a taxi from Skellington to the grand old house in Owen’s Lake where she’d been born, and finding her parents waiting to ply her with hugs, cocoa and questions. She’d envisioned the garden transformed into a fairyland by hundreds of coloured lights threaded among the trees and shrubs. She’d pictured the railing of the wraparound porch trimmed with pine branches held in place with red ribbons and silver bells.
She’d looked forward to the scent of wood smoke, and the warm reflection of flames flickering over the cool white marble fireplace in the living room, and the ceiling-high Noble Fir Christmas tree filling the big bay window.
She’d counted on having time to prepare herself to face the happy couple without betraying the envy eating holes in her heart. On being dressed to the nines in her smart Thai leather suit that was as soft and pale as whipped cream, or swaying into a room in the beaded silk dress she’d found in Hong Kong. In other words, she’d planned to be in command of herself and her situation, and look like a million dollars on the outside, regardless of how she might be feeling inside.
Instead, she was being forced to spend the night with Leo. In a stable. And looking like something no respecting dog would dream of dragging in.
It was enough to make her wish she’d accepted the marriage proposal offered through an intermediary by a grateful tribal chief whose son she’d nursed through a health crisis. At least he’d rated her on a par with his most prized water buffalo! From the way Leo was surveying her though, she might have been the bearded lady from a traveling sideshow!
“You don’t look so great,” he remarked, as if she hadn’t already figured that out for herself.
“Thanks, Leo,” she said, peeved. “I really needed to hear that!”
“What I mean is, you’re practically blue with cold. You’d better get out of those wet clothes.”
“And do what?” She tried to laugh—no easy task when her teeth were chattering like demented castanets. “Climb under a horse blanket and pray for deliverance?”
He didn’t even crack a smile. “There’s a tack room at the other end of the stable which we’re welcome to use, and yes, Ava, horse blankets and hay are going to be the best this hotel can offer.”
“And where will you spend the rest of the night?”
He raised his altogether stunning eyebrows, as though he couldn’t quite believe she’d asked such an idiotic question, and said, “With you, of course. Where else?”
Her heart should have sunk. Instead, it soared. When she was old and grey and lying on her deathbed, she’d be able to boast that, just once, she’d slept with Leo Ferrante. It almost made her present predicament worthwhile.
Almost. Thankfully, she wasn’t entirely bereft of common sense or decency. “If you think I’m going to strip for your entertainment, think again,” she said flatly.
“You might have lived in Africa for the last three years, but you’re still a nurse, Ava, and as such ought to know better than anyone the dangers of hypothermia.” He steered her firmly toward a door at the far end of the barn, thrust it open and shoved her into a room lined with horsey equipment. “I’m not suggesting you take off everything, but at least get rid of the wet shoes and stockings, and the coat. They’re not doing you any good, anyway, and you aren’t going to be much help to Deenie if you wind up in bed with pneumonia.”
“Why on earth does Deenie need my help? She’s the most self-reliant person I know.”
“Deenie,” he said succinctly, “is a mess right now and everyone is counting on you to deal with her. Whatever it is that’s bugging her isn’t something she’s prepared to talk about.”
He sounded more like an exasperated father than a besotted lover. “It could be simply a matter of adjusting,” Ava said. “Exchanging the world of international ballet for small-town life can’t be easy for someone who always swore she’d never settle for the kind of domestic bliss the rest of us thrive on.”
Oh, great! She came across more like an aging aunt who’d buried four husbands, rather than a twenty-eight-year old who’d yet to exchange the single life for matrimony.
Not that he cared, one way or the other. Apparently tired of the subject, he shrugged and made for the door. “Whatever! Right now, I’m more interested in grabbing a couple of hours sleep. Why don’t you get rid of the wet clothes while I round up some hay for a mattress?”
What the devil was wrong with him, that he’d complain to Ava Sorensen of all people? There were no secrets between her and Deenie. From what he could tell, they’d been joined at the hip practically from birth and shared everything. Everything!
He hefted a bale of hay and grimaced at the painful twinge which shot through his lower back. For Pete’s sake, the stuff couldn’t weigh more than thirty pounds, and six months ago he could press nearly two hundred without breaking a sweat. Could run five miles and swing a golf club, too. Now, thanks to an out-of-control snowboarder using him as a braking device, he was limited to brisk walks, strengthening exercises, and spending too much time with Deenie who was cute and amusing. Yet despite plenty of opportunity and a certain amount of flirtatious bantering, they hadn’t come close to any sort of intimacy.
“A fine pair we’d make!” he’d said, making light of it the one time she’d told him she wouldn’t mind a little sex on the side to relieve the tedium. “Between my back spasms and your sore shoulder and ankle, we’d both likely wind up back in physiotherapy. We’re better off sticking to gin rummy and cribbage.”
He’d been relieved when she’d let the idea drop without further comment. Mightily so, in fact—which made him wonder if more than just his spine had been cracked in the accident. What if he’d suffered other injuries which had gone undetected? What if he’d lost interest in sex forever?
Cripes, talk about a guy’s life spinning out of control! He needed to put a halt to things, and fast, beginning with the insane hints flying around that he and Deenie were an ideal couple and should be making what her mother so unsubtly referred to as “plans.” There were no long-term plans for him and Deenie. They were friends, and that was all.
Shouldering the hay, he trudged back to the tack room and rapped on the door. “Are you decent in there, Ava?”
“As much as can be expected.”
He found her perched on a stool with her knees drawn up under her chin and her bare feet poking out from under the poncho she’d fashioned from a horse blanket. Her toes were straight and unscarred, with perfect nails painted the colour of cranberries, and he thought how much prettier they were than Deenie’s which had become almost deformed from years of dancing en pointe.
“You’re looking better already,” he said, spreading the hay on the floor and tossing a couple of blankets on top. “You want to hop down from there on your own, or do you want me to give you a hand?”
“I can manage,” she said hastily, which was just as well. If he couldn’t have lifted Deenie at five foot two, he didn’t have a prayer of playing hero to Ava who stood at least seven inches taller.
Clutching the poncho around her, she scurried across the cement floor and dropped down on the makeshift mattress, but not so swiftly that he didn’t get an eyeful of her legs. Long and tanned, they were as elegant as her narrow feet, with sweetly curved calves and finely turned ankles. She might have been too tall
