sarah didn't feel like joining Parker's laughter. This was the other side of the small-town experience, the side she'd been forgetting. The narrow-mindedness, the prying eyes, the power to punish its members for sins real or imagined.

And how different was it in Firefly Glen today? Sarah had been here only a few weeks, but already she knew that the Glen was still essentially a small town, with both the small-town virtues—and the small-town vices.

Her uncle was open-minded and tolerant. But he was an acknowledged eccentric. What about the others? What about Theo Burke at the café, and the fussy, flowery Madeline Alexander? What about the mothers of the Firefly Girls, and the Daughters of the Revolution? What about the Junior League and the Altar Guild and the Garden Club?

What would happen when they found out that the newcomer, Sarah Lennox, was unmarried and pregnant and daring to date their darling favorite son, Sheriff Tremaine?

And at that moment, Sarah realized that she had been dreaming a dangerous dream. She had been
dreaming that perhaps she could stay here, under the protective roof of her liberal-minded uncle, forever. She had been dreaming that this storybook town might embrace her, become her home.

And her child's home.

How ridiculous.
She knew better. You couldn't hide from your problems forever, not even in Firefly Glen. She had to snap out of this daydream before it was too late.

Sensing that the rocking motion of the sleigh had ceased, Sarah looked up, trying to clear her mind. But her eyes were misty, as if the cold had stung them to tears.

“Sarah.” Parker leaned over her, touching her face with soft leather-covered fingers. “You're awfully quiet. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” she said, nodding firmly. But the motion caused the stinging tear to run down her cheek, where it instantly froze. “I'm fine. I'm just cold. It's getting colder, don't you think?”

“Maybe.” Leaning across her, he pulled the largest, softest rug up, tucking it under her chin. He arranged her muffler so that it reached almost to her lower lip. Then he tugged down her white woolen hat, gently easing it so low on her forehead that her eyelashes brushed it when she blinked.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded, watching him from her soft cocoon. His eyes were dark and soft, like moonlight. Yet deep in his gaze lay something else—something powerful
but, for the moment, tightly leashed. It made her breath come shallow and fast to look at him.

“You're all eyes now,” he said, slowly tracing the edges of her woolen hat, the rim of her muffler, with one gloved forefinger. Drawing a tingling line across the arch of her brow. “And they're so beautiful. All green-and-gold fire. I could lose myself in your eyes, Sarah.”

She wondered if that were true, that her eyes were full of fire. She could feel something like that, deep in the pit of her stomach, something hot and sweet, like too much brandy.

“If you don't want me to kiss you, maybe you'd better say something now.” He half smiled, but it had a ragged edge, as if it had been torn from something darker.

She was silent, except for her heart, which seemed to be drumming high in her throat. He drew closer. “Or now,” he whispered, and his breath feathered out to brush against her cheek.

But she didn't say anything. And so, gently, he kissed her.

It should have been enough. That much would have been safe, or almost so. When her time in this enchanted village ended, she could take this one soft kiss with her as a reminder. A treasure pocketed against the poverty to come.

But let the kiss begin to burn—let it press and harden and catch fire—and it would no longer be mere memory. She would carry it forever as a scar.

She knew all that, and still she didn't stop him. She
let him take her into his arms, enfolding her with more rising, pulsing warmth than a thousand rugs of the finest wool. He groaned, low and hungry, and she answered with a small sound that would have been his name, except that, like a fire, he consumed the syllables before they could reach the air.

Oh, she was a fool, the worst kind of fool. But she no longer even wanted to resist. The magic of this winter night had crept inside her, filling her with hot, pointed stars and melting ice crystals of bliss.

Tomorrow,
she thought hazily as she sank into the sweet heat of his lips. She would regret this tomorrow.

But tomorrow was on the other side of the stars, and it had no power here.

“S
O WHAT DOES
W
ARD THINK
about you helping with the festival?” Madeline Alexander bit off the end of her white thread and started threading it expertly through the eye of her sharp silver needle. “Is he very angry with me for drafting you into the enemy camp?”

Sarah smiled. “He hasn't said much about it. He just commented once that it was a shame we were doing so much work for nothing, since there wasn't going to be any festival. He hasn't mentioned it since.”

Sarah dug around on the sewing table, which was frothing with about fifty yards of white netting, fourteen bolts of cotton lace and nine spools of sequined ribbon. With any kind of luck, in three weeks this chaos would have become a dozen snowflake costumes for the Firefly Girls.

Right now, though, it was the hopeless mess in which she'd lost her scissors.

“Well, then I wonder why he hasn't come down to say hello?” Madeline cast another glance toward the staircase, which she'd been doing with increasing frequency over the past hour. “Are you
sure
he's not mad at me?”

Sarah was beginning to regret having agreed to let the troop leaders meet at Winter House. Madeline was doing very little sewing and a whole lot of mooning over Ward.

“I'm sure he'll be down later,” she lied. Ward had told her he'd rather walk a tightrope naked over a crocodile pit than put one foot down those stairs while the Firefly Girl leaders were in the house. At least three of them, he said, had plans to chloroform him and drag him to an underground altar.

Finally having found her scissors, Sarah sat back and scanned the other women, wondering which three he meant. Madeline, of course. And maybe Bridget O'Malley, little Eileen O'Malley's grandmother—one of the most gorgeous sixty-year-old women Sarah had ever seen. She was about five-eleven and had eyes as green as shamrocks, dyed fire-red hair and a temper to match.

The third was probably Jocelyn Waitely, the hotel-owner's wife, though of course she'd have to divorce Bourke first. That little detail wouldn't stop her. Jocelyn was small and blond and smart enough to be darn dangerous. After knowing her only an hour, Sarah had decided she definitely wouldn't want to be standing between Jocelyn Waitely and whatever she wanted.

“Tell me, Madeline,” Jocelyn said mildly, without looking up from the portable Singer she had set up on the parlor table. “Have you decided who you're going to vote for in March—Harry or Parker?”

Sarah's needle slipped, digging into the pad of her index finger. She whisked the finger away, popping it
into her mouth before she could bleed on the white lace.

Looking up, she caught Jocelyn's sharp gaze on her, and she cursed her own clumsiness. Was she really so far gone that the mere mention of his name could make her twitch? Oh, brother. She was going to have to do better than this.

Madeline frowned over at her friend. “Parker, of course. Aren't you? It doesn't seem quite cricket, does it, for a man to run against his own brother-in-law?”

“I heard he may not still
be
his brother-in-law come March,” Jocelyn said. Her tone was bland, but Sarah could see that her eyes were alight with an avid, rather unpleasant, curiosity. “He and Emma have split. I heard he moved out.”

“That's just a temporary tiff, Jocelyn,” Bridget O'Malley put in sternly. She had opinions as large and solid as she was herself. “Harry Dunbar and Emma Tremaine belong together, and they'll get over this. Everybody knows that.”

This was news to Sarah. She and Emma and Heather had lunched together just two days ago, and, though Emma had seemed subdued, she hadn't mentioned anything as dramatic as a separation.

Of course, as much as Sarah liked Emma, she hardly qualified as an intimate of hers. Emma might well not talk of personal things around an outsider.

And Sarah was definitely still an outsider. She hadn't even known about the upcoming election. She wondered how Parker felt about it. He seemed so
comfortable as sheriff, such a natural fit for the job. What would he do if Harry took that little gold star away from him?

“What does Parker think about it, Sarah?” Jocelyn's probing gaze was still on her. “Last night, when you two went to Lucky's, did he mention the election?”

Sarah stared stupidly. How did Jocelyn know that already? The Glen gossips obviously didn't work with anything as old-fashioned as grapevines. They must send their tidbits by fax.

She bent over her work, trimming a fluffy white-net skirt with silver sequins, cravenly glad to have something to look at other than Jocelyn's fox-sharp features.

“No,” she said honestly. “He didn't.”

“Oh.” Jocelyn smiled. “I thought maybe he might have. After all, a sleigh ride is so cozy, isn't it? There's lots of time to talk…and so forth.”

The other women must not have checked their fax machines this morning for the latest from the Glen Gossip Gazette. They seemed surprised. They closed in around her, or at least it felt that way, though no one actually moved. They peppered her with questions, determined to drag out every detail about anything as romantic as a sleigh ride.

For the next ten minutes, Sarah dodged questions that ranged from innocently curious to rudely speculative. She prayed she wouldn't blush. It was too soon to have to face such a grilling. She needed more
time—time to think through what last night had really meant…to her, or to Parker.

And she definitely needed time to forget the feel of Parker's hot hands against her skin.

But somehow she managed to keep the details boringly generic enough: it had been quite cold; the pizza had been very good. Eventually the interest died down. Even Jocelyn seemed ready to move on to more fertile ground.

And then the doorbell rang.

Knowing that Ward would never let a mere doorbell lure him into the crocodile pit, Sarah got up to answer it. To her intense pleasure, followed by sinking dismay, it was Parker.

He looked wonderful. He was in civilian clothes, dark corduroy jeans and a black turtleneck that made his eyes blaze like blue fire. She felt herself flushing, weak-kneed all over again. Please, she prayed, don't let Jocelyn Waitely see her now. The gossip would race around and around the Glen, doubling over on itself, growing and swelling until it became a full-fledged scandal.

“Hi,” she said, feeling ridiculously nervous. She hadn't slept with the man, for heaven's sake. She had just kissed him a few times after a pleasant evening out. They had been amazing kisses, yes. The kind that turned your legs to water and your mind to mush. But, as the song said, even a hot, mind-shattering kiss is just a kiss.

“Hi.” He smiled.

The smile was enough to liquefy her bones all over
again. It was full of an intimate delight, as if they shared an intensely private and miraculous secret. Her insides did a tight, thrilling swoop under that look. She felt weightless and tingling, as if they had just joined hands and jumped off a very high diving board together.

As she fought to steady herself, she realized sadly that Ed had never looked at her that way. Not even after they had first made love. Not even when he had asked her to marry him. Not ever.

“Sarah,” Parker said huskily, still smiling. “Kiss me.”

She took a deep breath and fought the impulse to move toward him, mindlessly obeying both his words and her own body's primitive urgings.

“Don't be silly,” she said in a half whisper, shaking her head firmly. “The house is full of people. The Firefly Girls troop leaders. They're probably all pressed against the parlor window right now, waiting to see what we do.”

“So?” He tilted his head. The sun was bright today, and it caught one side of his face, illuminating his glossy black hair and sparkling on the clear blue of his eyes. “Kiss me. Let's give them something to talk about.”

“They're already talking.”

He didn't look impressed. “That's what bored old gossips do, Sarah. Let them.” He took a step toward her. “I've waited twelve long hours to kiss you again, and I don't give a damn who sees me do it.”

She resisted the urge to back up. “Perhaps not. But
I
do.”

He stopped. “Oh.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I see.”

“Parker, I'm sorry. But I did tell you that I…” She lowered her voice. “I'm not ready to take on any emotional complications right now. I'm not ready to get involved with anyone. You knew that. Maybe I shouldn't have said yes to any date at all. But I thought you understood that it would just be as friends. Just for fun. Nothing…well, nothing serious. A few kisses can't change any of that.”

While she talked, his smile had been sneaking back, one fraction of an inch at a time. “You sound as if you're working pretty hard to convince somebody of all that. Who, Sarah? Me? Or yourself?”

She forced herself to stand firm. “Both of us,” she said with painful honesty. “I know we hadn't planned to end up…the way we ended up. I think it was just that everything had been so—oh, you know. The whole night had this strange kind of magic…. I know you didn't plan it that way.”

He laughed. “Are you so sure? Maybe that's where I take all the dates I intend to seduce. Maybe after a romantic evening watching football at the Ucky Lounge, women are just putty in my hands.”

Finally she had to smile, too. “I didn't mean Lucky's. I meant the whole package. The sleigh bells, the snow. The stars. The deer at the window. Even the way the sleigh rocked was…”

“Sexy?”

“Designed to throw us together.” She shook her head, feeling again the searing awareness of his thigh sliding almost imperceptibly against hers as Dusty trotted unevenly down the fairy-lighted streets.

“It was like a conspiracy,” she said. “On another night, with different weather, in a normal car, things would have been easier to control.”

“Think so?” He grinned, as if she had provided the perfect opening. “Okay, we'll test that theory. As soon as I get back.”

“Back?” The question didn't sound as casual as it should have. “Are you going somewhere?”

“That's what I came to tell you. I have to go to D.C. for four days. My ex-wife is having some legal problems, and she needs some advice.”

Four days? That was a
lot
of advice. Somehow Sarah fought back the illogical twinge of jealousy she felt. Hadn't she just reminded Parker that she wasn't interested in him that way, that even last night's kisses had merely been the accidental by-product of a lethal concoction of sleigh bells and starlight?

So what difference did it make whether he spent four minutes or four days or four years with his ex-wife? None at all.

“That's nice of you,” she said politely. “I hope it goes well.”

“Me, too. But I'll be back on Friday, Sarah.” He looked at her that way again, the way that made her weightless and falling, falling, falling.

“And Saturday night I'll take you on the most bor
ing, completely unromantic date in the history of dating.”

Still smiling, he leaned in and kissed her on the temple. He slid his lips lightly down to the flushing ridge of her cheekbone. For one, aching moment, his breath blew a soft warmth against her ear, sending white flashes of starlight through her veins.

“And then we'll see what happens.”

 

“I
DON'T FEEL LIKE
being a Gravity Gladiator today,” Emma whined as she looked over the menu at the Candlelight Café. “I feel like being a Calorie Coward. I say, open the floodgates! I'm going to have double-battered fish and French fries and a hot-fudge sundae. With
two
cherries.”

Sarah and Heather exchanged a smile. Emma did this every time they got together. She always threatened to eat the most artery-clogging items on the menu, but when the moment of truth came, she ordered a salad. Heather said Emma was just letting off steam, so they never bothered to argue with her.

Today, though, she shocked them. When Theo came to their table, Emma ordered the fish and chips, extra tartar sauce, super-sized sundae on the side. Theo didn't bat an eyelash. She knew that in five-star restaurants the customer's choice was always the right choice.

But Heather had no such inhibitions. “That's about ten thousand calories, you know,” she said when Theo had taken their menus and departed. “And about ten months off your expected life span.”

Emma made a face. “Living forever is highly overrated, especially if you can't have hot-fudge sundaes.”

Heather's frown deepened. “Emma,” she said quietly. “This won't help.”

“Of course it will. I'll be in a carbo coma all afternoon, which will definitely help.”

It was an uncomfortable moment. Obviously the two were communicating in some subtext that Sarah wasn't supposed to understand. Emma looked over at her guiltily, then seemed to come to a decision.

“Sorry, Sarah. We didn't mean to talk around you. It's just one of those boring personal problems, and I didn't want to monopolize lunch with it.”

Sarah shook her head. “That's okay,” she began.

“No, really. I want to tell you. You probably will hear about it before long, anyhow. The concept of privacy isn't recognized in the Glen.”

Heather put her hand over Emma's supportively. Sarah could see that Emma's eyes were glittering, but she took a deep breath and when she spoke her voice was steady.

“Harry and I are going through a rough patch right now,” she explained tersely. “So rough, in fact, that he moved out last week.”

Sarah took Emma's other hand. “I'm so sorry,” she said, aware of how useless the words were. “I'll bet he won't stay gone for long, though.”

“Of course he won't.” Heather looked fierce, and Sarah could tell how much she cared about her friend's happiness. “Harry can be a bullheaded mule
sometimes, but he's not dumb. He'll be back.” She lifted one eyebrow. “Unless, of course, you eat ten thousand calories at
every
meal.”