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“If you’re so apologetic, then leave.”
He pulled his mouth into a straight line and trained his gaze on the floor. A stubborn comeback.
She sighed. “If you need a place to stay, there’s the Edgewater Motel out by the highway. Its roof is much less likely to come tumbling down while you sleep. Besides, this is no palace. The only point of interest is the view.” She gestured to the frost-clouded window. “Hail the Spencer estate in all its glory.”
She thought she saw him flinch, but couldn’t be sure. Nonetheless, he recovered quickly, his voice going back to the same deep-freeze burn she’d heard when he’d entered the cabin.
“Maybe we can make a deal, miss. Maybe I can repair this heap of an abode so it’s livable again.”
He was all business. It was a language Lacey preferred, one she spoke well.
“Really?” she asked, interest piqued, yet adding enough doubt to her tone to let him know that she wouldn’t be a complete pushover. She’d intended to fix this place for years, but had nudged the task to the bottom of her priority pile, just like other matters.
Matters like relationships, love, loneliness.
He watched her with that cocky grin, as if he knew he’d get his way. “I only have one condition.”
“You have a condition?” She laughed. If she hadn’t still been ready to attack him at a moment’s notice, she would’ve relished the irony of his words.
“Yeah. My condition is this: If I fix this place, you leave me alone. No questions asked.”
Her heart fell to her stomach. Of course he didn’t want anything to do with her. No surprise there, especially for a gal who’d probably end up an old maid anyway.
Lacey tried to appear as if his words hadn’t hit that gaping chink in the armor of her self-esteem.
Connor Langley regretted the words the moment they’d flown out of his mouth. Not because he didn’t need to be left alone—his reason for being in this town depended upon it at this stage—but he could see how the request killed the light in her eyes, how it paled the blush of her winter-stained cheeks.
She was damned adorable in her little snow bunny outfit, with earmuffs hanging from the fingers of one dainty, pink-gloved hand, while the other held the andiron like it was a sword gone limp. The metal thumped against her tight ski pants, which were tucked into snowboots. Her perky image was further emphasized by wide gray-blue eyes fringed by spiked lashes, a slightly tilted nose and those prim-and-plump lips.
She was cuter than any woman had a right to be, sweet as powder puffs and sugar cookies.
But Connor wasn’t in the mood for the heat that stole through his body every time he looked at her. He had much heavier issues weighing him down.
Issues like the necessity of staying in this cabin, a place that offered the best vantage point of the Spencer estate.
Trying to keep any sign of urgency out of his voice, he said, “Is it a deal then?”
The woman lowered her gaze and tucked a chin-length strand of dark brown hair behind an ear. The ends flipped up, reminding him of jukebox nights and sock-hops where the girls wore poodle skirts with scarves around their necks.
“This is crazy,” she said. “I don’t even know your name.”
“That’s easy.” He stuck out his palm, as if every day he encountered ticked-off women who wanted to emasculate him. “Connor Langley.”
She tilted her head, seemingly testing the sound of his name in her mind. Then, she inched out her gloved hand. “Lacey Vedae.”
As their fingers connected, Conn felt the electric jolt of her firm grip, even if she was wearing a protective layer of wool over her skin. Her touch was steady, no nonsense, sending shock waves up his arm, down to his lower belly, stirring into something he couldn’t afford to focus on.
He let go of her before he could get burned, then took a step back toward the fire.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Langley?”
Miss—it was Miss, wasn’t it?—Vedae didn’t mince words. He could tell she had a core of steel the minute she’d stood up to him when he’d entered the cabin.
He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “I’m getting away from it all. I don’t want anyone to know where I am.”
“So you settled on Kane’s Crossing? You must be desperate for some boredom.”
Actually, he’d give his life for boredom, for the way it used to be, back in the small Montana town where he’d lived all his years. Back where he’d been engaged to Emily Webster because that’s what had been expected of him. Back where his mother hadn’t shriveled from cancer to almost nothing. Back where he’d been Connor Langley and nothing more.
“That sounds nice to me,” he said, meaning it.
Her eyes took on a wary narrowness. “You’re lying. Why should I let you stay here if you can’t tell me some semblance of the truth?”
Damn. “Because I’m a hell of a handyman. That was my job back in Raintree, Montana.”
She crossed her arms over her down jacket, clearly not buying his guff.
“That’s the honest slant on it, Miss Vedae.” He paused. “I just need to be alone.”
“Hmmm.” She quirked her lips, considering him. “I still don’t trust you.”
“Trust isn’t a requirement.” He almost added the dreaded “ma’am,” but remembered right in time how she’d reacted to the title earlier.
Too bad his mom had bred “ma’am” into him for the length of his life. You couldn’t break a thirty-three-year-old habit.
Mom. The word, the image stung because, in Montana, she was waiting for him to help her, to heal her.
Well, he wouldn’t do it standing here making nice with his prospective landlord. Conn needed to take his binoculars and get back to work.
“What about it?” he asked, unthinkingly taking a step forward. He itched to run a hand along her jaw, comforting her, convincing her that he wasn’t such a bad guy.
At least, that’s what he’d thought up until a month ago, when he’d learned the truth about himself.
Lacey Vedae sighed and tossed up her hands. “Heck. It’s not like you’re living in my house.”
“Right.”
“And you’re going to do work on this hunk of junk.”
“Your obviously beloved hunk of junk.”
She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
“If you adhere to my condition, we won’t even know each other exists.”
She stared at him for a second, her gaze going as soft as the gray-blue clouds of a rainstorm. Something like emptiness filled her eyes for the briefest moment, then flashed away.
She walked toward the door, hesitating before opening it. “I’ve got plenty of supplies in my toolshed, off the main house. Help yourself.”
“Does that mean you’ll keep quiet about my being here?”
Her hand rested on the doorknob, then she nodded. “For the moment.”
Without another glance back, she opened the door and walked outside into the newly revealed sunshine with its glare of snow on the ground.
What had that meant? Was he staying? Going?
Questions and more questions. He was sick of asking himself, testing himself every day.
All he knew for certain was that he needed Ms. Vedae to keep his secret, to keep him hidden in this cabin in the woods.
By evening, Lacey had already thought of twenty-six ways to break Connor Langley’s one condition.
She settled on the temptation of a gourmet dinner.
As her boots crunched through the light layer of snow leading to the cabin, she tried to tell herself that this was a good idea. Maybe it was the biggest mistake of her life, allowing him to stay on her property, but the businesswoman in her had pretty good instincts about people. Connor Langley didn’t strike her as a terrible man—not with the way in which he’d taken off his hat to greet her, or turned his back when she’d been ready to skewer him.
Maybe he’d even be happy to see her when she told him she’d decided he could stay on her property. It could happen.
She approached the trees, leaving footprints as she went. “He did make it clear that he didn’t want company though,” she said out loud. “But what kind of neighbor would I be if I didn’t give him a welcome basket along with the good news?”
She hefted the loaded wicker carrier from one hand to the other. “Leaving him alone would make you a good neighbor,” she answered, hardly minding that she was talking to herself. “Because he did ask you to stay away.”
As she entered Siggy Woods—the dark forest that had inspired more than one town legend—she pressed her mouth into a silent line. Way back when she was fourteen, her doctor at the HazyLawn Home for Girls had warned her about talking to herself but, like most advice she’d culled from her short stay in the institution, she’d pretended to embrace the suggestion while ignoring it completely.
Her problem hadn’t been too much self-conversation, anyway. It’d had more to do with wanting to cry all the time, wanting to stop herself from sinking into the slow-spinning black hole of her thoughts. Sometimes, long ago, she’d ached so badly that she couldn’t get out of bed come morning.
At times the darkness still lapped at the edges of her mind. But she fought it—tooth and nail. Weekly therapy sessions with her Louisville doctor as well as the steady lift of Prozac helped her, healed her.
For the most part, she was happy and settled, successful and normal—and everyone in Kane’s Crossing who didn’t believe her was going to be convinced whether or not it drained Lacey of all energy and resources.
Between the trunks of white-glimmer pine trees, Lacey caught sight of the cabin, its bare windows winking with an orange glow. A shadow crossed over one of the panes, causing nerves to goose her heartbeat.
Connor Langley wasn’t going to be ecstatic to see her but, all the same, she couldn’t help herself. Every hungry cell of her body wanted to take him in, to swarm under the thick, warm feeling of attraction, even if only for the time it took to give him this basket.
She paused at the door, blowing out a cloud of pent-up steam. Then, ready for a scolding, she knocked.
A long hesitation followed, as if he was thinking about pretending not to be home. Finally, after what seemed like eons, the door creaked open on rusted hinges.
He stood in front of her, arms akimbo, his hair tied at his nape. “What didn’t you understand about leaving me alone?”
Boy, his eyes were blue. And now that she was almost toe-to-toe with him, she could see icicle-white flecks spiking the deep color of his irises.
“I…” She grinned, shoving the gingham-lined carrier in front of her as aggressively as she’d presented the fireplace implement this afternoon. “I wanted to tell you that you can stay in the cabin. And I cooked you dinner in apology for almost running you through with that metal thing.”
“I told you, it’s an andiron.” Then, as he cocked a brow, Lacey wondered why she’d thought this would be such a wonderful idea in the first place.
Before he could speak, she rushed on. “I really am good in the kitchen, so you shouldn’t refuse this. I’ve whipped up a spinach and grilled shrimp salad with a sherry vinaigrette, salmon rolls with spinach and sole with Champagne sauce and pear cake savoie. Pretty decent grub for the middle of nowhere.”
She waited with what had to be a silly, hopeful please-oh-please-accept-me grin on her face.
“I’m miffed,” he said.
“Well, I was puttering around the house, fixing to eat dinner myself, and I thought—”
He looked away and shook his head.
Getting the message loud and clear, Lacey set the basket on the ground, right by his boots, then turned to leave.
“Wait, Ms. Vedae.”
When she peeked over her shoulder, he’d picked up the wicker carrier and opened the door a crack wider. He glanced at her, something like guilt etching the lines around his mouth. “My privacy is important to me. Understand?”
With the way he’d growled the words, Lacey wondered if he was inviting her to share the meal or trying to scare her off.
Maybe she was being terribly invasive. “Bon appetit, Mr. Langley. I’ll leave you to your own company.”
And back she’d go to her massive house, wondering how it had ever become so empty.
The hinges screamed as he opened the door wider. “Get in here.”
Ooo, a command. If her stepbrothers, Matt and Rick, or one of her employees had talked to her in such a tone, she’d have given them a good dose of put-them-in-their-place. But with this man…
She didn’t say a word. She merely tilted her head as if she’d been expecting his invitation all along and strolled into the cabin.
Into the warmth of a stranger’s presence.
Chapter Two
T he woman sure could cook.
As Conn bit into the last of the pear cake whatever-it-was-called, he stifled a groan of contentment. He was more used to the beef and potatoes his ex-fiancée, Emily, had whipped up for him on a regular basis. Every Sunday night after church, she’d invite him over for dinner, then they’d sit in front of the television in her parents’ clapboard house, pretending that someday in the future, they might have something to talk about during the commercial breaks.
But now he was dining on food he couldn’t even pronounce.
Maybe it was for the best, though he hadn’t exactly been singing for joy when Lacey had shown up at his doorstep uninvited. For the second time today.
After she’d left this afternoon, he’d returned to the woods to keep his eye on the Spencer estate, cursing at the absence of activity there. Maybe the family had gone out of town. Who knew? But Conn was determined to wait, to watch and collect all the information he could before taking the next step.
Introducing himself.
And the sooner, the better. His mom was slowly dying, and he’d promised her that he’d come up with a way to make her better.
The sound of splashing wine drew him back to the moment as Lacey refreshed his glass with more Riesling. The woman had come prepared with everything.
“So, now that I’ve got you all liquored up, are you going to tell me why you’re here?” She smiled, her eyes the same color as the sky surrounding an evening star, especially vivid against the lavender of her turtleneck.
“I thought we’d already gone over this. About ten times.”
