Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) (14 page)

Stunned, Blaire let her tense body slightly relax.
“Mastin?” She chuckled. “Darian, Mastin is my father.”

Puzzled, Darian stepped forward.
“Your father?”

“
Yes. Mastin Kincaid is my father, you idiot! Besides, you’re skirting the issue here.”

“
I’m not skirting anything. That’s just perfect, Blaire.” He shook his head. “Congressman Mastin Kincaid is your father. Don’t you see? Now I know I’m right. You don’t need me. You don’t need to be here, holed up in this cabin—and that’s all I can ever offer you, Blaire—what you see is what you get with me. With a father like Mastin Kincaid, probably the wealthiest man in all of Vermont, I’m sure you’ve had everything you ever needed in your life. What in the hell can I give you Blaire? Well, that’s easy. I can give you nothing.”

T
he words settled about them on a silent whisper. Blaire simply looked at Darian. “You can give me love,” she whispered. “It’s the one thing I’ve never had in my entire life.”

The room kept its silence and
Blaire stared hard into Darian’s face. Finally, when she saw his lips part to speak, she shivered, fearing the words to come from his mouth. And then she heard the worst.

“
Sorry, but I can’t give you that either.”

After a moment, she challenged,
“Are you afraid to love me?”

Darian dropped her things
to the floor, his hands resting on his hips. The eye contact between them was palatable and Blaire feared the worse, and knew she was a fool.

“
Yes. Yes, I’m afraid to love you. And I’m afraid not to love you. But the thing of it is, Blaire, I don’t love you. Not yet. And you don’t love me either. That’s why we need to get you out of here now, before we cause either one of us more heartache. It’s only a beginning and I can’t let it go any further. I don’t want you. I won’t love you. I refuse. Now, get dressed and let’s go.”

Blaire shook her head.
“I can’t.”

“
Why?”

“
I’ve got unfinished business with you.”

H
e shifted his weight from one foot to another. “What. Business.”

“
I haven’t exactly told you the real reason I came here.”

“
What are you talking about?”

Might as well get it over with, Blaire.
You’re going to be out of here one way or another, it seems, anyway
. “I’m a private investigator. I need your signature. I was hired by your aunt Reva to find you to sign some papers.”

“
What papers?” he returned impatiently.

Blaire could tell by the way his jaw clenched that he wasn
’t too amused with what he’d heard so far. But she couldn’t leave here and not do her job. Besides, she’d already been paid. “I told you your grandfather left you his estate. Well, according to Reva, the estate is in a state of disrepair, back taxes are due, and from what she says, your grandfather did not see to the affairs of the estate very well in his last few years. According to her, his attorney shirked a lot of his responsibilities. Anyway, as the executor of the will, she feels it best to sell. But with the estate left to you, you have to give permission for her to do so. So I’ve been sent to get you to sign the papers.”

Without emotion, Darian snapped back at her.
“Where are they?”

“
In my briefcase.”

“
Get them.”

Blaire reached over to retrieve the briefcase, set the combination lock, and opened it.
Bringing out a large manila envelope, she handed it to Darian.

Snatching it out of her hand, he hurriedly stepped across the room to a dresser, pulled the documents out of the envelope, picked up a pen and leafed through the papers for the place to put his signature.

“You better read it.”

He shook his head.
“Don’t need to.”

“
But you’ll lose the entire estate.”

“
Fine.”

“
But—”

Darian
’s glare flashed at her from the few steps across the room. “It’s my business, Blaire.” He signed quickly, shoved the papers back into the envelope and handed them to her. “There, now, can we finally get going?”

Blaire looked down at the stiff envelope in her hand.
Darian had stepped around her toward the door and was picking up her things again. Glancing from the object in her hands to the fireplace in front of her, she knew what she needed to do. Darian needed to face up to his problems, not shove them away or run away from him. And for once he was going to do that. Whether he ever loved her or not, she was going to force him to face his problems and stop running.

She
took two swift steps to the fireplace and tossed the documents into the fire. For a moment, she watched the flames lick and curl the edges. Then she turned to face him.

The look of surprise on his face was instantaneous.
He leapt toward the fireplace to retrieve the papers, but Blaire quickly stepped in front of him. In anger, he bodily lifted her, and placed her to the side, out of his way, but when he turned back, the papers were consumed. Then he turned on her, and Blaire saw the fire in his eyes.

“
Why did you do that?”

“
You’ve got to stop running, Darian.”

He stepped closer.
“You need to stay out of my business.”

“
It’s my business too.”

He raked a hand through his hair.
“Like hell it is. When did it become your business?”

Blaire stepped closer this time.
“When you made love to me last night.”

Darian stepped back.
“That has nothing to do with this.”

“
That has everything to do with this, Darian. You’re pushing me away. You’ve giving up on your life. You’re signing away your inheritance. And I’m not going to stand around and watch you destroy yourself.”

“
You don’t have to. Leave and you’ll never know the gruesome details.”

Blaire shook her head and stepped closer.
“Uh-huh, no you don’t. Don’t play the pity party with me, Darian. Look, you’ve had a lot of rough times in your life. Probably worse than most people. Losing your child like that must have been devastating. I can’t imagine…”

“
No, you can’t.” His look was pure steel.

Blaire paused at the pain radiating over his face
and then continued softly. “But you’ve got to keep going, Darian. You’ve got to keep living. And just because you’ve made a vow to pay homage to your son this way for the rest of your life, doesn’t mean you have to throw your entire life away. You can’t throw it all away, Darian.”

“
Yes, I can.”

“
I’m not going to let you.”

“
You can’t stop me.”

“
I can try.”

“
I don’t want you to, Blaire. I don’t want you. I don’t want the estate. All I want is to be left alone. If you love me, as you say you do, then you’ll respect that. You’ll leave me here to rot in my own time.”

“
And wallow in your self-pity?”

“
Perhaps.”

“
Such a waste of a human life.”

“
I’ve already wasted one life, why not another? And I’ll not waste yours right along with mine.”

Bl
aire turned her back to him. Her gaze rested on her clothing still lying on the foot of the bed.
I don’t have a choice, do I?
Then a thought struck her. “There’s nothing I can do to convince you to let me stay?”

After a moment, he answered softly.
“No.”

Blaire closed her eyes and sighed.
Momentarily, she opened them and walked to the bed, took her time dressing, and then turned and stood before him. “Then I guess there’s only one thing left for me to do.”

Before she reached the door, she turned to look one last time at his face.
“I’m ready.”

He dropped his chi
n in a half-nod, as if he couldn’t acknowledge that she had finally relented. “All right.” He stepped toward her.

“
Wait, uh, before I leave, I need to make a trip to the little girl’s room out back, if you don’t mind.”

Darian looked at her momentarily
and then nodded. Blaire left.

When she returned,
Darian’s back was to her as he stared out a window looking over the hills. “Ready?”

He looked toward her, his face ashen
. Determined, she stepped across the room to retrieve her duffel bag and briefcase. She didn’t make eye contact as she passed him, exiting the still open door.

Darian followed.

The jeep was in the barn. Darian opened the barn doors wide. Stepping into the darkened building, he took her things, threw them into the back, then opened the canvas passenger door, and nudged her up into the old four-wheel drive vehicle—all the while, his demeanor sullen, his face fixed as if completing an unpleasant task. Blaire watched, her exterior the same as his, her insides tense.

Darian slipped into the jeep beside her, clutched with his left foot and placed his right foot on the accelerator,
and then turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. He tried again. A hushed click filled the silence between them. Blaire looked at Darian.

With a deep sigh, he got out, lifted the hood,
and then slammed it back down in disgust. Blaire fixed the questioning expression on her face. Darian stared at her through the windshield and then traipsed around to her door and jerked it open.

“
What did you do with them?”

“
What?” Blaire asked naively.

“
The spark plug wires. What did you do with them?”

Blaire
’s eyes grew wide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darian.”

“
The hell you don’t,” he mumbled as he let the door slap shut beside her. He stalked off.

Blaire followed,
the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. It worked! If it worked for the nuns in
The Sound of Music
, then she could stop one angry man from ruining his life—and hers too.

She needed more time, and if misplacing the spark plug wires of Darian
’s jeep bought her that time, then she would do it. She watched as he stomped up the porch steps, entered the cabin, letting the outside door slam shut behind him. She smiled as she glanced at the outhouse majestically angled behind the cabin in the snow, her footsteps decorating the path from her earlier trek there.

Certainly, she didn
’t relish the notion of walking the two miles back to her car in a foot of snow—he wouldn’t make her do that, would he? Looked like she’d be forced to spend one or two more nights alone with Mr. Darian MacGlenary.

Whether he liked it or not.

****

You can give me love.
It’s the one thing I’ve never had in my entire life.

Darian felt the heat of the fi
re waft over his body. Even with his eyes closed, he could see Blaire’s pitiful face as she spoke those words to him. He could still hear her soft pleading, feel the pounding of her heart. Or maybe it was his own heart.

We shared
something last night, Darian. We both did.

It was his heart he felt. Pounding. H
er words tore the heart right out of his chest. Beating, pumping blood, and all. Tore it right out and he thought he would die. She wanted him to love her.

She
wants me to love her.

What do I want?

Didn’t she know how foolish that would be for her? Couldn’t she tell how painful it was for him? Did she dare think he would love her back? How could she expect that of him? He wasn’t capable of love anymore. Never would be again.

He
’d been a rude son-of-a-bitch all day. For days. Not that he’d physically hurt her, he would never do that. He just refused to acknowledge her presence. Refused to talk to her. Turned his back on her whenever she approached him. A rude son-of-a-bitch was exactly what he was. A goddamned asshole. Sooner or later she’d get the message, he was sure. Sooner or later. He just hoped he could hold out that long. It was killing him being this way toward her. Killing him more than he cared to admit.

But finally, she got
the message. She left him alone, turned her back on him also, and went to bed.

It was the first sigh of relie
f he’d breathed for days.

She was trouble.
He knew it the first day he saw her. Trouble with a capital T. He knew he’d lost all self-control the first time he picked her up off the ground and held her. When he’d comforted her during the night. When he began breaking all his rules. And then he’d had the nerve to make love to her.