Between Strangers (7 page)

She shifted slightly in his arms, and he leaned his cheek against her forehead. “You feeling the warmth yet?” he whispered into her hair.

“It's better,” she murmured. Her shivering had all but stopped, and her voice barely shook at all.

He felt the tension leave his shoulders, and his heart returned to its normal rhythm. She was truly going to be all right.

The relief was so profound that he automatically pressed a kiss against her forehead. The skin there was soft and warm next to his lips and he lost himself in the sensual sensations. Before he knew what hit him, he wanted to taste more of her. To breathe in her scent and let his hands move to whatever part of her body they pleased—to wherever they might please her the most.

“You can put me down now,” Marcy said quietly. “I need to check on Angie.”

Right. She was right. He had to quit dreaming about things that would never happen, and let her go.

Carefully he eased her to her feet and then held on while she steadied herself. “Are you really okay? Do you need to thaw your hands and feet under some water?”

“I can't feel my feet yet.” She pulled out of his hands and moved to Angie who was sound asleep. “But that might be a good thing.”

Marcy knelt down next to the sofa and gingerly unwrapped the afghan he'd cuddled around her child. The baby's eyes stayed closed. But as her mother con
tinued unbuttoning the heavy snowsuit, Angie crinkled up her face and began to cry.

“Oh, good,” Marcy breathed with a sigh. “She probably needs a change and she might be hungry. That means she's okay.”

“I know Vicki packed away some old things in the attic that belonged to her kids,” he told Marcy. “I helped store them but I don't remember exactly what she saved. Maybe some diapers. Their youngest is almost four now, so it's been a while.”

Marcy kept her back to him as she removed the baby's shoes and mittens and rubbed at the tiny feet and hands to get the circulation moving. “I can make a diaper out of a kitchen towel as a temporary fix,” she said over her shoulder. “But if there's a baby bottle, it would be wonderful. I'd like to get some warm water down her as soon as possible.” Marcy shrugged out of her parka and let it pool around her knees on the floor.

“I think you both could stand to sit in a warm bathtub until you get the feeling back in your fingers and toes.” He took Marcy's shoulders and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. I'll start the tub and put a kettle on the stove for hot water. Then I'll check out the attic.”

She picked up the baby and let him lead them to the guest bathroom. He'd built this section of the house himself and had deliberately designed it to his specifications. After all, he was the guest that had visited most often, and the bed and the bath needed to be his size.

He showed Marcy where the towels were kept.
Then he checked to be sure the water heater was working and that the water had not frozen in the pipes. When the water came cascading out of the spigot, he once again blessed Bobby for remembering all the things he'd taught him. In the dead of winter, it paid not to skimp on fuel and cause more problems than money saved.

Leaving Marcy and the baby in the bathroom, Lance lit the stove and put a pot of water on to boil. Then he headed for the attic.

Vicki had marked the boxes, and it was easy to find the bottles and baby-size dishes. In a quick survey, he could see there were no boxes marked Diapers. But a baby's crib, in several pieces, leaned against a back wall. He hauled up the dish and bottle box and decided to come back for the crib later.

In ten minutes he'd washed out the baby bottles, made some tea for Marcy and set aside a bottle with hot water for Angie. He hoped Marcy liked herbal tea. Women seemed to like the stuff, and he'd heard that it helped to settle your insides when things were tense.

He felt a little tense himself at the moment, but he didn't particularly think that a cup of tea would help.

While taking the tea and the bottle into the guest room, Lance made a quick decision about what he should do after he delivered them. He knocked on the bathroom door. “I've got some hot tea and a baby bottle full of hot water out here.”

He listened but didn't hear a sound. “You okay in there, Marcy?”

“Yes,” she called through the door. “Can you bring them in? My hands are full.”

Him, in there? With her in the bathtub? No way.

“How about if I set them just inside the door?” he asked like the chicken he was.

He opened the door, set the cup and bottle down on the other side and backed out without ever lifting his eyes from the floorboards. “Here you go. Check the temperature on the bottle before you give it to the baby. Okay?”

“Yes, thank you, Lance.”

“Uh.” He wasn't sure he liked talking to her through the closed door, but it seemed to be the only way at the moment. “I've decided to go out to the SUV and pick up as much of our stuff as I can carry. I'll bring the baby bag for sure. You two will be all right without me, won't you?”

“Are you crazy?” Her voice rose an octave. “Please don't go back outside. It's dangerous.”

Had anyone else ever worried about his welfare? He couldn't remember if they had. And it warmed him to know she cared that much. But he couldn't stand here smiling at the back of a closed door when they needed his help so badly.

“It'll be fine, Marcy. Don't worry. I think the blizzard is just about over. I'll be back before you know I've been gone.”

 

Before you know I've been gone.
Jeez. She'd felt his absence the moment he'd left the house.

And nearly an hour later she was flustered, way beyond scared, and heading right for hysteria. The
conflict of wanting to go out and find him warred with the knowledge that she couldn't leave her child alone.

The bath had warmed both her and the baby. After drying off, she'd put their dry clothes back on. Then she'd rummaged through Vicki's kitchen, hoping to be forgiven for the emergency, and found some canned milk. Angie had taken the milk and fallen sound asleep in her arms. Marcy snuggled her on the wide sofa in front of the fire again and set pillows around the baby so she wouldn't roll off.

But now Marcy paced the floor in the foyer, fisting her hands and listening intently for any noise that might mean Lance was returning. Had he been snow-blinded and lost his way?

He was such a good man. It was perfectly clear to her that somewhere along the line he'd given up his own desire to be home by Christmas Eve in order to take them to Cheyenne. She was sure they wouldn't even be leaving this house until long after Christmas Eve was over. The thought that he could be so selfless had tears stinging in the back of her eyes.

She shook her head, wanting to find some anger in order to see her through. Mad. She should be downright furious that he'd taken a chance with his life just so they could have a few meaningless things from the SUV.

But she couldn't muster even a thread of mad toward him. The only thing in her mind and in her heart right now was need. Need to see him. To touch him. To hold him to her heart where he would be safe and warm.

Marcy stormed over to the sofa and checked the
baby. Lightly touching her child's forehead, she sniffed and murmured a soft lullaby. “Don't worry, baby,” she crooned. “We
will
make it to our bright future. All of us will make it, I promise.”

The front door suddenly creaked open behind her. And Marcy held her breath as she spun around to be sure it was Lance. He closed the door and stomped his feet, then set his bundles down. Finally he flipped off the Stetson and slapped it against his jeans.

He was really safe. Her heart started to beat again in double time. Thank heaven, he was safe.

She squeaked with relief because she couldn't find her voice—couldn't even manage to breathe until she touched him and assured herself that he was really here and this wasn't just a dream.

Covering the distance between them in a run, she threw herself against his chest. In one quick move she jumped, wrapped her legs around his waist and plastered his face with breathless kisses.

For half a second Lance seemed startled. But in the next moment he hugged her close to his body, found her lips with his own and pressed a searing kiss against them. It was all heat and desperation. Shocking and erotically passionate.

He nudged her lips apart with his tongue and filled her mouth with the taste and feel of him. Blinding desire skipped across her nerves, leaving her stunned and tense.

Lance took tiny nips at her lips with his teeth, then soothed, laving them with his tongue. She couldn't think. Could only feel and react.

She heard a moan and realized it had come from
deep inside her own body as he rained kisses down on her face and neck. The sound rumbled through her veins like a train in a tunnel, bringing fire and arousal to the surface. In flames, she only wished to brand him with the same fire that had ignited within her.

Those lips of his that had rushed over her skin with need and little purpose suddenly slowed and began to linger. He gently brought their mouths together, touched her lips, then retreated before bringing them together again for a soft, plundering caress. It slowed the action but pumped up her need.

Driving her fingers through his hair, she tried to devour him in one bite. She didn't want slow and sensual. She didn't want him to think—to remember he was about to ask someone else to marry him.

Marcy wanted that quick flash of desire. The relief that the fusion of two bodies could bring.

Nothing else.

W
ith his heart thundering madly against his ribs, it took every ounce of strength Lance had left to break off their kiss. Since the first time they'd touched, the blood boiled in his veins with every glance in her direction. And having her in his arms now with her legs wrapped around his waist was causing his iron control to falter, pushing him beyond needy.

His body hardened, and what was left of his mind turned to mush, as he imagined what it would be like to bury himself deep inside all that warmth. But he had never taken advantage of a vulnerable woman before. And considering Marcy's desperate need for him to keep her and the baby safe until they reached Cheyenne, at the moment she just might be the most vulnerable woman he'd ever known.

So, kissing her this way and giving in to the urgent demands of his body was a really bad idea.

Hell. Hell.
Hell.

He relaxed his arms and let her slide slowly down until her feet rested on the floor. “I need to take this coat off, Marcy. I'm getting you all wet and cold again.” He set his jaw, took hold of her shoulders and held her away. “And I'm dripping all over the floor.”

Heavy-lidded eyes lifted to his, and the same need he felt burning in his gut shone brightly behind her confused stare. “What?”

“I brought in the diapers, and a change of clothes for both of us,” he said. What he'd wanted to say was, “Please let me hold you and keep you warm through the storm.” But he didn't…couldn't.

“When it's daylight, I'll go back out for the rest of our things. But it's late now and I need a shower,” he managed instead. “Let's get settled and try to sleep for a few hours. By tomorrow morning we can see where we stand with this storm.”

“All…right.” Her face was flushed, and she blinked a couple of times.

This just might turn out to be the toughest thing he'd ever done. “Let me get changed and then I'll bring the crib down from the attic for Angie.”

She frowned for a second but soon her eyes cleared and she smiled up at him. “A crib? How wonderful.” Glancing over her shoulder at the baby asleep on the sofa, she said, “I think Angie will appreciate the diapers, too. I used a towel after her bath, but it can't be very comfortable.”

No, and his jeans weren't at all comfortable at the moment, either. Tight and confining, they reminded him that he needed to take control of his needs.

Hell.

He bent and handed her the diaper bag. “You two enjoy yourselves. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Brushing past her with as much dignity as he could muster, he made a hasty retreat for the attic. With one swift curse under his breath he stomped up the stairs, swearing to keep a minimum of ten feet between them for the rest of their time together.

 

Well before dawn Lance gave up on the idea of getting any sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, memories of the soft, moist velvet of Marcy's lips came back to devil him.

He'd been too distracted to rest. Achy, needy and burning with unwanted visions, he'd tossed and turned but could find no comfort or peace in the blackness of night. He had nowhere to hide from the erotic images of Marcy's body clinging to his.

Normally, he could sleep anywhere. On the circuit, he'd been known to sleep on a blanket in the back of his truck. He even remembered snoozing on the floor of a horse trailer one night when he didn't want to leave a sick horse alone.

This time, though, even the comfortable suede cushions on Bobby and Vicki's sofa couldn't soothe the electric tingle running just under his skin. And Marcy was at fault for all this. He just couldn't get her out of his head.

Last night after that spectacular kiss, he'd set up
the crib for Angie in the guest room and settled in Marcy and baby for the night as quickly as he could. He hadn't liked what having her in his arms had done to him, and he frantically strove to keep her at arm's length.

This morning he'd rolled off the couch and almost crawled to the bathroom on his hands and knees. First he splashed his face with cold water, but that didn't slow down the unwanted thoughts. So he dove into his second frigid shower in less than six hours and stood there long enough to make his toes numb.

But nothing seemed to help.

Hell.

He started a pot of coffee brewing, then dug around in the pantry looking for something to fix for breakfast. Keeping busy should help alleviate this misery. Shouldn't it?

Marcy was really special. Beautiful, a great mother and easy to talk to, she was all a woman should be and much more. But that wasn't entirely what he needed in his life. He wanted…no…he
demanded
a woman who would be happy settling down on the ranch.

For most of his life he'd put aside thoughts of building a place to call home. Family and home hadn't mattered in the scheme of his life. Or at least he'd kidded himself that they didn't matter.

But the more money he made and the more he traveled, the more he realized that something huge was missing from his life. When Bobby and Vicki built this house, and then Marianne and Hank married and settled into a steady life, Lance had realized that it
was a home base that he most wanted. A place where there were special people who cared. People who thought he mattered.

He'd never before known such a place.

About that same time Buck Stanton had taken him under his wing and offered him friendship, a job and a place to call home. Lance had jumped at the chance. He was more than ready to build that friendship and that place into something important.

And as wonderful as Marcy was, she didn't want to settle down. To her a home was a place of confinement—a prison. Something to escape while she traveled the world and sought out adventure.

No matter how much he wanted to take comfort from her, Marcy and her sexy lips were simply not on his agenda.

Digging out a box of pancake mix and a bottle of maple syrup, Lance turned his thoughts to eating and decided that pancakes would be as good a breakfast as any on a cold morning. Needing something to take his mind off Marcy's sensual body, he poured the mix and water into a bowl and began beating the hell out of it. He managed to force away any thoughts of taking her to his bed by daydreaming about the ranch and having his very own family there someday.

 

Still half-asleep, Marcy pulled Angie from her crib and rocked the fussing baby in her arms. “Shush, Angie. It's too early to get up.”

Angie was having none of that. Marcy laid her daughter back into the crib and changed her diapers,
hoping that might settle her down. It had been a really long night. One of the longest.

Marcy couldn't imagine what suddenly changed inside Lance last night. But she knew the sizzle that had passed between them was real and full of electric impulses. He had definitely been interested.
More
than interested, she was willing to wager.

Her stomach did a sudden back flip when she thought about how his black eyes burned when he'd let her slide down his body. Oh, and that hard body of his was something else she would never manage to get out of her mind, either.

But he
had
let her go. Forced her to go, really. And the first thing out of his mouth was about a crib for Angie.

Maybe he could only think of her as a mother to her child. Marcy knew he liked her well enough and was positive she'd felt his desire. But maybe he couldn't get past the idea of her being a mother. Some men were like that, she knew.

In fact, her ex-husband had said that women lost their sensuality when they became mothers. To him it had been the ultimate turnoff.

Angie was dressed and dry, yet still she whined.

“Come on, baby,” Marcy whispered as she swung her up and settled her against a shoulder. “Let's go fix you another bottle of that canned milk. You must be hungry.”

Marcy tiptoed down the darkened hall, trying not to wake Lance. He'd insisted that she and Angie take the guest room last night, saying the sofa was ex
tremely comfortable and that he could sleep anywhere.

She'd had her doubts about the comfort of that sofa. It was big and wide and the cushions were soft, but still it wasn't like the queen-size bed in the guest room. That bed had been the ultimate in comfort. And comfort was something Marcy had nearly forgotten while she and the baby had been out of their little apartment over the past month.

As Marcy turned the corner to enter the kitchen, she saw a light and heard a rustling noise. Then she saw him. His back was to her as he stood cooking something on the stove.

Her breath hitched. Lance was so beautiful. He didn't have a shirt on, and the muscles across his wide shoulders were bunching as he worked. Those arms were sinewy and bulging with power, and watching them did something to her insides. Something erotic and far beyond her experience.

His long black hair swung free and hung below the bronzed skin of his shoulder blades. Sleek, his hair was wet, all shiny and satiny soft.

He bent slightly to reach something, drawing her attention to his narrow waist and down farther to his tight butt encased in slim jeans. Her mouth watered, but it had nothing to do with the good smells coming from whatever he was cooking.

Fussing against her shoulder, Angie couldn't see the spectacular sight that had captured her mother's total attention. The baby squirmed in Marcy's arms, and her whining finally culminated in a yelp of urgent hunger pains.

Lance turned toward them at the sound. His dark, rugged gaze made him seem every bit as hungry as Angie. Only, not for food.

Whew. That look could thaw any woman's frozen senses. And Marcy's senses were anything but frozen at the moment.

Suddenly it was too hot in this kitchen.

He raked his gaze from her sock-clad feet to her I-forgot-to-comb-it hair. Marcy did a quick inventory. She'd slept in her sweats and socks and hadn't bothered to so much as brush her teeth or hair before she'd stumbled down the hallway.

Well, shoot. This picture wasn't going to do much to change his mind about her not being sexy.

She watched while he swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Good morning,” he said with a rasp. “It's a little early, but would you like breakfast? Put Angie in the high chair. I'll have pancakes ready in a minute.”

“Uh. I just came to fix Angie a bottle.”

The expression in his eyes went lukewarm, and she felt as if she'd somehow disappointed him. “But the pancakes and coffee smell wonderful,” she quickly added. “Just give me a few minutes to feed Angie and I'd love to have breakfast with you.”

 

The food was wonderful, and Lance turned out to be a surprisingly good cook. But she'd barely tasted anything while she'd been trying hard not to stare at his naked chest across the table.

At last she stood to move their dishes to the sink.

“Leave them,” he told her in a low voice. “You take care of the baby and I'll see to the dishes.”

The sound of his voice ran erratically over her nerve endings. She set the dishes in the sink, turned on the water and shoved a hand through her unruly morning hair. With her back to him she grimaced. It was all she could do not to run to the bathroom to clean up so she would be more presentable.

“That's okay,” she gulped. “You're really good with Angie. Why don't you watch her for a few minutes while I do the dishes?”

“Will it be okay if I put her on the floor?” he asked hesitantly. “We built this place to be baby friendly, but I don't want to do anything you might not approve of.”

His concern warmed her but didn't do much to stop the tingles that moved toward her belly when he spoke in that dripped-honey voice. “Wipe her face with a wet cloth first,” she managed. “Then you can put her down.”

She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw him tenderly swiping the cloth across Angie's mouth. A sharp twist in her stomach reminded her that she'd never seen a man be so gentle. Oh, what she would have given for Angie to have that kind of father all along.

The surprise longing for someone to care about her and Angie hit hard. Suddenly a dish slipped out of her hands and clattered against the counter. “Sorry.”

“It didn't break. Don't worry,” Lance said while he took Angie from the high chair. “Did I tell you that Angie actually stood up all by herself the other
night? Maybe I can coax her into doing it again so you can see.”

“Uh…” It took all of Marcy's willpower to quickly dry their dishes and stack them. “Fine. You two work on that for a while. I'll go change and be back in a few minutes.”

Dashing out of the kitchen, Marcy gulped in deep breaths. Everything was so messed up.

She desperately needed to reclaim her resolve to find a better life for herself and Angie. Wanting a man, no matter how spectacular he might be, had never before taken precedence over the rest of her life.

Okay, so this man was tender, caring and had a good heart. And the sight of his bare chest did things to her insides that her body barely recognized. So what?

Marcy had already taken a huge risk with her life when she'd married a man who tried to control her every thought and didn't love her enough to stay and accept their child. How could she even be considering having sex with this man when he was ready to marry a woman he didn't really love?

Shaking her head with chagrin and trying to rid herself of the leftover sexual tension, she stripped and stepped into the shower. A splash of cold water did nothing to soothe her unsettled body or harden her melting heart.

 

A few hours later she waited for Lance to return to the house from another trip out to the SUV. Marcy
was determined to find ways to keep her mind occupied.

It was Christmas Eve and the poor guy was just about to miss his party at the Montana ranch altogether. He'd told her earlier that, though the snow had stopped, it didn't look as if they'd be able to dig the SUV out of the ditch until tomorrow.