Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) (6 page)

But maybe, just maybe, a year was long enough.

Wow.
He pulled himself up with an embarrassed
yank. That was damn cocky. And way off base. Sarah Lennox didn't look at all like the kind of woman who would find it fun to share the sheets with some relative stranger during her winter vacation. Even more to the point, while she was friendly and polite, she hadn't shown signs of being one bit overwhelmed by his manly dimples.

Not to mention how Ward would react if Parker started exercising his hormones again with the old man's favorite great-niece. Ward might be in his late seventies, but he was still plenty tough enough to scatter pieces of Parker's body all over a tri-county area.

Parker returned reluctantly to reality. While he and his ego had been taking that stupid mental flight, Sarah had already smoothed on the ointment. Now she was ready for the bandage. She gingerly placed a snow-white square of sterile gauze against the first blister, then started winding a strip of bandage around his hand to keep it in place. She seemed completely focused on her task, eyes down, lower lip clasped between her teeth intently.

Parker felt a little silly. It was just a blister, for Pete's sake. And he was damned glad that Emma couldn't see him. He probably looked like an over-eager lapdog, holding out his blistered paws so Sarah could make them better.

But he had to admit it was kind of sweet.

“Tell me,” she said as she tied off the bandage. “What's really going on with my uncle and the ice festival?”

She let go of his hand and began on the other one. Parker flexed his fingers for a moment, testing the bandage, before he answered. He didn't want to upset her. But maybe she could help him make Ward see reason.

“He's putting up some serious opposition this year. Some of the merchants in town think he's damaging them financially. They're pretty steamed up over it.”

Sarah looked thoughtful. “But I thought Firefly Glen has always had an ice festival. I remember my uncle telling me about it when I was just a little girl. He made it sound charming.”

“Yeah, he and Roberta used to love it. They were even king and queen one year, back when they were first married. But the festival keeps getting bigger. New events are added, bringing in more and more tourists. Ward's been grumbling for years now, saying it's going to ruin the Glen.”

“Is it?” Sarah looked up from her work, her eyebrows arched in a serious query. “That would be tragic.”

She sounded sincere. Maybe she understood, Parker thought. Maybe she already felt a little of the magic of this peaceful valley. After all, she lived in Florida, a tropical paradise that wobbled on the same environmental tightrope.

“I don't know,” he said honestly. “It could. All you have to do is look at some of the big tourist spots around here to see how tacky and congested things could get. But I guess it's human nature. If you're a businessman, you always want more business.”

He sighed, feeling as conflicted as he did whenever he tackled this conundrum. “Anyhow, this year the city council voted to open some of the events to outsiders, and to advertise big time. I think, for Ward, that was just the last straw. He's making it his mission to ensure that the festival fails.”

Sarah was finished with his hands. He held them up, eyeing the white gauze skeptically. He looked like a prizefighter, taped and ready to don his gloves. His deputies would get a good laugh out of this. They already liked to tease him about being a “city kid,” even though he was born and raised right here in the Glen. Those years in Washington had really cost him.

Sarah put her supplies carefully back in the cabinet. She lowered herself to the edge of the large white tub and looked up at him, her expression more somber than ever.

“He actually wants it to fail? That must make a lot of people very angry,” she said.

He nodded. “It does.”

“How angry?” Her voice was quiet. “Do you think my uncle is in any danger?”

What should he say? He didn't think so. He knew these people, had known many of them all his life, and they weren't wicked. They weren't violent. They were, for the most part, people who valued solitude, people who revered nature, people who believed in individualism. That was why they had chosen to live in such a place, where nature was raw and beautiful, so dangerous it taught you courage, so powerful it taught you humility.

But he couldn't be sure. He had experienced enough to have learned that you never
really
knew how far a person would go if you pushed him. And Ward was definitely pushing.

“I can't be sure,” he said carefully. “I don't think so, but I'd be a whole lot happier if Ward would back off a little. It's true that love makes people do some pretty weird things. Well, so does money.”

Sarah studied his face for a long moment, as if she were trying to read between his lines. Finally she took a deep breath and stood, smoothing her honey-colored hair back with one steady hand. She was only about five-four, and she probably didn't weigh a hundred and ten pounds dripping wet, but she looked like a force to be reckoned with. She also looked sexy enough to make Parker's palms tingle where she had dressed them.

“I see,” she said. “Then maybe it's a good thing I came when I did.”

Parker couldn't have agreed more.

 

I
T WAS NINE O'CLOCK
. Snow had been floating outside the library windows for hours. Sarah and Ward had long ago fallen quiet, in that lovely way good friends do, when comfortable intimacy has no need of words.

Plus, the chess game had reached its climax. Sarah had just realized that her uncle's king was only two pawns away from her undefended queen.

But then the telephone rang.

Its metallic trill was jarring, an ugly crack running through the glassy silence. Though the phone actually
had been sitting on the table beside Ward's chair all along, Sarah stared at it as if it had landed there from outer space.

Ward didn't seem to share her confusion. He answered it without skipping a beat, taking her pawn with an evil grin even as he said, “Hello?”

Then, to her surprise, he held the phone across the chessboard. “It's for you.”

Sarah's heart thumped uncomfortably in her throat. For her? Who could it be? She mentally scanned the few possibilities. She had told the school, of course, in case her replacement teacher had questions. And her mother, on the off chance that she and Husband Number Four would worry.

And Ed.

But Ed wouldn't call. Would he? She had left a curt sentence on his answering machine.
I'm going to stay with my uncle for a while.
And then, almost an afterthought.
I know you'll be gone by the time I get back. Have a nice life.

So it couldn't be Ed. He was officially off the hook, and he'd probably take the fastest jet he could find to California, thanking his lucky stars she hadn't made a scene. Of course, someday they would have to talk. She didn't want any money from him, but still…someday there would be issues of what to tell the baby. And would Ed want to know when the baby was born? Would he want information, pictures, visits…
rights?

She knew she had taken the coward's way out, leaving that message. Perhaps in their future lay un
pleasant negotiations with lawyers, difficult conversations with their families, wrenching decisions about a thousand little things. But not yet. Please. She wasn't ready yet.

She must have looked frozen, because Ward frowned, tilted his head and gave her a quick, assessing glance. Then, before she could will her hand to reach out, he brought the telephone back to his own ear.

“Sarah's not available,” he said in a voice of gruff authority. “I said she's not available. If you'd like, I'll take a message.”

He listened a minute, muttered another syllable or two, then pressed the disconnect button and lay the phone facedown on the end table.

“That was Ed,” he said casually, his gaze on the chessboard. “He still sounds constipated. Your move.”

Obediently Sarah studied the pieces, but she couldn't help smiling. Oh, how she loved this tough and wonderful old man! She could just picture Ed right now, staring in outraged disbelief at the dead receiver. He wasn't accustomed to being thwarted. He liked being the boss—at work, and, she realized now, even at home with her.

In a twisted way, he probably would actually have enjoyed fatherhood. All that power, all that sheer physical superiority.

She shuddered slightly, thinking of it. She stared down at her doomed queen and came to a decision.

“You know, it may be inevitable, but I don't feel
like surrendering tonight.” She looked up and gave her uncle a crooked smile. “Let's finish this tomorrow.”

He leaned back in his chair, stretching so broadly it made the old wood and leather creak. “Good idea. I think we both could use some fresh air,” he said. “Feel like taking a walk around the lake?”

She darted a glance at the windows. “It's still snowing, isn't it? Won't it be awfully cold?”

Ward laughed as he headed across the room, making for the hallway, where the coats and hats were kept. “Of course it's cold, Short Stuff. That's the point, isn't it? Otherwise you'd be back in Florida, working on your suntan and bickering with your boyfriend.”

He was right, of course. The minute they stepped outside, she knew it. Here was a new world, a world of such mysterious beauty that Ed and his temper immediately faded to total insignificance. Even her pregnancy seemed merely a simple, uncomplicated truth, one small detail in the huge, unstoppable rhythms of nature. She couldn't worry. She couldn't plan. She could suddenly do nothing but admire this amazing, magnificent landscape.

With a strange sense of excitement, she curled her fingers inside the cashmere-lined gloves her uncle had loaned her. “I love it,” she said, tucking her arm through his. “And I love
you.
”

He made a low growl in his throat. She had violated one of his basic rules—No Mushy Stuff. But
then he chuckled, forgiving her. “Come on. You ain't seen nothing yet.”

They walked slowly, their feet sinking into the brand-new snow with soft crunches. Though slow, fat flakes fell all around them, it was easy to find their way. The moon was huge and blue, so close it seemed to be pressing its face against the treetops, peering in at them, trying to make contact.

“There's the swinging tree,” Ward said, pointing to a gigantic cottonwood, its gray, ridged bark bright in the moonlight. No rope-and-plank swing hung there tonight. “Remember? That means the lake's not far now.”

During Sarah's summer here, they had walked around Llewellyn's Lake almost every day. Afterward, she'd seen it in her dreams a hundred times, reliving the green-and-gold hours of laughter, the kites, the picnics, the scarlet cardinals blinking between the trees, the clumsy ducks clamoring for crusts of bread.

But when they finally reached the lake, she could hardly believe her eyes. It was frozen solid, a hard, vast expanse of blue and white and gray, as if a chunk of moon had fallen to the earth. They stopped at the edge, between two snow-heavy pines, and stared over its eerie contours.

“See that little white light over there?” Ward pointed toward the north. “Brighter than the others—straight across the lake from us? That's the light at the end of Parker Tremaine's dock. Just in case you were curious.”

Sarah could barely make it out. It winked in and out of snowflakes. She turned to her uncle with a quizzical smile. “Curious about what?”

“About where the sheriff lived.” His voice was bland, but Sarah noticed he didn't meet her gaze. “It's not one of the Season houses. But it's a respectable spread anyhow. The Tremaines have been around the Glen forever. They're good people.” He paused. “He's a good man.”

Sarah took a deep breath—then wished she hadn't, as the freezing air burned into her lungs. She coughed slightly, hugging her uncle's arm a little tighter. “You wouldn't be thinking about matchmaking, would you, Uncle Ward?”

“Matchmaking?” He sounded indignant. “Hell, no. Why would I do that? You're getting married on Valentine's Day, right? Nope, I just thought you might like to know where the sheriff lived. You know, in case there's ever any trouble.”

She pressed a little closer, using his strong body to block the wind. “What kind of trouble? You mean about the ice festival? Surely it won't come to that.”

“Well, now, you can't tell. One of those greedy apes in town might decide I'm too much of a nuisance. Take Bourke Waitely. He owns the hotel, and he's got a temper like a wet weasel. Smells like one, too. He might get some dumb idea that he could stop me.”

She stared out at the lake. The snow was letting up, and moonlight flashed off its icy surface.

“I don't really know many of the details,” she ven
tured carefully, “but would it be so terrible if you let the festival proceed? I mean, rather than risk getting anyone so angry that…” She sighed. “I just want you to be careful.”

When he didn't answer, she looked up at him, her concern deepening. Snow dusted his broad shoulders and sparkled against his navy blue ski cap. He looked as if he belonged in this harsh landscape. Tough and rugged and alone.

And yet, though he looked almost the same as he had fifteen years ago, the truth was that he was getting older. He wasn't as invincible as he once had been. She found that she couldn't bear the thought of any harm coming to him.

“The year Firefly Glen was incorporated,” he said suddenly, his voice edgy and bitter, “there were only fifty residents, all loggers and trappers. Simple people. And there was one tiny path scratched through the mountains, just wide enough for a wagon. But then a bunch of New York millionaires decided the Glen was the perfect place to escape from the crowds and the dirty air. And before you could say
hell no,
they were everywhere, building mansions just like the ones they were so eager to get away from.”