The Winter Man (17 page)

He went to the sink to wash his hands, almost vibrating with pent-up anger. She sensed it, but it only piqued her curiosity. He was reacting to her. She felt it, knew it, as she picked up a dish towel and went close to him to wrap it gently over his wet hands. Her big black eyes searched his, and she let her fingers linger on his while time seemed to end in the warm kitchen.

His dark eyes narrowed, and he seemed to have stopped breathing. He was aware of so many sensations. Hunger. Anger. Loneliness. Lust. His head spun with them, and the scent of her was pure, soft woman, drifting up into his nostrils, cocooning him in the smell of cologne and shampoo. His gaze fell helplessly to her soft bow of a mouth and he wondered how it would feel to bend those few inches and take it roughly under his own. It had been so long since he'd kissed a woman, held a woman. Amanda was particularly feminine, and she appealed to everything that was masculine in him. He almost vibrated with the need to reach out to her.

But that way lay disaster, he told himself firmly. She was just another treacherous woman, probably bored with confinement, just keeping her hand in with attracting men. He probably seemed like a pushover, and she was going to use her charms to make a fool of him. He took a
deep, slow breath and the glitter in his eyes became even more pronounced as he jerked the towel out of her hands and moved away.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. She felt her cheeks go hot, because there had been a cold kind of violence in the action that warned her his emotions weren't quite under control. She moved away from him. Violence was the one thing she did expect from men. She'd lived with it for most of her life until she'd run away from home.

She went back to the stove, stirring the sauce she'd made to go with the boiled dumpling.

“Don't get too comfortable in the kitchen,” he warned her. “This is Harry's private domain and he doesn't like trespassers. You're just passing through.”

“I haven't forgotten that, Mr. Sutton,” she replied, and her eyes kindled with dark fire as she looked at him. There was no reason to make her feel so unwelcome. “Just as soon as the thaw comes, I'll be out of your way for good.”

“I can hardly wait,” he said, biting off the words.

Amanda sighed wearily. It wasn't her idea of the perfect rest spot. She'd come away from the concert stage needing healing, and all she'd found was another battle to fight.

“You make me feel so at home, Mr. Sutton,” she said wistfully. “Like part of the family. Thanks so much for your gracious hospitality, and do you happen to have a jar of rat poison…?”

Quinn had to bite hard to keep from laughing. He turned and went out of the kitchen as if he were being chased.

After supper, Amanda volunteered to wash dishes, but Harry shooed her off. Quinn apparently did book work every night, because he went into his study and closed the door, leaving Elliot with Amanda for company. They'd watched the science-fiction movie Elliot had been so eager to see and now they were working on the keyboard.

“I think I've got the hang of C major,” Elliot announced, and ran the scale, complete with turned under thumb on the key of F.

“Very good,” she enthused. “Okay, let's go on to G major.”

She taught him the scale and watched him play it, her mind on Quinn Sutton's antagonism.

“Something bothering you?” Elliot asked suspiciously.

She shrugged. “Your dad doesn't want me here.”

“He hates women,” he said. “You knew that, didn't you?”

“Yes. But why?”

He shook his head. “It's because of my mother. She did something really terrible to him, and he never talks about her. He never has. I've got one picture of her, in my room.”

“I guess you look like her,” she said speculatively.

He handed her the keyboard. “I've got red hair and freckles like she had,” he confessed. “I'm just sorry that I…well, that I don't look anything like Dad. I'm glad he cares about me, though, in spite of everything. Isn't it great that he likes me?”

What an odd way to talk about his father, Amanda
thought as she studied him. She wanted to say something else, to ask about that wording, but it was too soon. She hid her curiosity in humor.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,'” she intoned deeply.

He chuckled. “Hamlet,” he said. “Shakespeare. We did that in English class last month.”

“Culture in the high country.” She applauded. “Very good, Elliot.”

“I like rock culture best,” he said in a stage whisper. “Play something.”

She glanced toward Quinn's closed study door with a grimace. “Something soft.”

“No!” he protested, and grinned. “Come on, give him hell.”

“Elliot!” she chided.

“He needs shaking up, I tell you, he's going to die an old maid. He gets all funny and red when unmarried ladies talk to him at church, and just look at how grumpy he's been since you've been around. We've got to save him, Amanda,” he said solemnly.

She sighed. “Okay. It's your funeral.” She flicked switches, turning on the auto rhythm, the auto chords, and moved the volume to maximum. With a mischievous glance at Elliot, she swung into one of the newest rock songs, by a rival group, instantly recognizable by the reggae rhythm and sweet harmony.

“Good God!” came a muffled roar from the study. Amanda cut off the keyboard and handed it to Elliot.

“No!” Elliot gasped.

But it was too late. His father came out of the study and saw Elliot holding the keyboard and started smoldering.

“It was her!” Elliot accused, pointing his finger at her.

She peered at Quinn over her drawn-up knees. “Would I play a keyboard that loud in your house, after you warned me not to?” she asked in her best meek voice.

Quinn's eyes narrowed. They went back to Elliot.

“She's lying,” Elliot said. “Just like the guy in those truck commercials on TV…!”

“Keep it down,” Quinn said without cracking a smile. “Or I'll give that thing the decent burial it really needs. And no more damned rock music in my house! That thing has earphones. Use them!”

“Yes, sir,” Elliot groaned.

Amanda saluted him. “We hear and obey, excellency!” she said with a deplorable Spanish accent. “Your wish is our command. We live only to serve…!”

The slamming of the study door cut her off. She burst into laughter while Elliot hit her with a sofa cushion.

“You animal,” he accused mirthfully. “Lying to Dad, accusing me of doing something I never did! How could you?”

“Temporary insanity,” she gasped for breath. “I couldn't help myself.”

“We're both going to die,” he assured her. “He'll lie awake all night thinking of ways to get even and when we least expect it, pow!”

“He's welcome. Here. Run that G major scale again.”

He let her turn the keyboard back on, but he was careful to move the volume switch down as far as it would go.

It was almost nine when Quinn came out of the study and turned out the light.

“Time for bed,” he said.

Amanda had wanted to watch a movie that was coming on, but she knew better than to ask. Presumably they did occasionally watch television at night. She'd have to ask one of these days.

“Good night, Dad. Amanda,” Elliot said, grinning as he went upstairs with a bound.

“Did you do your homework?” Quinn called up after him.

“Almost.”

“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded.

“It means I'll do it first thing in the morning! 'Night, Dad!”

A door closed.

Quinn glared at Amanda. “That won't do,” he said tersely. “His homework comes first. Music is a nice hobby, but it's not going to make a living for him.”

Why not, she almost retorted, it makes a six-figure annual income for me, but she kept her mouth shut.

“I'll make sure he's done his homework before I offer to show him anything else on the keyboard. Okay?”

He sighed angrily. “All right. Come on. Let's go to bed.”

She put her hands over her chest and gasped, her eyes wide and astonished. “Together? Mr. Sutton, really!”

His dark eyes narrowed in a veiled threat. “Hell will freeze over before I wind up in bed with you,” he said icily. “I told you, I don't want used goods.”

“Your loss,” she sighed, ignoring the impulse to lay a lamp across his thick skull. “Experience is a valuable commodity in my world.” She deliberately smoothed her hands down her waist and over her hips, her eyes faintly coquettish as she watched him watching her movements. “And I'm very experienced,” she drawled. In music, she was.

His jaw tautened. “Yes, it does show,” he said. “Kindly keep your attitudes to yourself. I don't want my son corrupted.”

“If you really meant that, you'd let him watch movies and listen to rock music and trust him to make up his own mind about things.”

“He's only twelve.”

“You aren't preparing him to live in the real world,” she protested.

“This,” he said, “is the real world for him. Not some fancy apartment in a city where women like you lounge around in bars picking up men.”

“Now you wait just a minute,” she said. “I don't lounge around in bars to pick up men.” She shifted her stance. “I hang out in zoos and flash elderly men in my trench coat.”

He threw up his hands. “I give up.”

“Good! Your room or mine?”

He whirled, his dark eyes flashing. Her smile was purely provocative and she was deliberately baiting him, he could sense it. His jaw tautened and he wanted to pick her up and shake her for the effect her teasing was having on him.

“Okay, I quit,” Amanda said, because she could see that he'd reached the limits of his control and she wasn't quite brave enough to test the other side of it. “Good night. Sweet dreams.”

He didn't answer her. He followed her up the stairs and watched her go into her room and close the door. After a minute, he went into his own room and locked the door. He laughed mirthlessly at his own rash action, but he hoped she could hear the bolt being thrown.

She could. It shocked her, until she realized that he'd done it deliberately, probably trying to hurt her. She laid back on her bed with a long sigh. She didn't know what to do about Mr. Sutton. He was beginning to get to her in a very real way. She had to keep her perspective. This was only temporary. It would help to keep it in mind.

Quinn was thinking the same thing. But when he turned out the light and closed his eyes, he kept feeling Amanda's loosened hair brushing down his chest, over his
flat stomach, his loins. He shuddered and woke up sweating in the middle of the night. It was the worst and longest night of his life.

* * *

The next morning, Quinn glared at Amanda across the breakfast table after Elliot had left for school.

“Leave my shirts alone,” he said curtly. “If you find any more tears, Harry can mend them.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “I don't have germs,” she pointed out. “I couldn't contaminate them just by stitching them up.”

“Leave them alone,” he said harshly.

“Okay. Suit yourself.” She sighed. “I'll just busy myself making lacy pillows for your bed.”

He said something expressive and obscene; her lips fell open and she gaped at him. She'd never heard him use language like that.

It seemed to bother him that he had. He put down his fork, left his eggs and went out the door as if leopards were stalking him.

Amanda stirred her eggs around on the plate, feeling vaguely guilty that she'd given him such a hard time that he'd gone without half his breakfast. She didn't know why she needled him. It seemed to be a new habit, maybe to keep him at bay, to keep him from noticing how attracted she was to him.

“I'm going out to feed the calves, Harry,” she said after a minute.

“Dress warm. It's snowing again,” he called from upstairs.

“Okay.”

She put on her coat and hat and wandered out to the barn through the path Quinn had made in the deep snow. She'd never again grumble at little two- and three-foot drifts in the city, she promised herself. Now that she knew what real snow was, she felt guilty for all her past complaints.

The barn was warmer than the great outdoors. She pushed snowflakes out of her eyes and face and went to fix the bottles as Harry had shown her, but Quinn was already there and had it done.

“No need to follow me around trying to get my attention,” Amanda murmured with a wicked smile. “I've already noticed how sexy and handsome you are.”

He drew in a furious breath, but just as he was about to speak she moved closer and put her fingers against his cold mouth.

“You'll break my heart if you use ungentlemanly language, Mr. Sutton,” she told him firmly. “I'll just feed the calves and admire you from afar, if you don't mind. It seems safer than trying to throw myself at you.”

He looked torn between shaking her and kissing her. She stood very still where he towered above her, even bigger than usual in that thick shepherd's coat and his tall, gray Stetson. He looked down at her quietly, his narrowed eyes lingering on her flushed cheeks and her soft, parted mouth.

Her hands were resting against the coat, and his were on her arms, pulling. She could hardly breathe as she realized that he'd actually touched her voluntarily. He jerked her face up under his, and she could see anger and something like bitterness in the dark eyes that held hers until she blushed.

“Just what are you after, city girl?” he asked coldly.

“A smile, a kind word and, dare I say it, a round of hearty laughter?” she essayed with wide eyes, trying not to let him see how powerfully he affected her.

His dark eyes fell to her mouth. “Is that right? And nothing more?”