that mean you’ll keep quiet about my being here?”
Her hand rested on the doorknob, then she nodded. “For the moment.”
Without another glance back, she opened the door and walked outside into the newly revealed sunshine with its glare of snow on the ground.
What had that meant? Was he staying? Going?
Questions and more questions. He was sick of asking himself, testing himself every day.
All he knew for certain was that he needed Ms. Vedae to keep his secret, to keep him hidden in this cabin in the woods.
By evening, Lacey had already thought of twenty-six ways to break Connor Langley’s one condition.
She settled on the temptation of a gourmet dinner.
As her boots crunched through the light layer of snow leading to the cabin, she tried to tell herself that this was a good idea. Maybe it was the biggest mistake of her life, allowing him to stay on her property, but the businesswoman in her had pretty good instincts about people. Connor Langley didn’t strike her as a terrible man—not with the way in which he’d taken off his hat to greet her, or turned his back when she’d been ready to skewer him.
Maybe he’d even be happy to see her when she told him she’d decided he could stay on her property. It could happen.
She approached the trees, leaving footprints as she went. “He did make it clear that he didn’t want company though,” she said out loud. “But what kind of neighbor would I be if I didn’t give him a welcome basket along with the good news?”
She hefted the loaded wicker carrier from one hand to the other. “Leaving him alone would make you a good neighbor,” she answered, hardly minding that she was talking to herself. “Because he did ask you to stay away.”
As she entered Siggy Woods—the dark forest that had inspired more than one town legend—she pressed her mouth into a silent line. Way back when she was fourteen, her doctor at the HazyLawn Home for Girls had warned her about talking to herself but, like most advice she’d culled from her short stay in the institution, she’d pretended to embrace the suggestion while ignoring it completely.
Her problem hadn’t been too much self-conversation, anyway. It’d had more to do with wanting to cry all the time, wanting to stop herself from sinking into the slow-spinning black hole of her thoughts. Sometimes, long ago, she’d ached so badly that she couldn’t get out of bed come morning.
At times the darkness still lapped at the edges of her mind. But she fought it—tooth and nail. Weekly therapy sessions with her Louisville doctor as well as the steady lift of Prozac helped her, healed her.
For the most part, she was happy and settled, successful and normal—and everyone in Kane’s Crossing who didn’t believe her was going to be convinced whether or not it drained Lacey of all energy and resources.
Between the trunks of white-glimmer pine trees, Lacey caught sight of the cabin, its bare windows winking with an orange glow. A shadow crossed over one of the panes, causing nerves to goose her heartbeat.
Connor Langley wasn’t going to be ecstatic to see her but, all the same, she couldn’t help herself. Every hungry cell of her body wanted to take him in, to swarm under the thick, warm feeling of attraction, even if only for the time it took to give him this basket.
She paused at the door, blowing out a cloud of pent-up steam. Then, ready for a scolding, she knocked.
A long hesitation followed, as if he was thinking about pretending not to be home. Finally, after what seemed like eons, the door creaked open on rusted hinges.
He stood in front of her, arms akimbo, his hair tied at his nape. “What didn’t you understand about leaving me alone?”
Boy, his eyes were blue. And now that she was almost toe-to-toe with him, she could see icicle-white flecks spiking the deep color of his irises.
“I…” She grinned, shoving the gingham-lined carrier in front of her as aggressively as she’d presented the fireplace implement this afternoon. “I wanted to tell you that you can stay in the cabin. And I cooked you dinner in apology for almost running you through with that metal thing.”
“I told you, it’s an andiron.” Then, as he cocked a brow, Lacey wondered why she’d thought this would be such a wonderful idea in the first place.
Before he could speak, she rushed on. “I really am good in the kitchen, so you shouldn’t refuse this. I’ve whipped up a spinach and grilled shrimp salad with a sherry vinaigrette, salmon rolls with spinach and sole with Champagne sauce and pear cake savoie. Pretty decent grub for the middle of nowhere.”
She waited with what had to be a silly, hopeful please-oh-please-accept-me grin on her face.
“I’m miffed,” he said.
“Well, I was puttering around the house, fixing to eat dinner myself, and I thought—”
He looked away and shook his head.
Getting the message loud and clear, Lacey set the basket on the ground, right by his boots, then turned to leave.
“Wait, Ms. Vedae.”
When she peeked over her shoulder, he’d picked up the wicker carrier and opened the door a crack wider. He glanced at her, something like guilt etching the lines around his mouth. “My privacy is important to me. Understand?”
With the way he’d growled the words, Lacey wondered if he was inviting her to share the meal or trying to scare her off.
Maybe she was being terribly invasive. “Bon appetit, Mr. Langley. I’ll leave you to your own company.”
And back she’d go to her massive house, wondering how it had ever become so empty.
The hinges screamed as he opened the door wider. “Get in here.”
Ooo, a command. If her stepbrothers, Matt and Rick, or one of her employees had talked to her in such a tone, she’d have given them a good dose of put-them-in-their-place. But with this man…
She didn’t say a word. She merely tilted her head as if she’d been expecting his invitation all along and strolled into the cabin.
Into the warmth of a stranger’s presence.
Chapter Two
T he woman sure could cook.
As Conn bit into the last of the pear cake whatever-it-was-called, he stifled a groan of contentment. He was more used to the beef and potatoes his ex-fiancée, Emily, had whipped up for him on a regular basis. Every Sunday night after church, she’d invite him over for dinner, then they’d sit in front of the television in her parents’ clapboard house, pretending that someday in the future, they might have something to talk about during the commercial breaks.
But now he was dining on food he couldn’t even pronounce.
Maybe it was for the best, though he hadn’t exactly been singing for joy when Lacey had shown up at his doorstep uninvited. For the
