Courting Kate (23 page)

She spat out a mouthful and swiped at the rest. “I’ll get you for that.” She dipped her hand into the drift, then pelted him with a snowball of her own.

“Ow-w, that’s cold,” he yelled, trying to remove a wad from inside his shirt. “Let’s see how you like it.” He stuffed a handful down her jacket front.
 

“Yeow,” she squealed. “That’s not fair. I can’t reach it to get it out.” She squirmed beneath him. “Oh-h. Help me.”

He yanked off his glove and slid a hand beneath her shirt to try to remove the snowball. What he came up with was a palm full of warm, soft flesh. He froze.

She sucked in a breath. Startled violet eyes met his gaze.

“I, uh, I...” He couldn’t remember what he was trying to say. Or what he’d been attempting to do. He swallowed, feeling himself being mesmerized by those deep, dark pools. Try as he might, he couldn’t let go of her. And he was too far gone to make any attempt to get up.
 

She shyly lowered her lashes, then nervously moistened her lips.

God, she was beautiful, and soft. So damned soft. He felt every dip, every womanly curve of her body. He also felt every quiver, every stiffening awareness of his own arousal pressed into her. He fought the desire, even knowing as he did so that he was fast losing the battle.
 

Still, he struggled. He didn’t want this. He didn’t need it. It would change nothing. Snow and ice surrounded him, but it didn’t help to cool the damnable heat burning inside him. He may as well have been lying in a current of molten fire.

She waited, her eyes locked on his. “Tanner,” she whispered, then her arms slowly crept up and around his neck and Tanner knew he was lost.

A low moan rumbled from his throat as he reluctantly surrendered. The kiss was as inevitable as daylight following darkness and just as explosive. Once he started kissing her, it was impossible to stop. He kissed her fiercely, angrily, bruising her mouth with his fury. Yet he still felt her sweet response.

He raised his head. The gentle reproach in her eyes filled him with shame and unexpected longing. He kissed her again, this time with an odd tenderness. He didn’t know where it came from, and he didn’t welcome it. He didn’t like feeling this helpless, this vulnerable.
 

His body trembled with desperate need, making him want to tear aside her clothes and bury himself deep inside her. But he wouldn’t. Somehow this thing between them had become more than physical lust. It had opened doors long closed, releasing emotions filled with anguish and yearning. He didn’t want to put a name to it. He refused to even try.

Tempted beyond reason, he bent his head to her full red lips. She tasted even sweeter than he remembered, and he remembered every single bit. He explored every sensitive crevice, then his tongue made slow, tentative love to hers. He kissed her lips, her nose, her eyelids.
 

Sighing with pleasure, she brought his mouth back to hers. This time their tongues mated with a fierce hunger. He bent his head and blazed a trail of kisses from her chin to the valley at the base of her throat.

Her pulse fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings against his lips. Her breast, still held captive in his hand, swelled. Her nipple jutted into his palm.
 

She tugged at the fastenings on her shirt. One button, then another, flew off to be lost in the snow.

He slipped the others from their moorings, then parted the garment and bared their hidden treasures. High and proud, her breasts reminded him of coral-tipped mountains of snow.

She tightened her fingers in his hair and pulled him toward one rosy nipple. He took it between his teeth and teased it with his tongue. She moaned when he closed his mouth around the crest and suckled like a hungry babe. Then he moved to the other peak, conquering it, too. He kissed her tenderly, thoroughly, choosing this way to show her his feelings.

Purring in satisfaction, she rained kisses upon his head and murmured love words in his ear.

His breathing ragged, he raised his head to look at her.
 

Her eyes warm with passion, she raised a hand and touched his cheek. “Tanner....” The beguiling look she gave him was almost his undoing.

It would be so easy to make love to her—too easy. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He also knew she could never be his.

Clamping down on his rampaging emotions, he shook his head. “I don’t have the right. Someday when you go to your marriage bed, you’ll be grateful I didn’t. The man who claims you for his own will consider himself the luckiest hombre on this earth.”
 

“What if I never get married?”

He gently smoothed a lock of hair back from her face. “That would purely be a shame.” Avoiding her accusing gaze, he untangled himself and backed off of her. True to the vow he’d made in the snow that day when he’d prayed, Kate would leave the mountain the same way she came, a virgin.

Once he could remain upright, Tanner took off his skis. Then, after removing hers, he helped Kate to her feet.
 

Her nose and cheeks growing red from the cold, she tried to repress a shiver. “What happened...”

“Was a mistake,” he said grimly. “Better get you dressed before you freeze to death.” He reached to help her.
 

“Don’t touch me,” she said, jerking away. She buttoned the bottom of her shirt and tucked it into her pants. She lapped over the shirt top with its missing buttons and covered with her coat.

He knew he had hurt her, and he felt bad about that. But if he had let things go any further, they both would have lived to regret it.
 

“Considering it’s all uphill, it’ll be easier if we walk back.” He picked up the skis and handed her a set of poles. “These might help you keep your balance. I’ll break the way, and you can follow.”

She looked so small, so dejected, it was all he could do to not gather her into his arms. But it wouldn’t help him, and it wouldn’t help her.

Telling himself he was doing the right thing, he turned away. His boots crunching through the knee-deep snow, he made a trail toward the house.
 

Chapter 16

The next few days the sun shone brightly, melting the snow into scattered patches, and Tanner resumed his work. The unseasonable warmth would help him make up the days he hadn’t been able to get into the woods. It also gave him a reason to avoid being with Kate.
 

She’d been quiet, withdrawn, since that day in the meadow snow. She’d watch him with haunted eyes, her face expressing such longing that it was almost more than he could endure.

Even though he wanted to take her in his arms, and beg her to stay, he wouldn’t. He’d thought about it long and hard, marriage and all that it entailed. He’d seen the way she had reacted to John’s illness. What if it had happened to a child of her own? Life on the mountain was lived close to the edge, with death only a breath away from life. How could he marry her, subject her to that?

He couldn’t. He loved her, and because he loved her he would do what was best for her. In the long run, she would be grateful that he had. Sighing, he hoisted the ax and drove it into the tree. It was dealing with the present that was so damned difficult.

Of course there were blessings to be counted. John was back to being his impish self, and the bickering between the three older boys was worse than ever. Everything had returned to normal.

Everything but him.
 

Tanner knew with the snow melting as much as it had, he could take Kate back to Jacksonville. Somehow, he couldn’t make himself do it. He would prolong the sweet torture of enduring her presence, knowing she could never be his. Storing up memories, memories that would have to last him a lifetime. Rather that, than not having her here at all.
 

Kate didn’t know she could leave, and Tanner had instructed the boys not to tell her. His brothers had made it plain that they wanted her to stay on the mountain. They were also angry that he would not do something to keep her there permanently.
 

They didn’t know about the mortgage, or how close they were to losing the mountain and their home. He’d never told them. And he wouldn’t, because there was nothing they could do about the situation. If they knew, they would probably do something foolish, something desperate, and make matters even worse.

True to his promise to the mine owner, he had sent one batch of logs down the mountain. But with the weather delaying the cutting, he was behind on the work, far from completing the contract. Too far. A knot of worry tightened his middle, making him increase his pace. He’d pray for a miracle, but figured his store of miracles had been used up with John’s illness. As long as he could put one foot in front of the other, chip one more chip from the bark of the tree, Tanner wouldn’t bother the Almighty with his personal problems. He would do it on his own.

He labored until full dark, then packed his gear onto the mules by lantern light. After pausing only long enough to use that same light to thaw his half-frozen hands, he extinguished the lantern, saving the oil for another day. Weary of body and spirit, he mounted his horse, picked up the lead rope and headed for home.
 

A crescent moon spilled its pale light through the tree branches overhead, dappling the snow-covered trail with glitters of silver. The moonlight made the shadows even darker, more impenetrable. Once, he caught the gleam of some forest creature’s eyes. Deer, he decided, when his pack animals showed no fear.

Tanner raised his head and gazed at the narrow strip of sky revealed between the towering evergreens. Untold numbers of stars sparkled against the ebony canopy. The brilliance of the stars and the absence of clouds told him it would be very cold tonight. It would also be clear tomorrow.
 

The trail narrowed. Wet branches, and a tangle of wild blackberry vines, brushed the flanks of his horse. Tanner reached down to free his pant leg from one of the thorny lengths. The gelding danced nervously, then came to a halt. The mules planted their feet and strained against the rope.

The critters had never liked this section of trail even when it wasn’t overgrown with brush as it was now. Tanner knew their skittishness tonight had nothing to do with the thick undergrowth. Eyes squinted, he peered into the blackness. He couldn’t see it. But he could smell it. Musky, rank. A bear.

The horse squealed and sidestepped.
 

“Whoa, son,” Tanner crooned, hoping his voice would stop his gelding and the mules from bolting. He slid his rifle from the scabbard.
 

A deep
wuff-wuff
came from a stand of trees. Limbs swished. Cracked. A bulky dark shape left the shadows and came to a halt on the moonlit path.
 

A yearling, he guessed, judging the bear’s size. The springlike weather must have made it leave the den.

The bear rose to its full height and peered toward him. It tilted its shaggy head to one side as if puzzled by what it saw.

The gelding and the mules, recognizing the scent of an old enemy, trembled and fought to run. Only Tanner’s firm grip held them in check.

He’d hunted from the horse before: it knew the sound of a rifle. But the mules... If he fired the gun, they might break the rope. Besides, he didn’t want to kill the bear if it wasn’t necessary. “Go, on. Git!” he yelled, waving his weapon.

The bear didn’t git. It took a step closer.

Tanner couldn’t back up the horse because the mules were behind him. Besides, the trail was too narrow. He couldn’t just sit there and let the bear walk right up to him, either.

If his shot only wounded the bear without killing it, he would really be in trouble. Spotting a large, dead limb over the bear’s head, Tanner hoisted the gun to his shoulder and took aim. He squeezed the trigger.

The rifle roared.
 

The mules hauled back on the rope and bucked.
 

The severed branch fell, striking the startled bruin on the head. The bear dropped to all fours. Then it wheeled and bounded into the darkness, crashing through brittle brush. The noise faded as the bear got farther away.

“Whew. Glad that’s over.” Tanner put the gun back into the rifle boot, then nudged his horse forward. He was anxious to get home. The boys would have heard the gunshot. One or more of them would be coming out to see what was wrong.

He’d covered about a mile when he saw a light bobbing toward him.
 

“Tanner? Tanner, is that you?”

“We heard a shot.”

“It’s all right,” he shouted. When he got closer he saw Matt and Mark. Both were armed.
 

“Thought you might need help,” Mark panted out.
 

“What was it?” Matt asked.

“A yearling bear,” Tanner said, chuckling. “He was as surprised to see me as I was him. It was a standoff for a while, but the shot scared him off. He’s probably still running.” “Kate wanted to come, too. Luke practically had to hog-tie her to keep her in the house.”

“What did she think she could do?” Tanner asked. “She can’t shoot.”