Heather Graham (18 page)

She didn’t respond. The flare of approaching headlights suddenly lit up the car, and she saw that he was smiling sardonically.

He must have felt her gaze. He passed the car, then looked her way. “It’s still a ways yet. Why don’t you try to sleep?”

She leaned her head against the side of the car and closed her eyes. Katie didn’t feel particularly sleepy, but she didn’t feel like answering any of his questions either.

To her surprise she did sleep. The next thing she knew, he was shaking her shoulder.

“Are we here?” she asked groggily. Her eyes were still half closed; still, there didn’t seem to be a damn thing around them.

No, there was light. A meager little light shining from a shack in the trees. Then she heard a noise—a horrible, obnoxious braying sound.

“Not exactly,” Kent answered her as he stepped out of the Jeep. Katie frowned and reached for her door handle. The noise came to her again. Kent came around and opened her door. “What is that?” she demanded. “It sounds like a jackass.”

“It is a jackass,” Kent replied matter-of-factly. “The only transportation from here on out.”

“What?” Katie whispered incredulously.

“Call them mules, if you like!” Kent hollered over his shoulder as he started walking toward the shack. “Hey, Billy! Bill Maddon. We’re here.”

Katie gave herself a little shake, trying to rid herself of the last vestiges of sleep, wondering if she had stepped into a nightmare. But, no, this was not a dream. She was standing in almost complete darkness, surrounded by snow and pines—and the braying of a jackass.

“Kent! Kent, boy, it’s good to see ya, it is!”

Katie swallowed and glanced at the shack. An old mountaineer was coming out, running on short, spritely legs to grab Kent’s hand and pat him on the back. “Heard the game on my radio, boy. Mighty fine playin’, son, mighty fine.”

“Thanks, Billy,” Kent said. He turned back to Katie, and she saw the eternal, irritating speculation in his eyes. What was this, she wondered, a damned test?

“Bill, meet Katie Hudson. Katie, Bill Maddon. He keeps an eye on my place while I’m away.”

Katie pulled a hand from her pocket and smiled at the old man with the gray beard and twinkling blue eyes. “You’re Dante Hudson’s daughter, aren’t you, girl?”

“Yes, I am,” Katie replied, a little startled.

A grin as wide as a river split the old man’s face. “I met your pa, girl. He come up when Kent here had just bought the place. Mighty fine man, he was. Sorry to have heard of his passing.”

“Thank you,” Katie murmured. Bill Maddon studied her a second longer, then asked Kent, “You two young folks comin’ in for coffee?”

“Katie?” Kent asked her

What were her choices? she wondered. Coffee and a mule ride or just a mule ride? She shrugged. She liked Bill Maddon. She liked anyone who had kind words for her father, and she liked his sunny smile and spritely presence. “Coffee sounds good,” she said.

It was a one-room shack, sparse and clean, and Bill made a great cup of coffee. He talked while he served them, asking Kent about Sam, and asking Katie about her life with no hesitation at all. She didn’t find him presumptuous.

And in Bill’s presence she began to feel more relaxed about Kent. She often sensed his eyes on her, but it was as if the watchful wariness was gone. Had he expected her to throw a temper tantrum over the mules? If so, she was determined to disappoint him. She was going to handle anything he planned to throw her way.

Kent set down his coffee cup and stood, stretching. “Guess we’d better get going, Bill. It was a long day.”

Bill nodded. “You two stay warm by the fire. I’ll load your stuff on Sarah. How long you going to stay, Kent?”

“Two, three days tops,” Kent replied. “The team has to be in New Orleans by Thursday morning.”

“Superbowl,” Bill said, giving his grizzled head a shake. “If that don’t beat all. I’m just as pleased as a hog in the mud, I am.”

Katie lowered her head and smiled as Bill went out. Then she looked up, aware that Kent had balanced a foot on the hearth and was watching her.

“You don’t mind the mules?” he asked. The firelight was touching his eyes, and she couldn’t tell if what they reflected was a demon’s glitter or a warm glow.

“Not if they’re the only way,” she replied politely.

“We could walk, but they have better footing up here.”

Katie just smiled.

Five minutes later she was mounting her mule, Clarabelle. Clarabelle was a nasty creature who liked to honk and make noise—and nip at knees. Katie just kept smiling.

“I’ll take her lead,” Kent told Katie, and she didn’t protest. It all looked dark to her. If there was a path, she couldn’t see it.

Katie gritted her teeth together and waved good-bye to Bill. Kent held a light before him, and they started moving. Clarabelle seemed to sink more deeply into the snow with every step, but apparently there was a path between the richly smelling pines. Katie closed her eyes as they started up an incline, promising God that she would be nice to Clarabelle even if she were the nastiest creature in the world—as long as she was surefooted.

“You okay?” Kent called back.

“Just wonderful,” Katie said.

The powerful torch illuminated Kent’s way, but Katie felt shrouded in the shadow, cold and frightened. She wasn’t going to let him know it, though.

They had been plodding through the snow for ten or fifteen minutes when Clarabelle came to a jolting stop, crashing into the mule before her.

“We’re here,” Kent announced quietly.

Sliding from his mule, he held the light before him, but it didn’t really matter anymore. Katie could see a big log structure with a warm, golden light welcoming them from within, shining from multipaned windows.

Kent walked around to her; she could hear his footsteps crunching in the snow. His hands went around her waist, and he lifted her to the ground. She slid along his length until her feet touched the snow. Her arms were still braced against his shoulders; his were still about her.

“Like it?” he asked, a crooked grin twisting his lips.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, but she could find no more volume for it.

“Go on in. I’ll see to the ‘girls’”—he inclined his head toward Clarabelle and the other two mules—“and bring in our things.”

Katie nodded. She stepped past him and hurried through the snow to the door.

It was rustic. No chrome, no glass, nothing modern. The walls were raw pine and the floors were hardwood, softened by simple braided rugs. The furniture was solid-looking and well stuffed, and Katie instantly liked the cabin. There was nothing pretentious about it; it didn’t speak of fame and fortune. It was somehow very much a man’s place, yet it welcomed her.

The door opened behind her. Kent came in, stamping the snow from his feet and dusting off his shoulders. “We just beat the new snow,” he said casually.

Katie didn’t answer him. She walked over to the mantel and looked at the painting above it of a herd of running wild mustangs.

“It’s nice,” she told him quietly, then she turned around, staring at him as she asked, “Why did you invite me here?”

“Why did you come?” he counterquestioned softly.

She dropped her gaze to the hearth and the fire that burned there. It had been set by Bill Maddon for their arrival, she was certain.

“It isn’t much,” Kent told her, “but you can’t rival the scenery. There’s a little brook not far from here. Even in the summer it’s as cold as ice, but it’s totally secluded and refreshing. And, believe it or not, I’ve got a great water heater.”

Katie laughed. “Are you telling me I need a bath?”

“I just thought you might be interested.”

“I am,” she admitted.

He picked up her suitcase. “Follow me, Miss Hudson.”

She followed him down a long, narrow hall. When he entered a room and flicked on another light, Katie caught her breath with delight. The far wall was all window, and the house lights fell on a panoply of white virgin snow and distant, shadowy pines. The room was enormous, with a huge four-poster bed taking up the left section; a sunken hearth with throw pillows and woolly rugs took up the right.

“It’s wonderful!” Katie exclaimed.

Kent set her suitcase down, then went to a door near the foot of the bed. “The tub is in here. I’ll leave you to it.”

“The room is mine?”

He shrugged. “It’s usually mine, but God knows I want to impress the press. It’s yours.”

The door closed on his words, and Katie smiled slowly; they hadn’t carried his usual bitterness.

The tub was a huge wooden one, but the faucets were copper and responded to her touch immediately. Katie was really glad to bathe, but she didn’t spend long in the tub; she had the strangest feeling of euphoria, as if a great moment was at hand, a moment she had waited a lifetime for, while never knowing that she waited.

“I am not in love with him,” she told the steam that surrounded her. But she was, and both she and Kent knew why they were here. She was hot and then cold as she sat in the tub, languorous and filled with excitement. Something touched her … flames of heat that sizzled through her and made her want him, want to be near him, to cast all doubt and inhibition to the night wind and reach out for the magic she could touch.

She didn’t dress when she came out; she slipped into a floor-length evergreen robe that belted around her waist. She didn’t even put on slippers. The cabin was warm with any number of fires—those in the stone hearths … and that in her womb.

Kent was sitting on the overstuffed sofa in the living room. He didn’t hear Katie when she emerged from the hall. Her heart took a quick and disastrous lunge as she saw him there; he was tired. His head was leaning back, and his eyes were closed. She saw the tiny lines against the deep tan of his face; his nose, straight except for the crook where it had been broken; his brows, thick but highly arched and defined. She wanted to touch his features, kiss the tiny scars she had inflicted all those years ago.

When she walked around the sofa, his eyes flew open.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I startled you. You must be exhausted. I—I keep forgetting you’re the Saxon who made the tie-breaking touchdown.”

He shrugged and laughed. “To be truthful, I’d forgotten all about the game myself. Sit down and I’ll get you a drink.”

She shook her head. “I’m already standing. If you’ll tell me where things are, I’ll make the drinks.”

He pointed toward the old country eat-in kitchen. “The cabinet above the sink. Soda and the like should be in the refrigerator. I’ll take a scotch on the rocks.”

Katie felt as if she were moving in a dreamworld. This was his house, one of his homes, but she felt as if it embraced her, as if she belonged here. It was one thing to accept the fact that she cared for him and wanted him desperately, but it was another thing—a foolish thing—to feel that she belonged. She was spending time with the Cougar. No one pinned down such a cat.

But the sense of euphoria stayed with her as she mixed the drinks. She didn’t want to know if she did or didn’t love him; she didn’t want to know if he cared deeply for her at all. She wanted the magic of a snowy night with Kent Hart—and that was all she cared to know for the moment.

Katie fixed the drinks and walked back out to the living room. She handed Kent his scotch and curled onto the other end of the sofa. He took a sip of his drink, leaned back and smiled, then turned his head to look at her.

“This is nice,” he said lightly. “How long do you think it will last?”

“What?” Katie asked.

“The two of us not arguing.”

Katie’s lashes fell briefly over her eyes, and she tried to suppress a small smile. “I’m too tired to argue,” she murmured.

“Too tired?”

“To argue,” she repeated, meeting his eyes. They were so dark, encompassing. And, as always, they warmed her with the touch of a fire’s glow; they filled her senses, reached to her blood. She didn’t feel at all afraid or shy. There was a distance between them on the couch, but it didn’t matter. That distance was filled with a delicious tension.

“How did you like Bill?” Kent asked.

“Very much,” Katie said.

Kent lowered his lashes for a minute while he sipped his drink. Then he was looking at her again. “Why did you come here, Katie?”

She smiled. “Why did you ask me?”

“Isn’t this getting a bit circular?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Come here, Katie.”

She didn’t have to be asked twice; she got to her knees and moved across the sofa, carefully balancing her drink. He set an arm around her, and she wound up with her back resting against his chest, her legs stretched along the length of the sofa. He played with her hair with his free hand as his breath whispered over the top of her head. She felt the supple strength of his body, and she loved it.

“I think I asked you here because—because I wanted you from the very beginning,” he said quietly.

Katie closed her eyes, luxuriating in his words. When she opened them, it was to find that he was watching her intently, his features taut but somehow tender. She smiled and told him simply, “I know that I came here because I wanted you.”

Why is she so damned beautiful? Kent wondered as he looked into her eyes … eyes like a tranquil sea, wide, offering both beguilement and honesty. He touched her cheek with his knuckle … silk beneath the roughness of his own flesh. He ran a finger over her lower lip, felt the heated moisture of her breath.

He set down his scotch hastily, took her drink from her fingers, and set it down as well.

Then he wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips to hers.

He wanted to be gentle. Urgency dictated his will. Raw hunger drove his mouth to possess hers completely, exploring her velvety tongue, tasting her sweetness, playing upon her teeth, manipulating her lips to his. God, but she was good, soft and pliant in his arms, returning his urgency with a hot and feminine desire all her own. His hand slipped beneath her robe, and he found nothing there to impede him, nothing but the bare silk of her flesh. He moved his lips from hers with a little groan, caressing her midriff with a feathery touch. “You’re naked beneath that robe.”