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“As they say, ‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ princess.”
She cast him a resentful look over her shoulder. “Don’t call me that!”
Shrugging, Mac sat down on the edge of the stone hearth to tug off his boots and peel off his icy socks. “There’s another one about ‘if the shoe fits...’”
Nicky watched the exchange with sleepy-eyed interest. “What’s the cowboy’s name, Mommy?”
“Judas,” she said. “Now go back to sleep.”
“Funny name for a cowboy,” Nicky mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
Mac’s jaw clamped in annoyance. Fatigue and cold had made his muscles ache and his temper short. He tried to massage life back into his numb feet. “The name’s Mac, kid. Your mother’s been reading too many bad TV scripts.”
“You call him Mr. Mahoney, Nicky. He’s a reporter who’s always had a way with words—as long as it’s a cliché or a cut.”
Mac blew out an exasperated breath. “Look, dammit, we can keep this up all night, or we can call a truce and make the best of it.”
“Suits me, since I have nothing I want to say to you. And I’ll thank you to watch your language around my son!” Nicky was curled into a ball and already snoozing again, so Marisa tucked the blankets around him, then went to the hearth and struck one match, then another. The kindling caught but died out immediately. “Damn.”
“Watch your language,” Mac mimicked, reaching for the box of matches. “Let me do that.”
“I can take care of it!” She held on to her end of the matchbox in a small tug-of-war.
Mac lifted an eyebrow. “And I can see how well you’ve done so far.” He saw anger play across her expressive features and pointed a warning finger at her straight nose. “Look, I’m tired, cold and hungry. You take another swing at me and I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
Evidently she believed him. She released the matchbox. “Fine. Go ahead. But I’d like to remind you that your circumstances are all your own doing. No one invited you here.”
Busy rearranging logs and crumpling newspaper, Mac smiled dryly. “I’ve never let a little thing like that stop me before.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She stared at the tiny flame that flickered, caught and began to grow under the stack of logs. Mac observed the dark smudges of fatigue—or stress—beneath her eyes. He steeled himself not to feel any sympathy. “How long has the power been off?”
“Since about noon. The phones are out and the generator won’t work, either.”
“No wonder it’s so cold in here.” He propped one bare foot on the hearth, toasting his sole before the fire’s growing warmth. “When did you get here?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“Must have been a hard trip, just the two of you.”
She snapped her gaze from the fire’s mesmerizing dance. “What is this, an interrogation?”
“Good grief, you’re one suspicious female. Forget it!”
Frowning, she leaned her hands against the mantel, her knuckles white. “Forget you’re the one who’s unleashed a pack of lies about my husband and my son and just forced me to spread out the welcome mat for you? Not bloody likely, Mahoney! I’d love nothing better than to see the back of you right this moment.”
“Tough talk, babe. But I know you’re too softhearted to send me packing in the middle of a blizzard.” He gave her a wolfish grin. “Not that I’d go.”
She smiled back, too sweetly. “I wouldn’t force a rabid dog out in weather like this, but you’re another matter. So keep your distance and don’t press your luck. And first thing in the morning, you’re out of here, understood?”
“Sure.” His assurance was meaningless.
He knew it.
She knew it.
Still, the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease a bit. Maybe she believed him. And maybe she was lying to herself the way she’d once lied to him. It would be interesting to find out.
Marisa moved away from the fire. “I’m bunking with Nicky. Find yourself a place to bed down and stay out of my way.”
“I’m just beginning to defrost. I’ll stay by the fire.” He pushed a pair of overstuffed chairs together at the end of the sofa.
Marisa seemed ready to protest, but then her mouth compressed in annoyed resignation. “I’ll find some extra blankets.”
Mac pushed her to see what would happen. “And a sandwich? And some dry socks?”
She rounded on him angrily. Her eyes moved from his bare feet, up the long length of denim-covered legs to the mocking expression on his face. Whatever she saw made her swallow. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The corner of his mouth lifted at her concession. “Thank you.”
She brushed her hand over her sleeping son’s fair head, flicking Mac a suspicious look. Apparently deciding Nicky wouldn’t come to any harm in Mac’s presence for the moment, she picked up the lantern and left the room.
Mac’s smile faded, and he let out an unsteady breath.
From the way his gut twisted just looking at her, he was still just as foolishly susceptible to Marisa Rourke as a mature thirty-year-old woman as he’d been to the lovely journalism student he’d known ten years ago. Lucky for him that now she’d declared all-out war between them.
Not that he blamed her. He hadn’t exactly been comfortable with the way Jackie Horton had blindsided her on the television talk show. But Jackie and Mac’s longtime producer, Tom Powell, had insisted on pinning the actress down under a cross fire of startling accusations.
“An elite baby mill...”
“Police today arrested exclusive Bel Air physician, Dr. Franco Morris...”
“Marisa, isn’t it true that you and your late husband, Victor Latimore, used Dr. Morris to acquire your own baby?”
“We have copies of Dr. Morris’s records, verifying names, dates and fees...”
“It’s a lie! You’ll hear from my attorney!” she shouted.
Mac grimaced at the memory. But it had to be done, for impact value, Tom had said. To pull the viewing public into the story, raise an outcry, close the baby mill. And Mac had agreed. Dr. Franco Morris had been preying on innocents long enough. Bottom line was, as always, get the job done.
Mac shrugged and began to unbutton his damp shirt. Every detail he unearthed was another step closer to putting the dirty doctor behind bars permanently. The involvement of a celebrity of Marisa’s stature—Mac’s mouth tightened in disdain at the application of such a term to a soap opera star—would insure that the black-market-baby investigation got the media attention it deserved. And, of course, there was the matter of that contract....
Heck, he wasn’t unsympathetic! The kid was cute enough, and Marisa’s maternal affection appeared genuine. Like it or not, however, Marisa Rourke Latimore had to accept responsibility for her and her dead husband’s actions. And Mac should have his butt kicked for not anticipating that at the first hint of confrontation Marisa would tuck in her pretty tail and head for the hills—literally. Actions had consequences. How the hell did she think she could run away from this mess?
After spreading out his shirt on the stone hearth to dry, Mac stared into the now-blazing fire, his hands resting on the snap of his denims. He’d tackled plenty of tough assignments all over the globe—hostage crises, earthquakes, revolutions—but he knew that this one could be more than he’d bargained for, especially if he let old memories get in the way of the truth. His instincts told him those old memories were far from dead for Marisa, too. Mac hadn’t missed the way her mouth trembled when he touched her. The chemistry was still there, despite everything.
Not that he wanted to fan the ashes of a dead love affair into life again. He’d learned the hard way what he could count on, what he couldn’t. Still, in Mac’s book, Marisa owed him. A period of enforced isolation with an old lover hadn’t been in his game plan when he’d discovered her involvement in the Morris story, but he was human enough to take advantage of the present situation. He would enjoy seeing that she finally paid—at least in some small measure—for the way she’d betrayed him so long ago.
His smile returned at the prospect. He unfastened his jeans, then slid out of them and draped them over a chair back. They began to steam almost immediately. Clad in long-sleeved thermal undershirt and long johns, he rested both hands on the mantel, letting the waves of heat soak into him. The frantic detective work and two-day drive in stinking weather, not to mention that mile hike uphill in a snowstorm, were catching up with him, and the warmth was making him drowsy.
“Here, this is the only thing I could—” Behind him, Marisa’s words broke off with a small gasp of outrage.
Mac straightened, stretched and gave her a lazy glance over his shoulder. “Get a grip, princess. You’ve seen me in my skivvies before.”
“Not an experience I wanted to repeat,” she snapped. Face flaming, she dropped blankets, a rolled-up pair of wool socks and a paper plate holding a ham sandwich into a pile beside the chairs he’d chosen. “But I suppose your behaving with the least bit of common decency is too much to expect.”
“Hey, I was wet. You want me to sleep in damp clothes and catch my death?”
“It’s a thought.” Without looking at him, she kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the sofa beside her son, arranging the blankets over them both.
Mac wrapped himself in a fluffy comforter and sat in the chair to pull on the dry socks. He made his tone conversational. “You know, the most sensible thing would be for us to cuddle together to conserve body heat.”
“In your dreams, Mahoney.” Her voice was muffled by the piles of blankets, but the agitation in her tone was plain. “Shut up so we can sleep.”
Reaching for the sandwich, Mac propped his long legs in the seat of the matching chair. Yeah, in my dreams, he thought. If she only knew.
Halfway through the sandwich, he paused long enough to examine it more closely. Ham, cheese, mustard, no mayo. He hated mayonnaise. She’d remembered....
The next mouthful went down hard. She remembered. As much as he did? With as much pain? They’d had so much. At least he’d thought they had. Did she regret at all that she’d left him without a word?
Mac set aside the unfinished sandwich, huddling down in the chair and pulling the comforter up around his ears. Dancing orange shadows illuminated the room and the rounded forms of the woman and child on the big sofa. Although the cadence of her breathing was even, he knew she wasn’t asleep.
“Marisa?” His voice was low, barely audible above the howling of the unrelenting storm outside.
“Hmm?”
“Where did it go wrong?”
There was a long silence, so long that Mac decided she wasn’t going to answer him.
Finally, she replied. “Does it matter?”
Mac had no answer that he could voice, but it did matter. God help him. It did.
Two
Marisa awoke smiling, her dreams melting into gossamer images of beaches and a green-eyed man and the sensation of sunshine warming her skin. She stretched, indulging in the perfect euphoric moment. In the next instant, sleep slipped completely away, and she sat up with a gasp.
Nicky! The space on the sofa beside her was empty. Blood surging, Marisa threw back the blankets and rolled to her feet in a panic.
Above the crackle of the steadily burning fire, high-pitched childish chatter drifted from the direction of the kitchen. She stumbled toward the rear of the lodge, stopping short at the cased opening into the cozy dining area and country kitchen.
“My mommy can do that better.”
“Yeah, kid? Well, your mommy’s still snoozing like Goldilocks, so I guess it’s up to me. See if this suits you.”
Marisa quit breathing. Mac Mahoney stood with his back to her—his bare, beautifully muscled back—pushing a glass of orange juice across the counter to Nicky. Her mouth went dry. Mac’s shoulders were as broad as ever, the well-defined muscles covered by bronzed skin. Her fingers tingled with the urge to explore the velvety texture.
The dim natural light filtering into the kitchen revealed spoons, pitchers and puddles of sticky orange concentrate littering the dividing bar. Outside, the wind continued to howl and the sky, still a sullen lead color, filled the air with flurries of gray snow, but the lodge was noticeably warmer, thanks to Mac. Yet the image of him stoking the fire during the night while she slept unsettled her. So did the realization that a pair of snug jeans on the right man could be utterly devastating to the female libido.
“Don’t like ‘The Three Bears.’” Nicky perched on a tall stool, slurping juice from a tumbler. “Too sissy.”
Mac poured bottled water into a battered percolator and rummaged in the cabinets for coffee. “You never heard the real story then.”
“What story?”
“Not the one they tell babies.” Mac frowned over the measuring scoop and read the side of the red coffee can again. “The one about how the bear family gobbled up Goldilocks for breakfast instead of porridge. Fricasseed blonde.”
“Really? Cool.”
“The twit got what she deserved for breaking and entering, so let that be a lesson to you, kid. There aren’t any free lunches in this world.”
“Mommy makes my lunches. And she puts four scoops of that stuff in the coffeepot. Are you sure you’re not a cowboy?”
Marisa couldn’t resist a smile at that. Mac surreptitiously unscooped a couple of spoonfuls of coffee grounds out of the strainer basket with his fingers, then turned on the gas burner of the bottled-propane stove. Marisa couldn’t help noticing how his thick, mahogany-colored hair grew long at his nape. He’d always been too impatient for regular haircuts.
“Sorry,” he said to the boy. “I wouldn’t know the north end of a horse from the south.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Nicky sighed, then his blue eyes brightened. “Are you the new daddy I asked Santa to bring?”
“Nicky!” Marisa nearly swallowed her tongue in chagrin. Face flaming, she stepped into the kitchen to quiet her all-too-outspoken offspring. Mac turned toward her, and she drew up sharply with a horrified gasp. “Oh, my God.”
A painful-looking blue-and-purple streak ran from the top of Mac’s muscled shoulder to his collarbone—her doing. That blow with the poker had done more damage than she’d realized. Remorse flooded her.
“Mac, I’m so sorry!” Without thinking, she lifted her hand, hovered hesitantly over the livid bruise for a moment, then gently stroked the area of abused flesh as if to draw out the pain.
The instant she touched him, Mac shuddered. Swift as a striking snake, he captured her wrist, holding her in midstroke, her fingers barely brushing his skin. His lips compressed, and something emerald and potent and wild flared behind his eyes in a look so heated Marisa felt dazed and dizzy.
“Don’t do that again—unless you’re prepared for the consequences.” His voice was rough, his lean jaw shadowed by dark stubble. He looked like a pirate, ruthlessly masculine and intent on plunder.
Marisa blinked, unnerved and confused. Her breathing came short and choppy, and her skin felt unnaturally sensitized. Mac’s fingers were like a fiery bracelet burning into her wrist, tracking the pulse that thundered there. Was he merely warning her against trying to wallop him again, or was that dangerous golden glint in his green eyes the product of something else? Something as elemental as the arc of electricity that had passed through them both at her innocent touch. Thoroughly rattled, Marisa twisted her hand free and stepped back in haste.
“No. Of course. That is—” Realizing she was babbling, she shoved her disheveled hair from her face and drew a deep breath. “No, I won’t. You should put ice on it. Or maybe a hot pack? There’s bound to be some liniment...”
Their contact broken, Mac was once again his usual mocking self. Half-smiling, he gave an easy shrug, as if that disturbing moment had been only in Marisa’s imagination. “Relax, princess. I’ve had worse.”
“Oh. Yeah, right.”
A shiver ran down Marisa’s spine at his casual acceptance of the dangers inherent in his work. Over the years, it had been hard for her to miss Mac’s news reports from hot spots all over the globe. Not that she’d been looking for him on purpose, of course. It was just that any time there was a political crisis, a natural disaster or another injustice to be revealed to the world, the viewing public could count on Mac Mahoney reporting from the thick of things. In his dedication and passionate pursuit of truth, Mac had never let a little thing like personal safety stand in the way of a good story.
“Just don’t let it happen again.” Mac’s voice was gruff as he turned back to the stove. “Coffee will be ready in a minute.”
“Yes. Uh, thanks.” Weakly, Marisa took the stool next to Nicky’s and gave the boy a good-morning hug. Thankfully the lad hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary about his mother’s reaction to their visitor. “How’re you doing, partner?”
“Call me Tex today, Mommy.”
“All right, Tex. Was your bedroll comfortable last night?”
