Cold Dawn Part 14

"Or on each other."

She noticed Nick's eyes were half-closed as he watched her from the door. She wondered what secrets she was betraying simply by how she stood, how she looked at him.

She smiled into the phone to help keep any self-consciousness out of her tone. "How's Hannah?"

"Worried," Sean said. "She's got on her prosecutor's face."

Rose doubted her friend would ever become a Vermont prosecutor. It was the path taken, then changed by circ.u.mstance-namely, falling in love with Sean. "I'd like to talk to her."

While she waited for Hannah to come on the line, Nick withdrew back into the kitchen, giving her privacy. Ranger glanced at her, then, his tail wagging, followed Nick as if they were now best friends.

"Rose," Hannah said. "What on earth is going on?"

"You don't have to keep secrets from Sean," Rose blurted. "Tell him what you know about Derek."

"He's already guessed most of it, and I don't know much. If you'll recall, you didn't go into detail." Her friend sighed. "You're a very private person, Rose."

"It's one reason you and I get along so well."

"Beth and I can come back-"

"No, enjoy the bougainvillea and the pool. Beth needs a break, and you and Sean have waited a long time for each other."

Hannah hesitated, then said, "Beth's hurting over Scott, but she's doing her stiff-upper-lip thing. We're having a good time. Devin and Toby are coming by to see her. You should see Devin-he's getting downright buff. He's determined to become a smoke jumper. It's a long route but wherever it takes him, it'll be better than where he's been. He has his own apartment now. Toby's doing well with his host family. He's in mountain-biking heaven. I think he'll stay and graduate out here."

"Going out to California's been good for all of you," Rose said.

Hannah had become her brothers' legal guardian after their mother died when they were ten and eleven and Hannah just twenty-one. Their father had been dead for years. She remembered their lives in the isolated hollow, just downriver from Bowie O'Rourke, better than Devin and Toby did.

"During the bar fight last year," Rose said thoughtfully, "did you get the feeling Derek was deliberately trying to provoke Bowie?"

"Maybe. Bowie didn't care. He wanted to shut Derek up."

"How did Bowie take it when Lowell Whittaker tried to frame him for the pipe bombs?"

"Bowie just wants to get on with his life, Rose."

"That's what I thought." She remained on her feet, restless. "Thanks. I didn't mean to imply I suspect him of anything."

"I'm sorry if I sound defensive."

"Do you know what precipitated Nick coming out here?"

"No, but I can guess."

"What? The investigation into Jasper Vanderhorn's death? Did something come up after you and Sean got back last week and Nick decided to head to Vermont?"

"Not that I know of," Hannah said. "Rose, I think Nick's in Vermont because of you."

She looked out the window but saw only her reflection against the black night. "Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't have to."

"Does Sean have any idea?"

"Not a clue."

Rose could sense her friend's smile but wasn't smiling herself. "Please don't do anything that would jeopardize their friendship on my account."

"That's not your problem. You have to figure out what you want. Who you want. Nick and Sean live in a big world. Private planes, money."

And women, Rose thought, but now she made herself smile. "Does that mean the prospect of bicoastal living in Vermont and California doesn't scare Sean?"

Hannah laughed softly. "Not in the least."

"What about you, Hannah? Does it scare you?"

"It did for about five minutes. Sean and I can make this work," her friend said. "I've never been so happy. I hope you can be happy, too, Rose. No one deserves it more."

"Don't worry about me."

"Easier said than done. But you should go. You must be exhausted."

"Thanks. Say goodbye to Sean for me."

Nick had stretched out on the couch, leaning back against pillows he'd arranged behind him. "This'll work. Hurts less to sit up, and I've got a strategic view of the door should anyone else pay you a visit."

"You're not armed."

"I could go find your snow shovel," he said lightly, then nodded to a pair of her shoes by the fire. "Or I could throw one of your shoes. What are those things?"

"Waterproof running shoes. They're good in the snow." She felt hot, but was amused. "I can wear starlet high heels, you know. Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo. I can't buy them in Black Falls, but I get to Boston on a regular basis. I know what they are."

"Can you walk in four-inch heels?"

"Not on my driveway in the snow, but I could manage quite nicely at a Beverly Hills c.o.c.ktail party. In fact, I have. Sean took me once."

Nick was clearly unimpressed, as well as skeptical. "You've never worn four-inch heels in your life."

She grinned. "All right, two inches."

"Where would you wear heels around here?"

"More places than you obviously think. For instance, there's a dance at the lodge during winter fest."

"h.e.l.l, shoot me now."

"Why, Nick Martini, what a sn.o.b you are." Rose lifted a log out of the woodbox. "I don't care if you're a hotshot smoke jumper, you're actually more Beverly Hills these days. I can see you waltzing into some c.o.c.ktail party with a babe on each arm."

He settled deeper into the pillows. "I might have a few pictures of me just like that."

She set the log on its end on the stone hearth and lifted the lid on the top of the stove. "If I'm just one of the guys-some mountain woman in sensible shoes-why did you sleep with me?"

"We needed each other that night."

He spoke softly, his tone even and unemotional, as if he were stating a simple, indisputable fact. Rose dropped the log on the fire, almost choking it out, and reached for the poker. "I know why I needed you," she said, shifting the log, rekindling the flames. "Why did you need me?"

"You just asked and answered your own question." His voice was steady, and she could feel his eyes on her. "I needed you because you needed me."

She shut the lid on the fire and returned the poker to its rack. "That's it, huh?"

"That's it."

She dusted bits of wood off her hands and turned around, feeling an immediate jolt at the unbridled s.e.xiness of the man on her couch. His dark eyes, his flat stomach and long, muscular legs. She felt the heat of the fire behind her and decided it wasn't helping. Moving away from the woodstove, she pushed back a faint sense of irritation at herself that she was still attracted to him.

She sat in her favorite knitting-and-DVD-watching chair. "Then why are you here now?"

He grinned at her. "Because my head hurts."

"In Vermont, Nick. Why are you in Vermont?"

He glanced at the fire blazing behind the gla.s.s doors of the woodstove. "Unfinished business."

The dim light from a floor lamp by the couch caught the raw sc.r.a.pe on the side of his head. As tough and accustomed to pain as he was, he nonetheless looked a little ragged and hurt, and he had to have a screaming headache. Rose knew she'd gone too far as it was. Did she really want to go further and press him about what he meant by "unfinished business"?

She launched herself to her feet and marched down to her bedroom, flipped on the overhead and pulled open her closet. She dug out a pair of dressy black heels. She'd worn them to an event Sean had dragged her to in Beverly Hills last summer. Did they just prove Nick's point? They were heels, but they weren't four-inch or expensive.

She shoved them back into her closet. "What am I doing?"

But she dug out a pair of nude-colored sling-backs with two-inch heels. She'd worn them to A.J. and Lauren's wedding five years ago. They weren't even close to s.e.xy. They were...utilitarian.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of her closet door. She'd changed into jeans and a dark burgundy sweater for dinner with her brother and sister-in-law. She hadn't fooled with her hair-it looked okay, maybe a little wild. Of course she'd worn boots. It was winter.

Definitely not starlet material.

It wasn't as if no one in Black Falls was. Lauren was elegant and beautiful, always perfectly, if simply, dressed for her days at the lodge. She had a natural sense of style. Hannah was pretty with her delicate features. Jo Harper, Elijah's love, the Secret Service agent, had amazing turquoise eyes and that great copper hair.

Rose had never paid much attention to her appearance-well, she had. She just hadn't done much about it. Spas, manicures, pedicures, hair treatments. They all took time and money she didn't have. She'd been known to have her hair flop into her face, get irritated, grab scissors and hack off a hunk over the sink. One of her best friends from high school owned the one salon in town and would lament Rose's self-cuts and recommend regular hair appointments. But how could she with her schedule?

Nick Martini had slept with her because she was there, and now he wanted to absolve himself of any guilt that would intrude on his friendship and business with Sean. That was all there was to it, and it wasn't such a bad thing. She had to be smart and not set herself up for an emotional fall.

Or another night of hot s.e.x with a man who'd walk away from her in the morning. They'd just had another adrenaline dump, and here they were-attracted to each other, restless, alone.

Who was she kidding?

Nick was a type A, mission-oriented man. He wasn't in Black Falls because of her. He was in Vermont because he wanted answers. The possibility that Jasper's death was linked to Lowell Whittaker was Nick's only "unfinished business."

Rose returned to the living room. Nick had pulled a knitted afghan over him. "Your handiwork?"

"Penny Hodges. She owns the only flower shop in town. She and my mother were friends. My dad used to say they spoiled Elijah."

"Did they?"

"You've met Elijah," she said, dropping back onto her chair, the fire bright orange inside the gla.s.s door. "He's impossible to spoil."

Nick crossed his ankles under the afghan. He'd taken off his boots, set them next to her snow sneakers. "You flew to Germany after he was wounded."

Rose pushed back a wave of memories of those hard days of fear and grief last April. "He was recovering at Landstuhl. I could get there faster than Sean or A.J."

"Sean said Elijah was shot in the femoral artery. If you don't bleed to death in the first few minutes, you can make a full recovery."

"Which he did."

"You told him about your father's death."

"Yes."

She could see Elijah in his hospital bed, her tough, impossible-to-hurt soldier brother bandaged and in pain. The doctors and nurses had been as helpful to her as they could be, but she'd insisted on being the one to tell him that their father had died of exposure on the mountain he loved.

"A.J. had to tell Sean and me," she said.

She saw that Nick's eyes were shut. He wasn't asleep, but, she thought, he didn't need to sit there and listen to her. She felt the strains of the past two days catching up with her. "You can keep the fire going overnight or just let it go out. Up to you."

She thought he was at least half-asleep, but he eased out from under the afghan and got up, standing close to her. He took her hand into his kissed her softly on the cheek. "Sleep, Rose," he said. "We'll talk tomorrow."

She squeezed his hand. "I can do heels and sequins, you know."

"Baby, you're s.e.xy in those wool socks of yours."

She laughed. "I think you might have a concussion after all."

"Not a chance." He slipped his arms around her waist and kissed her on the lips this time, again softly, as if he wanted to prove he could restrain himself after their mad, wild encounter last June. "No concussion."

She let herself lean into him, put her arms around him and feel his warmth, his strength-and her undeniable, uncontrollable physical reaction to him. She forced herself to pull back and stand up straight. She smiled. "Go on and get back under your afghan," she said. "You're in no shape to figure out what's going on between us. I'm not sure I am, either."

"Rose-"

She saw car headlights on her driveway and dropped her hands from Nick's hard middle. "That must be your stuff from the lodge." How fortuitous, she thought.

While Nick went outside, Rose fetched sheets and a proper pillow and blanket from the linen closet. She dumped them on the couch as he returned with a small suitcase and set it on the floor.

She watched him put another log on the fire. As a smoke jumper, he had a different relationship with fire than most people. He reached for the poker and she made her exit. She locked the front and back doors and ducked into her bedroom.

She pulled off her clothes, still able to feel Nick's solid chest and abdomen, taste his lips on hers. She sank into her bed, her sheets cold.

Ranger looked at her from the threshold, then lay down just out in the hall. Rose smiled. Her own d'Artagnan-her own Musketeer.

Who needed a multimillionaire smoke jumper?