A Loving Man (4 page)

Then he bent to place his cheek beside hers for just that
fraction of a heartbeat. “Do not worry, your father is safe. There is no need for you to protect him. It is only friendship she offers. She has never been truly involved with another man since my father, though she likes to dance and laugh and enjoy their company.”

Rose shivered, uncertain of herself, of her suddenly animated father, and of Stefan, who had just turned that slight little bit to brush his lips across hers. That light touch packed a jolt of electricity and she stepped back, frowning at him. She remembered all the times she’d reached for happiness, only to have it slap her in the face. She’d cling to the safety of approaching spinsterhood, no worrying about engagements, weddings or love that just wasn’t there. “I’m just a country girl and I will not be the dessert of the day,” she informed him.

But Stefan was wearing that same
hungry
expression she had seen on the face of her father. It was a look that said Stefan wasn’t likely to be dismissed easily.

“I
thought you would be here,” Stefan said as he walked onto the dock that evening. Rose was sitting in the johnboat, the rope still tied to the dock as she fished. Stefan noted that her line was in the exact place where he had caught the crappie she obviously did not want him to have. He knew the average size of crappie and his catch had been a prize. “If you are not careful, you will catch that small crappie I released last night.”

Dressed in cutoffs, a T-shirt and her ball cap, she ignored him as he sat on the dock. With her legs draped over the side of the boat and her bare feet in the water, she was lovely against the evening shadows. She slowly reeled the line, causing her lure to quiver beneath the water. A bullfrog bellowed, cutting coarsely across the gentle evening sounds. Rose continued to ignore Stefan, and he settled his dinner basket on the dock. “You spoke little at breakfast. You ate little.”

Rose breathed slowly and the setting sun stroked the rise and fall of her breasts. “Breakfast—that whatever you call it—was good. You were uninvited then and you are uninvited now.”

“That was quite by accident. My mother is impulsive and friendly. She also is very soft in her heart. She wanted to stop. When you know her better, you will understand. And your father did look lonely.”

Rose turned to look at him fully. “Well, he’s not lonely now. He’s at your place, painting walls with your mother. It took him an hour to get ready. He pressed a good cotton shirt and asked me how he looked. Dad hasn’t cared about his looks since I don’t know when. Tomorrow he’s coming to work for the first time in months. He said he needed to get back ‘in the flow.’ He hasn’t been ‘in the flow’ since my mother left.”

Stefan shrugged. His mother might appreciate the company and help, but companionship was her limit. His daughter was at the movies with her new girlfriend, swooning over the latest screen hero. It was good for Estelle to be with friends of her own age and for Louie to be far, far away. For the first time in ages, Stefan felt at peace. “This is good,” he said, meaning it as he inhaled the sweet evening air. “And I am not playing a game, by the way.”

“Hey, guy. You’re here for the summer as I understand, and you’re messing in my life. You’re temporary. I’m permanent. There’s a difference. What do you want from me?” Rose asked, her voice carrying huskily across the lake’s distance, her expression shadowed.

Stefan reached to grip the rope tethering her boat and gently pulled her closer until he could see those magnificent blue eyes and those wonderful freckles. He wrapped his hand around her ankle and stroked it with his thumb,
enjoying the feel of her flesh. “I find you attractive and enchanting and magnificently delicious.”

“That’s quite the line,” she tossed back at him after a moment’s hesitation in which she was obviously picking her way to safety. She pulled her leg away from his touch.

Stefan smiled, pushing aside the way she could nettle him, dismissing his good intentions. “You just missed a nibble.”

She frowned at him and reeled in her line. Stefan appreciated the graceful cast into the crappie bed, the way her slender arms held power and confidence and beauty. He wished they were holding him tightly, that her skin was damp and soft and sweet against his own. The fading sunlight gleamed on her long, bare legs and he wished those, too, were wrapped around him. It was not easy to wait for her when his body had just awakened to his needs. “How long will it take for you to trust me?”

“You haven’t got that long. I know exactly what you want and then when you have it, you’ll move on. I don’t intend to be one of the local delicacies you choose to sample. And if you knew me better—which you aren’t going to—you’d know that I’m not delicate.”

“I would guess that Mike is the reason for your opinion. You said he came into town and left. The other two fiancés were lifelong friends. Since I am new here, I am to pay for Mike and his defection, is that it?” Despite his intention to gain her trust, his anger was simmering now. He was an honest, honorable man seeking a woman he found desirable. Rose pushed at the dock and her boat floated back out onto the water, a distance away from him. Without weighing her disfavor, Stefan reached to grip the rope mooring her boat to the dock. He pulled it, bringing her back to him. She stuck out her foot, bracing it on the dock and keeping the distance between them.

“Would you care to have dinner with me?” he asked, perhaps a bit too forcefully, nettled that she could draw his anger from him. Only his daughter and his mother were allowed to see beneath the rigid control he had inherited from his father.

“What do I owe you for it?” she asked, watching him. Her tone was too cautious, as if some terrible game had been played on her, and she wasn’t paying that penalty again.

The innuendo that he would expect payment for a meal he had prepared for her slapped him. When he was a child, his father had hammered into him that a man’s honor and pride were everything. Stefan would not humble himself before Rose, telling her how his heart leaped when he saw her, how much he needed her warmth—how much he needed to give
her
warmth…and safety. Those wary blue eyes told him she had been badly hurt, and every step would be carefully weighed. That she did not trust him—a man who tried his best to be right and good—hurt. “Forget it,” he said, stood and walked off before he said too much.

An hour later, Stefan gripped the farmhouse board and tugged it free, the extra force supplied by his temper. His mother had left a note that Maury had taken her for a private tour of the store, so that she could select her bathroom wallpaper undisturbed. Estelle was still out with her girlfriend. Left alone with his hunger for Rose—to hear her voice, to dream of her—Stefan concentrated on taking down the wall between the kitchen and the back porch. At least that wall was solid and could be dealt with, whereas Rose’s walls were intangible but just as effective.

Stefan shook his head and tore away an old board, discarding it to the growing pile. In business, he knew how
to act. But personal relationships had never come easily to him. His lack of experience with flirtation clearly was a disadvantage now.

Headlights lasered through the windows on the back porch and at a glance, Stefan recognized Rose’s pickup. He had been wounded enough for one night, his attempt at friendship with her slapped in his face. He did not like the simmering anger, that of the man placing his honest intentions in front of the woman who enchanted
and
rejected him. He glanced at the woman coming up the stone walkway to the house, and with a shake of his head, opened the door.

She held up the picnic basket, her face pale in the light shafting from his home. “You forgot this.”

He felt too vulnerable, an emotion denied the young son of steely Guy Donatien and firmly embedded in the man. He reached to take the handle of the basket. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

“You’re lonely, aren’t you?” she asked quietly above the chirp of the crickets. She did not release the basket to him.

Was he to be denied his pride? Did he have to explain the emptiness he felt in the odd hours when work did not fill his life and his family was not near? Who did this woman think she was, to pry so deeply into his life? “Are
you?
” The question was a reflex, a defense.

She shook her head and that fabulous mane of reddish-brown hair seemed to catch fire in the light. “You could get a carpenter team to help you with the house,” she said, changing the subject.

Stefan did not want to admit how much he was looking forward to his new role away from business and the kitchen. He, too, wanted to enjoy average American rural
life, a vacation away from stress and the city. “I do not need them.”

“Larry could help. He and his brother and a few others—”

Stefan breathed deeply. Did she think he was incapable of simple tasks? He had helped remodelers and his father and knew basic carpentry. Did she think him incapable of everything? “I do not wish your ex-fiancé to be of assistance to me.”

“You don’t have to be so rigid about someone helping you. It’s a neighborly thing to do. I’ve got time. We got off to a bad start, but I’ll help you tonight and we’ll be friends. I’ll introduce you to Waterville’s single women looking for a man. Just remember to keep it light, because you’re only here for the summer, and some of them might want to get serious. I don’t want to be held responsible for anyone’s heartache.”

Stefan clamped his lips closed. He refused to debate his choice of women, or to have her select them for him. He tugged the basket from her and turned, walking up the steps into the back porch. He placed the basket on a table, flipped open the top, gripped the Beaujolais wine he had selected especially to go with the
poulet en cocote.
He poured the wine into a glass, swirled it and downed it quickly. He eyed Rose, who was studying the stack of old boards and broken plasterboard. “You are a frustrating woman. Do you think me incapable of the smallest task? The smallest sense of responsibility? Do you think I ask every woman I see to have dinner with me?”

“Yes,” she answered truthfully. “You’re probably pretty available…I mean, a man who looks like you, who is very smooth and who is obviously wealthy.”

She hadn’t spared him, and Stefan reluctantly admitted
that certain women did want him. So far none of them had appealed. “‘Very smooth,”’ he repeated darkly.

“I’ve never trusted men who know how to look sexy and appealing, and how to touch a woman. And you’re one of them.”

Her words were both a compliment and a put-down. “Thank you for your honesty. So, I am not to be trusted.”

“It’s like the major leagues and minor leagues. You probably play in the majors, while I just don’t want to get in the ball game at all.”

He had finally found a woman who aroused and satisfied him intellectually and visually, and she did not want him.
Stefan ripped open the zippered thermal pouch containing the chicken and vegetables, then tugged off a drumstick. He ate it without prowling through its taste as he usually did. Rose sniffed delicately, coming to peer down into the basket. “Eat,” Stefan ordered, unconcerned with manners or presentation of the meal at the moment.

Rose studied his expression, then reached to pat his cheek. He gripped her wrist and eased it away from him. He could not bear to have her sympathy. “Don’t.”

She watched him carve the chicken and ladle the vegetables onto the plates, handing one to her. “Do you have to bristle?” she asked as she probed an artichoke heart with her fingertip.

When she reached for the wine, pouring it into a glass, her breast brushed Stefan’s bare arm, electrifying his senses. He tensed and held his breath until the initial sensual jolt passed. “That’s why I ‘bristle,”’ he said coarsely as she suddenly stepped back, a blush rising up her cheeks.

He took the finger she had used to test the food and brought it to his mouth, sucking it. Then his teeth closed around the tip, nipping gently. “I want you.”

Rose stiffened and jerked her hand away. “I don’t know
anything about you, except you just may have an evil temper. Your eyes flash and I hear thunder in your voice. I’m not intimidated, of course, but nothing happens this fast. Not in Waterville, Missouri, U.S.A. Life sort of meanders into the right course, without pushing it before its time. You’re a person who likes to arrange things on your schedule.”

“Why are you here?” he asked abruptly, dismissing pleasantries. He rubbed his free hand across his bare chest and noted Rose’s blue eyes following the movement. She was aware of him as a man, he decided, and yet she complicated the attraction between them. Women could be confusing. “You aren’t here to return the basket. You could have sent that with my mother or Estelle later on.”

“I didn’t want the food to go to waste.”

Her answer was too petulant, too quick, and Stefan circled it. She was too wary of him and yet he admired her bravery for confronting her fears—for wanting to face down and file away any question she might have about an attraction to him. “Yes, I am lonely,” he said finally. “It has been a long time since I have wanted the company of a woman. To feel a woman’s skin against my own. To say these things aloud is difficult. I have had only one woman—my wife—and so it is that I am not so competent at this.”

Those blue eyes blinked and Rose looked down at the bowl she held, studying it intently. “Don’t kiss me anymore, bud,” she whispered.

The air had stilled and warmed and trembled as Stefan studied her. “You don’t like it?”

“I think I’ll be going now. Nice knowing you,” she whispered before hurrying out the door. Stefan noted that she had not lied or attempted to disprove that she’d enjoyed that kiss on the dock and the one in her kitchen.

After her pickup skidded out of the farm’s driveway, Stefan slapped his open hand against the wall. He had always considered himself to be a patient man and now he knew that with Rose, he was not.

The telephone rang; Louie had chosen the wrong moment to call. “Estelle?” he asked sharply when Stefan did not respond to his greeting.

“Louie, I think you should come here,” Stefan said, after the brief pause. “There is much work to do. The chicken house needs to be cleaned and the refuse scattered on my mother’s garden. You could milk the cows she is getting and help me move the outhouse. I will not offer to pay you, of course, because I know you would not accept. But you will see my daughter at odd moments—when you are not shingling the roof, or crawling beneath the house to help with the bug problem. When can we expect you?”

Louie stuttered an excuse and quickly hung up. Stefan smiled briefly. At least he had accomplished one feat—discouraging Louie from visiting Estelle. But Stefan still longed to hold Rose warm and close against him. He rubbed his bare chest, just over his heart and the ache in it. The pursuit and capture of Rose Granger would not be easy.

He heard the roaring of an engine and glanced outside to see Rose’s pickup soaring into the farm driveway. It skidded to a stop and Stefan smiled. He suspected Rose’s style of meeting problems was either head-on, or repeat attacks until she resolved the matter to her satisfaction. Apparently Stefan was worth a repeat attack; he took that as a good sign. He watched her hurry along the walkway and jog up the steps.