The Unwilling Bride (7 page)

She stopped fumbling, and shot him a ferocious glare. “I’d better warn you, Michaelovich, that if you’re thinking about teasing me for being absentminded—”

“No, no. I am a bright man, trust me. I want to live. The sky will snow green before I would suggest that you are even the smallest iota forgetful.” But she heard his irrepressible chuckle, just before he climbed out of the car.

She followed him. “Are you laughing at me, Michaelovich?”

“You bet your sweet bippy, lambchop.”

Sweet bippy. God, where did he come up with them? “There wasn’t a reason on earth why I
needed
to lock the house. There hasn’t been a theft around here since I was a kid.”

“This is good,” he said, still chuckling.

“Just so you know, Stefan—I’ve leveled bigger men than you for teasing me.”

“Ah. Is this a threat?”

“I’m too much of a lady to make threats. It was just a general statement of fact. The sky is blue. The sun comes up in the morning. You risk your life if you tease me.”

“Thank you for this helpful statement of fact. Once again, you have me shooking in my boots.”

But he didn’t seem to be “shooking” when his hand plucked her sleeve. And when she spun around, he was as close as a partner in a dance—a dance in which he was definitely leading. She didn’t even have time to correct his grammar about the “shooking” before he suddenly, naturally, easily swung her into his arms.

There wasn’t a light on for miles, and it was darker than pitch under the front porch overhang. Even so, she could see his eyes glinting with laughter, and he was smiling when he ducked his head. He kissed her with that smile, his lips still curved, as if he were still teasing her and that kiss was only an extension of his teasing humor.

That illusion lasted a second. Maybe two.

The world was hushed. The snowflakes were soundless; the trees didn’t make a single rustle; no cars nor trucks had the courtesy to pass down the road and make nice, noisy crunchy tire sounds. The only thing thundering seemed to be her heart.

Those whiskers of his tickled mercilessly. He smelled like an unbearably cold crisp night, and he tasted like wine and a butterscotch mint, and beneath those flavors, he tasted like
him.
His mouth was smooth and colder than snow…for a second. His lips warmed up fast, connected with hers.

Okay, she thought, okay, as if she were bracing for a shot at the dentist. She’d been through this before and survived just fine. He’d stopped before, and he’d stop again. Pounds and pounds of winter coats were between them. There wasn’t a single thing she needed to worry could happen, not outside, not on a ten-degree night on her front porch…and she was hardly going to lose her mind and ask him in.

Shots at the dentist only
seemed
to last forever.

Like this kiss.

Only not quite the same. This kind of kissing definitely hurt, but the hurt was…delicious. Heady. A sting-sharp yearning that started in her toes and moved up through her bloodstream, soft, silent, faster than a surprise and yet slower than she could sigh. It stabbed her heart with a piercing sweetness, but the real source of the hurt, the really unbearable nastiness, was the texture of his mouth.

A hundred years ago, she’d kissed a ton of boys. None that tasted like him. None that felt like him. He was distinctly a virile, physical man, which made for a terrifying and dangerous difference. And he was Stefan, which damn it, made him scarier yet.

Her scarf seemed to have slipped and fallen in the snow. Her arms, propelled by insanity, seemed to have roped around his neck. Her fingers sieved in his thick, unruly hair, feeling it ruffle through her palms as if—more insanity—it was her natural right to touch him.

Somehow a simple kiss turned openmouthed, somehow suddenly involved teeth and tongues. Desire spiraled between them like a drug in the air that neither could escape breathing. Control was important to her. More than important. She didn’t lose control, ever, never allowed emotion to trample reason
and good sense. Yet wanting him seemed natural, as if she were only sharing a secret that already belonged to Stefan, as if she were safe. She had the craziest, wildest sensation that she could brave rapids, or skydive, or risk any danger on earth and it would be okay with him. Only with him.

Slowly he severed that kiss. Slowly his hands unclenched from her hair and he lifted his head. With the tip of a fingertip he traced the soft cushion of her bottom lip. His eyes, she saw, were no longer smiling, but as grave and dark as that midnight sky. “You must know how I feel,
lyubeesh,”
he murmured. “In your eyes, I see how you feel. And with your kisses, you tell me more.”

But she was suddenly fever-dizzy. And her heart was thumping from panic. How could this have happened again? She’d been so sure, if they just spent more time together, that she’d get a handle on those explosive, impulsive sexual feelings. This wasn’t
her.
She never behaved this way. “It was just the wine from dinner.”

“No.” He smoothed back her hair.

“We’re
friends.
”

“Yes, I hope this. I feel this.” He paused. “And I am well aware that my life is upended right now, much unsettled, no security I can even offer you until I pin down a job. I respect that this is important to a woman, lambchop. But I cannot make you promises quite yet.”

Maybe she hadn’t recovered from those fevered moments of insanity, because it seemed stark crazy to assume he meant promises along the lines of marriage and rings and commitment. Only Stefan was not like her. He was as emotionally volatile as dynamite, and no more predictable. “Stefan, you’re right about
being unsettled. You just moved—you’re just adopting a new country, and everything is new for you. You have to be lonely and I happened to be here, more than willing to be your friend, but it might be awfully easy to mistake that for something else.”

“I understand why you think this. With my background, you have reason to be unsure of my loyalties-”

She shook her head fiercely. “I wasn’t talking about loyalties.”

Again, he smoothed back the hair from her brow, the hair that he’d tumbled and fisted in his hands in a kiss that was still happening in his eyes. “Oh, yeah, you were,” he said quietly. “The loyalty between a man and a woman is powerful and strong and takes immeasurable trust,
lyubeesh.
And I hear that you are not sure. I think I could make you sure…so maybe best you go in the house before I invite you into more trouble.”

“Stefan-”

“I am not claiming good control right now. I am being honest. I would like to prove to you exactly what is between us—what is, and what could be—and I am very, very tempted by this idea. I think you would like this kind of trouble more than you believe now. I think this trouble would be good for both of us.”

“Stefan—”

“Go in house. I tell you now. Last warning. Lock door. Show me you mean no.”

I
f it hadn’t been for a killing problem with thirst, Paige would never have looked up. Since early morning she’d been working with gravers and scorpers and narrow-edged chisels on the coral cameo for Gwen. The project was coming. Splendiferously.

The work required such disciplined concentration that she had no time to think about last night…or a man with eyes so dark, so deep, that a woman could tumble right in and drown. Work was a much, much better thing to focus on than Stefan. And she had, easily paying no attention to her cramping neck muscles or the nag of a lack-of-sleep headache. Her throat, though, was drier than the Sahara at high noon.

Impatiently she glanced around the workshop. Sometime earlier, she
knew
she’d made herself a mug of peppermint tea, but the mug was nowhere in sight.

The darn thing had walked off and gotten itself lost. Again.

Exasperated, she laid down the half-finished cameo on a strip of velvet, and then went on a rescue-search mission for the mug. It wasn’t hiding in the bathroom, the hall, the living room. The telephone jangled just as she spotted it on the kitchen windowsill—
now
she remembered, pausing to watch a cardinal in the snow when she’d been making the tea.

It seemed the same forgetful dimwit had forgotten to put on the answering machine, too, because the blasted phone showed no inclination to quit ringing. Gulping several fast sips to soothe her thirst, she hiked for the traveling phone receiver in the hall.

Abby rarely called during the day, but most typically, her oldest sister didn’t waste a breath on a hello or how are you. “Couldn’t wait to tell you. I’m up for a promotion.”

“This is news? You’ve won a zillion promotions.”

“Yeah. But this is the one that matters, the top of everything I’ve worked for. Two other guys competing for the same slot, but I’ve outworked and outperformed their records three times over—”

“And you want the job so bad you can taste it?”

In the background of the L.A. office, phones rang and electronic devices clattered and people interrupted—Paige couldn’t remember a call from her sister when Abby wasn’t trying to do three things at the same time. Still, she heard her sister sigh. “God, you’re the only one who understands. Gwen gives me attagirls, but I know she thinks I’m weird. Doesn’t seem to matter how many women’s lib revolutions we go through. We all think it’s okay and natural for a guy to have ambition, but catch a woman trying to
climb the corporate ladder, and she’s treated like she’s flawed or unfeminine or as if something went haywire on her X chromosome. Man, I’m tired of it. I’ve
earned
this job, Paige. It has
nothing
to do with gender.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me of anything. I’ve always been in your cheerleading corner, remember?” With the phone cradled in her ear, Paige instinctively started pacing.

Technically Abby was relaying good news, but all Paige heard was the exhaustion in her sister’s voice. It had been getting worse since Christmas. Abby sounded increasingly stressed to a razor edge, and Paige had long been worried that her oldest sister worked too hard, had somehow confused the difference between a natural “drive” and “being driven”—but it just wasn’t easy to get her to talk about it. Such as now, faster than a jet stream, she changed the subject.

“So… how was it? The dinner?”

It was too much to hope that Abby had forgotten, but Paige clipped out a quick answer. “Awful.”

“Uh-huh. And did he make a pass after dinner?”

“That was awful, too.” Paige lifted her hand for another sip of tea and discovered the mug had disappeared. Dammit. The darn thing had lost itself
again.

“Uh-huh. And are you going out with him again?”

“We weren’t ‘going out’ the first time. I probably didn’t explain before. Stefan just moved here from Russia, and he happens to have family in Walnut Woods, so it worked for him to rent the old Jasper place until he decides on a job and where he wants to settle. His being here is only a temporary thing, but right now, everything’s new for him—he just needs a
friend, that’s all. To sort of help him get…acclimatized.”

“Hmm. A Russian. How interesting. Sounds exotic and foreign and sexy. Is he cute?”

“Since he’s only a
friend,
it wouldn’t matter if he were five foot two and homely,” Paige said irritably.

“I agree with you, but somehow I doubt that he’s five foot two and homely. I’m getting a pretty good picture of him, and so far I’m impressed. He’d have to be close to heart-stopping adorable to rattle your cage, Sis, and more to the point, he’d have to be able to outsmart you. It’s never been easy for you to find a guy who could outsmart you. He’s really bright, huh?”

“Do you have any idea how annoying it can be to talk with you sometimes?”

Abby laughed. “Back to the ranch. He’s just ‘a friend,’ huh? So when he made that pass at you, I take it this was to help him get…acclimatized?”

“No. He only did that because he was confused.”

“Uh-huh. What a fascinating and unusual reason for a guy to kiss a woman.”

“You don’t understand. I’m serious. He doesn’t even know me, not really. He’s just lost right now, finding his way in a whole new place. And he’s one of those people with an affectionate, emotional nature. He just tends to express himself…physically. He doesn’t necessarily mean anything by it.”

“Paige?”

“What?”

“You may be right that he doesn’t really know you,” Abby said gently. “But that’s always going to be true, Sis, unless you open the door and
let
him get to know you. And I have to go. Catch you later in the
week. But this is an order until we talk again—raise some hell and
don’t
be good.”

Paige rolled her eyes as she hung up the phone. She reclaimed the missing tea mug from the stair steps, copped a lemon-drop cookie from the kitchen and ambled back to her workshop.

If her sister had control over the red phone in the White House, the country would be in constant war. Abby always voted for action…as if action were the only choice. As if letting Stefan getting to know her
was
a choice.

She perched on the work stool, swung a leg around a rung and picked up the coral cameo. Yet she found herself staring at it instead of working. No one, even her sisters, ever understood how she’d ended up in an obscure field such as cameo making. And to anyone who’d known her when she was a teenager, her love for the cameos had to seem especially ironic. Cameos were traditionally a
lady’s
choice of jewelry. They were distinctly not brassy like rhinestones, not showy like diamonds or precious gems. A cameo was subtle, tasteful, subdued.

There was a time when she’d been no
lady.

A time when she’d worn her emotions as out-front and loud as brassy fool’s gold.

A time when a boy had died. Maybe because of her. Because she’d behaved the way no lady would behave.

Paige squeezed her eyes closed and swallowed hard. Outsiders had no way to know the chief requirement to carving a good cameo. It wasn’t talent, or skill, but a respect for the truth. A sculptor couldn’t force the raw material to turn out a certain way, couldn’t pretend, couldn’t impose what
she
wanted. She had to
deal with the truth inherent in that raw material—or risk ruining the piece.

She hadn’t been sure last night—and she felt unsure now—what Stefan felt for her. Or what she felt in return. But no matter how annoying her sister could be, Abby could occasionally give out painfully insightful advice. Maybe that was exactly what she had to do to stop this relationship before either of them got hurt…let Stefan get to know her. Really know her. And that included all the real truths about the kind of woman she was.

That
should nip any feelings he had for her. Right in the bud.

Stefan pulled in her driveway around three in the afternoon with a one-horse open sleigh. Just like in the American song, the harness was studded with a rope of bells. When he reined in under her workshop window, he gave the harness a hearty shake so Paige could hear the jingling bells, and then he waited. Building up his confidence. Building up his courage.

She would not, he suspected, be thrilled to see him. She’d been too shook up when he left her last night. But Paige was predictably absentminded. She just might be coaxed into forgetting her reluctance if he effectively distracted her.

Maybe other men had come knocking; maybe other men had brought roses or scent or chocolates. Stefan couldn’t see doing anything that had a possible comparison factor. That tower of hers was more cement than ivory. Whatever those other boys had done, Rapunzel apparently hadn’t been coaxed to let down her hair. An element of surprise was definitely required.

His neighbors had helped him come up with this particular, surely foolproof, surprise. A young couple named Bronson raised the Belgians—Willie Nelson was the horse’s name; Willie was two years old and trained to pull wagons and sleds, although he had a teensy tendency to run hell-bent for leather. Another neighbor, an old whiskered gentleman named Archibald, had loaned him the antique sleigh and belled harness. Initially the runners on the sleigh had been rusty, but a few hours work and maintenance and the runner blades were now sharp enough to fly.

All he needed was his lady.

Willie Nelson reared his head and pawed the ground impatiently. Stefan felt like doing the same. He jingled the sleigh bells again, then blew on his cold hands. His gaze tracked from window to window, searching for any sign of movement.

Finally he saw a curtain stir. A wedge of light showed in the opening, then disappeared. Seconds later her back door hurled open.

“Stefan! For heaven’s sake! It’s not like I didn’t hear the bells, but I ignored the sound. I figured I was just losing my mind. But when I finally looked out, I realized that it was you who’d lost yours. Where on earth did you get the horse? The sleigh? What—?”

He heard the tornado of questions. He expected the questions, expected the hands on jeaned hips, the floppy socks, the oversize sweatshirt with the droopy neck. But he was braced for reluctance, for serious resistance. Instead he heard the fake bluster in her voice, saw the soft mauve shadows under her eyes and the hectic color in her cheeks. She was unwilling to see him, all right. Unwilling exactly as the night before.
Her brown eyes were huge and aglow, more naked with emotion than she knew.

She was not unwilling. Only skittery. Only scared.

Resolve made his heart hammer with more confidence. It went against every ethical grain to push a woman whose “no” signals had been more than clear. But what Paige said and her actions gave him conflicting messages.

The night before, she’d protected him as if she were a she-lion with every stranger, obviously prepared to defend any language gaff he could make and scooping him into her circle of friends. In her life, she was a loner as he was, someone who shared the need to take a different road. He could tell her anything, and damn near had. She listened. Not just to words. She had the compassion and empathy to listen to a man’s heart.

She also kissed…unforgettably. Like a lover claiming her man. Like an explosion of emotion, of sensation, of yearning, so potent that a single kiss from her could go straight to a man’s head. Stefan had no idea if she realized how rare and special she was.

He did. And it—almost—struck him as humorous. He’d always been a fighter. He’d fought family, friends, co-workers and country to follow his conscience and the truth of his heart. He’d never feared or backed down from a fight before, yet fighting for her was an entirely different kettle of bees.

He even knew what the difference was.

He had never been scared of losing before.

Rapid-fire, he answered all her how, when and where questions about the horse and sleigh, then cut to the chase. “I was thinking that you might need a break. Is Russian custom in the winter, to take break
in the afternoon with a sleigh ride. Fresh air invigorates the soul. Exercise brings new energy. Good idea, yes?”

Actually there was no such custom anywhere in Russia he knew of, but Stefan was adopting his new country’s philosophy: A man did what a man had to do. The diversion was working, and for a few minutes, he successfully kept her so spinning-busy moving that she had no time to protest.

It wasn’t hard to guess that she hadn’t eaten that day, since she never remembered to eat. So he stuffed her with a sandwich first, while he scouted her closet for boots, hat, scarf, jacket and gloves. She needed to be bundled up good—it was a maniacal cold five degrees and starting to snow heavily. And once he had her back outside, trussed up good, he swiftly lifted her into the seat, talking so fast she couldn’t possibly get a word in.

“The Belgian’s name is Willie Nelson. He is good boy, but must confess, full of hell. Keeping him down will be teensy challenge, I think. Cover with blanket,
lyubeesh,
and there is mulled wine with cinnamon in thermos if you are thirsty—hot, though, take care not to burn mouth—”

“Stefan?”

Well. He had been
trying
to talk so fast that she could not get a word in, but she had managed that one. He vaulted into the seat next to her, and decided since he’d gotten her this far, this close, he could perhaps give her a chance to speak without risking her taking a powder on him. “What?”

“You’ve called me
‘lyubeesh’
several times, but I don’t know what it means.”

He’d brought a blanket to seal out the cold, and now he carefully tucked it around her legs—and his. Their eyes only met for the flash-of-a-flame second.
“Lyubeesh
just means lover,” he said simply.

He intended to flick the reins and take off—Willie Nelson was hot to trot, and Stefan figured speed was a real, real good idea about then. But she laid a gloved hand on his arm. And beneath that hectic color on her cheeks, her skin was suddenly as pale as paper.

“I was afraid it meant something like that,” she said slowly, “and I think we’d better talk. I need to tell you something, Stefan, and I need you to listen.”