A Lyon's Share (5 page)

When she reached the open door, she glanced awkwardly over her shoulder. He held the troubled brown light in her eyes for an instant before walking behind her desk and settling his long form in the visitor's armchair.

"Goodnight, Miss Somers," he said firmly, quenching any argument that might have been forming in her mind over their sleeping arrangements.

"Goodnight," Joan answered in a voice that lacked conviction.

With the door closed behind her, she walked hesitantly to the long leather sofa. Drawing a deep breath, she arranged her coat in a plump square at one end and slipped off her shoes. The olive green jacket of her corduroy suit she laid over the back of a chair before removing the pins that held her long hair in place. The release of its weight was accompanied by a tired yawn.

Hoping that the yawn was a sign that sleep would not be denied her, Joan flicked off the switch of the overhead light, throwing the room into complete darkness. She felt her way back to the sofa and lay down.

The darkness and the emptiness of the building, save for the man in the outer office, closed around her. The howling wind sounded much louder than before as it vented its fury on the rattling window panes. The chair in her office creaked loudly and Joan could only guess that Brandt was settling into a more comfortable position.

It was more than an hour before her alertness receded and sleep crept slowly upon her. Even then it wasn't restful as a nightmarish dream claimed her subconscious.

In it, she was clinging to Ed Thomas, pleading with him not to send her back. A lion roared impatiently in the background. But Ed kept in that the lion was entitled to his share of her time and he pushed her in the direction of the unseen jungle beast.

When she tried to escape a large paw descended from the darkness and drew her back. The gar-gantuan proportions of the rumbling lion had Joan quaking with fear. As long as she stayed between the lions paws, he ignored her, but whenever she attempted to sneak away, a mighty paw pulled her back. The lion's cobalt blue eyes saw her no matter where she hid.

Fear that she would never escape the lion enclosed her with icy fingers. Joan shuddered violently in its grip. "Wake up. It's only a dream," she kept telling herself, but that terrible coldness wouldn't go away. Finally her lashes fluttered open and she tried to penetrate the almost total darkness of the room to focus her eyes on some reassuring object that would end the reign of freezing terror.

The luminescent dial of her wristwatch gleamed at her, but still the numbness in her limbs didn't leave. She shivered again and hugged her arms tighter around her middle. As she drew a deep breath, the coldness of the air struck her. Tentatively she touched the sofa where the warmth of her body heat hadn't reached. The leather was icy cold.

Wrapping her coat around her shoulders, she rose to her feet and stumbled towards the door and the light switch beside it. Nothing happened when she flicked the switch on. The storm that was still raging outside had knocked out the electricity.

Quickly she opened the door between the two offices. "Mr. Lyon?" she whispered softly, trying to visualize in her mind the distance from the door to her desk. "Mr. Lyon?" she called again in a slightly louder voice.

A probing hand reached out into the darkness as she felt her way to the desk and then the chair. It was empty, with only a little warmth remaining in the cushions.

"Mr. Lyon?" She nearly ran into the open door leading into the hallway. Her hand maintained contact with the corridor wall as she tiptoed into the dark void. "Mr. Lyon?"

Only the echo of her own voice and the whistling north wind answered her. She ventured further into the darkness, trying to fight off the sensation that she was completely alone in the building.

"Mr. Lyon?" A frightened note crept into her cry. Where could he be? she wondered frantically, and called again, much louder this time. "Mr. Lyon? Brandt? Where are you? Brandt?"

A beam of light pinned her against a wall, blinding her as effectively as the darkness had done.

"There's no need to panic, Miss Somers. I'm right here," Brandt Lyon's calm voice answered her.

Joan exhaled a shaky breath. "I didn't panic. I … I didn't know where you were," she answered defensively. "I called and called, but you didn't answer."

"I'm sure you didn't panic," he said dryly as he directed the blinding flashlight beam away from her face. "I imagine it's common practice to run around in thirty-degree weather with bare feet."

Instantly Joan was conscious of the cold tile floor beneath her nylon-stockinged feet. An embarrassed warmth flooded her cheeks.

"I couldn't find my shoes in the dark," she lied. "Why didn't you answer when I called?" she asked as she wondered if he had heard the slip she had made when she had called him by his Christian name and decided that he had.

"I was in the basement verifying that the power failure wasn't caused by a blown fuse in the building." His hand took hold of her elbow as he turned her back towards the offices. "The storm must have knocked down a power line."

Joan drew her coat tighter around her neck as she tried to ignore the warmth of his touch. "Why isn't the furnace working? I mean, it's powered by natural gas."

"Yes, but unfortunately the thermostat controls and the blower are electrically operated," Brandt answered grimly. "I'm afraid it's only going to get colder. Wait here a minute," he ordered.

In the next instant the light was gone as a door closed. Joan was left shivering in the dark hall, her legs turning into numb sticks as the cold of the floor crept up her feet. Then the light gleamed on her again.

"What were you doing?" Her teeth had started to chatter.

"Turning on the taps in the rest room so with luck the waterlines in the building won't freeze," he answered. His hand again took hold of her elbow as they walked the last few feet to her office.

The carpeted floor felt blissfully warm compared to the coldness of the smooth tiles in the hallway. The pressure of his hand didn't ease until they had entered Brandt's inner office. Joan walked unaided to the sofa, illuminated by the side reflection of his flashlight now shining on the sheepskin jacket in the back corner.

"What time is it?" she asked as she sat down on the cold leather cushions and curled her legs beneath her in an effort to warm her feet.

"Almost one-thirty."

"Is that all?" She shivered and snuggled deeper into her coat. "It will be below zero in here by morning with no heat. We'll freeze to death."

A heavy silence followed her statement. Then Brandt walked slowly to the sofa, stopping in front of it to look gravely at her upturned face.

"We can keep warm," he said quietly, "together. It's the only logical thing to do."

Her heart lodged somewhere in her throat as she stared at the unreadable expression in his eyes. She tried desperately to push her apprehensions aside at the thought of spending a night in his arms and make her reaction to his suggestion as normal and practical as his. But at this moment she wasn't looking at her employer; she was looking at a virally attractive man.

When she finally commanded her voice to reply, it was shaky and weak. "We can use both our coats as blankets."

"I knew I could count on you to see the practical side of it," Brandt smiled. That smile was nearly Joan's undoing.

Self-consciously she stretched out on the sofa, hugging the back cushion as much as she could while Brandt switched off the flashlight. Then he was spreading his coat over her legs. Joan rigidly held herself still as he lay down on the outer edge of the couch, turning on his side to face her. Her coat only partially covered him, but that thought was banished as the warmth of his body was pressed against her.

His arm slid around her waist to draw her closer, making her more fully aware of every muscular inch. The warmth of his breath was a soft caress against her cheek. Joan knew he could feel the rapid beating of her heart just as she felt the steady rhythm of his.

"Your feet are like ice cubes. You should have worn your shoes," he murmured softly.

Instinctively Joan drew her toes away from the heavy material of his trouser legs, his intimate comment disturbing her more than the touch of his hands.

"Leave your feet there." She felt the movement of his mouth as he spoke. "They'll be warm soon."

Since it was nearly impossible to find a place for her feet where they wouldn't touch him, Joan let them slide back to their former position as she wondered how she would ever relax enough to fall asleep.

Chapter Three

DURING the night, their positions had shifted. Joan awoke to find her head resting on the shoulder opposite her, her face nearly buried in the fake fur collar of her coat. Her arms were curled around Brandt's middle in a careless embrace while his hands were locked behind her back to hold her there. Gradually she became conscious of his face buried in the length of her amber hair.

She tried to move into a less intimate position, only to have the pressure of his arms increase. Her corduroy skirt had inched up around her thighs, making her doubly aware of the muscles in his legs. Brandt stirred beneath her and she held her breath.

"Whoever it was," he said softly, his voice husky with sleep, "that first complained about getting out of a warm bed on a cold morning certainly knew what he was talking about."

"Yes," Joan agreed breathlessly, "b-but w-we can't stay here all day."

"Why not?" The corners of his mouth were turned upward against her hair. Then the chest beneath her head raised as he took a deep breath and loosened his hold around her. "You're right. We can't stay here all day."

Joan twisted backwards, balancing herself on one arm to allow him room to get up. Frigid air penetrated the warmth that had been generated between them. As Brandt slid from beneath the cover of their coats on to the floor, Joan resisted the impulse to snuggle into the warmth of her coat.

"Don't get up." His hand pushed her back on the sofa when she started to rise. "Stay there and keep warm as long as you can."

"What are you going to do?" she frowned.

The freezing temperature of the room was biting her face and nose, but Brandt seemed impervious to it as he stood above her in his rumpled suit, an aura of charged vitality about him that wasn't easy to dismiss.

"If I remember correctly there's a catalytic heater at the shack in the equipment yard," he replied in his take-charge voice.

Joan glanced towards the window, white frost covering the panes, but the wind growled fiercely on the other side. If it had stopped snowing in the night, the wind would still be blowing the fallen snow-reducing visibility to near zero.

"Do you have to go out?" she asked anxiously.

His mouth moved into a lazy smile, making it difficult to breathe properly. "I'll follow the fence to the shack. I won't get lost."

No, Joan thought shakily, he wouldn't get lost. Even in a battle with the elements, Brandt Lyon would probably come out the victor. But she had been brought up in the north. She knew how dangerous it could be to venture out in a storm of this magnitude. People had been known to become lost within a few feet of safety. The velvet depths of her eyes shimmered with her fear.

Instantly the smile vanished from Brandt's face and there was a hard, purposeful set to his strong jaw. "Don't get carried away by your imagination," he said a shade curtly. "I'll need my coat, so you'll have to curl up in your own until I get back."

As he reached for his sheepskin jacket, Joan tried to draw her legs beneath her coat, but it was too short. Before she could shift into a half-sitting position with her legs curled beneath her, Brandt had removed his coat, revealing the bareness of her legs where her skirt had ridden up. She flushed uncomfortably as she quickly hid them under her coat.

"Don't be embarrassed," Brandt drawled in mockery. "You have very nice legs."

"Y-You'd better … t-take my scarf," Joan stammered sneaking a hand from under her coat to brush the hair from her cheek, wishing he didn't have the ability to disconcert her so easily.

The grey wool scarf was sticking out of the pocket of her coat. Brandt removed it, then reached over and crooked a finger under her chin to raise it.

"Stop worrying," he commanded firmly. "I'll be back before you have a chance to miss me."

Joan doubted that. The instant the office door closed, a frightening sense of desertion spread over her. It was this aloneness that made her huddle deeper into her coat and not the biting nip of the air stinging her nose. The minutes passed with interminable slowness as she listened intently for some slight sound signifying his return. The impulse was there to wait for him by the rear door, but her practical nature wouldn't let her give in to it. Without the benefit of his body heat, she was already beginning to feel the cold stealing in. With no cover for her legs, she would rapidly succumb to the chilling temperature if she strayed from the sofa.

Twenty minutes went by before she heard his footsteps in the outer corridor. Her lashes fluttered down in relief, only to fly open when the human snowman walked into the office. Snow caked the trouser legs and only patches of brown could be seen on the sheepskin of his jacket. The brown thickness of his hair was capped with white flakes, the same flakes that clung to his brows and lashes. His hoary breath filled the room with billowing clouds.