Chapter 2
Miss Imogen Radford glowered at the large boot prints leading to the hand-carved door of her family’s hunting cabin. Boot prints that continued over the threshold and into her private sanctum, the one place available for her to stew in a vat of well-earned misery.
“Haven’t I dealt with enough lately?”
Jilted by her fiancé—check. Lackluster reception at her first photography exhibition—check. Artistic block and crippling self-doubt ever since—check.
And now an intruder.
Whoever it was, they’d better be bleeding.
Sore at the very least. She and her Aunt Judith hadn’t spent hours setting booby traps around the perimeter of the cabin for nothing.
That had been part of their agreement: Judith would stay in the nearby town and give Imogen time to sulk in privacy and rediscover her muse.
But only as long as she stayed within the confines of their protective traps and returned to Seattle in January.
The alternative—attending a slew of holiday parties hand-selected by her parents that would surely be equal parts mortifying and insufferable—had her leaping headlong into accepting Judith’s terms.
At least she would be able to use the self-defense techniques she’d recently learned at a meeting of the Seattle Suffrage Society. Bolstered by the silver lining, she dropped her bundles in the soft snow, freed her chin from her coat’s wide roll collar of French marten fur, and raised two fists.
“Prepare. For. Pain.” Each whispered word was punctuated by a quick jab into the icy afternoon air.
Well, more like awkward thrusts.
She tried once more, then shrugged. It was hard to make proper fists while wearing thick wool mittens. Besides, what were fists compared to her aunt’s prized Remington double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun?
The intruder wouldn’t know Imogen had never fired it in her life.
She quickly removed her mittens and unhooked the leather strap securing the abhorrent thing across her back. She hefted it to her shoulder with both hands, then nudged the door open with the toe of her brown leather boot.
“Hello? Is someone there?” The wobble in her voice made her wince, so she squared her shoulders before adding, “I’m armed.” She shuffled inside, the shotgun aimed upward, her pointer finger curled around the trigger as her aunt had showed her.
No movement but the tremble of the barrel in front of her.
No sound but her own half-swallowed gasps and the muffled crunch of snow where her boots met the wooden floor.
She pirouetted in a slow circle, each new frame of empty space easing the tightness in her chest. The photography equipment appeared untouched, the bed was still the same chaotic jumble of all her favorite blankets—
No. Not the same.
A man lay sprawled in her cozy den. A head covered in bright red hair rested on her goose-down pillow.
Pale, freckled—and, dash it all, gorgeously muscled—shoulders peeked from the cocoon of wool and flannel.
And was that...? Yes, her nightgown was tucked under his chin as if he’d cuddled it in his sleep.
Unacceptable.
She closed her eyes and called forth the voice of righteous indignation her mother used on gardeners who didn’t properly prune her roses. On her only daughter who preferred doing things her own way.
A ragged snore ricocheted through the silent room like a gunshot. Imogen jumped, every muscle in her body tightening at once. The ensuing explosion—an actual gunshot this time—was deafening.
She flew backward into a chair with a pained grunt before toppling over.
The shotgun skidded across the floor, and a pile of fabric—clothing she’d meant to organize—tumbled from the chair and buried her lower half.
Splintered wood chips rained down from the fresh hole in the ceiling, and one of her carefully cut paper snowflakes lost its grip on the rafters and fluttered down to land on her face.
She lay stunned, her worldview shrunk to the size of a diamond-shaped pinhole.
“Ouch,” she whispered.
The man flailed about in the blankets, his loud curses filling the room, and then two feet thudded to the floor.
“What the—who the—where are you?”
Imogen twitched her nose and a new view, hexagonal now, revealed a man spinning in a tight circle, a hand clutched over his heart.
Dear God, had she shot him? She thrust into a seated position. The snowflake didn’t budge, somehow stuck in the flyaway hairs at her forehead. She raised both hands to untangle it and called, “Are you hurt?”
The spinning man stopped and faced her. “Should I be?”
The snowflake crumpled in her fist at his tone. It was the same incredulous tone her fiancé had used when she revealed she had no plans to relegate her profession to a hobby once they married. Yanking the snowflake free, she opened her mouth to deliver a much-needed skewering.
“Listen here, you vile intruder—glug.”
Imogen lost her train of thought. She was far too busy staring at the very attractive—and very naked—man illuminated by the fading light shining through the window.
She skipped his profile, surely a waste of time when she only had seconds before he covered up.
She started at his wide shoulders and worked her way down, devouring him inch by inch.
As an artist, she’d seen her fair share of nude models.
Had developed a reverence for the human form with all its perfect imperfections.
This man’s body robbed her of coherent speech.
His broad chest heaved with each deep breath, and his clenched hands hovered on each side of his abdomen.
She ignored the threatening stance, too intrigued by the pronounced dips between each muscle.
But what truly fascinated her were the freckles scattered over his body in random, intricate patterns.
Two bands of freckles, dense as the Milky Way, started above the vees in his hips, curved around his groin, and ended mid-thigh.
Two celestial parentheses illuminating his crotch.
So she stared. How could she not?
His cock jutted from its nest of red-blonde curls. She was entranced by its slight upward curve. The man shifted on his feet, and his cock bobbed and dipped like it was waving hello.
She licked her very dry, very numb lips.
“Oh, I see,” she said faintly. “Danger arouses you.”
The man’s large hands shot forward to cover his cock. “Danger does not—I was—” He let out a growl like a bear denied its honey. “I was dreaming.”
“Dreaming about what? Your mother?”
The silence that followed was thicker than a church door.
On one very sane level, Imogen knew it was dangerous to taunt a naked man.
Especially when her only means of defense was halfway across the room.
But this man had invaded her space. And when had she ever done as expected?
Her muscles coiled, ready to spring into action should the man move one hairy toe in her direction.
Instead, he broke into boisterous laughter.
“I should have known the owner of this cabin would be a rare bird.”
Biting back her own smile, Imogen finally stopped staring at the man’s solid thighs and met his gaze. An instant later, the room went fuzzy at the edges and her fingers flew to her parted lips.
It had been years since she’d last seen those brilliant blue eyes, but she’d know them anywhere.
They belonged to the boy who’d chased away the cruel children teasing her when she was ten years old.
The boy who picked her book out of the mud and asked her what it was about.
The boy who turned out to be the son of the new hired help, and who had transformed her lonely existence into something exhilarating.
Who had been her best friend for six, wonderful years… until he’d broken her heart.
“Tommy?”
The man’s good humor evaporated like water hissing on a hot iron. “Move forward,” he barked. “Show your face.”
Shoving to her feet, she resisted the temptation to smooth her rumpled hair or straighten her crooked coat. If there was one person on earth she needn’t bother to impress, it was Tommy. He’d see right through the attempt, anyway. She lifted her chin and stepped into the light.
“Imogen?”
Her stomach somersaulted at the thread of hope in his voice. “It’s me.”
His teeth worried at his full bottom lip as he continued to stare. The familiar, unconscious habit comforted her. Perhaps a glimmer of the boy she’d known—and loved—had survived after all this time. At last, his lips twisted into a half smile.
“Looks like you finally grew into those big eyes of yours.”
So that’s how he wanted to play their reunion.
It didn’t really surprise her. Tommy had always shied away from discussing the harder things in life.
Glossed right over them like a polished marble floor.
As tempted as she was to flay him open, she would oblige.
It would be a nice break from sobbing into her mountain of pillows.
“Too bad I can’t say the same about your ears.”
He barked out a laugh. “Diabolical as ever. That much hasn’t changed since I last saw you.”
The casual mention of one of the worst days of her life knotted her stomach. Her laugh was high pitched. “Goodness, I barely remember.”
Such acting deserved a medal.
“Yes, well…ahem.”
Her gaze, which had begun wandering the defined contours of his biceps again, snapped upward.
Tommy’s lips curled into a smirk, and he tossed his unruly red hair back from his brow in a slow, deliberate movement.
He widened his stance, various muscle groups bunching and flexing, and her mouth watered.
It was as if he knew she wouldn’t be able to look away.
Like he was inviting her to admire every inch of him.
“Permission to cover up? Or do you require more time to ogle me?” His words dripped with a roguish irreverence that sent a delicious shiver down her spine.