put in everyday life, which was exactly like Gwen. Hopelessly romantic. Fragile. Easily hurt, easily scarred, but beautiful on the inside—if anyone could ever get her to believe it.
Too restless to sit, Paige popped off the stool and started twisting the gooseneck stem of her work lamp so the light better illuminated every angle of the coral, her mind on Gwen—and Abby.
Paige had been badly worried about both sisters since Christmas. Generations of Stanfords had lived in the old Vermont homestead until the clan scattered—Abby and Gwen had grown up, moved away, and then their parents had retired to Arizona. The whole crew had argued with Paige about living alone in the old-fashioned, heat-eating monster, but this was home, the roots of the whole family, and they all still gathered here for the holidays. They had this past Christmas, too, but with mom and dad there, both her older sisters had kept a protective lid on any serious conversations.
Paige didn’t need the specifics to recognize that both Gwen and Abby were stressed out and unhappy. Growing up, they’d all fought like snakes and mongeese. Still did. Gwen had made one man her whole life; Abby was all ambition and drive; and Paige was the unconventional rebel. Bickering and teasing was probably inevitable when none of them ever had one single thing in common, much less came close to sharing each others’ goals or dreams.
It didn’t matter. It never mattered. They didn’t have to understand each other to love. The bond between sisters had always been unshakable. Paige always knew when one of them was unhappy. The reverse was just as true. And she’d been frustrated and worried ever since Christmas, that her sisters were having some kind of trouble in their personal lives that she couldn’t do a damn thing about.
A cameo wasn’t going to solve Gwen’s problems. The need was in Paige, to create something for her sister, something that had meaning; something that expressed love. Impatiently she propped her hands on her hips, fiercely concentrating. All raw materials looked like nothing in the beginning. The coral, no different than other shells or stones she worked with, had a secret to tell. It was up to her to find the truth.
The frown on her forehead suddenly eased. Blood started waltzing through her veins. She had it. Automatically her fingers fumbled blind, yanking open the drawer on the left, groping for the India ink pen and the leather-lined vise. Oh, man, it was there; she saw exactly what she wanted to do—
From nowhere, a scraping sound interrupted her concentration. A grating scrape, followed by a mysteriously soft whoomph. Her head shot up. Both sounds came from the outside, but definitely close enough to the house to be unignorable. Someone was on her property. In her driveway.
She heard the sharp, grating scrape again—what on earth was it?—followed by…damn…a wild baritone singing some kind of insane aria. A Russian aria.
She thought, no.
Perching up on tiptoe, she scowled out the window, but couldn’t see anything or anyone from that view. The scrape-whoomph sequence repeated itself again, though. She pushed up her sweatshirt sleeves and stomped down the hall to the next bedroom. From that window, if she craned her neck far enough, she could see a bucketful of snow flying in the air, the silver shine of a snow shovel and, yeah, a disheveled head of coal black hair.
She thought, I’m gonna kill him. And headed for the back door to do just that. An occasional visit, fine. Stefan was alone in a new country and lonesome to talk with someone. Fine. He needed help with his language before he was safe to let loose in public—at least around women—and that was fine, too. She personally knew what it felt like to be a misfit, and she really didn’t mind helping him.
Only the kiss last night had changed things.
She’d spent a sleepless night with Mr. Michaelovich barging into her dreams. Those dreams had been embarrassingly, explicitly sexual, brought on—no doubt—by her celibate life-style. Only no guy had bugged her dreams before Stefan. And neither had any other guy’s kisses.
No one could help what they dreamed, but by George, a woman could control who used her snow shovel.
Bristling from every feminine nerve, she yanked open the back door—and almost earned herself a scoop of snow directly in the face. Thankfully the white powder frosted the overgrown yews next to the door—and by then Stefan had spotted her.
He leaned an elbow on the shovel handle and grinned. It had snowed the night before, four fresh inches of sugar-white powder adding to the foot-deep ground cover. Pine branches sagged under the weight; the naked hardwoods looked as if they were coated with a layer of whipped cream. The whole world had turned white except for one slam of color—him.
His cheeks were redder than apples; his eyes a dancing black. Backdropped against all that stark white, his shoulders looked huge and powerful—a wincing jolt of virile, vital masculine energy in a day that had been so serene, so calm, so peaceful.
“Good morning, my cupcake! You take my breath, you are that sexy this fresh in the morning!”
Paige wiped a hand over her face. Heaven knew what she looked like, but for positive it wasn’t sexy, and he was not going to do this to her again. She was not disarmed by the way his Russian accent wrapped around that antiquated sexist endearment; she was not charmed by the totally unpredictable uses of the language that came out of his mouth. She was aggravated with him for this intrusion. Justifiably aggravated. But the damn man was so exuberantly enthusiastic, so happy, that yelling at him was harder than kicking a puppy.
“Good morning,” she said, echoing him, her tone as formal as she could make it, and then forged ahead, “Stefan, there was absolutely no need for you to come over and shovel my walk!”
“Well, big confession to tell. Guilty confession.” Stefan cocked an elbow on the shovel handle. “I not do this for you. I do this for me.”
“I—pardon me?”
“I work on computer for hours. Very quiet, very silent work. Requires total focus. And this is my work, what I love, no question, but I get desperate for exercise. I have to break in—”
“Break out.” She automatically corrected him.
“Yeah, you understand. Need to break out. I get energy buildup like to burst. I see you have no man, that it snowed last night, very easy for me to shovel your walk for you. Big favor to me, because I am so desperate to vent all this physical energy. I thank you for providing this chore.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. She scalped a hand through her hair, feeling confused. So far she had yet to anticipate anything the confounded man was going to say. Ignoring the comment about “no man” was easy, but how was she going to argue with a guy who regarded snow shoveling as a personal favor to him?
And those dancing dark eyes mirrored utter sincerity. “I found shovel by your back door. Easy to find. No reason to ask you, I know, because we are neighbors, and like you told me, it is natural for neighbors to help each other in America.”
“Well, I know I said that….” Geezle beezle, talk about getting trapped by her own words. “But this is a little different, Stefan. It scared me, when I heard an unfamiliar sound outside. I didn’t know it was you—”
“Da, I can imagine. You live alone, any stranger could bother you. Not good, this danger, but I will watch over you now, Paige, no need to worry. And I tell you next time I’m here, so you know it’s just me.”
Alarm shot through her. It was funny, really, even
