They made it to the skating rink at a few minutes before five. It was a makeshift rink, set up in a field between two old houses. By the time they arrived, it was already dark, and anyone with any sense had already gone home. A nasty mixture of rain and snow pelted down helter-skelter, and a north wind whistled through treetops like a poltergeist.
Mitch was insistent. He was also fussy. “You know, I’ve been tying my own laces for a few years now,” she informed him.
“I saw how you tied them. You need support for your ankles, foolish one.” He wrapped the string around her skate yet another time and knotted it, leaning back on his haunches to survey his work. “Ready,” he pronounced.
“You’re sure there isn’t something else you want to criticize about the way I’m put together?” she said demurely.
He offered one of his slow, lazy grins. “Now, do you really want more trouble than you can handle?”
“I’ve already taken
It took a moment to gain her balance. She’d skated every winter since she could remember, but the rink was pitted and scarred from a day of too many skaters. After a few minutes, she found the smooth spots, and a few minutes after that she tried out a little fancy legwork, just in case Mitch was looking.
Mitch was tying his skates. When he finished, he put his gloves back on, glanced up once to see Kay mightily showing off, and grinned as he carefully got to his feet.
“Mitch?” Kay gave him a funny look.
Paying no attention, he shoved off. Exultation had been singing in his bloodstream for hours; it refused to stop. Sweet, cold air rushed into his lungs; the wind whipped his face and snow blinded him. He didn’t care. Energy desperately needed to be expended; he had oceans of the commodity. He hadn’t slept and couldn’t imagine feeling tired; he’d barely eaten and couldn’t imagine feeling hungry.
Kay was the source of all that manic energy.
He saw a perfectly ridiculous look of concern on her face before one skate went out from under him, and ice- probably the hardest substance in the universe-came up in a crashing hurry to meet his rear end.
In a rush, she skated over to him and crouched down. “Darn it. Are you all right?”
“I may never sit again, but yes.”
She reached out a hand to help him, but he just waved it away and got up, trying to coax his skates underneath him again. At best, his motions lacked…grace. Kay, finally certain that he wasn’t seriously hurt, shook her head at him ruefully. “You know, I only suggested we go skating because it’s that time of year. You didn’t have to take me up on it.”
“I promised you a week ago that we’d go. I don’t break promises. Just give me a minute.” He wobbled tentatively to her side. “Heck. Hockey used to be my game. This is ridiculous.”
“But how long has it been since your hockey days?” Kay asked bewilderedly.
“About thirteen years.” He took one long glide and then another, and turned to face her with a triumphant grin.
One of his hands wildly flailed the air, then the other, but he stayed on his feet by some miracle. “Now all I need is a hockey stick and a puck.”
That man, Kay thought wildly, needed a keeper.
She glanced around once, then twice, but there was no one else volunteering.
Chapter Twelve
“Mitch, I am not going to catch pneumonia. For heaven’s sake-”
Paying no attention whatsoever to her grumblings, Mitch finished wrapping Kay in his robe, grabbed her damp pants and socks and the rest of her clothes, and pointed a scolding finger at her. “Now you just stay there,” he ordered, before deserting the living room.
She muttered darkly to herself and took her freezing bare toes abruptly over to the fire, trying to turn up the cuffs of the navy robe she was swaddled in so she could at least see her hands.
Not that Kay had any appreciation for bossy, overbearing men, but there was a cheeky smile on her face as she curled up on one of the huge pillows by the hearth. Mitch’s living room was a wonderful place to be on a frigid evening. The white stone fireplace took up one entire wall, and the massive fire he’d just built was roaring away. Who needed furniture? Dancing shadows played on the richly painted walls and cathedral ceiling, sparking endless imaginative fantasies…knights in their drafty old castles, deserted haunted houses, princesses locked in towers…
Mitch pushed open the door with his foot, carrying two steaming mugs. “Are you warm?”
“If you put a few stones on the floor, we could probably have a sauna in here,” Kay said mildly.
“If you think I’m ever going to listen to you again, you have another thought coming. ‘Just one more hour, Mitch,’ said the lady with the frozen toes. If I’d known…” Mitch handed her the mug of hot cider and bent over to place yet another log on the fire. Tongues of flame shot up the chimney, sending a fresh wave of shadows on the walls.
“You were pretty good, once you got your skating legs back,” Kay remarked, not wanting to go overboard lest the praise should go to his head. Mitch had been doing flips and jumps within two hours.
“It’ll take more than one time on the ice.” Mitch pushed several more pillows behind her back. “Used to be a forward on a neighborhood hockey team. At the time, I thought I was pretty hot stuff…
She shot him an amused grin. Finally, he was satisfied, now that she was languishing back on the pillows like a sultan. Or sultaness. Most sultanesses, on the other hand, weren’t buried in oversized navy blue robes, folded over three times at the cuffs.
He settled down next to her, wrapped a hand around her bare foot to ensure that it had reached the boiling point, and took a sip of the well-aged cider.
So did Kay. The warm, tangy liquid slid down her throat, adding to a feeling of incredibly lazy well-being. The fire’s heat had long since thawed her freezing limbs. Mitch was overdoing the caretaking role a bit, but she knew it would pass. A little overprotectiveness was natural to males of the species, particularly when they first claimed their own territory. And Kay felt very claimed, relishing the way Mitch’s dark eyes checked in every second or two, as if he needed to be certain she was still there.
She was definitely there. Whether he knew it or not, she was humming “All My Tomorrows” under her breath. For a moment, Mitch faced the fire, and though flame and shadow captured the character lines on his face, he was relaxed, a softer Mitch than the one she’d first met, and much more open.
He turned toward her, and the sudden vibrancy in his eyes made her catch her breath. “What are you thinking?” she asked softly.
“Of you.” He uncoiled and sprang up, his eyes never leaving hers, and then a slash of smile brought a mischievous look to his face. “Of something I’ve been wanting to do to you from the very moment I met you.”
“Which is?”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to wait a minute.”
With a lithe step, he disappeared from the room again. Kay took a last sip of cider and set down the mug, thinking wryly that he could bottle his restless energy. He hadn’t been able to sit still from the instant they’d woken up that morn-that afternoon.
Her mind flickered back to their time on the skating rink, to watching Mitch fumble and grope and get back on his feet after countless falls. Most people would have given up. Most people didn’t have Mitch’s determination, that intense drive of his to fight for what he wanted, to achieve what he expected of himself. After two hours he’d
