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“Yup.” Nicky grinned, his face shining with impish pleasure at the imaginary role. “Me and Mac got up with the roosters. Didn’t we, Mac?”
Mac grunted something unintelligible.
“That’s Mr. Mahoney, Tex,” she corrected.
“Leave it,” Mac ordered. “We don’t need that kind of formality. Right, Tex?”
“Right, Mac!”
Marisa would have argued, but then Mac shoved a mug of black-as-sin coffee at her, automatically pushing the sugar and dry creamer in her direction. “Thanks.” Marisa swallowed hard around a sudden thickness in her throat.
After all this time, he still remembered how she liked her morning coffee. A little thing, but the realization touched some chord deep inside her, softening her wariness and hostility— Marisa reined in this new feeling with a firm hand. This was treacherous territory. She couldn’t afford to let down her guard, not with Nicky’s future at stake!
And what had Nicky meant about a “new daddy”? Had her little boy been pining for a male role model without her even being aware of it? she wondered guiltily. Being a single parent wasn’t easy, but she’d done her best since Victor’s death. However, for Nicky misguidedly to settle his affections on a cynical, hard-nosed reporter who was intent on ruining their lives would be pure disaster! Yes, the sooner Mac Mahoney was on his way and out of her life again, the better.
Stirring her coffee, she flicked Mac a brief glance. His bronze nipples pebbled in the cool air, winking from a light thatching of brown hair that tapered down the corrugated muscles of a belly just as flat and hard at thirty-seven as it had been a decade earlier. Swallowing, she dragged her gaze away. “Ah, I suppose you’ll want to make an early start....”
One dark eyebrow lifted, and the edges of his hard mouth curved upward in a pitying smile. “Never give up, do you, princess?”
Her chin tilted in preparation for battle. “I thought I’d made myself clear—”
“So has the weatherman.” Mac tapped an index finger on the small, battery-operated weather-band radio sitting on the counter. “Good thing Paul keeps his pantries well stocked. Time to batten down the hatches.”
Marisa’s fingers clenched around the handle of the mug. “Wh-what does that mean?”
“Travelers warnings are everywhere, all roads are closed and nothing’s moving in or out of these mountains. They say we’ve got three or four more days of this at least. Might let up by Christmas Eve, earliest.”
“A white Christmas? Oh, boy!” Nicky crowed. “I never had snow for Christmas before! Is the chimney big enough for Santa? I better go look!”
He scrambled off the stool and raced into the den. Dismayed, Marisa stared after him. Trapped up here with Mac Mahoney, forced to endure his accusations, his cross-examinations and her own wayward responses every time he came too near—for Christmas? It was too much to contemplate! Fuming, she glared at him. “I’m not staying here with you. If you won’t leave, I will!”
“Don’t be a fool, Marisa. The roads are treacherous. You wouldn’t get ten feet.”
She knew she was being unreasonable, fighting the inevitable, but her mouth was mulish. “I might. And at least I wouldn’t have to endure your odious company!”
“You can’t fool me. You might risk your own neck—and I’d be happy to let you, believe me—but you’d never risk the kid’s.”
Her shoulders slumped. “No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The smugness of his expression made her long to smack it off his face. But violence wasn’t the answer, so to restrain the impulse she lifted her mug to take a fortifying sip. The bitterness of the double-strength brew made her choke.
“Too strong?” Mac asked mildly.
Marisa climbed off the stool and emptied her mug in the sink. She followed with the entire pot of coffee. “Everything about you comes on too strong.”
“Yeah, too bad you’re stuck with me, huh?”
She bit her lip, frustration and helplessness choking her.
All right, she thought, she had to accept the situation, uncomfortable as it made her—but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Nor did it mean she had to give Mac any answers just because circumstances forced them together. She had better sense than to let outdated emotions cloud the fact that his actions had made him her enemy now. There were larger issues at stake—keeping warm and fed on top of the list.
Yes, that was the ticket. Stay cool but civil, wait out the storm and make certain she gave Mac Mahoney nothing that he could use in his damned story! He’d eventually get bored and move on to seek other prey.
“Since you barged in without an invitation, you’ll have to earn your keep, Mahoney. Get dressed, for God’s sake. We need more wood inside, buckets of snow to melt for washing and flushing. I won’t have any freeloaders, is that clear?”
“I can do my part.” He raised his eyebrows. “You intend to feed me breakfast before I brave the storm?”
Belligerence gave her voice an edge. “What do you want?”
Mac bared his teeth—a peculiar, predatory smile that made the hair on the back of Marisa’s neck stand up. “Porridge?”
* * *
He got oatmeal. A bowl of oatmeal sporting a happy face made with a jelly smile and two raisins for eyes. Nicky, dressed in corduroys, sweater and six-guns, had insisted. “You’re bigger than me. You must get hungrier.”
The boy’s bright blue eyes looked so expectant, Mac didn’t have the heart to tell him that he despised oatmeal, no matter how artfully it was decorated. Grimly, Mac pushed back the cuffs of his plaid flannel shirt and picked up his spoon. It couldn’t be any worse than Bedouin goat-milk couscous.
Marisa, her face freshly scrubbed and hair pulled back in a ponytail, but still wearing the slacks and sweater she’d slept in, set another bowl before Nicky and ruffled his fair hair affectionately. “Eat up. Cowboys need their energy.”
Trained to observe, Mac noted the easy manner between mother and son. It didn’t jibe with the picture of the affluent “star” foisting the upbringing of her child on paid servants, only seeing the little tyke when he was paraded before the dinner guests. Instead, they shared a rapport that could only have been built with genuine love and hands-on diligence.
Marisa had help, of course. When he’d gone to the pseudo-Spanish Beverly Hills monstrosity Victor Latimore had built for his new bride, intent on offering Marisa a chance to say her piece about the Morris matter, Mac had met Gwen Olsen, Marisa’s nanny-housekeeper. Pulling the truth out of Gwen that Marisa had vanished without leaving so much as a note behind had produced a powerful feeling of déjà vu, launching Mac into the chase that had led him here, straight to a damned bowl of oatmeal!
Grimacing, he shoveled in the first mouthful. To his surprise, it wasn’t half-bad. She’d laced it with brown sugar and a touch of cinnamon.
Nicky grinned up at him. “Good, huh?”
Mac tried another bite, decided the kid was right and dug in. Maybe if his own mother had possessed the imagination to draw faces in his cereal bowl, he wouldn’t have grown up so wild and rebellious.
But Vivian Mahoney, abandoned by her husband and beaten down by life and the two menial jobs she worked merely to keep herself and her son fed, hadn’t had the time for such niceties or the energy to cope with her street-smart son. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the coach down at the local Boys’ Club and a stint in the Golden Gloves boxing circuit, no telling what kind of turn—for the worse—Mac’s life might have taken. His mother had died when he was seventeen, and he’d always thought she had not so much given up on life as simply been worn out. But growing up on the mean streets had given Mac his drive, propelling him through Princeton on a scholarship while he worked double shifts and weekends at a foundry. When you’d never had much of anything, you took nothing for granted.
Especially not a woman’s love.
Marisa was finishing her own bowl of hot cereal, her gaze abstracted as she poked into cupboards and a pantry, pulling out various cans. Face bare and hair scraped back, she hardly looked like a glamorous actress, but her classic Ingrid Bergman-type bone structure gave her a compelling beauty that would remain ageless. Mac wondered what millionaire Victor Latimore had seen when he looked at his wife.
“I think I’ll put together a stew to simmer over the fireplace for our lunch. How’s that sound, Nicky?” she asked.
“Can I help pour things into the pot?”
“Sure, honey.” She was already pulling a hefty cast-iron kettle from the cupboard.
Mac pushed back his empty bowl. “Where’d you learn to cook? I didn’t think that was something you ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ types did.”
Her look was level. “I guess there’s a lot of things you don’t know.”
Annoyance hardened his mouth. If there was one thing Mac didn’t stand for, it was being accused of not having his facts down cold. “What I don’t know, I find out. That’s a promise.” He slid off the kitchen stool, gratified by the shimmer of apprehension clouding her blue eyes. “I’ll go get that wood.”
Sometime later, Mac finished stacking firewood from the backyard pile onto the porch near the back door, then gratefully carried a final armload inside to the hearth in the den. Visibility was nearly zero, and even the short trek between the lodge and its various outbuildings and sheds was an arduous one given the grueling wind-driven snow. Paul had a considerable stockpile of firewood, but if the storm kept up as predicted and power remained out, Mac thought he might eventually have to take the ax he’d found in the toolshed to a couple of the trees surrounding the place. Not a prospect he relished, considering the weather.
“Hold it right there, you varmint!” A pint-size bandito brandishing twin cap pistols and wearing a bandanna over his nose leapt out from behind a fort of pillows and blankets draped over chair backs.
“Don’t shoot, Tex. I’m one of the good guys.”
“That’s what they all say, partner. Now reach for the sky.”
Mac’s lips twitched as he dumped the wood on the hearth. “Bloodthirsty galoot, aren’t you?”
“I ain’t no galoot—I’m a cowboy!” Pulling down his kerchief, Nicky gave Mac an indignant look.
Unfastening his parka, Mac added sticks to the fire and punched it up. “I’d never have guessed.”
“Well...well, shoot!” Disgusted, Nicky plopped down on the sofa arm. “Bet if I had a horse you could tell. I hope Santa brings me one. Think he will?”
That stopped Mac. “Uh, hard to say. Where’s your mother? Upstairs?”
“Nah.” Nicky rolled onto his back and began to drum his heels on the sofa. “Outside. She made me stay here. What does ‘hold down the fort’ mean, anyway?”
“What the hell!” An image of Marisa frozen in a snowbank flashed through Mac’s head. The vision was at once ludicrous, startling and scary. “Outside? Where?”
“Checking the gen-gena—”
“Generator?”
“Yeah. And you’d better not let Mommy hear that bad word. She’ll make you sit in the time-out chair.”
“She won’t be able to sit when I get through with her!” Muttering darkly, Mac jerked at his parka zipper. “Damn fool woman—what’s she thinking?”
Halfway across the den, he turned abruptly and pointed a finger at Nicky. “You stay put until I get back. Sheriff’s orders. Okay, Tex?”
Nicky’s eyes were wide. “Yes, sir. Can I be your deputy?”
“You got it, kid.”
The boy’s awed and triumphant voice followed Mac out the door. “I knew he was a cowboy.”
The wind hit Mac smack in the face and took his breath away. Leaning against it, he came down the porch steps, ducked his head and slogged through the growing drifts toward the small lean-to attached to the combination barn and garage set behind the lodge proper. From the power lines strung from it, he guessed it was the location of the generator. On a clear day, there would be a commanding view of the snow-topped Sierra Nevada peaks in the distance, but now everything was just a gray white blankness, the silhouettes of the buildings barely visible and the outline of Marisa’s tracks already disappearing.
The wind buffeted Mac’s shoulders, and ice particles stung his cheeks. Marisa was so slender, just a puff at this force could send her tumbling down the mountainside—and then what? That she would be stupid enough to place herself—and therefore the kid—in danger incensed him. He burst through the door of the lean-to in a rage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Marisa jumped and dropped the flashlight with which she’d been inspecting the gasoline-powered generator. The beam went out when it hit the concrete floor, and the little room was plunged into almost total gloom. “Now look what you’ve made me do!” Falling to her hands and knees, she groped for the flashlight. Clad in a puffy down jacket, knitted cap and gloves, she looked as young and delectable as any ski-resort snow bunny. Then she found the flashlight, flicked it on and speared him right in the eyes with the bright beam. “At least close the damn door.”
He kicked it shut, but the violence did little to relieve the pressure that was building up inside. “Just what the devil are you doing?” he roared.
Her chin came up. “Giving this thing another look. You got a problem with that?”
“You’re damn right I do!” He stepped closer, grabbed her arm and shook her, making the flashlight beam bounce. “From now on, don’t you poke that pretty nose of yours outside without telling me first. Is that clear?”
“I don’t take orders from you, Mahoney.”
“Don’t let that ridiculous stiff-necked pride of yours get you in trouble. This isn’t the kind of weather you can play around in.”
“I wasn’t playing. I was trying to help!”
“Then use your head. Unless all that daytime drivel you’ve been feeding the viewing public has left it totally empty.”
Her teeth snapped together. “Keep your contempt for my profession to yourself.”
“Now there’s a trick and a half! Last time I had the misfortune to tune in, you and that pretty boy you play against were cuddled up in a hot under-the-covers scene. Tell me, do you often work naked in this ‘profession’ of yours?”
Marisa’s eyes flashed her annoyance. “Dear Mac. As abrasive and crude as ever.”
“I’m paid to ask the hard questions, honey,” he drawled.
“Eric and I share a great respect for each other’s work. It’s a matter of trust and communication.” Her voice went sugar sweet. “But some people have trouble understanding such a simple, basic concept. And, unlike others I can name, Eric has never made so much as a single off-color remark to me.”
“Too tongue-tied by your beauty au naturel, I guess.”
“For your information, Eric and I have never gotten naked together...on camera.” Smiling as he chewed on that, Marisa pointed at the generator. “Now, why don’t you use a little of that brute strength you’re so fond of showing off to crank this thing!”
Jaw taut, Mac glared at her, then reached for the starter rope. Ten frustrating minutes later, he gave up. “It’s no use. If I could break it down, maybe clean out the carburetor...”
Marisa sighed. “Forget it then. We’ll just have to make do.”
“Not something a princess is accustomed to, eh?”
She looked blank for a moment, then pitched the flashlight at his head and stormed out of the lean-to. Mac ducked and went after her, his temper at the flash point. He caught up with her in two steps, looped his arm around her waist and physically dragged her into the garage, ignoring her futile attempts to break free as the wind howled around them.
“Let me go!”
Shutting the garage door behind them, Mac obliged, thrusting her down onto a pile of stacked boxes. “Sit. And shut up. We’re going to get a few things straight.”
“I’m sick of you!” Marisa whipped off her cap, shook her hair free and wiped her damp face. “Sick of the sight of you, do you hear?”
“Yeah. You’re my favorite person, too.”
Mac looked around. The garage was frigid, but being out of the wind was a relief. Several generations of tarps and tools and outdated farm and sporting equipment of every description hung from the rafters and walls. A gray sedan sat in one of the parking spaces, the vehicle Marisa had used on her escape from Los Angeles. Which brought him back to the reason he was here.
“Are you ready to tell me what really went down with you and your husband and Dr. Morris?”
Marisa spluttered in fury. “Nothing, I told you! I never heard of him until that day in Jackie Horton’s studio! Nicky’s adoption was handled by the Latimore Corporation attorneys, and it was all perfectly legal, Mr. Hotshot Reporter!”
Mac’s voice was quiet. “Then why did you run?”
“I did not—” She caught a shaky breath.
“This place wasn’t as far as you planned to go with the kid, was it? What were you thinking? Canada, maybe? Some Greek Island? Talk about parental kidnapping with a twist, jet-set-style.”
