Free Mail-Order Millionaire by Carol Grace Page A

she wanted to let herself go, give in to the fatigue and longing and let him hold her and see where it would lead to. But the truth hit her like a wet snowball. He feels sorry for you, she told herself, especially after hearing your sad story. And pity is the last thing you want or need.
    She raised her head and gave him a shaky smile. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t usually go to pieces like this. It must be late and I’m losing it.” Pulling away from him, she reached for the valve and shut the gas burners off. “We’ll let it freeze overnight, then we can just lift off the ice in the morning and the syrup will be underneath. Simple, yes?”
    He put his arm across her shoulder. “Yes,” he said and wished he could capture the feeling again, of holding her in his arms, aware of the lush curves of her breasts under her shirt. But she ducked under his arm and led the way out of the shack and back to the house. They walked single file, boots crunching through the snow in harmony, but without speaking or touching. Her choice, not his.
    His choice would have been to go arm in arm, hip against hip, thigh against thigh. Maybe he shouldn’t have come tonight. They were not only back to zero, but they had also regressed a few points below. Because of what, the kiss, the sister, her fatigue? Did she regret inviting him to spend the night? Should he offer to leave?
    He closed the living-room door behind them. She put a log on the hot coals. The pungent smell of the hickory smoke and the welcome heat from the fire made his decision for him. He’d stay till dawn, and then leave before she woke up, leaving a note on the table. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you,” it would say. “Best of luck, Max.”
    She paused on the bottom step of the varnished staircase. “Thanks for your help.”
    “My pleasure. I mean it. I enjoyed it. I’ve never been on a farm before.”
    She ran her fingers around the carved newel post. “Never?”
    “Nope. I’ve been on mountaintops studying weather patterns for the past few years. Before that I lived in Atlanta.”
    “Where you broke your leg skiing.”
    His gaze met hers. “You remembered.” She looked embarrassed to be caught doing so. “Actually I broke it in North Carolina skiing. We don’t have any mountains in Georgia.”
    Like a rag doll she sank down to sit on the second step, wrapping her arms around her knees. “What is it about mountains anyway?”
    He sat on the couch, feeling the springs bounce back against his thighs. He stared out the small windowpanes and into the moonlit snowscape, thinking. He knew what it was, but he didn’t know how to put it into words, and it seemed important to explain it to her. “It’s partly the isolation, the feeling that you’re all alone in the world, above the mess and the muck of cities and the people who live there. But it’s more than that.”
    “It’s the confrontation with the elements,” she suggested.
    “How do you know that?”
    “I was there, remember?”
    His gaze swiveled toward hers and locked. “I remember. I don’t get that many guests.” He remembered everything about that evening. The way she’d looked sleeping in his chair, wrapped in his blanket.
    “Welcome or unwelcome.”
    “You were welcome,” he assured her.
    “You made me feel that way. With the drinks and the dinner. And I haven’t offered you anything. Not even a glass of Grandma’s mulberry wine.” She stood and went to the cabinet in the corner, took out a cut-glass decanter and two small matching glasses. Noting the bemused look on his face, she smiled and handed him a glass of the dark red wine. “You didn’t think farmers lived like savages, did you?”
    He sniffed the wine appreciatively. “I didn’t think about farmers at all until, when was it, two weeks ago?” He leaned back on the couch and crossed his leg over his knee, watching her take her place back on the hard varnished chair step again, her blond hair