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They no longer had the petting zoo, unfortunately, but Abby could never part with her horses. Riding them along the lake was one of her favorite ways to relax. Her parents had given her these two colts when she was fifteen. As she headed down to the barn and looked out over her land, the sight always took her breath away in any season. Today, there’d been a light snow all day long, and it was shining like diamonds in the moonlight.
This was hers. It was home. Like her parents, she’d love to travel more, but she’d never really wanted to live anywhere but here.
All of the stress and work that went with it was hers, too. Lunch with Hannah yesterday had left her with a lot of food for thought and a lot of worry for the future.
Inside the barn she was greeted by soft, muffled welcomes, and she grabbed feed buckets, hay and fresh water and took care of business, which included much brushing and stroking.
“Hey, babes,” she crooned, feeling guilty that she hadn’t done more than put them out in the field that day. “I promise tomorrow you’ll both get some good exercise. I’ll get Hannah and we’ll see you both early in the morning for a nice ride.”
After long moments of petting warm muzzles and feeling more relaxed than she had when she walked in, she locked the doors and said good-night, turning back toward the house. Her gaze drifted down over the landscape to the Winston property. She noted some lights on in the house, although the winery was dark. Was Reece really going to sell?
She shivered, pulled her thick wool coat tighter around her and stared at the upstairs light. Reece? In his room? Was he there alone? She shivered for a different reason.
She’d been all fired up yesterday, having fun with Hannah, but she was crazy to think she could seduce Reece into … what? Not selling his land? No doubt he would think that was very funny; she was still out of his league, always had been.
But she was going to talk to him. She had no idea what she’d say to try to convince him to hold off, but if he didn’t rush into a sale with Keller, maybe she could help find someone who would buy in with her. It was a huge gambit, but not impossible. Not entirely. She had money saved, and she’d have to mortgage her home to the hilt, but what other choice did she have?
She had to do whatever she could to protect her home and business. Keller would ruin the entire area.
The little hamlet that had sprouted up around the wineries a few miles up the lake from the city of Ithaca offered a coffee shop, a few quaint boutiques, a gas station and a convenience store, and all of her friends were here. Unlike Reece, who had gone away as far as he could as soon as he was able, she’d gone to college locally, at Cornell, and she went down into the city a few times a week. They sold many of their wines in local stores, as well as all over the region.
She wished she could go inside, open a nice bottle of wine, make some dinner and sit in front of the fireplace in the living room, then finish decorating her trees without it feeling like work.
It would be even nicer to not have to do it alone.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Biting her lip, she walked faster toward the house and didn’t think too much about what she was contemplating. If she did, she’d lose her nerve.
Entering the warmly lit kitchen that hadn’t changed too much since she’d grown up, she went carefully down the cellar steps to the room where they kept their private stock and grabbed a bottle she had been saving for a special occasion.
Back upstairs, she pulled two glasses from the shelves and a wedge of brie and a few other goodies from the fridge.
The trees could wait. Her talk with Reece could not.
If she didn’t do it now, she’d could lose her chance as well as her nerve. Setting aside her doubts and worries, she started out walking across the land between their homes, a windy half mile, her eyes focused on the lit windows. The snow and moon illuminated everything, making it easy to walk, and she covered the distance quickly. As she neared the house, her eyes focused in on a form in the upstairs window.
Her mouth went dry and she dropped the bottle of wine, which didn’t break, thank goodness, but landed softly in the snow.
She picked it up again and walked closer. It was Reece. He hadn’t pulled a shade or a curtain, thinking—rightly—that no one would be looking in his windows from the field side of the house.
He was nude. Completely. Stretching his arms up over his head, and then bending at the waist, she couldn’t see everything, but she saw enough to make her heart slam against her rib cage as he did something that looked very much like yoga.
He was strong. Muscled, but graceful in his movements.
Gorgeous.
She forgot to move forward, entranced, but then as she realized where she was and what she was doing, she averted her eyes—though she couldn’t erase what she’d seen. How could she? The strong line of his back, the muscles of his shoulders and arms were stunning. She could imagine running her hands over him and wondered what it would be like to have those slim, strong hips settling in between her legs….
“Oh, no,” she said to herself, breathless with lust, her hands trembling as she almost dropped the wine again.
She hovered for a second on the porch. Reece was home, alone and naked, and she was standing here at his front door with a bottle of wine. Her courage flagged. Maybe she should talk to him another time, like during the light of day, or at a bar with a lot of other people around.
Don’t be a coward, Abby, she scolded herself. She sucked in a deep breath and pressed the doorbell before she could change her mind.
REECE STEPPED GINGERLY out of the shower, wrapping a large towel around his waist, wincing from the pain in his left leg, where pins and needles shot back and forth along his thigh, causing weakness in his stance.
Each pinprick was like an individual jab, reminding him that he couldn’t get in a race car again and do the thing that he loved most. Headaches had come back earlier that afternoon as well, and he’d spent most of the day on the sofa with an ice pack.
What if this never went away? What if they never signed off on letting him race again? At this point, doctors gave him a fifty-fifty shot, but he had to be one hundred percent, his reflexes perfect, completely reliable before he could race.
The betrayal of having his own body prevent him from doing what he loved most was utterly unacceptable. He’d gotten through the worst of it, and he’d defeat this, too. There was no alternative other than … what? Staying here?
Not an option.
Crossing the hall, he walked into the guest room and dried off. His mother had long ago, with his blessing, turned his old room into a place where she did her sewing and other crafts. He came home for holidays and a few short vacations but not often enough for his parents to have preserved his room. At the moment, he was glad they hadn’t. He’d been feeling strangely sentimental about the old place, and that wasn’t like him. He supposed it was because of the close call with his dad. Almost losing someone—as well as almost losing your own life—made you see things differently.
He loved his family, but this was just a house, he reminded himself. A building. One he couldn’t get away from fast enough when he’d been a teenager looking for something more exciting.
He started going through the stretching routine that he’d been taught by his last physical therapist to relieve the pins and needles. Focusing on his breathing, his form, he drove away unwanted thoughts. The hot shower had helped loosen him up, but it still hurt like hell at first to push through the moves and hold them, though the symptoms lessened after a few repetitions.
He felt better as he relaxed, going through the rest of his exercises for good measure. He’d talked to his neurologist earlier in the day for the umpteenth time, and he had been reassured yet again that it was all normal.
Easy for him to say.
Reece turned to grab a pair of jeans when the ring of the doorbell caught him by surprise. Who would be here now?
Surely not Charles with someone to see the house. No one had called.
Pulling on his jeans and grabbing a shirt, he rushed down the stairs and pulled open the door, unable to believe his eyes.
“Abby?”
He took in her pink cheeks and tousled hair, and stepped back, inviting her in as the frosty air nipped at his bare toes.
“C’mon in. It’s freezing out there,” he said.
“Thanks, it is,” she said, moving quickly. Her eyes flew to his chest. He hadn’t had time to completely button his shirt.
“Oh, sorry … just got out of the shower.”
Her cheeks turned even pinker and she didn’t meet his eyes. He wondered why she was here holding wine, two glasses and some other foods.
Reece prompted her again. “What’s all this?” he asked, looking down at the stuff she still held in her arms. One glass was tenuously dangling from her fingertips.
“Let me take that for you,” he offered, and reached forward to take the flute. When his fingers caught with hers around the stem, her hand jerked away and they fumbled the glass, nearly dropping the fragile crystal.
Reece frowned. “Are you okay?”
She finally smiled. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry to intrude on your evening, but I saw your lights on and felt like some company. You said you wanted to have a drink, so …” She shrugged, holding up the bottle. “Unless this is a bad time?”
He remembered saying something about having a drink when he’d seen her at the restaurant. This wasn’t exactly what he meant, but maybe it was better.
He’d had a rough day, and having a bottle of wine with a pretty woman might be exactly what he needed.
“It’s a perfect time, actually. I’m really glad you decided to stop by,” he said, smiling and taking the rest of the things she was holding so that she could shuck her jacket. “You walked all the way over, in the dark?”
“It wasn’t that dark, with the snow and the moon. Very nice, actually,” she said lightly, handing him her coat just as she met his eyes and a spark flared as his hand touched hers.
She shifted uncomfortably, looking away and turning pink again. Reece didn’t remember her being so … wait.
She’d come across the field on the side of the house where the guest room was. Where he’d been doing his stretching, with the curtains open. With no clothes on. He never closed the drapes, since no one was likely to be lurking out in the fields
Silence hung at the end of her comment, and he had to smother a smile. She had to have seen him. Reece wasn’t shy and had to resist the urge to tease her about it.
So Abby was bit of a voyeur? It didn’t bother him. He’d be happy to let her look all she liked, he thought, his grin breaking loose as he turned away to hang her coat.
Maybe this evening would go even better than he thought.
“Grab that bottle and we can go put the food together in the kitchen, then sit by the fire,” he said casually, though he wasn’t feeling casual at all. All of his worries were pushed back by a surge of unexpected lust, and it felt great. He wanted to hold on to it, ride it and see where it took him.
“Oh, that would be nice,” she said, walking with him to the kitchen. Dressed in jeans and a sweater that accentuated her curves, he leaned forward and pulled something from her hair. He could swear she sucked in a breath when he did, becoming perfectly still.
Hmm.
He presented a straw of hay to her with a smile. “Been down with your horses, I take it?”
She rolled her eyes and snatched the hay from his hand, but couldn’t hold back a laugh, which made her even prettier. He’d always thought she was pretty, even as a little girl, but now … she was incredible. She always looked so natural and fresh, and he wondered what her skin tasted like.
“Yes, I was closing them up for the night when I saw your lights on my way back from the barn.”
“Do you still have just the two? Buttercup and Beau?”
She paused, looking surprised that he remembered. He was a little surprised, too.
“Yes. Wow, you know their names,” she said bluntly, taking the plate he handed her to open the brie so they could heat it up in the small toaster oven he pointed to.
“Why so surprising? We went to the same school, rode the same bus,” he said. “Must’ve just stuck in my mind, I guess.”
“Huh. I didn’t think you knew I was alive unless you were poking at me about something,” she said, and it was his turn to be a little surprised.
“I always liked you. I teased you, sure, but did you feel like I picked on you? Really?” A small frown creased his lips. He didn’t like thinking he had hurt Abby’s feelings or been mean to her.
Taking the food, they made their way to the main room and set the dishes down on the coffee table, placing a platter with green grapes, crackers and apples and the warmed brie between them. All perfect to go with the Baco, but Reece waited for her answer before moving to the fire.
She looked him in the eye and sighed lightly. “Well, you have to admit, aside from teasing me or pulling my hair, you didn’t give me reason to think you knew I existed, let alone that you would remember details of my life.”
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin slowly. “I remember some things very clearly,” he said with a teasing wink.
“You can’t even resist now, can you?” she said accusingly, but a smile twitched at her lips.
She remembered what happened between them that night at the lake as clearly as he did, he’d bet. And, no, he wasn’t sure he could resist, or wanted to. But there was time. He backed away, letting it drop for now.
“Let me put a few more logs on the fire and we can eat. Suddenly I’m starving.”
He was, though he wasn’t sure the food on the plate was what he had a taste for, but it would have to be enough for the moment.
They spent the next two hours eating and talking in front of the crackling fire, when Abby suddenly looked around the room.
“You don’t have a tree or any Christmas decorations up,” she observed.
He shrugged. “There hasn’t been any time, or much point, I guess. I’m the only one here, and Charles, the real estate agent, thought it was better to show the place without a lot of decorations. Let people imagine their own lives here and all that.”
“Oh,” she remarked, her expression turning serious. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said carefully.
“Christmas decorations?”
“No, that you’re selling. I was hoping—”
Reece put a hand up. “Abby, I’d be happy to sit down and talk business with you at some point. But not right now, okay?”
“But—”
“It’s been kind of a tough day. I’d really like to relax, catch up with an old friend,” he said.
He geniunely didn’t want to talk business with Abby. He knew she’d want to convince him not to sell, or something like that, and he didn’t want to discuss that with her. It was a done deal, and that conversation was sure to put a damper on the heat building between them.
She bit her lip and looked reluctant, but nodded. “I can understand that,” she said, looking down at her wine. “I know things must have been hard for you this year,” she said vaguely, inviting him to say more, but he didn’t want to talk about any of that, either. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but he needed a night off from all of it.
“Yeah,” he said, and changed the subject. “But how about you? You live in the house alone now?”
Nothing like discreet fishing before you tried to seduce an old friend, he thought. Hopefully there wasn’t another guy in the picture, though looking at her, it was hard to believe they weren’t lined up.
She shook her head, and his relief was immediate.
“Nope, just me now. Sarah retired, and Mom and Dad are traveling all over the world. I still have a small part-time staff, of course, to help me get things done, but I handle most of it myself.”
“They don’t come home for the holidays? Your parents?”
“It would be difficult. They send gifts, and we video conference on the computer a lot. Last year they were in India, helping local people build a school. This winter, they’ve been helping down in Haiti.”
“Really? I thought they were tourists now?”
“They mix their pleasure travel with activism. It’s just their way, and they have always been more like explorers than tourists.”
He nodded, smiling. “I remember.”
“I know what they’re doing is important, and I’m a big girl. We’re busy enough through the holidays that being alone at Christmas gives me a quiet day or two to relax, read, sleep in, that kind of thing.”
“Your parents were always so progressive,” he said admiringly, but really he was thinking about Abby sleeping in, under the covers, warm and soft, curled up in something slinky with a book. Then he imagined taking the book out of her hands and slipping the lacy bit of nothing from her shoulder….
