The Winter Man (18 page)

Her breath came jerkily through her lips. “I…have to feed the calves.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do.” His fingers on her arms contracted, so that she could feel them even through the sleeves of her coat. “Be careful what you offer me,” he said in a voice as light and cold as the snow outside the barn. “I've been without a woman for one hell of a long time, and I'm alone up here. If you're not what you're making yourself out to be, you could be letting yourself in for some trouble.”

She stared up at him only half comprehending what he was saying. As his meaning began to filter into her consciousness, her cheeks heated and her breath caught in her throat.

“You…make it sound like a threat,” she breathed.

“It is a threat, Amanda,” he replied, using her name for the first time. “You could start something you might not want to finish with me, even with Elliot and Harry around.”

She bit her lower lip nervously. She hadn't considered that. He looked more mature and formidable than he ever had before, and she could feel the banked-down fires in him kindling even as he held her.

“Okay,” she said after a minute.

He let her go and moved away from her to get the bottles. He handed them to her with a long, speculative look. “It's all right,” she muttered, embarrassed. “I won't attack you while your back is turned. I almost never rape men.”

He lifted an eyebrow, but he didn't smile. “You crazed female sex maniac,” he murmured.

“Goody Two-Shoes,” she shot back.

A corner of his mouth actually turned up. “You've got that one right,” he agreed. “Stay close to the house while it's snowing like this. We wouldn't want to lose you.”

“I'll just bet we wouldn't,” she muttered and stuck her tongue out at his retreating back.

She knelt down to feed the calves, still shaken by her confrontation with Quinn. He was an enigma. She was almost certain that he'd been joking with her at the end of the exchange, but it was hard to tell from his poker face. He didn't look like a man who'd laughed often or enough.

The littlest calf wasn't responding as well as he had earlier. She cuddled him and coaxed him to drink, but he
did it without any spirit. She laid him back down with a sigh. He didn't look good at all. She worried about him for the rest of the evening, and she didn't argue when the television was cut off at nine o'clock. She went straight to bed, with Quinn and Elliot giving her odd looks.

A
manda was subdued at the breakfast table, more so when Quinn started watching her with dark, accusing eyes. She knew she'd deliberately needled him for the past two days, and now she was sorry. He'd hinted that her behavior was about to start something, and she was anxious not to make things any worse than they already were.

The problem was that she was attracted to him. The more she saw of him, the more she liked him. He was different from the superficial, materialistic men in her own world. He was hardheaded and stubborn. He had values, and he spoke out for them. He lived by a rigid code of ethics, and honor was a word that had great meaning for him. Under all that, he was sensitive and caring. Amanda
couldn't help the way she was beginning to feel about him. She only wished that she hadn't started off on the wrong foot with him.

She set out to win him over, acting more like her real self. She was polite and courteous and caring, but without the rough edges she'd had in the beginning. She still did the mending, despite his grumbling, and she made cushions for the sofa out of some cloth Harry had put away. But all her domestic actions only made things worse. Quinn glared at her openly now, and his lack of politeness raised even Harry's eyebrows.

Amanda had a sneaking hunch that it was attraction to her that was making him so ill humored. He didn't act at all like an experienced man, despite his marriage, and the way he looked at her was intense. If she could bring him out into the open, she thought, it might ease the tension a little.

She did her chores, including feeding the calves, worrying even more about the littlest one because he wasn't responding as well today as he had the day before. When Elliot came home, she refused to help him with the keyboard until he did his homework. With a rueful smile and a knowing glance at his dad, he went up to his room to get it over with.

Meanwhile, Harry went out to get more firewood and Amanda was left in the living room with Quinn watching an early newscast.

The news was, as usual, all bad. Quinn put out his
cigarette half angrily, his dark eyes lingering on Amanda's soft face.

“Don't you miss the city?” he asked.

She smiled. “Sure. I miss the excitement and my friends. But it's nice here, too.” She moved toward the big armchair he was sitting in, nervously contemplating her next move. “You don't mind all that much, do you? Having me around, I mean?”

He glared up at her. He was wearing a blue-checked flannel shirt, buttoned up to the throat, and the hard muscles of his chest strained against it. He looked twice as big as usual, his dark hair unruly on his broad forehead as he stared up into her eyes.

“I'm getting used to you, I guess,” he said stiffly. “Just don't get too comfortable.”

“You really don't want me here, do you?” she asked quietly.

He sighed angrily. “I don't like women,” he muttered.

“I know.” She sat down on the arm of his chair, facing him. “Why not?” she asked gently.

His body went taut at the proximity. She was too close. Too female. The scent of her got into his nostrils and made him shift restlessly in the chair. “It's none of your damned business why not,” he said evasively. “Will you get up from there?”

She warmed at the tone of his voice. So she did disturb him! Amanda smiled gently as she leaned forward. “Are you sure you want me to?” she asked and suddenly threw
caution to the wind and slid down into his lap, putting her soft mouth hungrily on his.

He stiffened. He jerked. His big hands bit into her arms so hard they bruised. But for just one long, sweet moment, his hard mouth gave in to hers and he gave her back the kiss, his lips rough and warm, the pressure bruising, and he groaned as if all his dreams had come true at once.

He tasted of smoke for the brief second that he allowed the kiss. Then he was all bristling indignation and cold fury. He slammed to his feet, taking her with him, and literally threw her away, so hard that she fell against and onto the sofa.

“Damn you,” he ground out. His fists clenched at his sides. His big body vibrated with outrage. “You cheap little tart!”

She lay trembling, frightened of the violence in his now white face and blazing dark eyes. “I'm not,” she defended feebly.

“Can't you live without it for a few days, or are you desperate enough to try to seduce me?” he hissed. His eyes slid over her with icy contempt. “It won't work. I've told you already, I don't want something that any man can have! I don't want any part of you, least of all your overused body!”

She got to her feet on legs that threatened to give way under her, backing away from his anger. She couldn't even speak. Her father had been like that when he drank too much, white-faced, icy hot, totally out of control. And
when he got that way, he hit. She cringed away from Quinn as he moved toward her and suddenly, she whirled and ran out of the room.

He checked his instinctive move to go after her. So she was scared, was she? He frowned, trying to understand why. He'd only spoken the truth; did she not like hearing what she was? The possibility that he'd been wrong, that she wasn't a cheap little tart, he wouldn't admit even to himself.

He sat back down and concentrated on the television without any real interest. When Elliot came downstairs, Quinn barely looked up.

“Where's Amanda going?” he asked his father.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Where's Amanda going in such a rush?” Elliot asked again. “I saw her out the window, tramping through waist-deep snow. Doesn't she remember what you told her about old McNaber's traps? She's headed straight for them if she keeps on the way she's headed… Where are you going?”

Quinn was already on his feet and headed for the back door. He got into his shepherd's coat and hat without speaking, his face pale, his eyes blazing with mingled fear and anger.

“She was crying,” Harry muttered, sparing him a glance. “I don't know what you said to her, but—”

“Shut up,” Quinn said coldly. He stared the older man down and went out the back door and around the house, following in the wake Amanda's body had made. She was
already out of sight, and those traps would be buried under several feet of snow. Bear traps, and she wouldn't see them until she felt them. The thought of that merciless metal biting her soft flesh didn't bear thinking about, and it would be his fault because he'd hurt her.

Several meters ahead, into the woods now, Amanda was cursing silently as she plowed through the snowdrifts, her black eyes fierce even through the tears. Damn Quinn Sutton, she panted. She hoped he got eaten by moths during the winter, she hoped his horse stood on his foot, she hoped the sled ran over him and packed him into the snow and nobody found him until spring. It was only a kiss, after all, and he'd kissed her back just for a few seconds.

She felt the tears burning coldly down her cheeks as they started again. Damn him. He hadn't had to make her feel like such an animal, just because she'd kissed him. She cared about him. She'd only wanted to get on a friendlier footing with him. But now she'd done it. He hated her for sure, she'd seen it in his eyes, in his face, when he'd called her those names. Cheap little tart, indeed! Well, Goody Two-Shoes Sutton could just hold his breath until she kissed him again, so there!

She stopped to catch her breath and then plowed on. The cabin was somewhere down here. She'd stay in it even if she did freeze to death. She'd shack up with a grizzly bear before she'd spend one more night under Quinn Sutton's roof. She frowned. Were there grizzly bears in this part of the country?

“Amanda, stop!”

She paused, wondering if she'd heard someone call her name, or if it had just been the wind. She was in a break of lodgepole pines now, and a cabin was just below in the valley. But it wasn't Mr. Durning's cabin. Could that be McNaber's…?

“Amanda!”

That was definitely her name. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the familiar shepherd's coat and dark worn Stetson atop that arrogant head.

“Eat snow, Goody Two-Shoes!” she yelled back. “I'm going home!”

She started ahead, pushing hard now. But he had the edge, because he was walking in the path she'd made. He was bigger and faster, and he had twice her stamina. Before she got five more feet, he had her by the waist.

She fought him, kicking and hitting, but he simply wrapped both arms around her and held on until she finally ran out of strength.

“I hate you,” she panted, shivering as the cold and the exertion got to her. “I hate you!”

“You'd hate me more if I hadn't stopped you,” he said, breathing hard. “McNaber lives down there. He's got bear traps all over the place. Just a few more steps, and you'd have been up to your knees in them, you little fool! You can't even see them in snow this deep!”

“What would you care?” she groaned. “You don't want
me around. I don't want to stay with you anymore. I'll take my chances at the cabin!”

“No, you won't, Amanda,” he said. His embrace didn't even loosen. He whipped her around, his big hands rough on her sleeves as he shook her. “You're coming back with me, if I have to carry you!”

She flinched, the violence in him frightening her. She swallowed, her lower lip trembling and pulled feebly against his hands.

“Let go of me,” she whispered. Her voice shook, and she hated her own cowardice.

He scowled. She was paper-white. Belatedly he realized what was wrong and his hands released her. She backed away as far as the snow would allow and stood like a young doe at bay, her eyes dark and frightened.

“Did he hit you?” he asked quietly.

She didn't have to ask who. She shivered. “Only when he drank,” she said, her voice faltering. “But he always drank.” She laughed bitterly. “Just…don't come any closer until you cool down, if you please.”

He took a slow, steadying breath. “I'm sorry,” he said, shocking her. “No, I mean it. I'm really sorry. I wouldn't have hit you, if that's what you're thinking. Only a coward would raise his hand to a woman,” he said with cold conviction.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stood, just breathing, shivering in the cold.

“We'd better get back before you freeze,” he said tautly.
Her very defensiveness disarmed him. He felt guilty and protective all at once. He wanted to take her to his heart and comfort her, but even as he stepped toward her, she backed away. He hadn't imagined how much that would hurt until it happened. He stopped and stood where he was, raising his hands in an odd gesture of helplessness. “I won't touch you,” he promised. “Come on, honey. You can go first.”