She followed him up to the bedroom. Her second case, bulging and heavy, sat at the base of the bed. He looked about the room, his gaze sweeping from the bed to her face. “I’ll think of you when I’m sleeping in here.”
“Don’t, Luke.”
“Don’t think of you when I’m sleeping in here? Or don’t tell you that I will?”
“Don’t…tell me.” It was only fair that he think of her; she’d thought of him often enough as she’d lain there, and knew she would think of him still wherever she went next. For a time at least. But time healed all, dulled memories and yearnings. Eventually she’d forget him. Forget last night. Move on. She had to.
“I spoke to Mark this morning.”
The simple statement doused the recollections. Mark was his attorney as well as his friend. “And?”
“And he’s coming round tomorrow morning. But he said, whatever we do, we shouldn’t sleep together.” His lips twitched.
How could he think this was funny? But his amusement called a response from her, a spark of un-Meg-like mischief. Mark would surely be appalled at how incautious their actions had been. “Did you tell him?”
Luke shook his head. “Didn’t want to spoil his weekend. I’ll tell him tomorrow.”
“It won’t make a difference, you know.” She wanted Luke to know that. “I don’t want anything from you. I never did. The fact that we slept together doesn’t change that.”
“Nothing, Meg?” He picked up her case as though it was weightless. “When you have money, it seems everyone wants something from you. It’s hard to believe that there are people who really don’t.”
Maybe he wouldn’t truly believe that till she walked away from him.
“Even my mother. She only approved of me and what I did because it meant I could donate money to her causes. And maybe she was right.”
“That wasn’t the only reason she approved of you. She loved you.”
“I’m sure she did.” He spoke without conviction.
“She couldn’t not have.” Meg spoke with more vehemence than she’d meant to. She half loved him herself and she’d known him only a whisper of time.
Luke’s eyebrows lifted. And Meg regretted the intensity of her words. Did they reveal too much? Too much of what? She couldn’t even say herself. Her feelings, her heart, were galloping ahead to places her mind knew they shouldn’t. They’d passed like, and attraction, passed fascination and warmth, were mired in enthrallment, a deep drugging spell of connection and wanting and rightness. But she wouldn’t let it be anything more than that. It was a spell that could, and would have to, be broken. Because she was leaving.
That was what they’d agreed.
Six
Luke carried Meg’s suitcase downstairs, set it beside the first and said what he’d known for the last hour. “We’re going to have to wait till the snow stops and the roads are cleared.” She followed his gaze through the panes of glass bordering the door. Snow had blanketed the pines and the ground outside in white and was still falling.
He didn’t know what to expect. Frustration that she couldn’t get away, as she so clearly wanted to, or resignation that she was stuck here with him for longer still? He didn’t expect her to step toward the door and place her fingertips on the glass, soft wonderment in her expression. “I grew up in southern California. It never snowed.” She glanced at him. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, turning back to the window.
As she was, beautiful and serene and unspoiled, like the snow outside.
And always able to find a silver lining.
“It might be. But it’s no good for driving in.” He was deliberately brusque because it beat the hell out of getting sappy, of letting the way she affected him on so many levels show. They’d made love last night, but she was going this morning. It was for the best. Too much time with her was blurring the lines between what he ought to do, send her off so that she could find someone less jaded, someone who shared her optimism and her dreams, and what he wanted to do, take her back upstairs to his bed, make her his, hope a winter-long blizzard moved in.
He needed to find some kind of middle ground. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Her slow smile of pleasure and approval warmed him. Or maybe all she felt was relief at not being trapped indoors with him. He handed her her coat from the closet. “There are so many things we’ll never do together. But we’ve got this day, whether we like it or not.”
She’d be gone soon enough. A walk in the snow couldn’t hurt. Layers and layers of clothing. And it was surely better than being inside with her with little to do except be ambushed by thoughts of making love to her again, sinking into her heat, of watching a different kind of wonderment on her face, of seeing her ecstasy. Which was how he’d spent the morning. Staying out of her way but acutely aware of her.
She was her own kind of delirium. He could no longer pretend his reaction to her was a product of fever, and honesty compelled him to admit that something about her had called to him well before his infection had become serious. The attraction of innocence, of her optimism? Wanting to drench himself in her aura.
He opened the door and stepped outside, breathed deeply of the Meg-free air. The door closed behind him. Her shoulder nestled against his. Her scent assailed him. The scent he’d reveled in last night.
She walked ahead, tripping lightly down the steps, her footsteps crunching through snow as she skipped ahead, her brightly colored Sherpa hat bobbing with her footsteps, the tassels by her ears swinging like braids. Already she was committed to an idea that was nothing more than an off-the-cuff suggestion to find a way through the situation. Luke followed, gloved hands in his pockets, his step measured and slow. She stopped, flung her arms wide, tipped her face skyward and spun in a slow circle, embracing the day. Already her nose and cheeks were pink. He wanted to kiss her. Heaven help him. He wanted to kiss those cheeks, those eyes, those lips. “Help me make a snowman.” She crouched down, gathered a ball of snow and began rolling it.
She’d make a great mother. Not something he’d ever thought before about the women he’d been involved with. She had so much of the carefree spirit of a child within her. And yet she’d seen hardship, she’d been confronted with it daily in Indonesia. Seen it and chosen to keep the flame of optimism alight within her. He crouched, too, began rolling a second snowball. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this, certainly not since he was a child. He stacked his snowball on top of the larger one she’d rolled and began rolling a third for the head.
“Carrot,” she announced, “for the nose. And I don’t suppose you have buttons?”
He shook his head.
She headed back to the house. “I’ll find something.”
Luke was settling the head in place when Meg came hurrying back with a carrot and two plums. She pressed the carrot and fruit into place, one of the plums shedding a single purple tear. Then she wrapped her scarf around the snowman’s neck and pulled a camera from her pocket. “Stand by Frosty.”
“Frosty?”
“It’s almost Christmas. What else are we supposed to call him?”
He reached for the camera. “You stand by…Frosty. I’ll take your picture.”
She shook her head and the light in her eyes dimmed just a little. “I’d like one of you.”
To remember him by? “For that matter, I’d like one of you.” To remember her by. Even though he had the feeling his problem was going to be in trying to forget her.
She shrugged and stood by the snowman. “Come stand with us. My arm is just long enough to take a picture of us both.”
He stood at her side and taking a glove off, eased the camera from her hand. “My arm’s longer.” She pressed up against him and without thinking, he slid his free arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer. The thinking occurred too late, when he inhaled the fragrance of her shampoo. “On three. One. Two. Three.” The shutter clicked.
“One more,” she said. “Just in case.”
“On three again.” This time on three, as the shutter clicked she wriggled in his hold and planted a quick kiss on
