me to join you,” he reminded her, taking a swallow of his beer.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“No?”
“You made me stand at the door talking to you so long the hot water was almost gone by the time I got in there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “Let me make it up to you with a never-ending fire and a cold slice of pepperoni.”
She looked unconvinced at first, then she shrugged. “Okay.” She took a piece of pizza from him and practically attacked it. “Oh, the fire feels so good. Your room is freezing, Valentine. This house is freezing.”
“It can get a little cold, I guess.”
“You sound like you don’t mind turning into an ice cube every time the sun goes down.”
“I hardly notice. I’m really only here to sleep.”
“Well, first thing tomorrow I’m calling a heating technician. The DeBolds may sell ice, but they don’t want to sleep in it.”
He grinned at her. “That was funny, Liv…clever.”
She shrugged. “I have my moments,” she said, reaching for a second slice of pizza.
Mac grabbed another bottle of beer from beside his chair, opened it and tipped it her way. “Something to drink?”
“Sure, why not?” She took the cold bottle from him. “Thanks.”
“You bet.”
“Sitting in a freezing house in front of a fire eating cold pizza and even colder beer—this night couldn’t get any stranger, could it?”
He sipped his beer, then said, “How about if I tell you that when I was around nine or ten I thought—well, I’d hoped—I’d grow up to be a comedian.”
She turned to stare at him. “That would be stranger.”
“Hard to believe, I know. I’d put on one of my foster father’s suits and tell incredibly awful jokes to these three crazy dogs they had. I was really into toilet humor at nine.”
“You grew up in a foster home?” Her tone had changed from cute sarcasm to barely disguised pity in a matter of seconds.
He hated that, and rarely told anyone about his less-than-ideal beginnings to avoid hearing just such a reaction. He didn’t know why he’d just blurted it out to her. Inadvertently, yes, but still… Maybe he needed to ease up on the beer. “I lived in a few foster homes. No big deal.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“My mother died when I was two, and my father was never really in the picture.”
She bit her lip. “That’s tough.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Was the foster father you borrowed the suit from a good guy at least?”
“He wasn’t awful. Although he did come home early one night to see me knocking around in that suit and he was pretty pissed off.”
“What did he do?”
“Went for the belt.”
Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “What a bastard. What a cowardly piece of trash. If I had been there I would’ve kicked his—”
Mac’s dark laughter cut her off. “It was no big deal. It happened.” Even though he said the words with cool casualness, he appreciated her passion and protective nature. “You know, twenty-five years ago, there wasn’t this push for fathers to be loving and gentle. ‘Hands-on’ had a different meaning.” He took a healthy swallow of beer. “Every kid got boxed by their dad, foster or not, once or twice while they were growing up.”
She sat forward in her seat, and looked at him with a strange mixture of sadness and care in her eyes. “No, they didn’t.”
Sure, he’d had a few beers, but he understood exactly what she was saying, and who she was saying it about. His jaw twitched. Owen Winston may have disciplined with words, but he was certainly no saint. “Well, I learned my lesson,” he said tightly. “I never touched his suits again.”
They were both quiet for a while after that, both drinking their beer and staring into the fire. Mac’s ire subsided, and he was close to sleep when he heard her say his name.
He turned his head. “Yeah?”
“What happened to the career in comedy?”
He chuckled. “Ended shortly thereafter.”
She smiled. “Bummer.” Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fire and she looked really beautiful.
“Or a blessing—depending on how you look at it.”
Yawning, Olivia curled deeper into the chair. “Well, feel free to try out any new material you’ve got on me.”
His body stirred with her words, but he said nothing. He wasn’t going to push things. Whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not, she was growing interested in him, attracted to him, and someday soon he would have her in his bed. It wouldn’t make nearly the impact if he took what she wasn’t ready to give. Owen Winston needed to know that his sweet, innocent little girl had come to Mac all on her own.
Mac heard her breathing grow slow and even, and after a few minutes, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to sleep, too.
Olivia woke up in a daze. In front of her the dying fire crackled softly. For a moment, she thought it was morning, but with a quick glance to the windows to her left she saw that the inky blackness of night had yet to turn to the steely gray of dawn.
“Hey.”
She looked over at Mac, who was sitting forward in his chair, his dark eyes seductive and hungry under heavy lids. “What time is it?”
“Around three.”
She blinked a few times, feeling foggy. “I should go back to bed.”
“But it’s cold in there.”
“Yeah.” But she didn’t move. She just stared at him.
Mac got out of the chair and went to her, sat on his heels in front of her. The hot flicker in his gaze made every bit of Olivia’s tired limbs feel on edge and alive.
He reached up to touch her face. She grabbed his wrist, that hard, thick, oh-so-masculine wrist, and he stopped and stared at her. Her heart thudded in her chest as he leaned in, his gaze hungry, his mouth so close. Looking back on that night, Olivia had wanted to blame the foggy tiredness in her brain or the cold and snow for what she did next. But she knew exactly why she went temporarily nuts. All the frustration she felt at her attraction to Mac, and all the years of pushing aside her feelings of need and desire, just seemed to explode in her face at that moment.
Her
