Born In Ice (9 page)

Her hands fisted in the dough. Her head spun. Before she could react, he'd pulled away. "Hi. Great day, isn't it? I feel incredible. You can't count on it coming like that, you know. And when it does, it's like this train highballing right through your head. You can't stop it." He picked up a piece of cold toast from his tray, started to bite in. It was halfway to his mouth before it hit him. His eyes locked on hers again. He let the toast fall back to the plate.

The kiss had merely been a reflection of his mood, light, exuberant. Now, some sort of delayed reaction was setting in, tightening his muscles, skimming up his spine.

She simply stood there, staring at him, her lips still parted in shock, her eyes huge with it.

"Wait a minute," he murmured and moved to her again. "Wait just a minute."

She couldn't have moved if the roof had caved in. She could barely breathe as his hands framed her face again, gently this time, like a man experimenting with texture. His eyes stayed open, the expression in them not entirely pleased as he leaned toward her this time.

She felt his lips brush hers, soft, lovely. The kind of touch that shouldn't have kindled a fire in the blood. Yet her blood heated. He turned her, just enough so that their bodies met, tipped her head back just enough so that the kiss would deepen.

Some sound, distress or pleasure, hummed in her throat before her fisted hands went limp.

Hers was a mouth to savor, he realized. Full, generous, yielding. A man shouldn't hurry a mouth such as this. He scraped his teeth lightly over her bottom lip and thrilled to the low, helpless purr that answered him. Slowly, watching her eyes glaze and close, he traced her lips with his tongue, dipped inside.

So many subtle flavors.

It was wonderful, the way he could feel her skin warm, her bones soften, her heart pound. Or maybe it was his heart. Something was roaring in his head, throbbing in his blood. It wasn't until greed began to grow, with the crafty violence that mated with it, that he drew back.

She was trembling, and instinct warned him that if he let himself go, he'd hurt them both. "That was better than I imagined it would be," he managed. "And I've got a hell of an imagination."

Staggered, she braced a hand on the counter. Her knees were shaking. Only fear of mortification kept her voice from shaking as well. "Is this how you always behave when you come out of your cave?"

"I'm not always lucky enough to have a beautiful woman handy." He tilted his head, studying her. The pulse in her throat was still jumping, and her skin was still flushed. But, unless he was off the mark, she was already rebuilding that thin, defensive wall. "That wasn't ordinary. There isn't any point in pretending it was."

"I'm not ordinarily kissed by a guest while I'm making bread. I wouldn't know what's ordinary for you, would I?" His eyes changed, darkening with a hint of temper. When he stepped forward, she stepped back. "Please, don't."

Now those dark eyes narrowed. "Be more specific."

"I have to finish this. The dough needs to rise again."

"You're evading, Brianna."

"All right, don't kiss me like that again." She let out a choppy breath, drew another in. "I don't have the right defenses."

"It doesn't have to be a battle. I'd like to take you to bed, Brianna."

To occupy her nervous hands, she snatched up a towel and rubbed at the dough clinging to her fingers. "Well, that's blunt."

"It's honest. If you're not interested, just say so."

"I don't take things as casually as you, with a yes or a no, and no harm done." Fighting for calm, she folded the towel neatly, set it aside. "And I've no experience in such matters."

Damn her for being cool when his blood was raging. "What matters?"

"The one you're speaking of. Now move aside, so I can get back to my bread."

He simply took her arm and stared into her eyes. A virgin? he wondered, letting the idea circle around and take root. A woman who looked like this, who responded like this?

"Is something wrong with the men around here?" He said it lightly, hoping to cut some of the tension. But the result was a flash of pain in her eyes that made him feel like a slug.

"It's my business, isn't it, how I live my life?" Her voice had chilled. "Now, I've respected your wishes and your work these past days. Would you do me the same and let me get on with mine?"

"All right." He let her go, stepped back. "I'm going out for a while. Do you want me to pick up anything for you?"

"No, thank you." She plunged her hands into the dough again and began to knead. "It's raining a bit," she said evenly. "You might want a jacket."

He walked to the doorway, turned back. "Brianna." He waited until she'd lifted her head. "You never said whether or not you were interested. I'll have to assume you're thinking about it."

He strode out. She didn't let out her next breath until she heard the door close behind him.

Gray worked off excess energy with a long drive and a visit to the Cliffs of Moher. To give them both time to settle, he stopped in for lunch at a pub in Ennis. He walked off a heavy dose of fish and chips by wandering along the narrow streets. Something in a shop window caught his eyes, and following impulse he stepped inside and had it boxed.

By the time he returned to Blackthorn, he'd nearly convinced himself that what he'd experienced in the kitchen with Brianna was more a result of his joy over his work than chemistry.

Still, when he stepped into his room and found her kneeling on the edge of his bathroom floor, a bucket beside her and a rag in her hand, the scales tipped the other way. If a man wasn't dazzled with sex, why else would such a picture make his blood pump?

"Do you have any idea how often I come across you in that position?"

She looked over her shoulder. "It's an honest living." She blew her hair back. "I'll tell you this, Grayson Thane, you live like a pig when you're working."

He cocked a brow. "Is that the way you talk to all your guests?"

He had her there. She flushed a little and slapped her rag back on the floor. "I'll be done here soon if you've a mind to get back to it. I've another guest coming in this evening."

"Tonight?" He scowled at the back of her head. He liked having the place to himself. Having her to himself. "Who?"

"A British gentleman. He called shortly after you left this morning."

"Well, who is he? How long's he staying?" And what the hell did he want?

"A night or two," she said easily. "I don't interrogate my guests, as you should know."

"It just seems to me that you should ask questions. You can't just let strangers waltz into your home."

Amused, she sat back and shook her head at him. A combination of the scruffy and elegant, she thought, with his gold-tipped hair pulled back piratelike, those lovely eyes of his sulky, the pricey boots, worn jeans, and crisp shirt. "That's exactly what I do. I believe you waltzed in yourself, in the dead of night, not so long ago."

"That's different." At her bland look, he shrugged. "It just is. Look, would you get up and stop that? You could eat off the damn floor."

"Obviously today's rambling didn't put a smile on your face."

"I was fine." He prowled the room, then snarled. "You've been messing with my desk."

"I cleaned off an inch of dust and cigarette ash, if that's what you're meaning. I didn't touch your little machine there except to lift it up and set it down again." Though she'd been tempted, sorely, to open the lid and take a peek at the works.

"You don't have to clean up after me all the time." He hissed out a breath, stuffed his hands in his pockets when she simply stood, bucket in hand, and looked at him. "Goddamn it, I thought I'd figured this out. It's not doing my ego any good to know you're not even trying to tie me up in knots." He closed his eyes, let out a breath. "Okay, let's try this again. I brought you a present."

"Did you? Why?"

"Why the hell not?" He snatched the bag he'd put on the bed and handed it to her. "I saw it. I thought you'd like it."

"That was kind of you." She slipped the box from the bag and began to work at the tape that held it closed.

She smelled of soap and flowers and disinfectant. Gray set his teeth. "Unless you want me to toss you on the bed you've just tidied up, you'd be wise to step back."

She looked up, startled, her hands freezing on the box. "I'm serious."

Cautious, she moistened her lips. "All right." She took a step back, then another. "Is this better?"

The absurdity of it finally struck. Helpless to do otherwise, he grinned at her. "Why do you fascinate me, Brianna?"

"I have no idea. None at all."

"That might be why," he murmured. "Open your present."

"I'm trying." She loosened the tape, turned back the lid, and dug into the tissue paper. "Oh, it's lovely." Pleasure lit her face as she turned the porcelain cottage in her hands. It was delicately made, the front door open in welcome, a tidy garden with each tiny petal perfect. "It looks as though you could move right in." "It made me think of you."

"Thank you." Her smile was easier now. "Did you buy it to soften me up?" "Tell me if it worked first."

Now she laughed. "No, I won't. You have advantage enough as it is." "Do I?"

Warned by the purr in his tone, she concentrated on replacing the cottage in the bed of tissue. "I have dinner to tend to. Will you be wanting a tray?" "Not tonight. The first wave's past." "The new guest is expected by five, so you'll have company with your meal." "Terrific."

Gray had been prepared to dislike the British gentlemen on sight, rather like a stud dog, he realized, exercising territorial rights. But it was difficult to feel threatened or irritated with the tidy little man with the shiny bald pate and the snooty public school accent.

His name was Herbert Smythe-White, of London, a retired widower who was in the first stages of a six-month tour of Ireland and Scotland.

"Pure indulgence," he told Gray over dinner. "Nancy and I weren't blessed with children, you see. She's been gone nearly two years now, and I find myself brooding about the house. We'd planned to make a trip like this, but work always kept me too busy." His smile was laced with regret. "I decided to make it myself as a sort of tribute to her. I think she would have liked that."

"Is this your first stop?"

"It is. I flew into Shannon, leased a car." He chuckled, taking off his wire-rimmed glasses and polishing the lenses on a handkerchief. "I'm armed with the tourist's weapons of maps and guidebooks. I'll take a day or two here before heading north." He set his glasses back on his prominent nose. "I'm very much afraid I'm taking the best first, however. Miss Concannon sets an excellent table."

"You won't get an argument from me." They were sharing the dining room and a succulent salmon. "What work were you in?"

"Banking. I'm afraid I spent too much of my life worried about figures." He helped himself to another spoonful of potatoes in mustard sauce. "And you, Mr. Thane. Miss Concannon tells me you're a writer. We practical sorts always envy the creative ones. I've never taken enough time to read for pleasure, but will certainly pick up one of your books now that we've met. Are you traveling, also?"

"Not at the moment. I'm based here for now."

"Here, at the inn?"

"That's right." He glanced up as Brianna came in.

"I hope you've room for dessert." She set a large bowl of trifle on the table.

"Oh, my dear." Behind his polished lenses, Smythe-White's eyes danced with pleasure, and perhaps a little greed. "I'll be a stone heavier before I leave the room."

"I put magic in it, so the calories don't count." She dished generous portions into bowls. "I hope your room's comfortable, sir. If there's anything you need, you've only to ask."

"It's exactly what I want," he assured her. "I must come back when your garden's in bloom,"

"I hope you will." She left them a coffeepot and a decanter of brandy.

"A lovely woman," Smythe-White commented.

"Yes, she is."

"And so young to be running an establishment alone. One would think she'd have a husband, a family."

"She's nothing if not efficient." The first spoonful of trifle melted on Gray's tongue. Efficient wasn't the word, he realized. The woman was a culinary witch. "She has a sister and brother-in-law just down the road. And it's a close community. Someone's always knocking on the kitchen door."

"That's fortunate. I imagine it could be a lonely place otherwise. Still, I noticed as I was driving in that neighbors are few and far between." He smiled again. "I'm afraid I'm spoiled by the city, and not at all ashamed that I enjoy the crowds and the pace. It may take me awhile to grow accustomed to the night quiet."

"You'll have plenty of it." Gray poured brandy into a snifter, then, at his companion's nod, into a second. "I was in London not long ago. What part are you from?"

"I have a little flat near Green Park. Didn't have the heart to keep the house after Nancy went." He sighed, swirled brandy. "Let me offer some unsolicited advice, Mr. Thane. Make your days count. Don't invest all your efforts in the future. You miss too much of the now."

"That's advice I live on."

Hours later it was thoughts of leftover trifle that pulled Gray away from his warm bed and a good book. The house moaned a bit around him as he dug up a pair of sweats, pulled them on. He padded downstairs in his bare feet with greedy dreams of gorging.

It certainly wasn't his first middle-of-the-night trip to the kitchen since he'd settled into Blackthorn. None of the shadows or creaking boards disturbed him as he slipped down the hall and into the dark kitchen. He turned on the stove light, not wanting to awaken Brianna.

Then he wished he hadn't thought of her, or of the fact that she was sleeping just a wall beyond. In that long, flannel nightgown, he imagined, with the little buttons at the collar. So prim it made her look exotic-certainly it made a man, a red-blooded one, wonder about the body all that material concealed.

And if he kept thinking along those lines, all the trifle in the country wouldn't sate his appetite.

One vice at a time, pal, he told himself. And got out a bowl. A sound from the outside made him pause, listen. Just as he was about to dismiss it as old house groans, he heard the scratching.

With the bowl in one hand, he went to the kitchen door, looked out, and saw nothing but night. Suddenly the glass was filled with fur and fangs. Gray managed to stifle a yelp and keep himself from overbalancing onto his butt. On something between a curse and a laugh, he opened the door for Con.

"Ten years off my life, thanks very much." He scratched the dog's ears, and since Brianna wasn't around to see, decided to share the trifle with his canine companion.

"What do you think you're up to?"

Gray straightened, rapped his head against the cupboard door he'd failed to close. A spoonful of trifle plopped into the dog's bowl and was gobbled up.

"Nothing." Gray rubbed his throbbing head. "Jesus Christ, between you and your wolf I'll be lucky if I live to see my next birthday."

"He's not to be eating that." Brianna snatched the bowl away from Gray. "It isn't good for him."

"I was going to eat it. Now I'll settle for a bottle of aspirin."

"Sit down and I'll have a look at the knot on your head, or the hole in it, whatever the case may be."

"Very cute. Why don't you just go back to bed and-"

He never finished the thought. From his stance between them, Con abruptly tensed, snarled, and with a growl bursting from his throat leaped toward the hallway door. It was Gray's bad luck that he happened to be in the way.

The force of a hundred and seventy pounds of muscle had him reeling back and smashing into the counter. He saw stars as his elbow cracked against the wood, and dimly heard Brianna's sharp command.

"Are you hurt?" Her tone was all soothing maternal concern now. "Here now, Grayson, you've gone pale. Sit down. Con, heel!"

Ears ringing, stars circling in front of his eyes, the best Gray could do was slide into the chair Brianna held out for him. "All this for a fucking bowl of cream."

"There now, you just need to get your breath back. Let me see your arm."

"Shit!" Gray's eyes popped wide as she flexed his elbow and pain radiated out. "Are you trying to kill me just because I want to get you naked?"

"Stop that." The rebuke was mild as she tut-tutted over the bruise. "I've got some witch hazel."

"I'd rather have morphine." He blew out a breath and stared narrow-eyed at the dog. Con continued to stand, quivering and ready at the doorway. "What the hell is with him?"

"I don't know. Con, stop being a bloody fool and sit." She dampened a cloth with witch hazel. "It's probably Mr, Smythe-White. Con was out roaming when he got in. They haven't been introduced. It's likely he caught a scent."

"It's lucky the old man didn't get a yen for trifle then."

She only smiled and straightened up to look at the top of Gray's head. He had lovely hair, she thought, all gilded and silky. "Oh, Con wouldn't hurt him. He'd just corner him. There, you'll have a fine bump, you will."

"You don't have to sound so pleased about it."

"It'll teach you not to give the dog sweets. I'll just make you an ice pack and-" She squealed as Gray yanked her into his lap. The dog's ears pricked up, but he merely wandered over and sniffed at Gray's hands.

"He likes me."

"He's easily charmed. Let me up or I'll tell him to bite you."

"He wouldn't. I just gave him trifle. Let's just sit here a minute, Brie. I'm too weak to bother you."

"I don't believe that for a minute," she said under her breath, but relented.

Gray cradled her head on his shoulder and smiled when Con rested his on her lap. "This is nice "

"It is."

She felt a little crack around her heart as he held her quietly in the dim light from the stove while the house settled m sleep around them.

Chapter Six

Brianna needed a taste of spring. It was chancy, she knew, to begin too early, but the mood wouldn't pass. She gathered the seeds she'd been hording and her small portable radio and carted them out to the little shed she'd rigged as a temporary greenhouse.

It wasn't much, and she'd have been the first to admit it. No more than eight feet square with a floor of hard-packed dirt, the shed was better used for storage than planting. But she'd imposed on Murphy to put in glass and a heater. The benches she'd built herself with little skill and a great deal of pride.

There wasn't room, nor was there equipment for the kind of experimentation she dreamed of. Still, she could give her seeds an early start in the peat pots she'd ordered from a gardening supply catalog.

The afternoon was hers, after all, she told herself. Gray was closeted with his work, and Mr. Smythe-White was taking a motor tour of the Ring of Kerry. All the baking and mending were done for the day, so it was time for pleasure.

There was little that made her happier than having her hands in soil. Grunting a bit, she hefted a bag of potting mix onto the bench.

Next year, she promised herself, she'd have a professional greenhouse. Not a large one, but a fine one nonetheless. She'd take cuttings and root them, force bulbs so that she could have spring any time of year she liked. Perhaps she'd even attempt some grafting. But for the moment she was content to baby her seeds.

In days, she mused, humming along with the radio, the first tender sprigs would push through the soil. True it was a horrid expense, the luxury of fuel to warm them. It would have been wiser to use the money to have her car overhauled.

But it wouldn't be nearly so much fun.

She sowed, gently patting dirt, and let her mind drift.

How sweet Gray had been the night before, she remembered. Cuddling with her in the kitchen. It hadn't been so frightening, nor, she admitted, so exciting, as when he'd kissed her. This had been soft and soothing, and so natural it had seemed, just for a moment, that they'd belonged there together.

Once, long ago, she'd dreamed of sharing small, sweet moments like that with someone. With Rory, she thought with an old, dull pang. Then she'd believed she'd be married, have children to love, a home to tend to. What plans she'd made, she thought now, all rosy and warm with happy ever after at the end of them.

But then, she'd only been a girl, and in love. A girl in love believed anything. Believed everything. She wasn't a girl now.