Born In Ice (5 page)

Chapter Three

He thought she was out when he came back. As focused as a hound on a scent, Gray headed to the kitchen. It was her voice that stopped him-soft, quiet, and icy. Without giving a thought to the ethics of eavesdropping, he shifted and moved to the doorway of the parlor.

He could see her on the phone. Her hand twisted in the cord, a gesture of anger or nerves. He couldn't see her face, but the stiff set of her back and shoulders was indication enough of her mood.

"I've just come in, Mother. I had to pick up a few things in the village. I've a guest."

There was a pause, Gray watched as Brianna lifted a hand, rubbed it hard at her temple.

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry it upsets you. I'll come around tomorrow. I can-"

She broke off, obviously interrupted by some sharp comment on the other end of the phone. Gray pushed back an urge to move into the room and soothe those tensed shoulders.

"I'll take you wherever you want to go tomorrow. I never said I was too busy, and I'm sorry you're not feeling well. I'll do the marketing, yes, it's no problem. Before noon, I promise. I have to go now. I have cakes in the oven. I'll bring you some, shall I? Tomorrow, Mother, I promise." She muttered a goodbye and turned. The weary distress on her face turned to shock when she saw Gray, then a flush crept into her cheeks. "You move quietly," she said with the faintest trace of annoyance in the tone. "I didn't hear you come in,"

"I didn't want to interrupt." He had no shame about listening to her conversation, nor about watching her varying reactions flicker over her face. "Your mother lives nearby?"

"Not far." Her voice was clipped now, edged with the anger that stirred inside her. He'd listened to her personal misery and didn't think it important enough to apologize for. "I'll get your tea now."

"No hurry. You've got cakes in the oven."

She leveled her eyes at his. "I lied. I should tell you that I open my home to you, but not my private life."

He acknowledged this with a nod. "I should tell you, I always pry. You're upset, Brianna. Maybe you should have some tea."

"I've had mine, thank you." Her shoulders remained stiff as she crossed the room and started to move past him. He stopped her with the faintest of brushes of his hand on her arm. There was curiosity in his eyes-and she resented it. There was sympathy-she didn't want it.

"Most writers have as open an ear as a good bartender."

She shifted. It was only the slightest movement, but it put distance between them, and made her point. "I've always wondered about people who find it necessary to tell their personal problems to the man who serves them ale. I'll bring your tea into the parlor. I've too much to do in the kitchen for company."

Gray ran his tongue around his teeth as she walked away. He had, he knew, been put ever so completely in his place.

Brianna couldn't fault the American for curiosity. She had plenty of her own. She enjoyed finding out about the people who passed through her home, hearing them talk about their lives and their families. It might have been unfair, but she preferred not to discuss hers. Much more comfortable was the role of onlooker. It was safer that way.

But she wasn't angry with him. Experience had taught her that temper solved nothing. Patience, manners, and a quiet tone were more effective shields, and weapons against most confrontations. They had served her well through the evening meal, and by the end of it, it seemed to her that she and Gray had resumed their proper positions of landlandy and guest. His casual invitation to join him at the village pub had been just as casually refused. Brianna had spent a pleasant hour finishing his book.

Now, with breakfast served and the dishes done, she prepared to drive to her mother's and devote the rest of the morning to Maeve. Maggie would be annoyed to hear it, Brianna thought. But her sister didn't understand that it was easier, certainly less stressful to simply meet their mother's need for time and attention. Inconvenience aside, it was only a few hours out of her life.

Hardly a year earlier, before Maggie's success had made it possible to set Maeve up with a companion in her own home, Brianna had been at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day, tending to imaginary illnesses, listening to complaints on her own shortcomings.

And being reminded, time after time, that Maeve had done her duty by giving Brianna life.

What Maggie couldn't understand, and what Brianna continued to be guilty about, was that she was willing to pay any price for the serenity of being the sole mistress of Blackthorn Cottage.

And today the sun was shining. There was a teasing hint of far-off spring in the mild breeze. It wouldn't last, Brianna knew. That made the luminous light and soft air all the more precious. To enjoy it more fully, she rolled down the windows of her ancient Fiat. She would have to roll them up again and turn on the sluggish heater when her mother joined her.

She glanced over at the pretty little Mercedes Gray had leased-not in envy. Or perhaps with just the slightest twinge of envy. It was so efficiently flashy and sleek. And suited its driver, she mused, perfectly. She wondered what it would be like to sit behind the wheel, just for a moment or two.

Almost in apology she patted the steering wheel of her Fiat before turning the key. The engine strained, grumbled, and coughed.

"Ah, now, I didn't mean it," she murmured and tried the key again. "Come on, sweetheart, catch hold, will you? She hates it when I'm late."

But the engine merely stuttered, then died off with a moan. Resigned, Brianna got out and lifted the hood. She knew the Fiat often displayed the temperament of a cranky old woman. Most usually she could coax it along with a few strokes or taps with the tools she carried in the trunk.

She was hauling out a dented toolbox when Gray strolled out the front door.

"Car trouble?" he called.

"She's temperamental." Brianna tossed back her hair and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. "Just needs a bit of attention."

Thumbs tucked in the front pocket of his jeans, he crossed over, glanced under the hood. It wasn't a swagger -but it was close. "Want me to take a look?"

She eyed him. He still hadn't shaved. The stubble should have made him look unkempt and sloppy. Instead, the combination of it and the gold-tipped hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail fit Brianna's image of an American rock star. The idea made her smile.

"Do you know about cars then, or are you offering because you think you should-being male, that is."

His brow shot up, and his lips quirked as he took the toolbox from her. He had to admit he was relieved she wasn't angry with him any longer.

"Step back, little lady," he drawled in a voice thick with the rural South. "And don't worry that pretty head of yours. Let a man handle this."

Impressed, she tilted her head. "You sounded just as I imagined Buck sounded in your book."

"You've a good ear." He flashed her a grin before he ducked under the hood. "He was a pompous red-necked ass, wasn't he?"

"Mmm." She wasn't sure, even though they were discussing a fictional character, if it was polite to agree. "Usually it's the carburetor," she began. "Murphy promised to rebuild it when he has a few hours to spare."

Already head and shoulders under the hood, Gray simply turned his head and gave her a dry look. "Well, Murphy's not here, is he?"

She had to admit he was not. Brianna bit her lip as she watched Gray work. She appreciated the offer, truly she did. But the man was a writer, not a mechanic. She couldn't afford to have him, with all good intentions, damage something.

"Usually if I just prop open that hinge thing there with a stick"-to show him, she leaned in alongside Gray and pointed-"then I get in and start it."

He turned his head again, was eye to eye and mouth to mouth with her. She smelled glorious, as fresh and clean as the morning. As he stared, color flushed into her cheeks, her eyes widened fractionally. Her quick and obviously unplanned reaction to him might have made him smile, if his system hadn't been so busy going haywire.

"It's not the carburetor this time," he said and wondered what she would do if he pressed his lips just where the pulse in her throat was jumping.

"No?" She couldn't have moved if her life had been threatened. His eyes had gold in them, she thought foolishly, gold streaks along the brown, just as he had in his hair. She fought to get a breath in and out. "Usually it is."

He shifted, a test for both of them, until their shoulders brushed. Those lovely eyes of hers clouded with confusion, like a sea under uncertain skies. "This time it's the battery cables. They're corroded."

"It's... been a damp winter."

If he leaned just the slightest bit toward her now, his mouth would be on hers. The thought of it shot straight to her stomach, flipped over. It would be rough-he would be rough, she was certain. Would he kiss like the hero in the book she had finished the night before? With teeth nipping, tongue thrusting? All fierce demand and wild urgency while his hands...

Oh, God. She'd been wrong, Brianna discovered, she could move if her life was threatened. If felt as if it had been, though he hadn't moved, hadn't so much as blinked. Giddy from her own imagination, she jerked back, only to make a small, distressed sound in her throat when he moved with her.

They stood, almost embracing, in the sunlight.

What would he do? she wondered. What would she do?

He wasn't sure why he resisted. Perhaps it was the subtle waves of fear vibrating from her. It might have been the shock of discovering he had his own fear, compressed in a small tight ball in the pit of his stomach.

It was he who took a step back, a very vital step back.

"I'll clean them off for you," he said. "And we'll try her again."

Her hands reached for each other until her fingers were linked. "Thank you. I should go in and call my mother, let her know I'll be a little late."

"Brianna." He waited until she stopped retreating, until her eyes lifted to his again. "You have an incredibly appealing face."

As compliments went, she wasn't sure how this one fit. She nodded. "Thank you. I like yours."

He cocked his head. "Just how careful do you want to be about this?"

It took her a moment to understand, and another to find her voice. "Very," she managed. "I think very."

Gray watched her disappear into the house before he turned back to the job at hand. "I was afraid of that," he muttered.

Once she was on her way-the Fiat's engine definitely needed an overhaul-Gray took a long walk over the fields. He told himself he was absorbing atmosphere, researching, priming himself to work. It was a pity he knew himself well enough to understand he was working off his response to Brianna.

A normal response, he assured himself. She was, after all, a beautiful woman. And he hadn't been with a woman at all for some time. If his libido was revving, it was only to be expected.

There had been a woman, an associate with his publishing house in England, whom he might have tumbled for. Briefly. But he'd suspected that she'd been much more interested in how their relationship might have advanced her career than in enjoying the moment. It had been distressingly easy for him to keep their relationship from becoming intimate.

He was becoming jaded, he supposed. Success could do that to you. Whatever pleasure and pride it brought carried a price. A growing lack of trust, a more jaundiced eye. It rarely bothered him. How could it when trust had never been his strong point in any case? Better, he thought, to see things as they were rather than as you wanted them to be. Save the / wants for fiction.

He could turn his reaction to Brianna around just that way. She would be his prototype for his heroine. The lovely, serene, and composed woman, with secrets in her eyes and ice floes, banked fires, and conflicts stirring beneath the shell.

What made her tick? What did she dream of, what did she fear? Those were questions he would answer as he built a woman out of words and imagination.

Was she jealous of her stunningly successful sister? Did she resent her demanding mother? Was there a man she wanted and who wanted her?

Those were questions he needed to answer as he discovered Brianna Concannon.

Gray began to think he would need to combine them all before he could tell his tale.

He smiled to himself as he walked. He would tell himself that, he thought, because he wanted to know. And he had no qualms whatsoever about prying into someone's private thoughts and experiences. And no guilt about hording his own.

He stopped, turned a slow circle as he looked around him. Now this, he decided, was a place a person could lose himself in. Roll after roll of glistening green fields bisected with gray stone walls, dotted with fat cows. The morning was so clear, so shining, that he could see the glint of window glass in cottages in the distance, the flap of clothes hung out on lines to dry in the breeze.

Overhead the sky was a bowl of swimming blue-postcard perfect. Yet already, at the west rim of that bowl, clouds were swarming together; their purple-edged tips threatened storm.

Here, in what seemed to be the center of a crystalized world, he could smell grass and cow, hints of the sea carried on the air, and the faint, faint scent of smoke from a cottage chimney. There was the sound of wind in the grass, the swish of cows' tails, and the steady trumpet of a bird who celebrated the day.

He almost felt guilty about bringing even fictional murder and mayhem to such a place. Almost.

He had six months, Gray thought. Six months before his next book hit the stands and he flung himself, as cheerfully as possible, into the fun house ride of book tours and press. Six months to create the story that was already growing inside his head. Six months to enjoy this little spot in the world, and the people in it.

Then he would leave it, as he had left dozens of other spots, hundreds of other people, and go on to the next. Going on was something he excelled at.

Gray swung over a wall and crossed the next field.

The circle of stones caught his eye and his imagination immediately. He had seen greater monuments, had stood in the shadow of Stonehenge and felt the power. This dance was hardly more than eight feet, the king stone no taller than a man. But finding it here, standing silent among grazing, disinterested cows, seemed wonderful to him.