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“I will be as soon as I locate the stove.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s up with the stove?”
“I have a gas range.”
Micah’s frown vanished. Not only was Tessa Whitfield beautiful but he found her levelheaded. She hadn’t panicked or dissolved into hysterics once the power went out. One by one the jets to the stove-top range in a cooking island came on. There was enough light for him to see Tessa’s shadowy figure move to a corner of the kitchen. He was galvanized into action as she gathered up candleholders from a drawer under the countertop.
Working quickly, Tessa set out more than two dozen holders and tea lights on the cooking island, the countertops and a table in a breakfast nook, while he lit them with an automatic lighter.
Micah shrugged out of his jacket, draping it on the back of a tall stool at the cooking island as Tessa stared at the man staring back at her.
Smiling, she said, “It’s not the first time I’m thankful that I don’t have an all-electric kitchen.”
“Do you always keep so many candles on hand?”
She nodded, crossed her arms under her breasts and rested a hip against the countertop. “I have hundreds of them. I usually eat outdoors during the warmer weather and use them for illumination rather than spotlights.” What she didn’t tell Micah was that she found candlelight calming, relaxing.
Affecting a similar pose, Micah crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you the outdoorsy type?”
Tessa’s pouty lips formed an attractive moue, and Micah’s midnight gaze lingered on her mouth. He’d found her face incredibly beautiful in the light, but with the glow of flickering candlelight she’d become mesmerizing.
A mysterious smile crinkled the corners of Tessa’s eyes as she stared at the tall man standing only a few feet away. “My favorite outdoor activities include sitting under an umbrella sipping a tropical concoction or grabbing a few winks with the sound of water lapping up on a beach as background music.”
Throwing back his head, Micah laughed, the warm sound bubbling up from his broad chest. “I suppose I’d never find you on a ski slope.”
She wrinkled her pert nose. “Never,” she confirmed. “Do you ski?”
He nodded. “Yes. My parents are avid skiers.”
It was obvious the Sanborns liked cold weather. Why else would Bridget schedule a New Year’s Eve wedding in the northeast? Thinking of Micah’s sister reminded Tessa why he was in her kitchen.
She straightened. “Speaking of cold weather, I think we’d better talk about your sister’s wedding.” She’d planned to give Micah an informational packet for his sister, but that along with the other literature she usually gave to prospective brides was in her office.
Reaching for his jacket on the stool, Micah withdrew a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Tessa. “I took a few notes when I last spoke to Bridget.”
She unfolded the single sheet of paper, holding it close to the flickering flames. She could hardly read the scribble. Her arching eyebrows lifted. “What language is this?”
Micah’s jaw tightened. “It’s English,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
Tessa handed him the paper. “You’re going to have to translate this for me.”
He scowled. He knew he didn’t have the most legible handwriting, but no one had ever mistaken it for a foreign language. “You’ve got jokes, Ms-s-s. Whitfield?” He had drawn out the Ms. to several syllables.
“No, I don’t. And it’s Miss Whitfield.”
“I thought running your own company would make you a liberated woman.”
Tessa pulled back her shoulders. “I am liberated—but not so much so that I don’t expect a man to hold a door open for me, push and pull back my chair and stand up whenever I enter a room.”
A slow smile parted his mobile mouth at the same time he angled his head. “That’s what I like—an old-fashioned woman.”
“I’m not old-fashioned,” she countered. “It’s just that I like my men to have home training.”
“Does your man have home training, Tessa?”
There was a pulse beat of silence before she said, “No.” The single word was barely a whisper.
“And why doesn’t he have home training, Tessa?” Micah asked, his deep baritone voice dropping an octave.
Because right now I don’t have a man, she mused.
She wanted to tell Micah he should mind his business but couldn’t. He was the brother of her client, and the courtesy she afforded her clients extended to family members. Ninety-five percent of her business came from referrals.
Tilting her chin in what she hoped was an arrogant gesture, she affected a supercilious smile. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was led to believe your purpose for coming to Signature Bridals was to discuss your sister’s upcoming nuptials.”
Micah went completely still. Nothing moved. Not even his eyes. “Your assumption is correct.”
Moving closer, close enough for several strands of her wayward hairstyle to graze his chin, Tessa gave him a direct stare. “Then it should be your sister’s wedding that we should be talking about, not what I like in a man.”
Micah inhaled the sweet scent clinging to her hair and a different woodsy fragrance on her body. Not only did she look good but she also smelled delicious.
“You can say that I’m just curious.”
“I hope you’re familiar with the saying about curiosity and the cat.”
“I am,” he shot back smugly, “but I’m also quite familiar with what brought her back.”
“Wasn’t the cat a he?”
Micah’s mysterious smile was back. “Not in this case.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Your hair, eyes and coloring remind of a lioness.”
Tessa wanted to tell Micah that he also reminded her of a predatory jungle cat but wanted to steer the conversation away from that of a personal nature.
“Have you eaten dinner?” she asked him.
He blinked once, seemingly startled by her question. “No, I haven’t. Why?”
She turned and walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. “I don’t know how long the electricity is going to be out, and rather than have my dinner spoil, I’m going to share it with you. Meanwhile you can tell me about your sister.” She glanced at Micah over her shoulder. She knew she’d surprised him with her offer. “Do you eat red meat?”
“Yes, I do.”
“How do you like your steak?”
“Medium-well.”
He peered at Tessa’s slender body outlined in a flickering golden glow. There was something about Tessa Whitfield’s exquisite face, beautifully modulated voice and aloof manner that he liked—a lot.
“Would you like some help?”
Tessa removed a platter with the marinated steak from a shelf. “No, thank you. I have everything under control,” she said, placing the platter on the counter next to the stove-top grill.
“What if I set the table?” Micah asked. He wanted and needed to do more than just stand around and stare at her.
She gave him a warm, open smile for the first time. “Okay.”
“Where can I wash my hands?”
She pointed to the cooking island. “Use that sink. I’m going to put a few candles in the downstairs bathroom before I go upstairs for the flashlight.”
Turning back his shirt cuffs, Micah washed his hands in a stainless-steel sink. He knew Rosalind Sanborn would have a hissy fit if she saw him washing his hands in the kitchen, but he was certain she would forgive this one infraction. What would have shocked his mother more was that he’d finally met a woman who had caught his interest even before she’d opened her mouth. And when she did speak, she’d enthralled him with the low, throaty timbre.
He smiled. Tessa Whitfield’s voice was the perfect match for her sultry look.
Tessa handed Micah a towel to dry his hands. “The dishes are in the cabinet above the dishwasher. And you’ll find flatware in a drawer under the butcher-block counter.”
She turned on the oven, then concentrated on draining the water from the potatoes and patting them dry before she placed the wedges in a plastic bag filled with an herb-and-olive-oil mixture. What she didn’t want to do was think about the tall man moving about her kitchen as if he had done it before. She placed the potatoes on a cookie sheet and put it into the preheated oven.
“What would you like to drink?” she asked.
“What are my choices?”
“You can have either water or wine.”
“Wine is good.”
“Red or blush?”
Micah halted putting steak knives on the table. “Red.”
“Come and select one.”
He crossed the kitchen and stood in front of a built-in subzero wine cellar. Dozens of bottles lay on their sides in precise rows. He opened the door, selected a Merlot and closed it quickly. If the power stayed off for any extended period of time, then there was no doubt Tessa’s perishable foodstuffs would have to be discarded.
Chapter 2
The distinctive ringing of the wall phone shattered the silence, and Tessa answered it. “Hello.”
“Thank goodness you’re home. I just turned on the television and heard about the blackout. Are you all right, Theresa?”
She smiled. Only her mother called her Theresa. “Yes, I am, Mama.”
“Don’t forget to tell her to check the windows and doors,” her father’s voice boomed in the background.
“Tell Dad they’re locked.”
There came a pause on the other end of the wire. “Your father said if the power is still out in the morning, he’ll drive down and bring you home.”
Tessa rolled her eyes upward. “My home is in Brooklyn, not Mount Vernon.” Why couldn’t Lucinda Whitfield accept that she was no longer a child but a thirty-one-year-old woman running a very successful business? “I don’t want to cut you short, but I have a client I have to talk to.”
“You’re conducting business during a blackout?”
“Yes. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You promise, sweetheart?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Love you, Theresa.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
She hung up before her mother could lapse into a diatribe as to why she shouldn’t have set up Signature Bridals in Brooklyn. After all, her sister Simone ran a successful floral business out of her home in White Plains. All of her life she’d fought for her independence. Her parents—her father in particular—believed a woman couldn’t survive without the protection of a husband.
Although Tessa refused to conform to their outdated views, her older sister had. Simone had married her high school sweetheart, yet the union didn’t survive their fifth wedding anniversary. Tessa smiled. What she found incredible was that Simone and her mother had perfected the role of vapid female to an art form.
Micah thought because she owned and operated her own business she had to be a liberated woman. She was liberated—not in the literal sense of the word; however, what she’d done was fight a long and at times arduous battle to determine her own destiny. And during her personal struggles she’d had to make sacrifices in order to make Signature Bridals a success.
She had sacrificed love and marriage.
Tessa turned to find Micah staring at her as if he had never seen her before. “Do you need something?”
Micah blinked as if coming out of a trance.
I love you.
Whenever he heard a woman say the three words, he usually turned and headed in the opposite direction. He was able to accept a woman’s passion and companionship until she opened her mouth to profess her love for him. It was thirty-six years and he still hadn’t accepted his biological mother’s abandonment.
Evelyn Howard had hugged and kissed him as they’d sat waiting to be seen in a large, noisy hospital clinic; she’d told him that she loved him and that he was not to move while she went to the restroom. He’d sat in the same spot for more than four hours waiting for her return. It wasn’t until a nurse noticed he’d been alone that he’d realized his mother wasn’t coming back.
He became a ward of the state of New Jersey for three years, until at age seven he was adopted by Edgar and Rosalind Sanborn. His new mother learned quickly that although he would permit her to hug and kiss him, she couldn’t tell her adopted son that she loved him.
Micah successfully camouflaged his inner turmoil with a smile. “I need a corkscrew.”
Tessa searched a drawer and gave him the corkscrew, checked the potatoes and then turned on the stove-top grill to heat up. At that moment she wished she had a battery-powered radio on hand to break the stilted silence. She did have a small portable TV/radio, but it was in the space on the top floor that was her sewing room. She wanted something—anything—to distract her from Micah’s presence.
Micah Sanborn was the first man in a long time whose presence reminded her that she was a woman, one who’d denied her femininity for far too long. She would share her dinner with him, address some of his sister’s concerns about her wedding and then escort him out the door.
Picking up a candleholder, she cupped her hand around the flicking flame. “I’m going upstairs to get the flashlight.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Tessa forced a smile. “No, thank you. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Are you sure you don’t need an escort?”
