скачать книгу бесплатно
As she glanced around, her heart thumped madly in her chest. The room was large and furnished in dark wood. Drawn curtains made up the wall in front of her, a fire roared and crackled to her left, and a man sat beside her. A man she recognized instantly. His balding head, scholarly gray beard and hook nose gave him away.
Dr. Pinta’s kind eyes settled on her. “Well, we’re very glad to see you, my dear. How are you feeling?”
Her mind whirled with thoughts and questions, but none more important than one. “My baby?”
“Your baby’s just fine. And so are you.” He smiled. “You were very smart to set out those flares.”
Her hands went to her belly, felt the warmth, the life there, and she sighed with relief.
“It was a close call, but thank the good Lord someone came along in time,” the doctor added.
The doctor glanced over his shoulder and Isabella followed his gaze. Sitting in a thronelike chair upholstered in emerald-green velvet, facing the fire, was a man. Something inside her, perhaps inside her heart, knew instantly that the knight in her dream had been no vision, after all.
As images flashed through her mind—snow glazing her car, the door opening to reveal her rescuer, lying against the solid wall of his chest—her knight met her gaze, firelight illuminating his steel-gray eyes, rumpled black hair and granitelike features.
“Hello, Bella.”
Only two men had ever called her that. One was her father, Emmett, who had passed away almost fifteen years ago. And the other was the sixteen-year-old runaway from a boys’ home in Minneapolis her father had taken in.
Even at the age of thirteen, Isabella had known that she loved that boy, with his quick mind and brusque nature—even with the limp that had roused teasing and taunting from other kids in town.
But she’d lost him after her father’s death. The boy had left Fielding after her great-aunt had taken her in, but couldn’t take him, too.
Michael Wulf.
The picked-on outcast who’d turned into the misunderstood genius. A celebrity. She’d kept track of his progress and had even thought of getting in touch with him when she’d read that he’d moved back to Fielding three years ago. But she’d been married by then and living in Chicago. She’d had to put every ounce of energy into saving her marriage, into trying to find out why her husband had changed from charming to disinterested the moment they’d said, “I do.”
A curious smile found its way to her mouth. “Michael. Thank you.”
He gave her a quick nod. “It was nothing.”
“You saved my life. And my baby’s. That’s something.”
“I’m just glad I was there.”
He never had taken a compliment well. “So am I. I thought I was dreaming when I woke up and saw you. It’s been such a long time.”
His shadowed gaze moved over her, pausing at her belly. “A long time.”
His voice was low and deep, but tender, and she was instantly taken back in time. The gruff kid who had never been gruff with her.
A smile curled through her. Michael Wulf had been the boy she’d wanted to give her first kiss to, her heart to. Lord, how time flew. Certainly enough for her to see—and sense—the difference in him. He’d grown handsomer in fifteen years, but those gray eyes that had once been angry and troubled were as hard as steel now.
She knew some of his past hurts, but whatever had happened after he’d disappeared from Fielding had left him far more scarred. And she wondered about it.
Dr. Pinta put a hand over hers. “Is there someone I can call for you, my dear?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Your husband?” Michael offered, the hard lines of his mouth deepening.
Isabella looked away, suddenly feeling very tired. “He died seven months ago.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” Doc said softly. “What about someone in Fielding? Anyone expecting you?”
When she’d married Rick four years ago, he’d urged her to cut the lines of communication with anyone in Fielding. It had practically broken her heart, but in an effort to save her marriage, she’d done as he’d asked. She had no idea what to expect when she returned home, no idea if her old friends would embrace her.
“I’m going to stay at the hotel for a week or so until I can get my father’s store back in working order,” she said. “I’ve decided to turn it into a pastry shop.” She looked at Dr. Pinta, sensing she had to explain further. “I’m planning on living in the apartment above it. It’ll be a perfect home for me and the baby—once it’s cleaned up of course.”
“We’ll all be glad to have you back, my dear. And a pastry shop,” Doc said with a slow grin. “Good, good. Are you going to be selling those cinnamon rolls of yours?”
She nodded, returning his friendly smile. “When do you think I can go—”
“I think you should stay right where you are,” Michael said firmly.
Doc nodded. “I agree. You and the baby should rest.” From his coat pocket came a loud beeping sound. He reached in, took out his beeper and stared at the message. “Good Lord, it’s certainly a day for emergencies. Mrs. Dalton has had an accident, something about her hip.”
“I hope she’ll be all right,” Isabella offered, her mind scattered with the events of the day.
Doc looked up. “Sorry, my dear, I need to go. I have to stop in town and get some supplies. The Dalton place is at least twenty miles out. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back until morning.”
Michael nodded. “I’ll take care of her, Thomas.”
An unfamiliar tug of awareness spread through Isabella at that simple promise. She grabbed for the doctor’s hand. “I don’t want to put anyone out. I could go with you. The hotel is right on the—”
Doc Pinta stood up. “No, no. The snow has let up quite a bit, but it’s getting colder. I don’t want you picking up another chill. Not in your condition.”
“She’ll stay here,” Michael stated firmly. “I’ll move my things into the guest room.”
Isabella felt her cheeks warm as she once again looked around the room. This time she noted several personal items: the silver watch that her father had given Michael for his sixteenth birthday on the nightstand, a book about solar-powered homes on a bench, aboriginal paintings on the walls and framed photographs on the mantel, each depicting what she imagined were Michael’s “children”—the high-tech interiors of cars, boats and houses.
This was his room, his bed.
Her pulse stumbled and the room suddenly compressed into a sort of tunnel with Michael Wulf at the end. Lord, she must have caught more than a chill. Only a fever could make her childish crush seem in danger of turning into a full-fledged, grown-up one. She was in Fielding to start a new life, create a future for herself and her child, not return to teenage dreams from the past.
“I really can’t stay here,” Isabella said, hearing the ring of panic in her voice. How could she sleep in his bed, against his pillows, surrounded by the scent of him? “I need to be at my place. I have a cleaning crew coming from St. Cloud to help me get everything—”
“They won’t make it out in weather like this, Isabella.” Doc Pinta reached down and gave her hand a squeeze. “What you need to do is calm down. You’re in no shape tonight to brave the elements. It’s not good for the baby.” He turned to Michael. “If anything changes, please call me.”
Michael nodded. “Of course.”
“You and that baby get some rest, young lady.” Doc Pinta left the room, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”
An unwelcome cloud of anxiety floated in the air just above Isabella’s heart as she watched the doctor go—leaving her alone with the subject of her teenage dreams.
Dressed in simple but expensive black, Michael crossed to the bed, his limp more pronounced than she remembered. But that minor limitation hardly diminished his striking appearance and the commanding manner that burned around him like a living, breathing thing.
Up close he was even more fiercely handsome than she remembered. Dark, hooded eyes, sensual mouth, olive skin—he nearly took her breath away. He’d grown, well over six feet now with the body of a gladiator. Obviously his impediment hadn’t stopped him from staying fit, she mused as a twinge of pain erupted in her lower back.
But though Michael had grown in stature and appearance, Isabella could feel the oppressive heat of the anger and the resentment he still carried. A weighty burden he looked unlikely to discard anytime soon.
“I want you to know that I really appreciate your putting me up,” she told him. “I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
Michael’s features tightened. “Fifteen years ago you and your father took me in, Bella, treated me like family. It’s a debt I’ve never forgotten. And one I intend to repay.” He graced her with a slash of a smile—something she imagined he didn’t do very often. “I’m glad you’re here, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
Her heart began to soften like clay in a warm palm, but she fought it. His voice was thoughtful, but the meaning was clear. He was offering her his home and his protection because he felt he owed her and her father.
“Thanks,” she said with a calm she didn’t feel. “That’s a very generous thing to say. But you don’t owe me anything. One night’s stay is all I’ll be—”
“We’ll see about that,” he interrupted, plowing a hand through his hair. “We’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.”
Just then, an arrow of pain shot into her lower back, making her wince. These little jolts were coming all too frequently the past few weeks. Her little one obviously wanted to see the world. And Mommy can’t wait to see you, my sweetie. Just give me a little longer.
“All right, Michael,” she said, too tired to argue something that sounded so reasonable no matter what his motivations were. “But I don’t want to take your room from you. I can easily move into a guest room or—”
“That’s not necessary.” His smoky gaze briefly scanned hers. “You look very comfortable right here in my bed.”
Her eyes widened and her breasts tightened. One night. Just one night.
“I won’t have you moving,” he said. “I’m going downstairs to make sure that Thomas is on his way. I’ll bring you up some dinner. Soup sound all right?”
She nodded, grateful that he was going to leave for a while so she could breathe normally again. “Sounds perfect.”
“My housekeeper only comes during the week, so we’ll both have to suffer my cooking until tomorrow. Anything else you need?”
“A little sunshine would be great,” she joked lamely.
He turned then and uttered the word “drapes,” and the wall of chestnut fabric in front of her parted to reveal floor-to-ceiling windows.
Isabella gasped, both at what seemed to be his magic and at the view. The dim bluish light of a late afternoon in early winter seeped into the room. Outside, she could see gnarled, leafless trees, a pond frozen over and acres and acres of white under a gray sky. To any true Midwesterner, it was a beautiful scene.
And Michael’s amazing technology had brought it to her in one simple command. She’d certainly read about his inventions, just never seen one.
“Very impressive, Michael.”
He shrugged. “It’s actually a pretty simple process.”
“Not to the technologically impaired. My VCR has been blinking 12:00 for a good decade.”
“Well, I can’t make a cinnamon roll. To me, that’s impressive.” He regarded her for moment, the cogs of his mind working behind his eyes, then he turned to leave.
“It’s good to see you again,” she called after him.
He paused at the door, but didn’t look back. “It’s good to see you, too, Bella.”
Then he was gone, and the room felt cooler. Which was odd because his attitude and manner were not particularly warm.
She turned toward the fire. Why in the world did she feel so safe here, in his lair, his hideout from the world, as the media called it?
“The millionaire recluse who lives in an enormous house of glass on thirty acres of woodland high above a sleepy town,” she’d read. “Driven to levels of success that most mortals wouldn’t dare strive for.”
He was an enigma, they said. At thirty-one, Michael Wulf made the world wonder—about his personal history, as well as his extraordinarily profitable high-tech developments.
Though he seemed to have no past, he was truly a man of the future. He created houses with brains and cars that responded to vocal commands. But unlike others in his field, he had no taste for celebrity.
They also wrote that he had no wife, no family, few friends and a giant chip on his shoulder. They said that he walked with a limp. And they speculated that perhaps the lone wolf had once been caught in a trap.
But Isabella knew a truth that all those journalists who wrote about him would never know. How he’d been tossed away by his parents for a handicap he couldn’t control and shoved into a boys’ home. How he’d been treated by his peers for being different. How determined he’d been to rise above them all.
And it seemed that he’d succeeded. He did indeed live high above a sleepy little town, a town that had once rejected him. But in her opinion, living in hiding was no way to live.
She exhaled heavily, her hands moving to her belly. Perhaps it was this new nurturing side of her, but she wanted to help him, lift him out of that black hole that held him hostage. But somehow she knew that if she did, if she got close to him again, the odds of reviving that adolescent crush were great.
Not that her potential desires mattered. The boy from years ago had looked on her as a little girl, while the man today apparently looked on her as an unpaid debt.
Not to mention that you’re eight months pregnant and resemble a beach ball.
She rubbed her stomach and said softly, “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
What she needed to do was concentrate on this new life she was carving out for herself: opening her pastry shop, creating a home, raising her child and putting the past to rest.
But rest appeared unlikely as long as she was under the same roof as that past: the very handsome and disturbing Michael Wulf.
Two
Michael leaned back in his armchair and took in the view.
Several feet away, Bella lay asleep in his massive bed, wrapped in the royal-blue robe he’d loaned her. She’d grown into a beautiful woman over the past decade, and her pregnancy only accentuated that beauty.
She hugged the down pillow like a lover, her face content, her tawny lashes brushing the tops of her cheekbones. And as the last flicker of red from the fire illuminated her long blond hair, he couldn’t help but wonder if this angel from his past had been sent from heaven to torture him.
Tonight, however, he hadn’t let himself spend enough time with her to find out. After Thomas had left, he’d gone down to the kitchen and opened a can of chicken soup, made some toast to go with it, then brought it up to her on a tray. She’d wanted him to stay and have dinner with her, but he’d declined.
He never ate with anyone. As a child, the chaos of living and eating with sixty hungry boys, of having to fight for every scrap of food, had made him yearn for solitude and peace. And he’d found them both out on the road when he’d finally escaped from Youngstown School.
Even when he’d come to Fielding, stayed with Bella and her father, his newfound independence had continued. Emmett would say something like “A man has to have a little space,” then hand Michael a plate of food and a glass of milk.
Emmett Spencer had been one in a million. Michael knew he would never forget how the man had taken him in, no questions asked, and acted as a father figure, a mentor, even taught him all about electronics. Then there was Bella, who had taught him about kindness and given him her friendship.
But tonight, Michael thought as he watched her, tonight, as he’d laid that dinner tray before her, he hadn’t looked on her as a friend. He’d even contemplated making an exception to his dining rule. For her. And both of those realizations unnerved him. Unnerved him enough to cry “work” as an excuse and get the hell out of there.
Just then, Bella sighed in her sleep. Rubbing his jaw, Michael cursed softly. He’d never been a voyeur. And he didn’t have time to think about the past. There was work to be done and deals to be made.
But today, when he’d opened that car door, seen those eyes—held a very grown-up Bella against him in that car—an addictive warmth had seeped into his icy blood, making him want to stay put, hold on to her this time. And that sense of longing hadn’t subsided one ounce in the hours since. Instead, it had seemed to grow.
Obviously she was potent acid to his ironwill, eating away at his resolve, and he knew that he’d better remember why she was here. Remember the only thing he wanted from her.
Acknowledgment of a debt paid in full.
