Dangerous Lover (4 page)

Caroline came out wearing lined boots, a wool cap and an eiderdown coat that reached almost to her ankles. Even bundled up so much it could have been a man or a Martian in there, she was so desirable it hurt. He watched her walk gracefully to a wall panel, switch off the lights and open the door.

Her gasp was loud even over the roar of the wind.

It was like opening a gateway to a freezing cold hell. The wind had risen and was howling like a tortured soul in the deepest reaches of the underworld, driving painful needles of sleet that stung the skin. It was so cold it stole the breath out of your lungs.

“Oh my God!” Recoiling as if someone had slapped her, Caroline stepped back straight into Jack’s arms.

Jack pulled Caroline farther into the room and fought the wind for control of the door. He actually had to put some muscle into it. He leaned against it, held out his hand and put command in his voice. “Give me your car keys.”

Just that brief exposure had Caroline shivering. It took her several tries to open her purse, but she made it and dropped a set of car keys in his palm. Then blinked at her obedience. “Why—”

“You’ll freeze to death out there. What make is your car and where did you park it? I’ll bring it around and park right
out front so you don’t have to walk around in this weather.”

Caroline looked confused. “A green Fiat. It’s parked just around the corner to the right. But listen, you’re not dressed for the—”

She was talking to thin air.

I am either very lucky or very crazy
, Caroline thought, shivering in her coat. Just thirty seconds exposed to the swirling freezing hell out there, and it felt as if she’d spent the winter camping in the Antarctic. She was chilled to her bones.

Lucky or crazy? Which was it?

Lucky was a strong contender because she needed the $500 desperately, and it had fallen into her lap from the sky on a day when she could never have hoped to find a new boarder. Paying off Toby’s medical bills had required taking out a huge loan against Greenbriars, and the money from her boarders was essential. She couldn’t possibly make the mid-January payment without the $500 in rent.

She’d been heartsick four days ago when old Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had come down to breakfast to announce that
we’re so sorry honey
,
but we’re moving out
. They were supposed to stay until May, until renovation work on their home was
completed. But Mr. Kipping had lost several chapters of his biography of Alexander Hamilton to a short circuit somewhere in the house and, the crowning blow, Mrs. Kipping had contracted bronchitis because of the frequent breakdowns of the boiler.

There was no money at all to pay an electrician to test the wiring to find the source of the short circuit, and Caroline could probably fly to the moon more easily than she could afford a new boiler.

She’d still be paying off debts when she was eighty. If she lived that long. So far, her family’s batting average in terms of extended life expectancy wasn’t too encouraging.

Mrs. Kipping had been in tears at the thought of leaving, and it had taken all of Caroline’s self-control not to break into tears herself. The Kippings were a lovely couple and had been with her for almost a year. They’d been delightful company and had provided enormous comfort to her during Toby’s last days. Caroline didn’t know how she could have faced coming home to an empty house from the hospital. And after Toby’s funeral…she shivered.

In the beginning, the Kippings often remarked that they could never remodel their home into anything as beautiful as Greenbriars. That was before the lost files, the constant cold showers and waking up to ice in the bathroom sink. Caroline knew that Mr. and Mrs. Kipping were very fond of her and loved her cooking and that it was only Mrs. Kipping’s bout of bronchitis that forced their decision. Anna Kipping was fragile and Marcus, her husband, was afraid of losing her.

Still, he’d had tears in his eyes at leaving, too.

Finding a new boarder on Christmas Eve in this terrible weather was like a wonderful miracle.

Not to mention the biggie—not being alone on Christmas Day. The day she’d lost her parents to a hideous car accident. The day Toby was so injured he never walked again. It had taken him six pain-filled years to die.

So that was the lucky theory.

Then, of course, there was the crazy theory, which was probably the correct one. She
was
probably crazy to accept a man who looked as dangerous as Jack Prescott into her home and, as if that wasn’t enough, handing him the keys to her car half an hour after meeting him.

Marcus and Anna Kipping had been the safest people on the face of the earth—two darlings in their late sixties whose worst vices were Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream and an unholy passion for Gilbert & Sullivan. Marcus could recite the lyrics to
H.M.S. Pinafore
at the drop of a hat.

Jack Prescott, on the other hand, looked anything but safe. She’d felt her heart speed up as they talked, ridiculous as that sounded. Yes, he looked rather scary. He was rough-looking, tall, with the kind of muscles you can’t buy in a gym and an air of rocklike toughness.

He was also attractive as hell, which was something she’d never encountered in her boarders. Frightening, but sexy. So there might be a third theory to add to the lucky or crazy explanations—sudden hormonal overload.

When she’d briefly touched his arm, a shiver had run down her spine. She’d felt the steely muscle through his shirt and jacket, the hardest man she’d ever touched. And a flash of
heat had run through her at the idea that he was probably as hard as that…all over.

Not that he’d done anything to make her uncomfortable, other than being so frighteningly large and…and dangerous-looking.

The exact opposite of Marcus Kipping, with his predilection for cardigans encasing sloped shoulders and thin arms. Jack Prescott’s massive musculature was visible through a shirt and a jacket. He was the most thoroughly male man she’d ever met and sexy as hell.

And Caroline, who never lied to herself, realized that in the end, it was the reason she’d said yes. God help her, that flash of heat had been the reason she’d said yes. It had been so long since she’d felt it.

If she had the sense God gave a duck, she should have said no to him. No to him as a boarder and certainly no to handing over the car keys to a perfect stranger. Who knew who he was? Maybe he was a serial killer or…or a war veteran suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and who would one day soon crack and climb a tower and start sniping at passersby. Maybe one day they’d find her lifeless body in a pool of blood, or he’d make off with what very little family silver remained.

No one took in a boarder without references. Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had been recommended by the head of her bank and had known her parents.

Who knew Jack Prescott?

But his deep voice had been so calm, that big body so still. And the look of grief that had crossed his face when he spoke
of his father’s death…that had been real, and deep. Caroline recognized true grief—she was the world’s greatest expert.

He looked scruffy and tired, as if he’d been traveling for a long time. His jacket was way too light for the gelid temperature outside, and his clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. His boots were old and worn. Those old boots had been the last straw.

They were the boots of a man down on his luck.

Caroline knew all about being down on your luck.

There was something else about the man, too, besides his sexiness and steadiness. Something almost…familiar. Which only reinforced the crazy theory, because she’d never set eyes on him before in her life. She’d never even set eyes on anyone
like
him before.

None of the men she knew had hands that large and that strong, or shoulders that broad. None of the men she knew moved with an athletic grace and tensely coiled energy, like a blaze that was temporarily banked but could flare into life at any moment.

Not in the military anymore, he’d said, but he still had a military bearing—square-shouldered, ramrod-straight back, great economy of movement. And saying
ma’am
all the time. It was sweet, but not exactly the favored mode of address of men talking to women in the twenty-first century. Obviously, living with a colonel for a father had rubbed off on him.

The man she knew best was Sanders McCullin, and he was as far from Jack Prescott as it was possible to be. Sanders was tall, though not as tall as Jack, blond, classically handsome and impossibly elegant.

If Caroline had only half the money Sanders spent each month on clothes, her financial worries would be over. Of course her financial problems could be over tomorrow, Sanders made that clear enough, particularly now that poor Toby was gone. If she married Sanders and became Mrs. McCullin, life would go back to what it had been before her parents died. Safe, secure, comfortably wealthy.

On bad days, like this one, with the Kippings gone, the possibility of coming home to a freezing house that would stay freezing until Monday afternoon because the Jerk was the only person on earth who could coax her boiler back to temporary life, and he didn’t make house calls on holidays, a Christmas Eve with no sales at all, the prospect of being alone on Christmas Day, of all the days in the year—well, on days like this, the thought of marrying Sanders made a lot of sense.

Except, of course, for the minor fact that her skin crawled at the thought of kissing him, let alone sleeping with him, which just went to show that she
was
crazy. Half the women in town wanted to sleep with Sanders, and the other half already had, putting Caroline, as always, in the minority.

And now, in a bid to shore up the crazy theory, she’d just given a man she didn’t know her car keys. The only things she knew about Jack Prescott were that he was a stranger in town and had very little money. Knowing that, what did she do?

Hand him the keys, politely, because he’d asked.

How smart was that?

If he stole her car, how could she get home? She’d be stranded until the weather cleared, with only the weeks-old yogurt,
Diet Coke and wizened apple in her small fridge for food. There was no way a taxi would come out in this weather and—

A sharp rap on the window made her jump. A second later, Jack Prescott was back in the room, covered in snow. His long black hair was dusted with white. Even his black eyelashes had turned white. He gave no sign of being cold, however. He gave no sign of even being uncomfortable. He looked exactly as he had before—tough and self-contained.

“I’ve got the car parked right outside.” He was so close Caroline had to tip her head back to meet his eyes. “It’s hell out there, so we’ll have to hurry. Are you warm enough in that coat?”

That was rich, coming from someone wearing a denim jacket. “Yes, I’ll be fine.” She shifted her heavy briefcase from one hand to another, surprised when he simply took it from her. He was already carrying his own duffel bag and a suitcase. “That’s okay,” she protested. “I can carry that.”

He didn’t even answer. “Do you need to engage the security system before we go out?”

Security system. Right. Uh-huh. As if she had $3,000 to spare for a security system to stave off wild-eyed thieves just slavering to rob her complete collection of Jane Austens and all her Nora Robertses.

“No. I—uh, I just lock the door.” She held up the Yale key. “It’s got a dead bolt, though.”

He just looked at her, dark eyes fathomless, then nodded as he took the key. “Okay. I’ll lock up. If you’ve got gloves, put them on. I left the engine running, so the car is warm. Let’s make it quick.”

He seemed to have just…assumed command. The Army and that colonel father had really imprinted him.

Still, the idea of having someone else in the car with her in this weather was such a relief. Bad weather terrified her, and this weather was off the charts. Her Fiat was temperamental and ornery and used to the temperate climate of Italy. It intensely disliked being taken out in the cold. Breaking down in the middle of a snowstorm was just the kind of thing her car enjoyed doing.

At least she’d have her new boarder with her if the worst happened. Jack Prescott looked strong enough to get the car to Greenbriars by looping his belt around the front fender and pulling, if it broke down on the way.

He had his hand on the door handle, watching her. “Okay?” he asked quietly. Caroline nodded, and he opened the door for her. “Let’s go.”

It was exactly like being punched in the face and stomach by a giant, frozen fist. A step outside the door, and Caroline couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of her face. The snow was falling thickly, wildly, in great sweeping sheets, punctuated by needles of sleet blown sideways. She couldn’t hear anything above the howling of the wind, and the cold penetrated so absolutely, she froze on the spot. Her muscles simply wouldn’t obey her.

Something hard across her back propelled her forward. Her feet scrambled to keep up, slipping a little on the ice coating the sidewalk. She couldn’t even see the car, though she knew the road was only a few feet away.

A savage gust of wind whipped sleet into her eyes, and
she lost her footing. She stumbled and would have fallen if Jack hadn’t caught her. He simply picked her up one-armed, opened the door of the car, settled her into the driver’s seat and closed the door. A few seconds later, the passenger door opened, and he slid in.

Caroline tried to catch her breath, pulling in the heated air of the car to warm her lungs.

Thank God it
was
warm in the car. Those few seconds outside had been enough to frighten her to death. She could hardly move except to shiver for long moments. Even through her gloves, her hands were so frozen she could barely feel the wheel.

Caroline clutched the steering wheel, shaken. “My God,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She looked across at the big man quietly watching her. He seemed to fill more than half her small car. “Thank you for getting me here. I don’t know if I could have managed on my own. They would have found my dead, frozen body outside the shop door.”

“No problem.” He ratcheted the car seat as far back as it would go to accommodate his long legs and buckled up. “But we’d better get going. It’s not getting any better.”

No kidding. “Okay.”

It occurred to Caroline that the instant she’d crossed the threshold, all thoughts had fled her brain—the cold had simply wiped her mind clear. She hadn’t even checked to see that Jack locked up—hadn’t even thought about it. He had—she remembered now hearing the snick of the lock turning behind her, but if she’d been on her own, she’d have simply
slammed the door shut—or not. And the shop would have been open all weekend.

And thank God Jack had gone to get the car. She might easily have missed it, wandering up and down the sidewalk, blinded by the snow until she ended up a dead frozen lump in the street.

Her little Fiat was humming under her feet, rocking slightly from the wind. Caroline stared ahead in dismay through the snow-covered window, groping for the stick shift and switching on the windshield wipers. It took a full minute to shift the snow on the windshield. The snow was so heavy she couldn’t see past the hood. There was a lamppost next to the car, she knew, but she couldn’t see it.

What a nightmare.

Jack was looking at her quietly. “Do you want me to drive?” It was as if he could read her mind.

Oh God
,
yes!
The words were there, waiting to tumble out. Caroline bit her lips to keep them back. She wanted desperately to relinquish the wheel. Bad-weather driving scared her. Bad weather led to accidents. Her parents had died in a blizzard just like this one, when their car slid into an intersection, straight into an oncoming truck…
don’t think of that.