Sugar And Spice (17 page)

Oh well, she’d make do.

After he sat down across from her and lifted his fork, she said, “I weigh one-twenty-two.”

“I stand corrected.” He speared a cluster of scrambled eggs and shoved them into his mouth.

Katie glanced down at her plate and surprisingly enough realized she was hungry. She took her butter knife and sliced her single piece of toast in half, then picked up a section and took a bite.

They ate in relative silence, Mack finishing off his meal before she did. When he got up, he asked, “I’m getting more coffee. Do you want a refill?”

“Yes, please.”

He retrieved the glass pot from the coffeemaker, brought it to the table, and refilled their mugs, then set the empty pot on the bar behind him. “You sure do have good manners, Ms. Nice Girl. I’ll bet you say ma’am and sir to your elders, don’t you?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Nah, just having a little fun with you.”

“My mother drilled good manners into all three of her children. It took with Kim and me, but the verdict’s still out on Kit. Although, since he married Molly, his manners have improved.”

“That happens to a guy when he hooks up with just one woman and is fool enough to marry her. He gets whipped pretty fast.”

Katie glared at Mack. “You don’t have a very high opinion of marriage, do you? What happened to you?

A really nasty divorce?”

Mack sat, cupped his coffee between his big hands, and looked at her over the rim of the mug. “I’ve never been married. But I’ve seen what it’s done to other guys.”

“Good marriages are based on love and mutual respect. And on compromise. When you’re with the right person, there’s nothing more wonderful than…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you.”

“It’s okay.” He took a hefty swig of his coffee. “I take it that you had one of those marriages?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good for you.”

“Someday, when you meet the right woman—”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m thirty-six, and Ms. Right hasn’t come into my life, so I doubt she’s out there somewhere waiting for me.”

“You never know.”

“Lady, you’re a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, the most dangerous type of female.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as dangerous. I kind of like the idea.”

“Just like a woman. Give her a little compliment and it goes to her head.” Concentrating on his mug instead of on Katie, Mack drank more coffee.

“Have you heard a weather report this morning?” she asked

“It’s quit snowing for now,” he said. “We’ve got an inch or so of ice, topped off by six inches of snow, and we’re due for more ice and snow before nightfall.”

Katie moaned. “I guess that means there’s no way to get out of here today, is there?”

“Nope. And if we get the ice–snow mix they’re predicting, we’re bound to lose power lines. We’re lucky that hasn’t already happened. And more ice and snow means we could be stuck here for several days.”

“Several days? You’re kidding.”

“What’s the matter, you don’t like sleeping on my sofa, wearing my shirt, and eating my cooking?”

“Oh, no, Mack, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate your coming to my rescue yesterday, and I appreciate your hospitality. It’s just I didn’t expect to spend the holidays with anyone. I wanted to be alone.” Katie gasped. “Oh shoot, that didn’t come out right.”

“I hadn’t planned on sharing my cabin with anyone, certainly not a woman, now or ever. But, honey, it looks like we’re stuck with each other for the time being.”

“What did you mean by ‘certainly not a woman’?” Katie asked, curiosity overcoming common sense.

“You can’t expect me to believe that a man like you hasn’t had women up here—”

“What do you mean, a man like me?”

“Young, virile, handsome—” Oh drat, she’d done it now. She gone and said the first thing that popped into her head. Again!

Mack grinned. “You think I’m handsome? And virile?”

Katie felt her cheeks warming and prayed they weren’t bright pink. “You’ve got a mirror. You know you’re attractive. And the virile goes along with your being young. It’s just an assumption, of course.”

“Of course. But if you’d like to find out, firsthand, I’d be glad to—”

“Mack, will you stop doing that!” Katie scooted back her chair, stood, planted her hands on her hips, and glared at him.

With a half-smile on his lips, he looked up at her, his expression one of total innocence. “Aren’t you the girl who, just a couple of minutes ago, told me she liked the idea of being a dangerous woman?”

“Well, yes, but there’s dangerous and then there’s dangerous.”

Mack rose from his chair. Swallowing hard, Katie dropped her hands from her hips. He came around the table, directly toward her. Despite the fact her mind issued her feet orders to back away from him, she froze to the spot.

Oh God, he was coming closer and closer. Mr. Tall and Dark and Sexy. Katie’s heart did a nervous little rat-a-tat-tat, and rapid flutters danced in her stomach.

When he was so close that they were almost touching, he stopped and looked down at her. She swallowed again, took a deep breath, and looked up at him. He had the most fabulous blue eyes, a rich, midnight blue.

“How long’s it been?” he asked, his voice low and deep.

“How long’s what been?” Her heartbeat rumbled in her ears.

“How long’s it been since you’ve…” Dramatic pause. “…been kissed?”

She breathed a sigh of relief, because no sooner had the question come out of her mouth than she had assumed he would ask how long it had been since she’d had sex, only he would have used a cruder expression. She’d had no intention of telling him something that was none of his business. But a kiss was something different. A kiss wasn’t dangerous. People kissed other people all the time. Friends kissed.

Parents kissed their children; brothers kissed sisters; nieces and nephews kissed aunts and uncles. The list was endless.

“I was kissed a few days ago,” she told him.

“You were? By whom?”

“By my twin nieces.”

She really hated his cocky grin.

“I meant when was the last time you were kissed by a man? And I don’t mean your father or your brother.”

“Oh.”

He leaned his head down and looked her right in the eyes. She held her breath, certain that he was going to kiss her. Her lips parted. Her breathing accelerated. She really should say or do something to stop him. But for the life of her she couldn’t. Feeling like a fly caught in a spiderweb, she stood there, gazing into his eyes, and waited for his kiss.

His breath was warm and smelled of coffee. As his mouth hovered over hers, Katie closed her eyes.

He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and said, “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she gulped the one-word reply.

He caressed her cheek again, then said, “I’d be happy to kiss you anytime you’d like. All you have to do is ask.”

Her eyelids flew open. He had already lifted his head and taken a step back away from her. Their gazes met and locked.

“I’ll keep your offer in mind,” she replied, “if I ever get that desperate.”

Chuckling, he turned around and headed back to the table. Katie wanted to scream. Arrogant bastard!

What made him think she’d ever ask him for a kiss? Well, maybe because you were standing there, with your eyes closed and your lips practically puckered.

God, she felt like a fool!

This is what happens when you allow a woman to stay with you in your home, Mack thought. Katie had been in his house less than twenty-four hours and already she had taken over as if she had every right to invade his private domain. She’d washed and dried her dirty clothes and his, made his bed, cleaned the bathroom, swept the kitchen, dusted the furniture upstairs and down, and now she was in his kitchen making cookies. Christmas cookies! And it was only a little after three in the afternoon.

The worst of it was that Destry had taken a liking to her, from the moment she fed him her leftover slice of bacon and talked baby talk to him this morning. Bundled up from head to toe, Mack stood on his porch and watched Destry stomping around in the snow, heading back toward the house, after he finished doing his business.

Destry galloped up on the porch, went to the door, and scratched, completely ignoring Mack.

“You’re a traitor, you know that, don’t you,” Mack told him. “A piece of bacon and a little sweet talk and she won you over, didn’t she?”

Destry gazed up at him with dark, soulful eyes.

“Yeah, I know, she’s hard to resist.”

But he had resisted the temptation to kiss her. She’d been willing. He knew enough about women to know when a woman wanted to be kissed. Hell, Katie Hadley needed to be kissed. He didn’t know how long it had been for her—since she’d been kissed or since she’d had sex—but he had an odd notion that she hadn’t been with anyone since her husband died. And just how long could that have been? Months?

A year at most? After all, it seemed obvious she hadn’t gotten over her precious Darrell.

A stupid twinge nipped Mack in the gut, some odd sensation that he hadn’t felt in years. Jealousy?

Man, he was an idiot. Why should he be jealous of Katie’s dead husband?

I’m not jealous. I’d have to care about Katie to be jealous. I don’t care about her. She’s nothing more than an unwanted houseguest.

“Come on, boy, let’s go in. It’s freezing out here.”

Mack and Destry entered through the back door, both man and beast making damp tracks across the floor. He halfway expected Katie to scold them, as if she had every right to. But she seemed totally absorbed in her baking, so much so that she ignored them completely.

Mack’s kitchen smelled faintly of vanilla and cinnamon. “Cookies ready yet?” he asked as he hung his parka up on a rustic hall tree in the living room, near the front door.

As if on cue, she bent over the oven and, using two pot holders, opened the oven door and pulled out a pan filled with big, round cookies. “The first batch is just now coming out of the oven.”

“They sure do smell good.”

“You didn’t have any confectioners sugar, so I can’t make icing for them,” Katie told him. “Instead, I added cinnamon and nuts to half the cookies and left half plain. I like them both ways.”

She looked perfectly at home in his kitchen, from the smudge of flour on her cheek down to the large dish towel she had tucked inside the front waistband of her slacks in lieu of an apron. While she removed the hot cookies from the pan, one by one, and placed them on a plate, he watched her. Katie was a pretty little thing. Her wrists showing from beneath where she’d rolled up the sleeves of her red knit sweater were small and delicate, as were her hands and fingers. His gaze traveled downward, over her nicely rounded butt and trim legs to her small feet. Size six, he surmised.

“Like what you see?” she asked without glancing up from her chore.

“Huh?” Then he realized she’d caught him gawking at her and was simply tossing his own question right back at him.

“Yeah, honey, I do. I like it very much.”

“Thank you. I’ve been told I make very good cookies.”

“Did you think I meant the cookies?”

“Didn’t you?” She set the pan in the sink, tossed the pot holders on the counter, and turned to face him.

“May I have a bite?” he asked.

She smiled. “A bite of cookie or a bite of me?” she inquired jokingly.

“Is it an either/or question? I’d really like a bite of both.”

“You’ll settle for the cookie,” she told him.

“Okay.” For now. But sooner or later, he intended to have a taste of her.

Katie tore a paper towel from the rack, placed two warm cookies on it, and brought them to him where he stood in front of the fireplace. When she held out the paper towel to him, he reached out and grabbed both cookies. She stood there looking at him, apparently waiting for him to sample the goodies.

He took a bite out of one cookie and tasted butter and vanilla.

“Mmm…”

He took a bite out of the other. Cinnamon and nuts.

After munching and swallowing, he said, “I like this one best. I’m a sucker for cinnamon.”

“Would you like a glass of milk?” she asked.

“I’d rather have coffee.”

“You drink too much coffee.”

“You women are all alike,” Mack said. “Spend one night with a guy and you think you can tell him what to do, how to live—”

Katie went dead still. Her smile vanished. “I’m sorry, Mack. I didn’t mean to be bossy. Of course, it’s none of my business how much coffee you drink.”

Crushing the paper towel in her hand, she whirled around and rushed back into the kitchen. He stood there feeling like a heel. He’d been joking with her, or at least halfway joking. One thing for sure, he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings.

Should he apologize?

Mack remembered he still held the remainder of the two cookies in his hand. He wolfed down the cinnamon cookie, then tossed the plain one to Destry, who gobbled it up in one bite. Wiping his hands off on his jeans, he looked into the kitchen at Katie, who was patting out the remainder of the dough and placing the cookie circles on a baking pan.

He meandered across the living room and into the kitchen, came up beside Katie, and glanced over her shoulder. She stiffened, but didn’t acknowledge his presence.

“I was just kidding, you know,” Mack said.

No response. God, was she pouting?

“Besides, you were right,” he told her. “I do drink too much coffee.”

She placed the final cookie on the pan, picked up the pan, and shoved him out of the way as she headed for the stove. He stood there, waiting for her to turn around and face him. But instead, she came up from where she’d bent over the oven and went straight to the sink, once again ignoring him completely.

When she delved her hands into the soapy water, Mack tried again to apologize. Coming up behind her, he laid his hand on her shoulder. She tensed. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

He heard her deep sigh and thought surely everything would be all right now. When she turned around, he was halfway certain she would smile and maybe even kiss him on the cheek. From past experience, he’d learned that women love it when a man apologizes.