Wild in the Moment

Three

Teague had to grin. When that woman slept, she slept. She’d been right in the middle of talking when her eyelids suddenly closed and she snugged her cheek in the side of the chair. Two blinks later she was snoring. Not big, noisy, guy snores, but whispery little snores. The kind a woman makes when she was end-of-her-rope tired.

Teague figured it was the perfect time to hightail it into the bathroom-finally. Contrary to what Daisy thought, he wasn’t embarrassed. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake. But the truth was, the only way he could make it into the bathroom was by crawling on all fours. The bump on his head ached and stung, but that wasn’t the worst problem. As long as he only moved slowly-and didn’t laugh-the head wound wasn’t bugging him too much. His swollen right ankle was giving him fits, though. At least for tonight there was no chance of his walking on it.

Teague had asked for help in his life. He was almost sure of it, even if he couldn’t remember a single occasion specifically. For damn sure, though, he wasn’t asking a woman, as if he were some kind of needy, sickly, dependent type.

So he crawled into the bathroom, at an extremely annoying snail’s pace. Then he had to sit on the blue-tiled floor until his head stopped spinning and he stopped sweating from the exertion. Eventually, though, he took care of nature, brushed his teeth, managed a reasonably efficient sponge bath, and then crawled back into the living room.

The wind howled louder than ever, or maybe the intense darkness made it seem that way. Eerie shrieky sounds seemed to seep through the walls and whistle through the cracks. Teague hesitated at the couch, but rather than climb back up there, he carted the pillow and blanket closer to the fire. The yellow blaze was dancing-hot, but wouldn’t last all night. He figured he could feed it easier through the wee hours if he was already located on the carpet, closer to the hearth.

He used a log from the stack of cut wood to elevate his right leg, and then sank back against the blanket. Just when he thought the setup was perfect and he could doze off, he realized that he couldn’t see Daisy’s face from that angle-her whole body was in shadow. That wouldn’t do, so he had to refix the log and blankets and pillow all over again.

By then he was wasted-tired and getting cranky from the day’s various aches and injuries. But he could see her. If a guy had to be miserable, she was the best diversion he could conceivably imagine.

There were dark shadows under those gorgeous eyes. Didn’t matter. She’d be striking if she were dead-sick with the flu. She had the bones, the style, the attitude. No one was going to miss noticing Daisy Campbell-at least no guy was, not in this life.

She wasn’t, though, even remotely the way she billed herself.

For a woman who complained about being stuck with him-and yelled loudly to the sheriff how desperate she was to get him off her hands-she didn’t act remotely thrown about taking responsibility for an injured stranger. In fact, she was taking no-fanfare, no-fuss, damn good care of him. She also acted sassy and snappy, but those hands of hers were gentle and so was the concern in her eyes.

Every contradiction seemed more interesting than the last. For a woman who looked as if French couture was her raison d’être, she sure made a feast out of an ordinary cup of potato soup. And although she carried herself as if a ton of servants usually trailed after her, she’d shown a ton of practical common sense about storm survival.

He didn’t get it.

He didn’t get her.

Something strange was happening here. Really strange. Teague didn’t like surprises. He didn’t mind being attracted to her-hell, no man had control over that. His you-know-what couldn’t tell whether a woman was potentially catastrophic or not. But his brain did.

She’d given him the message loud and clear that she was a rolling stone.

He’d fallen in love with one of those once before. Had no reason to volunteer to be kicked in the head a second time.

Still. There was no harm in just looking at that spectacularly interesting face. It was one of those favorite guy fantasies, being marooned with a beautiful woman with no one else around. It’s not as if there were any chance of their getting close. Hell, he couldn’t imagine laying a finger on her.

Teague couldn’t have closed his eyes, because that howling wind was itching on his nerves, and he hurt in too many places to really rest.

But suddenly his eyes opened. Any man’s would. Because out of nowhere there seemed to be an extremely warm, mobile, voluptuous woman plastered against him.

More than his eyes popped up, in fact. It occurred to him that the same woman pressing warm, firm, full breasts against his chest and winding a leg around his hip, was precisely the same one he’d just sworn-seconds before-that he’d never lay a finger on.

“You’re awake, Teague? Don’t get shook. It’s just me.”

Maybe it was pitch-black in the room, give or take the yellow firelight behind the screen, but he fully, fully realized who was wrapped around him.

“We lost power. Since it was already down across the road, it’s really amazing we had it this long-especially in this kind of snowstorm. When it’s morning and there’s more light, I’ll go down to the basement, see if I can get the Cunninghams’ generator fired up. For right now, though, we’re sealed up in this room as tightly as we can be. I know it’s cold and getting colder. The fire alone can’t keep up with subzero temperatures like this. But if we stay close, combine blankets and body heat, we’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

“We could be snowed in for a couple more days, but there’s no way it’ll be longer than that before someone comes to rescue you. We’ve got food and water and firewood. We may be cold, but we’ll be able to manage.”

“Okay.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you. I know you’re hurt. Being stranded has to feel a lot more unnerving if you’re hurt. But I lived in Vermont my whole life. I can do whatever we both need doing. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“I realize this has to be uncomfortable for you-”

In spite of his pounding head and throbbing ankle, he reached over and kissed her. He wasn’t trying to shut her up. He didn’t give a damn if she talked and kept them both up all night. But he did mind her treating him as if he were a schoolboy who needed nonstop reassurance.

The kiss might have been impulsive, but it still seemed a reasonable, logical way to tactfully let her know he was a man, not a boy.

And that seemed the last reasonable, logical, tactful thought he had for a long time. Seconds. Minutes. Maybe even hours.

She was cold. Heaven knew how long she’d been freezing up in that chair, but her lips were chilled, her hands even more so. The instant his mouth connected with hers, though, she stopped moving altogether. She seemed to even stop breathing. Her eyes popped wide. His were already open, waiting for her. Both of them were suddenly frowning at each other in the shadow of the blankets.

There was a lot to frown about, Teague acknowledged, since they were obviously near-complete strangers, and neither expected any problem with intimacy. At least he hadn’t, for damn sure-but now he’d tasted her, he had to go back for another kiss.

She tasted like sleepy woman. Thick. Sweet. Her neck had the barest hint of scent. Not perfume exactly, but the echo of something clean and natural and soft…lavender, he thought. A whisk of spring in a night that couldn’t have been darker or colder.

And that was the last time either of them had to worry about the cold night. Body heat suddenly exploded between them. They could hardly move under their combined blankets, which was almost funny, since neither suddenly needed any of that blanket heat, anyway.

This wasn’t him, wildly kissing her, recklessly running his hands down her lithe, supple body. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t remotely a wild or impulsive man. He was the kind of man who paid attention to every detail, who did things right and thoroughly. But damn. Right then there were only two of them in a winter wilderness. A caveman who’d drawn his chosen mate under his bed of furs.

If she accidentally kicked his ankle, he’d undoubtedly cry like a baby.

But until then, the caveman thing was taking over his head, his hormones, his pulse. Either that or the taste of her, the touch of her, was acting like an uncontrollable fever. He didn’t respond to a woman like this. A few kisses never packed this kind of punch. And sex-the kind of sex that mattered, that pulled out all the stops-only happened between two people who knew each other damn well.

He didn’t know her at all.

But it felt as if he did. Maybe his reaction was explainable, two people caught in extraordinary circumstances, but it felt…she felt…as if no other woman had ever touched him. She made an oomph sound, a groan, when his mouth chased after hers yet another time. Lips teased, trembled together, then parted. Her tongue was already waiting for his.

Her rich, thick hair shivered through his fingers as he cradled her head, holding her securely to take her mouth, to dive for that sweetness again. She was already surfing on that channel. Her arms wound around him, tugged around him, as if she could anchor him to her. Through tons of blankets, tons of clothes, he could still feel her breasts throbbing, heating against his chest. Still feel the tension in her long, slim legs, still feel the chaotic burn, the urgency, of a connection neither wanted to break.

There’d been no one who kissed like her, and Teague sensed, never would be, never could be. Maybe he’d survive without another taste, but he couldn’t swear to it.

The fire sizzled and spit.

Dark shadows danced on the walls.

Blankets tangled and fought. His head, his ankle…both hurt. But not like the ache building deep in his groin. This was champagne he’d never tasted, a high he’d never expected. It pulled at him.

She pulled at him.

He didn’t believe for a second that she intended to respond this way. Wildly. No inhibitions. Just need, hanging as naked between them as secrets. Longings bursting to the surface because no one thought they’d needed a lock to protect them, not this night, not this way.

She’d been through hell. She’d never said that exactly-but it was there, in her eyes, her touch, that kind of urgent take-me-take-me-because-I-want-the-hurt-to-go-away. He knew the words to that song. When you were hurt, you wrapped yourself up tight, so the wounds had a chance to heal. You’d have to be crazy to ask for a fresh hurt before the old scars healed up…yet loneliness was always the worst when you’d been hurt. It took you down. Made you doubt whether anyone’d ever be there for you again. Made you worry what was wrong with you, that someone you’d given your best to hadn’t loved you enough.

Hell. He not only knew that song. He knew the refrain and every verse. But as he increasingly sensed her vulnerability…he was stuck increasingly sensing his own.

He tore his mouth free from her, tried to gulp in some oxygen, when all he really wanted to do was gulp in her. Now. All night. Forever, and then all over again. “Daisy…”

“I know. This is insane.” She was struggling for oxygen just as he was, looking at him with dazed dark eyes. “But damn. I just wasn’t expecting this.”

“Neither was I.”

“Do you always kiss this well, or am I just really fantastic at bringing it out in you?”

“Um, something tells me there’s no way I can answer that question without getting my head smacked.”

Gentle fingers lifted to his cheek. “I wouldn’t hit you in the head, cher. Not when you’re already wounded. I wouldn’t do anything worse than slug you in the stomach, and that’s a promise.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“We’re both getting some common sense back, aren’t we.”

“Yeah,” he said regretfully.

“I’m up for doing impulsive things. For going with the moment. For living. But maybe…this is just a little too impulsive.”

“I know.” But he still couldn’t keep the regret out of his voice. “I never do stupid things.”

“No? Well, heaven knows, I do. I’ve made so many stupid, impulsive mistakes that really, I could give courses in blundering the wrong way through life. I could teach you how.”

“From you,” he said, “I’d like to learn.”

She chuckled, a seductive whisper from her throat. “How about if I promise, Teague, that sometime during this blizzard…”

He waited to hear the end of her comment. And when she said nothing else he tilted his head so he could easily see her face.

The eyes were shut, little breathy snores sneaking from her damp, parted lips again. She’d fallen asleep. Just like that. Leaving him harder than stone and with an unnamed promise.

He hoped to hell that wasn’t an omen.

Daisy vaguely heard the cell phone ringing. Jet lag and exhaustion had taken her down so deep she couldn’t seem to jolt herself awake. It was cold. Her brain got that right away. It was also daylight, because the unfamiliar room was much lighter than the night before.

Slowly more reality managed to bully itself into her mind, forcing her to seriously wake up. She was at the Cunninghams’. She’d kissed the stranger. She was in the middle of a blizzard. Damn, had she ever kissed the stranger. The fire was still going strong, ashes piled deep and glowing, fresh fed fairly recently-by someone who wasn’t her. She’d not only kissed the stranger lying next to her, she’d come on to him like a fresh-freed nun. Her family was all out of town; she was broke as a church mouse; her entire life was in shambles. She seemed to be still wrapped around Teague Larson as if they were glued at the hip and pelvis.

And it was his cell phone ringing, demanding someone get up.

She pushed out of the blankets, had the cold air slap at her skin and decided that a girl only needed so much reality.

“Yeah,” she snapped at the sheriff when she finally grabbed Teague’s cell phone in the kitchen. “I’m well aware the power’s off, George. I’m going to look this morning to see if I can get the Cunninghams’ generator going. If I can’t, then I’ll bring in the wood from their garage. No, I don’t know how my patient’s doing…”

Blah, blah, blah. Twenty-three inches of snow. Still snowing, not as hard, but big winds, some six-and seven-foot drifts. The town was busted except for absolute emergencies for a few days. Like everyone in Vermont couldn’t guess the day’s news report?

She yawned, then waited until she could get a word in. “All right, all right. So we’re not on a level of heart attacks and babies being born. But Teague really was hit hard on the head. And I know his ankle’s hurt. You keep us on the rescue list, you hear? And, yeah, I’ll check in a little later today, so you know how we’re doing.”

As she walked back in the living room, she reminded herself to contact her parents and sisters pretty quickly. They didn’t know she was back home in White Hills. She also hadn’t told them the whole story of her divorce from Jean-Luc, but that was a different issue. The only immediate problem was if they tried to reach her in France and couldn’t, they’d worry.

She raked a hand through her sleep-tumbled hair, her mind still galloping a zillion miles an hour, then stopped dead.

So did Teague.

For some unknown reason he was on his hands and knees, emerging from the back of the couch like a little kid playing hide-and-seek-at least until she spotted him. Or he spotted her. Whichever came first, both of them seemed to freeze in unison.

Daisy didn’t move, but her pulse suddenly lunged-just as it had last night when she’d touched him. When she’d judiciously crawled under the blankets with him to conserve heat. When she’d extremely unjudiciously started running her hands all over the man. It was as if someone had taken over her mind. How else could she explain how this confounding man had her hormones in such a buzz?

“What are we doing?” she asked tactfully, since he didn’t seem to be moving from his crawling position.

“I was looking for something behind the couch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I dropped something out of my pocket last night. A key. It’s not like I needed it this minute, but when I realized it was missing, I thought I’d better find it before I forgot-”

She cut to the chase. “Your ankle is that bad? You can’t walk on it at all?”

He scowled at her. He had no way of knowing that she’d been lied to by the best. Her ex could lie to the Pope on Easter and look innocent.

“I can walk on it,” Teague said irritably.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You crawl to the bathroom-in fact, we’ll call that your bathroom for the duration. I’ll use the one upstairs. No more showers or cleaning up for either of us, though, until the power goes back on, okay? But the point is-”

“There’s a point coming?”

“The point is, I’ll try and rig you up some kind of cane. And some ibuprofen. When you get back, you go for the couch, we’ll get your weight off the ankle and ice it.”

“I can do all that.”

He kept singing that refrain all day. Daisy might have become exasperated except that, damn, he kept getting cuter by the hour. Every time she started to do something, he crawled after her, determined to either help or do it himself. After being prey to the most dependent guy in the universe for the past several years, Teague’s bullheadedness was a treat.

“I know how to get the generator started,” he said.

“I’m sure you do. And it’s been years since I watched my dad do ours when we were growing up. I’m not sure I remember what he did, or that I can do it besides. But the generator’s still in the basement.”

“So?”

“So you can’t get down to the basement with that ankle. So it has to be me. Go sit on that couch.”

“I’ll sit at the top of the stairs in case you come up with questions.”

She screwed off the sweeper end of a broom to create a makeshift cane. Brought in another load of logs. Tended the fire. Battled the generator in the basement, couldn’t figure it out, braved Mr. Cunningham’s desk to see if she could find a file of appliance instructions, tried a second time to get the generator going. Failed again.

So they were going to be cold. At least they had the fire and firewood. Nobody was going to get frostbite or die or anything. But if the darn wind would quit howling and the sky quit dumping buckets, the power would have a chance to come back on. Then the snowstorm would just be a pain in the behind, but not really uncomfortable.

“I can go down in the basement,” Teague argued again.

“Yes. But what if you fell on that ankle? I couldn’t possibly carry you back upstairs.”

“I wouldn’t fall.”

He was so male. Only a male would make such a ridiculous statement. By that time she’d fixed them both an early dinner. “Eat,” she said, looking to divert him.

It worked. She looked at the wound on his head every time she could sneak a glance-which wasn’t easy, when he kept claiming it was fine. It wasn’t remotely fine. The gash was a good three inches, with a lump under it that looked bruised and swollen. On the other hand, she reasoned, he couldn’t be too injured if he could eat like a wolf at his last meal.

“I don’t understand how you could make this out of a nonexistent kitchen,” he said.

“Are you kidding? This is the kind of cooking that’s all fun. You get to use your imagination instead of just opening a can and punching a microwave.” Truthfully, he was giving her a bunch of unwarranted praise. She hadn’t been that creative, just unearthed some clothes hangers to twist into spits, then raided the Cunninghams’ freezer for a couple of steaks. She was going to owe them all kinds of supplies when this was over with. Anyway, she’d rubbed some garlic and tarragon and a few other surprises on the steaks. Wrapped some potatoes in foil. Added this and that. The thing was, everything always tasted good by fire. It’s not as if she’d pulled off a miracle.

“It wouldn’t be so hard if we just got the generator going. I know I could do it-”

That again. If she kept him out of the basement, it’d be a miracle. She tried diverting him again. “So exactly how did you get into the demolition business?”

“Demolition?”

“Yeah. You know. Tearing up kitchens. Tearing down walls. Getting to use power tools all day, make noise and lots of sawdust. I mean, have you always had this calling, or did you just never grow up?”

He almost choked-but Teague, it was clear, was never going to waste a good bite of steak, even when he had to fight not to laugh.

“I was playing with wood from the time I was a little kid. Couldn’t shake the love for it, so made a career out of it. The Cunningham job, though, was more a favor than the kind of work I normally do. They were going to be out of town for a few weeks, so I could fill in here when I had time from other projects. Mostly, though, I do reconstruction stuff. Old wood. Uneven floors. Tilted ceilings. Ruined woodwork-”

She could hear the joy building up in his voice like an opera singer letting loose with an aria. “Now, don’t go have an orgasm on me.”

He grinned. “I can’t help it. That’s the stuff that pulls my chain. I went to college to be a lawyer. Just wasn’t for me, hated every minute of it. Went back to do the apprentice thing with a master carpenter.”

“So. Why are you working solo and how on earth did you get stuck in White Hills?”

“What makes you think I’m stuck?”

“Because I know you didn’t start out here. I’d have known you-we’d have gone to school together. Or I think we would have. How old are you?”

“Thirty-four.”

“A few years older than me. Which means I’d definitely have known you, because I knew every cute boy who was a few years older than me. And I’ll bet you were downright adorable in high school, because you’re so delectable now.”

That almost made him choke on his food a second time. “Campbell, you are one bad, bad woman. You always tease like this?”

“Good grief, no. Only with people I’m stranded with. Especially when I’m stranded with someone for an unknown period of time without deodorant or enough water to take a shower.”

“There’s deodorant in the downstairs bathroom.”

She lifted a brow. “There’s some upstairs, too. I was just trying to make the subtle point that we’re stuck with each other for company, so we might as well enjoy it. Which means I think you should tell me why in God’s name you picked a rustic village like White Hills to live.”

“Hey, there are lots of old homes here. Homes, historic buildings, stores, churches. And that’s what I love best. Restoring stuff. Not necessarily restoring it back to how it looked historically, but taking something that’s turned ugly and bringing it back to life.”

“That’s cool. But you couldn’t find any place more exciting than White Hills?”

“Maybe I didn’t want to.”

“Maybe you’re hiding a deep, dark secret,” she suggested instead.

He looked amused at her nosiness. “For the record, I’m making money hand over fist in your little burg.”

“That’s nice. But it doesn’t answer the question why you picked this town to live in.”

“I had a job here once, liked the place. And since moving here about five years ago, I’ve built up more work than I know what to do with. The only thing really holding me back is being so unartsy.”

She cocked her head. “You need to be artsy to be a carpenter?”

“Not always. I mean, give me a kitchen, a blank room, and I’ll come up with a floor plan, a way to use the existing features and space to make the most of it. I love that kind of creative work. But these days, people hire someone for a major restoration project, they really like all the experts in one basket. I’m first fiddle in the carpentry department. But when they want me to pick a color for a wall, or what knobs on a door, or what furniture to go with the floor…hell, I don’t see why they want decorator stuff from me. But that’s the part I’m missing. Assuming I wanted my business to grow. Which I don’t. But sometimes that does hold me back.”

“So hire an interior decorator.”

“Wouldn’t work.”

“Ah.” She rubbed her hands together. “Am I picking up the real reason you ended up in a godforsaken small town? An affair with an interior decorator?”

“Did anyone ever mention that you were nosy?”

“Just my mother. Come on, give. What good is a secret if you don’t tell it?”

“It isn’t a secret,” he said with exasperation.

“Well, that’s great, because then you can tell me the story for sure,” she said beguilingly, and made him laugh. More to the point, he gave in.

“I started out in Raleigh, North Carolina. Grew up there. Still have family there. I was engaged once, back when I was still going to be a lawyer, but she didn’t like it when I turned blue collar.”

“So she was stupid. Thank God you got rid of her,” Daisy filled in.

“Um, actually, she got rid of me-”

“Either way, you got saved from a fate worse than death. So. What happened after that?”

“After that, I met up with Jim Farrington-the best carpenter I ever met. I started apprenticing with him. He was obstinate as a mule, but fantastic as far as his work. He had a younger sister.”

“Aha.”

“Yeah. I guess you could say that was an ‘aha.’ I took one look at her and fell so hard I’m not sure I ever got up again. I was ready to marry her on the first date, but actually, it made more sense for me to work my way into a partnership with Jim. It takes money to marry, start a life. And she didn’t want to settle down that fast, anyway. So we hooked up for a couple years, planned on marrying, just didn’t do the deed. That is, the marriage deed-”

“Um, I don’t need to hear details about any other kinds of deeds.”

“Okay. Anyway, a problem came up.”

“And the problem was…?”

“Well…I can’t tell you how good a person Jim was. Or how good he was with the work. That’s the thing, the whole reason I was sure we could make a great partnership. He felt the same about me. Only for some reason he always thought he was right.”

“Was he?”

“Hell, no. I was the one who was always right.”

“Ah. I’m beginning to get a much bigger picture now.”

“As far as Jim, if he said black, I said blue. If he said right angles, I said left. We started out fighting with each other, but then we started fighting in front of clients, too. If he hadn’t been so bullheaded and sure of himself and uncompromising-”

“Like you?”

“That was exactly the problem. We were like identical twins. Anyway, the only answer possible was to sever the relationship. By then I’d already severed the personal stuff with his sister-she was caught between loyalties, and by then, truth to tell, I think we both knew we weren’t going any further together. Anyway, it was at that point I took off, because Jim started the business, so he was entitled more than I was to keep on with it. And I wanted to go somewhere where I could work alone. A place that wasn’t so big that a partner was going to be required, but where there’d still be definitely enough work to make a decent living.”

“Where you didn’t have to worry about someone finding out that you were boneheaded and always right and a pain in the butt?”

“I didn’t say boneheaded. I said bullheaded.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there’s a-” Teague stopped talking abruptly. When she cocked an eyebrow in question, he raised a finger, asking her to be quiet. She was, unsure what he heard that had caught his attention.

But then she heard it, too.

Silence.

The fire was crackling in the hearth, spitting sparks and wooshing smoke up the chimney. But the ever-present wolf wind had suddenly stopped.

They both tore off for the closest window at the same time, Teague hobbling on his broomstick crutch. Daisy pushed at the drapes to peer out. Neither had been keeping track of time-what difference did it make with the storm? But it was early evening. Dark. And after hours of that incessant wind and blowing, hurling snow, suddenly there was…magic.

The wind had completely died as if it had never been. Moon glowed on a pristine, pure landscape. It looked as if the Pillsbury Dough Boy had been making whipped-cream frosting in mountainous quantities, with fat dollops here and there, mounds higher than buildings in places, and swirls and twirls and soft cups in other places. Moonshine gave the snow a sugar glaze, yet it still looked soft and cushiony. There were no footprints, no lights, no cars or other signs of civilized life marring the beauty yet.

Daisy felt a deep, raw pull inside her. She’d left Vermont. She’d never wanted to come back. She never needed to go through another blizzard in this lifetime…yet she’d forgotten this part of it. The part when the blizzard was over and the whole world turned magical. The part when there was no other beauty like this-and never would be again-because blizzard snowfalls were never the same. The moonlight, the magic, the diamonds in the snow…it was damned impossible not to feel something. An awe. A wonder. A rush of pleasure, just for the sheer beauty of it.

She turned her head, saw Teague looking at her instead of out the window.

“It’s just…so special,” she said helplessly.

“Yeah, you are,” he said lowly, and reached for her.