When Somebody Loves You (15 page)

The cabin shouted welcome, as did the aromas wafting from the kitchen area and the smiles that greeted her and Michael as they shrugged out of their coats.

Michael’s mother, Norma, vigorously wiping her hands on a dish towel, and his father, James, tucking a newspaper under his arm, came forward to welcome them.

After giving her oldest son a fierce hug, Norma turned to January. “We are delighted you agreed to join us today,” she said graciously.

“Roughly translated,” James put in, extending a hand to January and a quick wink to Michael, “she means it’s about time the prodigal here brought you around to meet us.”

Norma swatted James with her dish towel. “Don’t pay attention to him, January. To a man, the Haywards are notorious louts.”

Laughing at the affronted snorts Michael and his father manufactured, January turned to find a younger version of Michael waiting for her with a huge so-you’re-the-one grin on his face.

Blue eyes much like the ones January now knew Michael had inherited from his mother danced with mischief as Rob turned a blast of charm on her.

“Give me half an hour alone with her, big bro,” Rob said, his smile never dimming and his gaze never leaving January’s face. “It’s time someone clues the lady in.”

“You’ll have to forgive him, January.” Michael draped a possessive arm around her shoulders. “Rob’s the baby of the family. Twenty-nine years old and he hasn’t yet figured out that if he wants to live to see thirty, he’s got to have my permission.” To Rob, he added serenely, “Does the expression ‘over my dead body’ mean anything to you?”

“You would think,” Norma said fussily as she guided January out of the thick of the good-natured squabbling, “that grown men would have the good sense to not show their immaturity in front of God and everybody. When you two decide you can behave,” she added over her shoulder, “you can have her back.
If
she wants to join you. Heaven only knows why that would be.”

Waving hellos to Gretchen, who was changing the baby on a huge, overstuffed sofa, and to David, who, with Kevin on his lap, was trying to coax James back to the cribbage game in progress, January followed Norma to the kitchen end of the great room. Toby, without any urging, offered both January and Michael a quick “hi” while he unself-consciously lavished his affection on George. The dog was alternately licking his face and trying to knock him down with his exuberant canine version of hello.

And there ended January’s reservations about being an outsider joining what was so traditionally a family gathering. To a person, the Haywards were warm and charming and made her feel like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be a part of the clan. And their equally easy acceptance of Toby was heartwarming.

Thanksgiving dinner was more than just a special family meal for the Haywards. It was an event. Toby, his cheeks bright red from a recent romp in the snow with Michael and George, put it best as he took in the huge trestle table laden with a banquet-size feast.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, forgetting he was a tough guy who wasn’t supposed to act excited or be impressed. “I saw something like this once in a magazine, but I didn’t know real people actually ever had this much food.”

It was a stunning commentary on all he’d never had. The healthy glow in his eyes, however, and the fact that more and more often the child hidden behind the facade of a man broke through, were testimony to how well things were going.

Gretchen and David were doing a wonderful job with Toby. The weekly court-ordered counseling sessions he attended were also having a positive effect, and were helping him express his anger constructively. And wonder of wonders, he openly displayed genuine affection and protective instincts toward little Andrea, along with a thinly veiled pride at playing big brother to Kevin.

January, though, had realized from the beginning that it was Michael he came alive for, Michael who truly brought out the child inside Toby and heightened his capacity for trust.

As the entire family gathered around the table, she looked over Toby’s head to Michael and caught him watching her with that patient, knowing look that never failed to make her heart clutch and then soften.

How she loved him, she thought, indulging in the admission she rarely let herself make. She loved him and she was going to lose him if she couldn’t make herself trust him with the truth of her past. And there was the rub. If she didn’t tell him soon, she would lose. Yet once he found out, she’d most likely lose anyway. She tore her gaze away, unable to bear thinking about what would happen then.

Avoiding his eyes and thoughts of the inevitable for the remainder of the meal, she forced herself to join in on the lighthearted table banter.

After helping wash the dinner dishes she settled into a window seat overlooking a gentle slope of aspens and pines, where the Hayward men and boys had begun the expansive task of building a snow fort.

An expected contentment crept over her. Instead of fighting the feeling, she gave in to it. If only for today, she wanted to experience this rich sense of family. Tomorrow was soon enough to face the aching reality that she’d never really had one, not in the Hayward sense of the word.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Michael so . . .” Norma’s soft voice drew January’s attention from the window. Michael’s mother had quietly joined her and was watching the snow construction. “Carefree,” she finally decided. “Toby’s good for him.”

“They’re good for each other,” January said, smiling as Michael, in a sneak attack, pelted Toby with a snowball. He collapsed, spread-eagle on his back with tons of dramatic flair, when Toby retaliated with a direct hit to the middle of Michael’s chest. Her smile widened when Toby jumped on Michael and the two of them wrestled and rolled in the snow until Rob complained that they were goldbricking.

“I was beginning to wonder,” Norma went on, “if that oldest son of mine was ever going to tire of his restless ways and settle down.”

“Toby is very important to him,” January said carefully, sensing Norma’s conversation might be heading in another direction. “Michael takes his commitment to him seriously.”

“Toby isn’t the only reason Michael has changed.”

Uncomfortable with Norma’s comment, January purposefully kept her gaze on the action outside. “Michael is his own man,” she began hesitantly. “I’m not sure anyone could influence him if he didn’t want them to.”

“Exactly,” Norma agreed, grinning.

They watched in silence for a while as the building gave way to a full-fledged, no-holds-barred snowball fight.

“I’d always hoped,” Norma said after a minute, “that when he finally decided on a woman, he would make a good choice. He had me worried for the longest time, but not anymore.” She laid a gentle hand on January’s shoulder. “He didn’t let me down.”

Evidently the look in January’s eyes tickled her, because she laughed. “Surely you realize that he’s in love with you. Oh, dear. I can see you’re having a little trouble with that. Well, don’t worry. I have every confidence he’ll convince you.”

January was saved from making a stammering fool of herself when Michael burst through the door with a blast of cold air and bellowed, “January! They’re whaling the tar out of us. We need reinforcements, fast!”

Grateful for the interruption, she scrambled into her boots and coat and laughingly joined the fray.

“This,” January purred several hours later when, wrapped in nothing but the fire’s glow and Michael, she stroked a renegade lock of hair back from his forehead, “is absolutely decadent.”

“I promised you decadent,” he whispered, nudging her chin with his nose so he could nibble on her throat. “I just had to get rid of a few Haywards before I could deliver.”

She smiled and arched her neck, giving him better access. “I loved your family. I was sorry to see them leave.”

“Oh, were you now? That’s not the impression I got when you threw me to the floor and started ripping my clothes off an hour ago.”

She laughed and tugged playfully on his hair. “Conceited jerk. I did not throw you to the floor. I may have pushed a little—”

“A lot. You pushed a lot. You couldn’t wait to get me on this bear rug.”

Her voice went all low and husky. “I couldn’t wait to get you
bare
on this rug.”

“Lord, I love a woman who knows what she wants.”

And he loved January most just this way, Michael added to himself. Get her out of those stuffy suits and her lawyer mode, and there wasn’t a woman alive who had more fire, or more softness. The only thing he liked to see her in more than a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt was nothing at all. And he had her the way he wanted her now, naked and spent in the afterglow of their lovemaking.

Watching her with his family had been like watching several kids in the proverbial candy store. They’d loved her. And he believed her easy admission that she felt the same. She hadn’t even thought before she’d said it. It had just slipped out, unqualified, uncontested, like so many things she said to him these days.

Since the first night they’d made love, it just kept getting sweeter. He’d been right not to push her. Her feelings for him were evolving naturally, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was close to accepting the fact that she loved him . . . without conditions.

He’d felt a little guilty about letting Toby return to Boulder with Gretchen and David. But Kevin had insisted that both Toby and George come home with them. Toby had beamed at being so much in demand, and in the end Michael had relented. Besides, he had hopes that spending the rest of the holiday weekend alone with January could prove to be the turning point in their relationship. Solitude for two had its advantages, and he intended to take every advantage as it presented itself. Starting with right now.

“This has always been one of my fantasies,” he confessed, sliding slowly down her body, tasting and exploring and enticing as he went. “Making love to you here with nothing but the mountains and the firelight to distract you.”

“
One
of your fantasies?”

“Mm-hmm.” He circled her nipple lazily with his tongue. “One of many. With you—Lord, you’re sweet—I find my imagination is boundless. For instance,” he murmured, working his way back to her mouth with studied leisure, “it drives me crazy thinking about loving you with your glasses on.”

She moved sinuously beneath him and ran her palms down the length of his back. “You’d look pretty silly wearing my glasses.”

He smiled against her mouth. “And you’ve got a major attitude for a woman who’s about to be ravished.”

“Ravished?” She grinned, considering that. “I could live with ravished.”

In a heartbeat she took him from a mere whisper of smoke to a fire that fed on her flame. He pulled away from her, his sudden need transforming their love play to serious intent. Drawing her with him until they were on their knees facing each other before the fire, he kissed her long and deep.

“You are so beautiful.” He ran his hands down her back, reveling in her long, sleek lines, the satiny smoothness of her skin. Cupping her bottom in his palms, he urged her close, then sank down to his haunches and pressed his mouth to her belly. He loved her texture, her heat, the way her muscles quivered and tightened against his tongue.

“You taste wonderful,” he told her. “So sweet. So wild.”

Her fingers tunneled through his hair. She arched her back, restless for more, pressing herself against his mouth.

“You like that?” Whispering heated love-words, he covered her breasts with his hands, aware that his breath was escaping in harsh, heavy gusts. “Tell me what else you like, love. Tell me. It’s yours. Anything. Everything. Just tell me.”

She told him.

He groaned at the urgency in her throaty voice, at the need in her breathless plea. Lowering her quickly to her back, he cradled her hips in his hands and gazed at her up the length of her body.

“Open your eyes, January. I want to see them when I love you.”

She did as he asked, and he saw her eyes were glazed with desire. Only then did he touch her lightly with his mouth. She cried his name and reached for him. He touched her deeper. She tangled her hands in his hair and on a long, shuddering moan came apart for him.

He lost himself in the honeyed taste of her, in the wild, uninhibited way she writhed in response. Her abandon inflamed him, and his love for her blinded him to anything but the way she entrusted herself without reservation to his keeping.

Driven by her cries, he stroked her past the point of pleasure and into a realm of deep, consuming passion. She was weeping softly when he finally rose above her.

With the firelight casting dancing shadows across their bodies, he buried himself inside her. Embracing both the body she offered and the accompanying sense of absolute communion, he committed to her completely.

It ceased to matter at what point she began and he ended. The only thing that mattered was that she was his woman, the embodiment of his wildest dreams, and that he loved her with everything that made him a man.

His release came on a deep, powerful thrust, a climax as ultimate as it was irrevocable, as beautiful as the sound of his name on her lips as she found her own fulfillment, her body clenching and tightening around him.