First Impressions (8 page)

“‘That Abbot girl,' they'd say,” Shane told him, rubbing at a spot on his jawline. “Now I have to convince them I'm an upstanding citizen so they'll forget I filched their apples and buy my antiques. No one takes a hooligan very seriously. There, that's better.” Satisfied, Shane started to lower her hand. Vance caught it in his. Her eyes didn't waver from his, but she became very still.

Without speaking, he began to wash the few lingering traces of mud from her face. He worked in very slow, very deliberate circles, his eyes fixed on hers. Though his palm was rough, his touch was gentle. Shane's lips trembled apart. With something like curiosity, Vance took a damp finger to trace their shape. He felt her quick, convulsive shudder. Still slow, still inquisitive, he ran his fingertip along the inside of her bottom lip. Under his thumb, the pulse in her wrist began to hammer. The sun broke briefly through the clouds, so that the light shifted and brightened before it dimmed again. He watched it play over her face.

“You won't run away this time, Shane,” he murmured, as if to himself.

She said nothing, afraid to speak while his finger lingered on her lips. Slowly, he traced it down, over her chin, over the throbbing pulse in her throat. He paused there a moment, as if gauging and enjoying her response to him. Then he allowed his fingertip to sweep up over the swell of her breast and lie lightly on the erect peak covered only by the thin wet shirt.

Heat and cold shot through her; her skin was chilled from the water; her blood flamed at his touch. Vance watched the color drain from her face while her eyes grew impossibly large and dark. Yet she didn't draw away or protest the intimacy. He heard the sharp intake of her breath, then the slow, ragged expulsion.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, bringing his hand up to cup the back of her neck.

“No,” she whispered. “Of me.”

Puzzled, he drew his brows together. For a moment he looked hard and very fierce. Though his eyes weren't cold, they were piercing—full of questions, full of suspicion. Still Shane felt no fear of him, only of the needs and longing running through her. “An odd answer, Shane,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You're an odd woman.” With his fingers, he kneaded the back of her neck while he searched her face for answers. “Is that why you excite me?”

“I don't know,” she said, struggling for breath. “I don't want to know. Just kiss me.”

He lowered his lips, but only tested hers with the same lightness as his fingertip. “I wonder,” he said softly against her mouth, “what it is about you I can't quite shake. Your taste?” He dug his teeth almost experimentally into her bottom lip. A low moan of pleasure was wrenched from her. “Fresh as rain one minute and honey soaked the next.” Lightly, languidly, he traced her lips with his tongue. “Is it the way you feel? That skin of yours . . . like the underside of a rose petal.” He ran his hands down her arms, then up again, gradually bringing her to him until she was caught close. The thud of her heart sounded like thunder in her ears.

“Why do you have to know?” The question was low and shaky. “Feeling's enough.” They might have been naked, pressed body to body with only wet clinging clothes between them. “Kiss me, Vance, just kiss me. It's enough.”

“You smell like rain now,” he murmured, telling himself to resist her but knowing he wouldn't. “Pure and honest. When I look in your eyes, I'd swear there isn't a lie in you. Is there?” he demanded, but he crushed his mouth to hers before she could answer.

Shane reeled from the impact. Even as she gasped, his tongue was probing and exploring. The anger she had sensed in him before was now pure passion. Hunger, the rawness of his hunger, thrilled her. The water ran swiftly, grumbling as it hurried on its way to the river, but Shane heard only her own heartbeat. She no longer felt the stinging cold, only the warmth of his hand as it ran up her spine and down again.

He wasn't content with only her lips now, but took his own wild journey of her face. It was still wet, tasting of the cold freshness of the creek. But wherever his kisses wandered, he was drawn back again to the soft, sweet taste of her mouth. It seemed always to be waiting for him, ready to open, invite, demand. Beneath the pliancy, beneath the willingness was a passion as great as his own and a strength he was just beginning to measure.

Vance told himself he needed a woman. That was why he was so desperate for Shane. He needed a woman's softness and flavor, and she was here. There was no exclusivity to it. How could there be? Yet there was something about her slight body, her fascinatingly different taste that drove every other woman to some dark corner of his mind, leaving only Shane in the light.

He could take her now, on the bank of the creek, in the dim daylight on the rain-damp grass. As her mouth moved, moist and warm under his, Vance could imagine how it would be to take full possession of her body. Her energy and hunger would match his own. There would be no false, foolish pretense of seduction, but an honest meeting of desires.

Her small round breasts pressed into his naked chest. Vance thought he could feel the aching need in them—or was it his own need? It raged in him, drove at him, until she was all he craved. Her mouth was small too, but avid, never retreating from the savageness of his. Instead, she matched it, propelling him further and further, pulling him closer and closer. All women or one woman, he was no longer certain, but she was overpowering him.

Somehow he knew that if he took her, he would never walk away easily. The reasons might not be fully clear yet, but she wasn't like the other women he had known and bedded. He was afraid her eager hands and mouth could hold him—and he wasn't yet ready to chance it.

Vance drew her away, but Shane dropped her head on his chest. There was something vulnerable in the gesture though the arms around his waist were strong. The contrast aroused him, as did the lightning fast beat of her heart. For a moment, he stood holding her while the water ran cold and fast around their legs and hazy sunlight drifted through the trees.

She'd once told him that a snowfall had made her feel complete isolation. Vance felt it now. There might have been nothing, no one beyond the rushing creek and fringe of trees. And to his own confusion, he felt a need for none. He wanted only her. Perhaps they were alone . . . The thought both excited and disturbed him. Perhaps there was nothing beyond that forgotten little spot, and no reason not to take what he wanted.

Shane shivered, making him realize she must be chilled to the bone. It brought him back to reality in a rush. His arms dropped away from her.

“Come on,” he muttered. “You should get inside.” Vance pulled her up the slippery bank.

Shane bent over to pick up her boots. When she was certain she could do so calmly, she met his eyes. “You're not coming in.” It wasn't a question. She had sensed all too well his change of attitude.

“No.” His tone was cool again though his blood still throbbed for her. “I'll go change, then come back and get started on the porch.”

Shane had known he would bring her pain, but she hadn't thought it would be so soon. The old wounds of rejection opened again. “All right. If I'm not here, just do whatever you have to do.”

Vance could feel the hurt, yet she met his eyes and her voice was steady. Recriminations he could have dealt with easily. Anger he would have welcomed. For the first time in years, he was completely baffled by a woman.

“You know what would happen if I came in now.” The words were rough with impatience. Vance found himself wanting to shake her.

“Yes.”

“Is that what you want?”

Shane said nothing for a moment. When she smiled, the light didn't reach her eyes. “It's not what you want,” she said quietly. Turning, she started back to the house, but Vance caught her arm, spinning her around. He was furious now, all the more furious when he saw the effort her composure was costing her.

“Damn it, Shane, you're a fool if you think I don't want you.”

“You don't want to want me,” she returned evenly. “That's more important to me.”

“What difference does it make?” he ground out impatiently. Frustrated by the calmness of her answer, he did shake her. How could she look at him with those big quiet eyes when she'd driven him to the wall only moments before? “You know how close I came to taking you right here on the ground. Isn't it enough to know you can push me to that? What more do you want?”

She gave him a long searching look. “Push you to it,” she repeated quietly. “Is that really how you see it?”

The conflict raged in him. He wanted badly to get away from her. “Yes,” he said bitterly. “How else?”

“How else,” she agreed with a shaky laugh that started a new ache moving in him. “I suppose for some that might be a compliment of sorts.”

“If you like,” he said curtly as he picked up his shirt.

“I don't,” she murmured. “But then, you said I was odd.” With a sigh, she stared into his eyes. “You've cut yourself off from your feelings, Vance, and it eats at you.”

“You don't know a damn thing,” he tossed back, only more enraged to hear her speak the truth.

As he glared at her, Shane heard a bird set up a strident song in the woods behind her. The high, piercing notes suited the air of tension and anger. “You're not nearly as hard or cold as you'd like to think,” she said calmly.

“You don't know anything about me,” he countered furiously, grabbing her arms again.

“And it infuriates you when the guard slips,” Shane continued without breaking rhythm. “It infuriates you even more that you might actually feel something for me.” His fingers loosened on her arms, and Shane drew away. “I don't push you, but something else certainly does. No, I don't know what it is, but you do.” She took a long steadying breath as she studied him. “You've got to fight your own tug-of-war, Vance.”

Turning, she walked to the house, leaving him staring after her.

Chapter 7

He couldn't stop thinking of her. In the weeks that passed, the mountains became a riot of color. The air took on the nip of fall. Twice, Vance spotted deer through his own kitchen window. And he couldn't stop thinking of her.

He split his time between the two houses. His own was taking shape slowly. Vance calculated he would be ready to start the more detailed inside work by winter.

Shane's was progressing more quickly. Between roofers and plumbers, the house had been bedlam for more than a week. The old kitchen had been gutted and stood waiting for new paint and trim. Shane had waited patiently for rain after the roof had been repaired. Then she had checked all the familiar spots for signs of leaks. Oddly, she found herself a trifle sad that she didn't have to set out a single pan or bucket.

The museum area was completely finished. While Vance worked elsewhere, Shane busied herself arranging and filling the display cases that had been delivered.

At times she would be gone for hours, hunting up treasures at auctions and estate sales. He always knew the moment she returned because the house would spring to life again. In the basement, she'd set up a workroom where she refinished certain pieces or stored others. He saw her dash out or dash in. He saw her carting tables, dragging packing boxes, climbing ladders. He never saw her idle.

Her attitude toward him was just as it had been from the first—friendly and open. Not once did she mention what had happened between them. It took all of his strength of will not to touch her. She laughed, brought him coffee and gave him amusing accounts of her adventures at auctions. He wanted her more every time he looked at her.

Now, as he finished up the trim on what had been the summer parlor, Vance knew she was downstairs. He went over his work critically, checking for flaws, while the simple awareness of her played havoc with his concentration. It might be wise, he thought, to take a trip back to Washington. So far, he had handled everything pertaining to his company by phone or mail. There was nothing urgent that required his attention, but he wondered if it wouldn't be wise to have a week of distance. She was haunting him. Plaguing him, Vance corrected. On a wave of frustration he packed his tools. The woman was trouble, he decided. Nothing but trouble.

Still, as he got ready to leave, Vance detoured to the basement steps. He hesitated, cursed himself, then started down.

Dressed in baggy cord jeans and a hip-length sweater, she was working on a tilt-top table. Vance had seen the table when Shane had first brought it in. It had been scarred and scratched and dull. Flushed with excitement, she had claimed to have bought it for a song, then had hustled it off to the basement. Now, the grain of mahogany gleamed through the thin coats of clear lacquer she had applied. She was industriously buffing it with paste wax. The basement smelled of tung oil and lemon.

Vance would have turned to go back upstairs, but Shane raised her head and saw him. “Hi!” Her smile welcomed him before she gestured him over. “Come take a look. You're the expert on wood.” As he crossed the room, Shane stood back to survey her work. “The hardest thing now,” she muttered as she twisted a curl around her finger, “is going to be parting with it. I'll make a nice profit. I only paid a fraction of its worth.”

Vance ran a fingertip over the surface. It was baby smooth and flawless. His mother had a similar piece in the drawing room of her Washington estate. Since he had purchased it for her himself, he knew the value. He also knew the difference between an amateur job of refinishing and an expert one. This hadn't been done haphazardly. “Your time's worth something,” he commented. “And your talent. It would have cost a good deal to have this done.”

“Yes, but I enjoy it, so it doesn't count.”

Vance lifted his eyes. “You're in business to make money, aren't you?”

“Yes, of course.” Shane snapped the lid back on the can of paste wax. “I love the smell of this stuff.”

“You won't make a lot of money if you don't consider your own time and labor.”

“I don't need to make a lot of money.” She placed the can on a shelf, then examined the ladder-back chair, which needed recaning. “I need to pay bills and stock my shop and have a bit left over to play with.” Turning the chair upside down, she frowned at the frayed hole in the center of the seat. “I wouldn't know what to do with a lot of money.”

“You'd find something,” Vance said dryly. “Clothes, furs.”

Shane glanced up, saw he was serious, then burst out laughing. “Furs? Oh, yes, I can see myself waltzing into the general store to buy milk in a mink. Vance, you're a riot.”

“I've never known a woman who didn't appreciate a mink,” he countered.

“Then you've known the wrong women,” she said lightly as she set the chair upright again. “I know this man in Boonsboro who does caning and rushing. I'll have to give him a call. Even if I had the time, I wouldn't know where to begin on this.”

“What kind of woman are you?”

Shane's thoughts came back from her ladder-back chair. When she looked at him again, she noted that Vance's expression was cynical. She sighed. “Vance, why do you always look for complications?”

“Because they're always there,” he returned.

She shook her head, keeping her hands on the top rung of the chair's back. “I'm exactly the kind of woman I seem to be. Perhaps that's too simple for you, but it's true.”

“The kind who's content to work twelve hours a day just for enough money to get by on?” Vance demanded. “The kind who's willing to slave away hour after hour—”

“I don't slave,” Shane interrupted testily.

“The hell you don't. I've watched you. Dragging furniture, lugging boxes, scrubbing on your hands and knees.” Remembering only made him angrier. She was too small to labor the way he had seen over the past weeks. The fact that he wanted to insist she stop only infuriated him further. “Damn it, Shane, it's too much for you to handle by yourself.”

“I know what I'm capable of,” she tossed back, springing to her own defense. “I'm not a child.”

“No, you're a woman who doesn't crave furs or all the niceties an attractive female can have if she plays her cards right.” The words were cool with sarcasm.

Temper sprang into Shane's eyes. Struggling not to explode, she turned away from him. “Do you think everyone has a game to play, Vance?”

“And some play better than others” was his response.

“Oh, I feel sorry for you,” she said tightly. “Really very sorry.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Because I know that grabbing all they can get is what motivates people? Only a fool settles for less.”

“I wonder if you really believe that,” she murmured. “I wonder if you really could.”

“I wonder why you pretend to believe otherwise,” he retorted.

“I'm going to tell you a little story.” When she turned back, her eyes were dark with anger. “A man like you will probably find it corny and a bit boring, but you'll just have to listen anyway.” Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she paced the low-ceilinged room until she was certain she could continue.

“Do you see these?” Shane demanded, indicating a row of shelves that held filled mason jars. “My grandmother—technically, she was my great-grandmother—canned these. Putting by, she always called it. She'd dig and hoe and plant and weed, then spend hours in a hot, steamy kitchen canning. Putting by,” Shane repeated more quietly as she studied the colorful glass jars. “When she was sixteen, she lived in a mansion in southern Maryland. Her family was very wealthy. They still are,” Shane added with a shrug. “The Bristols. The Leonardtown Bristols. You might have heard of them.”

He had, and though his eyes registered surprise, he said nothing. Bristols Department Stores were scattered strategically all over the country. It was a very old, very prestigious firm that catered to the wealthy and the prominent. Even now, Vance's firm was contracted to build another branch in Chicago.

“In any case,” Shane continued, “she was a young, beautiful, pampered girl who could have had anything. She'd been educated in Europe, and there were plans for her to be finished in Paris before a London debut. If she had followed her parents' plans, she would have married well, had her own mansion and her own staff of servants. The closest she would have come to planting would have been watching her gardener prune a rosebush.”

Shane gave a little laugh as though the thought both amused and baffled her. “She didn't follow the plan, though. She fell in love with William Abbott, an apprentice mason who had been hired to do some stonework on the estate. Of course, her family would have none of it. They were already planning the groundwork for a marriage between Gran and the heir to some steel company. The moment they got wind of what was happening, they fired him. To keep it brief, Gran made her choice and married him. They disowned her. Very dramatic and Victorian. The I-have-no-daughter sort of thing you read in a standard Gothic.”

Vance said nothing as she stared at him, almost daring him to comment. “They moved here, back with his family,” Shane continued. “They had to share this house with his parents because there wasn't enough money for one of their own. When his father died, they cared for his mother. Gran never regretted giving up all the
niceties.
She had such tiny hands,” she murmured, looking down at her own. “You wouldn't have thought they could be so strong.” She shook off the mood and turned away. “They were poor by the standards she had grown up with. What horses they had were for pulling a plow. Some of your land was hers at one time, but with the taxes and no one to work it . . .” She trailed off, lifting down a mason jar, then setting it back. “The only gesture her parents ever made was when her mother left Gran the dining room set and a few pieces of china. Even that was done through lawyers after her mother had died.” Shane plucked up her polishing cloth and began to run it through her hands.

“Gran had five children, lost two in childhood, another in the war. One daughter moved to Oklahoma and died childless about forty years ago. Her youngest son settled here, married and had one daughter. Both he and his wife were killed when the daughter was five.” She paused a moment, brooding up at the small window set near the ceiling. Light poured through it to lie in a patch on the concrete floor. “I wonder if you can appreciate how a mother feels when she outlives every one of her children.”

Vance said nothing, only continued to watch as Shane moved agitatedly around the room. “She raised her granddaughter, Anne. Gran loved her. Maybe part of the love was grief, I don't know. My mother was a beautiful child—there are pictures of her upstairs—but she was never content. The stories I've heard came mostly from people in town, though once or twice Gran talked to me. Anne hated living here, hated not having enough. She wanted to be an actress. When she was seventeen, she got pregnant.”

Shane's voice altered subtly, but he heard the change. It was flat now, devoid of emotion. He'd never heard that tone from her before. “She didn't know—or wouldn't admit—who the father was,” she said simply. “As soon as I was born, she took off and left me with Gran. From time to time, she came back, spent a few days and talked Gran out of more money. At last count she's been married three times. I've seen her in furs. They don't seem to make her happy. She's still beautiful, still selfish, still discontented.”

Shane turned and looked at Vance for the first time since she had begun. “My grandmother only grabbed for one thing in her life, and that was love. She spoke French beautifully, read Shakespeare and tilled a garden. And she was happy. The only thing my mother ever taught me was that
things
meant nothing. Once you have a
thing
, you're too busy looking for the next one to be happy with it. You're too worried that someone might have a better one to be able to enjoy it. All the games my mother played never brought anything but pain to the people who loved her. I don't have the time or the skill for those games.”

As she started to walk to the stairs, Vance stepped in front of her to bar her way. She lifted her chin to stare with eyes that glittered with anger and tears. “You should have told me to go to hell,” he said quietly.

Shane swallowed. “Go to hell, then,” she muttered, and tried to move past him again.

Vance took her shoulders, holding her firmly at arm's length. “Are you angry with me, Shane, or with yourself for telling me something that was none of my business?” he asked.

After taking a deep breath, Shane stared at him, dry-eyed. “I'm angry because you're cynical, and I've never been able to understand cynicism.”

“Any more than I understand an idealist.”

“I'm not an idealist,” she countered. “I simply don't automatically assume there's someone waiting to take advantage of me.” She felt calmer suddenly, and sadder. “I think you miss a lot more by not trusting people than you risk by trusting them.”

“What happens when the trust is violated?”

“Then you pick up and go on,” she told him simply. “You're only a victim if you choose to be.”

His brows drew together. Is that what he considered himself? A victim? Was he continuing to allow Amelia to blight his life two years after she'd died? And how much longer would he look over his shoulder for the next betrayal?

Shane felt his fingers relax, saw the puzzled consideration on his face. She lifted a hand to touch his shoulder. “Were you hurt very badly?” she asked him.

Vance focused on her again, then released her. “I was . . . disillusioned.”

“That's the worst kind of hurt, I think.” In compassion, she laid a hand on his arm. “When someone you love or care for turns out to be dishonest, or an ideal turns to glass, it's difficult to accept. I always set my ideals high. If they're going to crumble, I'd just as soon take the long fall.” She smiled, slipping her hand down so it linked with his. “Let's go for a drive.”