we hooked up for a couple years, planned on marrying, just didn’t do the deed. That is, the marriage deed-”
“Um, I don’t need to hear details about any other kinds of deeds.”
“Okay. Anyway, a problem came up.”
“And the problem was…?”
“Well…I can’t tell you how good a person Jim was. Or how good he was with the work. That’s the thing, the whole reason I was sure we could make a great partnership. He felt the same about me. Only for some reason he always thought he was right.”
“Was he?”
“Hell, no. I was the one who was always right.”
“Ah. I’m beginning to get a much bigger picture now.”
“As far as Jim, if he said black, I said blue. If he said right angles, I said left. We started out fighting with each other, but then we started fighting in front of clients, too. If he hadn’t been so bullheaded and sure of himself and uncompromising-”
“Like you?”
“That was exactly the problem. We were like identical twins. Anyway, the only answer possible was to sever the relationship. By then I’d already severed the personal stuff with his sister-she was caught between loyalties, and by then, truth to tell, I think we both knew we weren’t going any further together. Anyway, it was at that point I took off, because Jim started the business, so he was entitled more than I was to keep on with it. And I wanted to go somewhere where I could work alone. A place that wasn’t so big that a partner was going to be required, but where there’d still be definitely enough work to make a decent living.”
“Where you didn’t have to worry about someone finding out that you were boneheaded and always right and a pain in the butt?”
“I didn’t say boneheaded. I said bullheaded.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Of course there’s a-” Teague stopped talking abruptly. When she cocked an eyebrow in question, he raised a finger, asking her to be quiet. She was, unsure what he heard that had caught his attention.
But then she heard it, too.
Silence.
The fire was crackling in the hearth, spitting sparks and wooshing smoke up the chimney. But the ever-present wolf wind had suddenly stopped.
They both tore off for the closest window at the same time, Teague hobbling on his broomstick crutch. Daisy pushed at the drapes to peer out. Neither had been keeping track of time-what difference did it make with the storm? But it was early evening. Dark. And after hours of that incessant wind and blowing, hurling snow, suddenly there was…magic.
The wind had completely died as if it had never been. Moon glowed on a pristine, pure landscape. It looked as if the Pillsbury Dough Boy had been making whipped-cream frosting in mountainous quantities, with fat dollops here and there, mounds higher than buildings in places, and swirls and twirls and soft cups in other places. Moonshine gave the snow a sugar glaze, yet it still looked soft and cushiony. There were no footprints, no lights, no cars or other signs of civilized life marring the beauty yet.
Daisy felt a deep, raw pull inside her. She’d left Vermont. She’d never wanted to come back. She never needed to go through another blizzard in this lifetime…yet she’d forgotten this part of it. The part when the blizzard was over and the whole world turned magical. The part when there was no other beauty like this-and never would be again-because blizzard snowfalls were never the same. The moonlight, the magic, the diamonds in the snow…it was damned impossible not to feel something. An awe. A wonder. A rush of pleasure, just for the sheer beauty of it.
She turned her head, saw Teague looking at her instead of out the window.
“It’s just…so special,” she said helplessly.
“Yeah, you are,” he said lowly, and reached for her.
Four
Okay, okay. Daisy had known for years she was susceptible to magical moments…and magical men. That was precisely how and why she’d turned so cynical. Hard-boiled cynical. More careful around guys than a nun in a chastity belt, in fact.
But Teague didn’t play fair. First of all, he’d been making her laugh. And then out of the total blue, he’d suddenly called her special-when God knows no one had seemed to see her that way in a very long time. And then, when he pulled her in his arms…
She melted like warm ice cream. Like an ice cube in sunlight. Like a damn fool woman who didn’t have the sense of a goose.
His broom-handle crutch thumped on the carpet when he dropped it. Both his arms went around her then, his hands framing her face to tilt her lips toward his, where he could sip at her mouth and then aim for another deeper drink.
She had to wind her arms around his waist or risk falling. Her hand let go of the open drape in the process, which cut off the cold window draft and sealed them into their shadowy, fire-lit nest at the same time. She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. Yet instead of feeling crazy, a little devil whispered in her heart that this was different. It really
He tasted so…warm. So hungry. In that instant she just desperately didn’t want to lose that feeling. Eleven years of shouldering her private problems alone suddenly eased. She hadn’t suddenly lost her mind. She knew she hadn’t faced her immediate dragons, and that reality was going to smack her in the teeth very, very soon. But so many years had passed. She’d forgotten what it felt like…to just feel
“Whoa,” Teague whispered. “Lady, when you turn on…you really turn on.”
“I was just going to complain about the same thing with you.”
“Um, just to be straight with you… I wasn’t complaining.”
“Neither was I.” She tilted her head recklessly. “Are we actually going to lose our heads and do this…or are we both going to use some intelligence and slow down?”
“I vote for losing our heads.”
“You really want to be reckless and irresponsible?”
“Yeah. Totally yeah.” He hesitated. “As soon as I get a condom, anyway.”
Something warmed inside her even more than all that hot, combustible sexual heat. It was just…she hadn’t planned on liking a man, really liking one, for at least another millennium. But she loved babies, far too much to risk one, and it was rare to find a guy who put babies first the same way. In fact, she liked him so much at that instant that she had to hesitate. “You don’t think you’re going to regret this? That we’re moving way too fast?”
“Of course we’re going to regret this. Of course we’re moving too fast.” He was still aiming for another kiss, and his voice was thicker than honey. “You know damn well it never works out to have sex too soon. It takes over everything.”
“I know. And I know better.” She found herself staring at his mouth.
“So do I. Believe me, this is your call. Totally. You want to send up a stop sign, we quit, all’s fair. Just try to do it within the next minute, okay?”
“What on earth made you think I was going to put up a stop sign?” she asked. He responded with a quick smile, but that was it; he pounced. His lips claimed hers again in one slow, lazy, breath-stealing sonata of a kiss.
They’d been teasing at the heat thing before, but not like this, nothing like this. This was enough heat to melt all the icicles from the blizzard. There seemed more smoke between them than was zooming up the chimney. Dizzying kisses circled her throat, circled her heart. She was used to passion. She liked passion. Too much. She’d always liked that feeling of recklessness, the taste of danger, of being sucked in by a guy so powerful he gave her
