Chapter 6 #2
But she wasn’t going to be put off. He wasn’t the snarling idiot she had first assumed him to be. He was just confused. If there was one trait she shared equally with her sister, it was the inability to turn away a stray.
“J.T., you must see how unfair it is to resent Cal for falling in love and getting married, for starting a life here.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Of course it is.” This time, she promised herself, she would not lose her temper.
“They’re both adults, and they’re certainly able to make up their own minds.
Besides, well, they’re wonderful together.
” He sent her a silent, cynical look that infuriated her.
“They are. I’ve seen them with each other. You haven’t.”
“No.” He nodded. “I haven’t.”
“That’s nobody’s fault but—” She caught herself, ground her teeth and went on, more calmly.
“What I’m trying to say is that I might not have known Cal before he became part of the family, but I know when someone’s happy.
And he is. As for Libby—he does something for her no one else ever has.
She’s always been so shy, so easily pushed into the background.
But with Cal she just glows. Maybe it’s not the easiest thing to accept that someone else is the best thing that ever happened to a person you love—but you have to accept it when it’s true. ”
“I don’t have anything against your sister.” Or, if he did, he intended to keep it to himself for the time being. “But I intend to talk to Cal about the change he’s made in his life.”
“You really are bullheaded.”
He considered the description and decided it was apt enough. “Yes.” He smiled at her, delighted by the sulky mouth, the lifted chin. “I’d say we both are.”
“At least I don’t go around poking my nose into other people’s affairs.”
“Not even pleasantly plump women who want to torture themselves into . . . what was it—a Merry Widow?”
“That was entirely different.” With a sniff, she pushed her plate away. “I may be cynical, but even I believe in love.”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“Oh, really?” Her lips curved, because she was sure she had backed him into a corner. “Then you won’t interfere if you see that Cal and Libby are in love.”
“If they are, I hardly could, could I? And if they’re not—” he gestured, palm up, “—then we’ll see.”
She steepled her fingers, measured him. “I could always send you back into the forest, let you freeze in your sleeping bag.”
“But you won’t.” He toasted her with his coffee cup. “Because, underneath the prickly hide, you’re basically kindhearted.”
“I could change.”
“No, you couldn’t. People don’t, as a rule.”
Abruptly intense, he leaned forward to take her hand. It was a gesture he didn’t make often, and one that he couldn’t resist at that moment. “Sunny, I don’t want to hurt your sister. Or you.”
“But you will. If we’re in your way.”
“Yes.” He turned her hand over thoughtfully. It was narrow, and surprisingly soft and delicate for one that packed such a punch. “You have strong family feelings. So do I. My parents . . . they’ve tried to understand Cal’s decision, but it’s difficult for them. Very difficult.”
“But they’ve only to see him for themselves to understand.”
“I can’t explain.” He shifted his eyes from their joined hands to hers. “I wish I could. More than I can tell you.”
“Are you in trouble?” she blurted out.
“What?”
“Are you in trouble?” she repeated, tightening her fingers on his. “With the law, or something.”
Interested, he kept his hand in hers. Her eyes were huge and drenched with concern. For him. He couldn’t remember ever being more touched. “Why would you think so?”
“The way you’ve come here . . . I guess the way you haven’t come before. And you act . . . I don’t know how to explain. You just seem so out of place.”
“Maybe I am.” It should have been amusing, but he didn’t smile. If he hadn’t been so sure he would regret it, he would have pulled her into his arms and just held on. “I’m not in trouble, Sunny. Not the way you mean.”
“And you haven’t been—” she searched for the most delicate way to approach the subject “—ill?”
“Ill?” Baffled, he studied her. The light dawned, slowly.
“You think I’ve been—” Now he did smile, and surprised them both by bringing her hand to his lips.
“No, I haven’t been ill, physically or otherwise.
I’ve just been busy.” When she tried to draw her hand away, he held on. “Are you afraid of me?”
Pride had always been her strongest suit. “Why should I be?”
“Good question. You wondered if I was—” he gestured again “—unbalanced. But you let me stay. You even fed me.”
The uncharacteristic gentleness in his voice made her uncomfortable, “I’d probably have done the same for a sick dog. It’s no big deal.”
“I think it is.” When she pushed away from the table, he rose with her. “Sunbeam.”
“I told you not to—”
“There are times when it’s irresistible. Thank you.”
She was more than uncomfortable now. She was unnerved. “It’s okay. Forget it.”
“I don’t think so.” Gently his thumb stroked over her knuckles. “Tell me, if I had said I was in trouble, would you have helped?”
She tossed her head carelessly. “I don’t know. It would depend.”
“I think you would.” He took both her hands and held them until she was still. “Simple kindness, especially to someone away from home, is very precious and very rare. I won’t forget.”
She didn’t want to feel close to him. To be drawn to him. But when he looked at her like this, with such quiet tenderness, she went weak. There was nothing more frightening than weakness.
“Fine.” Fighting panic, she shook her hands free. “Then you can return the favor and do the dishes. I’m going for a walk.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t—”
“You said you weren’t afraid of me.”
“I’m not.” She let out a long-suffering breath. “All right, then, come on.”
The moment she opened the door, the cold stole her breath. The wind had died down and the sun was fighting through the layers of high clouds, but the air was like brittle ice.
It would clear her head, Sunny told herself. For a moment in the kitchen, with him looking so intently into her eyes, she’d felt as though . . . She didn’t know what she’d felt. She didn’t want to.
It was enough to be free to walk, though the snow was up to her knees. Another hour of confinement and she’d have gone mad. Perhaps that was what had happened to her in there, with him. A moment of madness.
“It’s wild, isn’t it?”
She stood in what had been the backyard and looked out on acres of solid white. The dying wind moaned through the trees and sent powdery snow drifting.
“I’ve always liked it best in the winter. Because if you’re going to be alone you might as well be completely alone. I forgot the bird food. Hang on.”
She turned, wading through the snow. He thought she moved more like a dancer now than an athlete. Graceful despite the encumbrances. It worried him to realize that he’d been content to watch her for hours. In a moment she was trudging back, dragging an enormous burlap sack.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to feed the birds.” She was out of breath but still moving. “This time of year they need all the help they can get.”
He shook his head. “Let me do it.”
“I’m very strong.”
“Yes, I know. Let me do it anyway.”
He took the sack, braced, put his back into it and began to haul it across the snow. It gathered snow—and weight—with every step.
“I thought you weren’t a nature lover.”
“That doesn’t mean I’d let them starve.” And she’d promised Libby.
He hauled the bag another foot. “Couldn’t you just dump it out?”
“If a thing’s worth doing—”
“It’s worth doing well. Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”
She stopped by a tree and, standing on a stump, began to fill a big wood-and-glass house with seed from the sack. “There we go.” She brushed seed from her hands. “Want me to carry it back?”
“I’ll do it. Why any self-respecting bird would want to hang around here in the middle of nowhere I can’t understand.”
“We’re here,” she called out as he hauled the sack across the snow.
“I can’t understand that, either.”
She grinned at his back, and then, not being one to waste an opportunity, she began to ball snow. She had a good-size pile of ammunition when he came out again, and she sent the first one sailing smack into his forehead.
“Bull’s-eye.”
He wiped snow out of his eyes. “You’ve already lost at one game.”
“That was poker.” She picked up another ball, weighed it. “This is war. And war takes skill, not luck.”
He dodged the next throw, swearing when he nearly overbalanced, then caught the next one in the chest. Dead center.
“I should tell you I was the top pitcher on my softball team in college. I still hold the record for strikeouts.”
The next one smacked into his shoulder, but he was prepared.
In a move she had to admire, he came up with a stinging fastball that zoomed in right on the letters.
He’d pitched a few himself, but he didn’t think he would mention that he’d been captain of the intergalactic softball team three years running.
“Not bad, Hornblower.” She sent out two, catching him with the second on the dodge. She had a mean curve, and she was pleased to note that she hadn’t lost her touch. Snow splattered all over his coat. One particularly well-thrown ball nearly took off his hat.
Before her pile began to dwindle, she had him at eight hits to two and was getting cocky. It didn’t occur to her that he had closed half the distance between them.
When he took one full in the face, she doubled over with laughter. Then she shrieked when he caught her under the arms and lifted her off her feet.
“Good aim, bad strategy,” he commented before he dropped her face first in the snow.
She rolled over, spitting out snow. “I still won.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
With a good-natured shrug, she held out a hand. He hesitated. She smiled. The moment he clasped her hand, she threw her weight back and had him flying into the drift beside her.
“What does it look like now?”