If Winter Comes (9 page)

He looked
uncomfortable. “I don’t like corruption,” he replied.

“Is that the truth?”
she probed, “or are you just trying to get back at the people who helped you
out of your job?”

He shrugged. “It’s a
dog-eat-dog world.”

“Sometimes,” she agreed.
“Why do you think Moreland’s involved?”

“He’s got too much
money showing to be a mayor,” he replied vaguely.

“So he has. But I
understood he was independently wealthy.”

“Did you?” he asked.
“You’re seeing a lot of him lately.”

“I’m working on a story,”
she said for the second time, to the second person, that week.

“He wasn’t much of a
husband,” he said with a strange bitterness. “Don’t get your hopes up in that
direction, either.”

She stood up. “My
personal life is my own business.”

“That’s what you
think.” He sipped his coffee. “Check out White. You’ll see.”

She turned on her heel
and left him there. Late that afternoon, she took her wealth of bits and pieces
to Edwards and requested that he give it to the paper’s attorneys and see if
they could force the city attorney to release the airport land purchase
records.

Bryan Moreland’s farm
was like a picture postcard. Well-kept grounds, white-fenced paddocks, silver
silos, a red barn with white trim, and a farmhouse with a sprawling front porch
and urns that must have been full of flowers in the spring and summer.

Mrs. Brodie grinned
from ear to ear when Moreland brought Carla in and introduced her. The buxom
old woman obviously approved, and the table she set for lunch was evidence of
it. Carla ate until her stomach hurt, and Mrs. Brodie was still trying to press
helpings of apple cobbler on her.

Moreland helped her
escape into his study, where a fire was blazing in the hearth. It was a dreary
day outside, drizzling rain and cold. But the den, with its Oriental rug and
sedate dark furniture, was cozy. She stared at the portrait above the white
mantel curiously. It was a period painting, and the man in it looked vaguely
like Bryan Moreland.

“Is he a relative?” she
asked.

He tossed two big, soft
cushions down on the floor in front of the hearth and stretched out with his
hands under his head. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied lazily. “He was my
grandmother’s lover.”

She blushed, and he
laughed.

“And the picture hangs
in here?” she asked, aghast.

“He’s something of a
family legend,” he replied. “He’d be damned uncomfortable in the closet. Come
here,” he added with a sensuous look in his dark eyes as he gestured toward the
pillow next to his.

She hesitated, drawn by
the magnetism of his big body in the well-fitted brown trousers and pale yellow
velour shirt, but wary of what he might expect of her.

His dark eyes took in
the length of her body, lingering on the plunging V-neck of her white sweater,
tracing her dark slacks down to her booted feet.

“If we make love,” he
said quietly, “I won’t let it go too far. Is that what you’re afraid of,
Carla?”

She caught her breath.
He seemed to read her mind. She only nodded, lost for words.

His eyes searched hers.
“Then, come on.”

She eased down beside
him, curling her arms around her drawn-up knees with the pillow at her back.
“Are we?” she asked huskily.

He traced the line of
her spine with deft, confident fingers. “Are we what?” he asked deeply.

“Going to make love,”
she managed shakily.

“That depends on you,
country mouse,” he said matter-of-factly, and he removed his caressing hand.

She half-turned and
looked down at him. His eyes were dark, smouldering, and there was no smile to
ease the intensity of his piercing gaze.

“If you want it, come
here,” he said gruffly.

She didn’t even think.
She went down into his outstretched arms as if she were going home, as if she’d
waited all her life for a big, husky, dark man to hold out his arms to her.

He crushed her against
his broad chest and lay just holding her as the fire crackled and popped
cheerfully in the dimly lit room.

“It’s been a long time
for me, Carla,” he said in a strange, gruff tone. “Kisses may not be enough.”

She felt her body
stiffen against him. “I can’t…”

“Don’t start freezing
on me,” he said at her ear. “I’m not going to throw you over my shoulder and
beat a path to my bedroom with you.”

“But you said…” she
whispered.

“I may touch you,” he
murmured sensuously. His mouth brushed lazily, warmly, at her throat, while his
big hands worked some magic on her back through the sweater. “Like this.” He
eased his hands underneath it, against the silken young flesh of her bare back.
“And this,” he added, sweeping his hands up to her shoulder blades, discovering
for himself that she was wearing nothing under the sweater.

“No…” she whispered
unsteadily, a protest that sounded more like a moan.

His thumbs edged out
under her arms, brushing against flesh that had never known a man’s hands, and
she caught her breath at the sensations it fostered.

“I want to love you,”
he said softly. He eased her back on the rug, with her head and shoulders
against the pillow, letting his hands move very gently on her rib cage in a
silence burning with emotions.

“Bryan…” she whispered
achingly.

He bent, and his mouth
parted slightly as it touched hers in soft, slow movements. It was torture, the
teasing, brushing touch of his mouth and hands, a delicious torment that made
her heart beat violently against the walls of her chest. She had never wanted
anything as desperately as she now wantedBryan , and in a fever of wanting, she
heard her own voice shatter as she cried out for his touch.

His mouth took hers
violently, hungrily, pressing her head deep into the pillow while his hands
taught her sensations so exquisite, she arched submissively toward them.

Once her eyes slid open
to look up into his, and he smiled at the awe and emotion in them—a smile that
was strangely tender and soft with triumph.

He drew her own hands
to the buttons of his shirt and watched while she undid them, clumsily, because
she was shaking from the lazy caresses of his deft hands.

“Here,” he said
quietly, drawing her mouth to his chest. “Like this. Hard, honey, hard!” he
whispered huskily as her mouth brushed against the warm flesh that smelled of
spice and soap.

She reached up to draw
his mouth back down to hers and felt a shudder run through him as his body
moved over hers in a way that was pleasure beyond bearing.

He hurt her mouth,
bruised it, as all his hard control seemed to disappear at her yielding. He
drew back suddenly, and his dark eyes were smouldering with hunger as they
looked down into hers.

“I want you like hell,”
he said in a rough whisper. “Another minute of this and I’m going to take you.
Is that what you want, Carla?”

Sanity came back in a
blazing rush. She gasped at the emotions that lay raw and bruised at the
harshness of his statement.

“No,” she said shakily.
“No, it isn’t.Bryan , I’m sorry…”

He rolled away from her
and got to his feet. He went straight to the bar and poured himself a large
whiskey, downing it before he lit a cigarette—all without looking at her.

She pulled down her
sweater and got to her feet, her tongue gingerly touching her bruised mouth.
She felt vaguely ashamed at her abandon, and as she stared at his broad back,
she couldn’t help wondering if he thought she was like this with other men. In
fact, she’d never let any man touch her like that. She was at a loss to explain
why it had seemed so right whenBryan had done it. Her face flamed at the memory.

“I’ll take you home,”
he said coldly. “Get your coat.”

“Bryan…” she began
apologetically.

He turned, and his eyes
were blazing. “Get your damned coat,” he said, in a voice that froze her.

Fighting tears, she
gathered her possessions and followed him out to the car.

Six

S he went around in a
brown mood for the next week, alternately crying and cursing her own stupidity
for getting herself emotionally involved with a man who only wanted one thing
of her.