long, confident strides carrying him back into the park.
On the drive to her mother’s, she tried to tell herself that Nick was hers for tonight, and nothing else mattered. She felt the slight vibration of the metal studs digging into snow and striking pavement and told herself that tonight was enough, and she tried to believe it.
When she opened the front door of her mother’s house, Duke and Dolores greeted her with wagging tails and wet tongues. She let them out and stood on the sidewalk as they jumped into snow up to their bellies, two brown dogs in a thick blanket of white. She’d remembered her gloves this time and packed a few snowballs for Duke to catch in his mouth.
Maybe she could convince Nick she was enough for him. She wanted to believe he wasn’t involved with anyone else. She wanted to believe him when he’d said he wasn’t having sex with Gail, but she couldn’t trust him completely. She tossed a snowball to Dolores. It hit the dog’s side and the Weimaraner looked around without a clue. Delaney knew there was more between them than sex, and Nick had to know it, too. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her. It was hot and intense, and after tonight, maybe he would want only her.
He wanted her. She wanted him. He didn’t love her. She loved him so much she ached. Her feelings hadn’t happened like a slow blissful glide through the tunnel of love. As with everything else involving Nick, loving him had blindsided her, smacked her for a loop and left her stunned. And so confused she felt like laughing and crying and maybe lying down and not getting back up until she had it all worked out in her head.
As she made another snowball, she heard the Jeep’s engine before she saw the headlights pulling into the drive. The four-wheel drive stopped beneath a pool of light in front of the garage, and Duke and Dolores bounded across the yard to the driver’s side, barking like mad. The door swung open and Nick stepped out. “Hey, dogs.” He bent to scratch them behind their ears before he looked up. “Hey, wild thing.”
“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”
He glanced back down at Duke and Dolores. “No.”
Delaney threw the snowball and nailed the top of his head. The light snow disintegrated on impact and powdered his dark hair and the shoulders of his black parka. Slowly he straightened, then shook his head, showering the night with white flakes. “I would think you’d know better than to get into a snowball fight with me.”
“What are you going to do, give me a black eye?”
“Nope.” He moved toward her up the sidewalk, the heels of his boots sounding ominous in the still air.
She reached for more snow and packed it lightly in her gloved hands. “If you try anything funny, you’ll be really sorry.”
“You got me scared, wild thing.”
She threw the snowball and it exploded across his chest. “I owed you that.” She took a step backward into the yard and sank in white powder up to her knees.
“You owe me a lot.” He grabbed her upper arms and lifted her until the toes of her Doc Marten’s hardly touched the ground. “By the time I’m finished collecting from you, you’re not going to able to walk for a week.”
“You got me scared,” she drawled. He looked at her through lowered lids, and she thought he would pull her against the length of his body and kiss her. He didn’t. He tossed her backward. A startled squeal escaped her lips as she flew a few feet and fell spread-eagle in the snow. It was like landing on a down pillow, and she lay there stunned, staring up at the black sky crammed full of gleaming stars. Duke and Dolores barked, jumped on top of her, and licked her face. Over the heavy panting of excited dogs, she heard the sound of deep rich laughter. She pushed the dogs away and sat up. “Jerk.” She dug snow out of the back of her collar and the top of her gloves. “Help me up.” She held up a hand and waited until he’d pulled her to her feet before she used all her weight and dragged him with her to the ground. He landed on top of her with an
She tried to draw a deep breath and couldn’t. “You’re kind of heavy.”
He rolled to his back, taking her with him, which was exactly where she wanted to be. Her legs rested beside his, and she grabbed his collar in both her fists. “Say uncle and I won’t have to hurt you.”
He looked up at her as if she were crazy. “To a girl? Not in this life.”
The dogs jumped over them as if they were hurdles, and she picked up a handful of snow and dropped it on his face. “Come and look at this, Duke. It’s Frosty the Basque Snowman.”
With his bare hand, he brushed the white flakes from his tan skin and licked them from his lips. “I’m going to have a real good time making you pay for this.”
She lowered her face and slipped the tip of her tongue across his bottom lip. “Let me do that for you.” She felt his response in the catch in his breath and the tight grasp on her arms. She kissed his hot mouth and sucked his tongue. When she was finished, she sat up across his hips, her wool coat fanned out around them. Through her jeans she felt his full arousal pushing into her, long and hard and blatant. “Is that an icicle in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?”
“Icicle?” He slid his hands beneath her coat and up her thighs. “Icicles are cold. You’re sitting on twelve hot inches.”
She lifted her eyes to the night sky. “Twelve inches.” He was big, but he wasn’t that big.
“It’s a known fact.”
Delaney laughed and rolled off him. He might be right about that hot part, though. He certainly knew how to set her on fire.
“My ass is frozen.” He sat up and Duke and Dolores jumped on him. “Hey, now,” he said as he pushed them away and helped Delaney to her feet. She brushed the snow off his parka; he brushed it out of her hair. On the porch they stomped their feet, then went inside. Delaney took his coat and hung it on the rack by the front door. As he looked around, she took the opportunity to study him. He wore a flannel shirt, of course. Solid red flannel tucked inside his faded Levi’s.
“Have you ever been in here before?”
“Once.” He returned his gaze to hers. “The day Henry’s will was read.”
“Oh, yeah.” She glanced about, trying to see the foyer through new eyes, as if she’d never stood there before. It was a typical Victorian. White paint and wallpaper, dark wood and wainscoting, thick handwoven rugs from Persia, antique grandfather clock. Everything was rich and somewhat oppressive, and they were both aware that if Henry had been interested in being a father, Nick would have grown up in the huge house. She wondered if he considered himself lucky.
They took off their wet, frozen boots by the door, and she suggested he build a fire in the parlor while she moved to the kitchen and made Irish coffee. When she returned ten minutes later, she found him standing before the traditional hearth, staring at the portrait of Henry’s mother hanging above the mantel. There was only a slight resemblance between Alva Morgan Shaw and her only grandson. Nick looked out of place among his ancestral trappings. His own home suited him much better, exposed beams and river rock and soft flannel sheets.
“What do you think?” she asked as she set a glass tray on the sideboard.
“About what?”
She pointed to the picture of Henry’s mother, who’d relocated to the capital city long before Delaney’s arrival in Truly. Henry had taken Gwen and Delaney to visit the old woman several times a year until she’d died in 1980, and as far as Delaney could remember, the portrait was quite flattering. Alva had been a tall skinny woman with bony features like a stork, and Delaney recalled her smelling of stale tobacco and Aqua-Net. “Your grandmother.”
Nick cocked his head to one side. “I think I’m glad I favor my mother’s side, and you’re lucky you were adopted.”
“Don’t hold back.” Delaney laughed. “Tell me what you really think.”
Nick turned to look at her and wondered what she would do if he told her. He ran his gaze over her blond hair and big brown eyes, the arch of her brow and her pink lips. He’d been thinking about a lot of things lately, things that would never happen, things it was best not to think about. Things like waking up with Delaney every morning for the rest of his life and watching her hair turn gray. “I’m thinking the old man is pretty happy with himself just about now.”
She handed him a mug, then raised her own and blew into it. “How do you figure that?”
He took a mouthful of the coffee and felt the whiskey burn clear to his stomach. He liked the feeling. It reminded him of her.
