My Lady Faye (33 page)

“Ah, Christ.” A big man, he was surprisingly graceful as he rose to his feet, brushing snow off his butt and legs.

She should have recognized those. An hysterical bubble of laughter caught in her throat.

“This cannot be happening to me,” he rumbled without looking at her.

She really wanted to ask which part, but was equally sure she didn’t want to hear his answer. “Sorry,” she said, shrugging again. “I didn’t—”

“See me, yeah, I get it.” His beautiful blue eyes were colder than the snow seeping through her cheap boots. “What are you doing here, Lucy?”

It was like something out of
Wuthering Heights.
The wind howled, the snow drove against her face, and the large, lurking former love of her life glowered at her in a very Brontëesque manner. Kate Bush started wailing her lament to Heathcliff in a dark corner of Lucy’s mind.

“I came for my mom.” She dropped her eyes first. “My dad is sick.”

Richard made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “So, you rushed home to take care of Mom and Dad?” He didn’t wait for her reply, but bent to grab his bike and hauled it upright. He leaned over to examine it. Then gave up with a snarl of exasperation. “Perfect, fucking perfect.”

“My mom needs me.” It sounded lame. Richard shot her a look of clear skepticism. Okay, he thought so too. She was tempted to set him right and opened her mouth to do that. She shut it again. There was no easy explanation to this one.

He gave her one last scowl before he turned and stomped away. His feet drove small divots into the snow as he went, dragging his bike behind him. He didn’t look back, but strode toward the house next door. He tossed the helmet to one side. It hit the boards of the front porch with a broken splat. Lucy winced. The door slammed behind him with a resounding bang that made her jump. This was so not good.

* * * *

From his kitchen window Richard watched Lucy pick her way carefully along the pathway up to her old home. It was cleared and salted, but would need to be done again when this storm let up. He made sure of that for Lynne, now that Carl was no longer able to shovel. He tried not to look, but his eyes zeroed in like they were on autopilot. And, oh God, those legs.

What they did to a man was nothing short of criminal. Richard yanked the fridge open.

He would have described himself as the quintessential leg man. Breasts were good too. He was as partial as the next man to a great pair, but for him it would always be legs. And being a leg man meant he could never let a great ass pass him by without having a look either.

Breast men had it easy. A quick flick of the eyes down and up again and you were good to go. Leg men had more of a challenge. Over the years, and out of necessity, he’d perfected the swift, over the shoulder, window reflection, under armpit, smash-and-grab eyeful. Of course, that was before he’d had that particular fantasy eviscerated by her.

Lucy mounted the three wooden steps to the porch that ran the side of her family home.

And now. Well, now he still loved legs, long, shapely pathways straight to heaven. As long as they didn’t belong to blond hell-raisers who blew out of town with his heart in their backpack and never got around to giving it back.

“Ah, fuck it.” The orange juice slapped erratically against the side of the carton and Richard took a deep breath. He was a doctor, right. So the shaking hands could be a direct result of the fall. Except it was not the fall. The snow had taken the worst of the impact away. It was her.

He took a long swig from the carton, deriving a sort of savage pleasure from an action that would make his mother stare at him, first in frank and honest amazement, because he never drank from the carton, and next in horror.

“Ah, fuck it.” As far as variety went, he was a pitiful failure, but for impact, his vocabulary was perfect. Just what the doctor ordered.

Lucy Flint, back in town and doing what she always did. Taking his neatly ordered existence between her slender fingers, crumpling it up into a tiny ball, and tossing it over her shoulder. She’d just arrived and she’d doored him, wrecked his helmet and almost his bike, and reduced him to swilling orange juice from the carton. It made him shudder to think what she would do for an encore.

Except he already knew. Richard pulled a glass from the cupboard and poured the remainder of the juice into it. When she got done with turning him ass over end, she would wrench out his innards, starting with his heart, pulverize them, and disappear. Not this time, Lucy Flint. He made a silent promise to himself. Fool me once…

Her hair was different. It used to be shorter and curled around her beautiful face like a picture frame. This long, silky sweep of blond she had now was like a weapon. Her green eyes played hide and seek with her sexy mane as she peered out at him. This new sex-kitten thing was like a knee to the groin.