As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) (8 page)

Eleven and twelve went right onto the stack. He didn’t even bother opening them. Joely’s eyes were swimming by now. She swallowed lurking tears, then asked, “Don’t I want to hear anything out of those?”

“Nope. I think you get the point.” He picked up the pile of letters, carried them to the stove and tossed them in. The fire curled under the sheets of paper, blackening the edges. Eradicating another piece of their past. It felt like surgery. Cauterization. He closed the heavy, wrought iron door and the flames took the letters silently, with no witnesses. Better that way, he was certain.

Presently she said quietly, “So why did you finally come?”

“I took a really close look at those divorce papers and realized I’d been operating on a false assumption.”

“That was it?”

He shrugged. “Mostly. Does it really matter, now that I’m here?”

She crossed her arms, staring at the squat, silent stove. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

• • •

So they had moved forward, through some of the issues, seeking closure. Joely couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t feel any better about it all.

The camaraderie they’d shared through the morning was all but gone. She couldn’t look at Rey without thinking about the months before she’d left, when he’d barely spoken to her, and the minutes before she’d left, when she’d said far too much.

The process didn’t seem to have affected Rey as deeply, though. He sat watching a cable news channel — after he’d gone outside to scrape the snow off the satellite dish — and seemed not to be agonizing over anything at all. It was a man thing, she supposed, that ability to shrug off a deeply emotional situation and just move on.

Or was it? If he could really shrug things off so easily, what had been the point of his reading the letters? If he could shrug off the pain, he never would have written them in the first place.

Unable to concentrate anymore on the sketches, she found herself looking at the empty shoebox. Finally, she picked it up, took off the lid. There was nothing left inside. She wasn’t sure what she’d thought she might find.

“I don’t think it was the greatest idea.”

She jumped at the sound of Rey’s voice and looked up. He was watching her, frowning. He looked sad.

“You think we should have left well enough alone?” she asked.

“Quite likely.”

She put the lid back on the box. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Isn’t that the kind of thing a therapist might tell you to do?”

“How the hell should I know? I’m a lawyer.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her. The perusal, detached and non-sexual as it was, made her warm. “Let’s try something else.”

“I’m game.”

“Good. The letters have been burned and obliterated — let’s say right now that everything associated with them has been, too. All that baggage, all that ugly past. We’re starting all fresh. Like — ” He paused, then pointed out the window. “Like out there. All the imperfections of the world made right by a layer of snow. Everything smooth and pure and even.”

The image appealed to her. “Square one?”

“Square one.”

“Which means?”

“That I intend to romance you like you’ve never been romanced before. You were worth pursuing the first time — I’m sure you’re equally worth pursuing again.”

She smiled. It actually didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Then I look forward to being pursued.”

• • •

Well. Now he was going to have to follow through. Like most ideas, it had seemed like a good one at the time. But how was he supposed to romance her in this tiny house, where they couldn’t get more than a few yards from each other? Plus, he was at a disadvantage since it was unfamiliar territory.

He considered waiting until tomorrow. Joely had assured him they’d be able to get out of the house in the morning. If he waited, he’d have more resources available to him. But he also would have missed out on his first opportunity to date his wife.

His wife. He hadn’t thought about her that way in a long time. His ex-wife, yes, until he’d found out he wasn’t really divorced or even close to it. Then he’d come up with several rather uncharitable epithets, until he’d finally just started thinking of her as Joely again. Right now, he felt much as he had during their early courtship. She was a beautiful woman. He sensed a connection that made his body hard and wanting. But he wasn’t sure he knew her yet, certainly not as well as he wanted to.

She had disappeared into her bedroom about fifteen minutes ago. Stymied in his romantic pursuits, he decided to check on her.

Peeking around her door, he found her sitting at a small desk looking at spreadsheets on her computer. From what he saw, the data looked good. He watched for a moment while she frowned at the screen, adjusted a few numbers, changed them back, muttered to herself, then combed her fingers through her hair in what looked like frustration. He didn’t think it was, though. Just absorption, more likely, a thought-gathering gesture. He took a step forward, not quite into the bedroom, then paused, hearing the rumbling of a vehicle outside.

Joely turned at the sound. Seeing Rey, she lifted her eyebrows questioningly.

“Is that your snowplow?” he asked.

“Sounds like it.”

“I’ll go check things out.”

“I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

Rey shrugged. “Never know. He might need some help.”

She grinned, obviously unable to imagine what he could possibly do to help Joe or Roy or Rob or whatever his name was plow the driveway. She was probably right, but he was going, anyway. He wanted to check out this strapping Colorado snowplow guy. See what the competition looked like, if he was competition at all.

He dug his coat out of his suitcase and pulled it on. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any boots, so he’d just have to tough it out. He went out to the deck to retrieve the snow shovel he’d used to dig his way to the satellite dish on the side of the house, then went back through the house and out the front door.

Rob the snowplow man proved to be about sixty years old and thus out of the running, but very efficient with the plow. Rey managed to clear the short sidewalk before Rob finished the driveway, but only barely.

Waving goodbye to Rob, Rey took a moment to take in his surroundings. Snow. Lots of snow. Massive, phenomenal quantities of snow. He was almost certain he’d never seen this much snow, except maybe that one time he and his family had gotten stranded in Buffalo on the way back from a trip to Canada.

A thought came to him. He grinned, blew a long plume of white with his own breath, and set to work.

• • •

Finally done experimenting with permutations and projections, Joely turned off the computer. It occurred to her then that the snowplow had departed quite some time ago, but she hadn’t heard Rey come back into the house. Surely he hadn’t gotten lost, or frozen to death. Not in less than an hour.

Then again, he was from New York.

She should probably go check on him, just in case. She pulled her coat out of the front closet and opened the front door …

And stopped cold on the front step.

“Hey, Joely!” Rey called.

Laughing, Joely zipped up her coat. “Rey, you’re insane.”

He only chuckled and went back to work.

He was building a snow fort, the second of two. They were spaced about six yards apart and stood about three feet high at the front. He rolled the last snowball into place to finish off a side wall and straightened. He rubbed his hands together briskly.

“Wanna go at it?” he said.

She did want to go at it. Not in the snow, though. Preferably in a nice, warm bed. Forcing her mind back to what Rey had really meant, Joely stepped off the sidewalk, trudging through the snow to the nearest fort. “Where’s the ammunition?”

Rey looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes to make all you can, then we start.”

She jumped the last few steps to the fort and started grabbing handfuls of snow, smashing them into tight, icy snowballs. “You’re gonna regret this!” she shouted, and was answered by Rey’s laughter.

She thought fifteen minutes would give her plenty of time, but when Rey shouted, “Now!” she looked at her pile of snowballs and its smallness distressed her. Imagining a huge pile of ammunition inside Rey’s fort, she shouted back, “Five more minutes!”

“No way!”

She peeked over the front wall of her fort and a snowball flew right at her face. Squeaking in alarm and delight, she ducked and watched it slam into the tree behind her.

“You’re dead meat, Rey! You hear me?”

“How could I not?”

She grabbed a handful of the icy snowballs she’d hurriedly smashed together and flung them indiscriminately over the fort wall, not even looking to aim.

“Ow!” said Rey. “You’re in for it now!”

The snowballs flew crazily for several frenzied minutes. She screeched and he hollered, she laughed and he let out great howls of mirth. She barely missed his head; he came within inches of hitting her square in the face with a slushy projectile. Finally, emboldened by laughter and adrenaline, she slipped out from behind her fort, then darted across the snow to sneak behind his fort and dump her last three snowballs down the back of his shirt.

He howled in protest and grabbed her, pinning her arms behind her. “I don’t even have a decent coat and you do that to me?”

Immobilized against his strong chest, she could do nothing but look up into his laughing face. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

“Then neither am I,” he said, and kissed her.

His lips were icy cold but the inside of his mouth was warm, his tongue hot as it stroked against her lips. She opened to him, pressing hard into his heat. Snow and cold forgotten, she sought only that warmth, that union. His mouth on hers, soft and mobile, his tongue pressing softly against hers. He pulled her close, his hands sliding down her back.

She clutched at his coat, so absorbed it was a few long seconds before she registered the cold, the wet. As she pulled back, he ducked forward, his mouth still seeking hers even as she ended the kiss.

“You’re soaked,” she said. “We should get you inside.”

He dipped his head one more time toward her, and when he missed, he smiled a little and said, “Yeah. My shoes are full of snow and my jeans are soaked.”

“You’re going to catch pneumonia.” Fighting the reluctance of her entire body, she took a step back. Her hand sought his, unwilling to break the connection totally. “Come on. I’ll make you some hot cocoa.”

• • •

So here she was, taking care of him again. It had been unsettling the first time but he was starting to get used to it.

She’d led him into the house by the hand, as if he were a little boy, or a newly discovered beau. He preferred the latter. The simple act of holding her hand felt so profound right now. The kiss had been better, but perhaps it had been too much to expect right now.

“Get into some dry clothes,” she suggested. She closed the door behind them and grasped his coat by the collar, helping him out of it. He kicked off his cold, soggy tennis shoes and padded in wet socks into the living room. Pausing by the fire, he held his hands out. The heat felt good on cold, stiff fingers. He stood there for a few seconds, letting his joints loosen in the warmth before he started to unbutton his shirt.

“Think you could help me out of the rest of this?” He hazarded a look back toward the kitchen, where Joely was stirring cocoa powder into mugs of milk.

She gave him an arch look. “I think you can manage to undress yourself.”

“I don’t know. It’s harder to get stuff off when it’s wet.”

“Don’t push it, Rey.”

She didn’t sound nearly as irritated as she could have. He smiled and yanked at his jeans. The wet denim was heavy and tried to cling to his skin. It really would have been easier with Joely pulling on the cuffs. But she was right. He was capable of undressing himself. He was also capable of doing it right in the middle of the living room, where she couldn’t miss it.

He was down to his underwear — also wet, and clinging like cellophane to all his manly bits — when she came in with the mugs of cocoa.

“Did you want some privacy?” she asked, looking directly into his eyes.

“Why?” He took a mug from her hand. “There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. Hell, you’ve had your hands — not to mention your mouth — all over everything I’ve got. What’s the big deal?”

She blushed and turned away, but not before her gaze flicked downward for a split second. She swallowed and looked back up, and he felt momentarily repentant for flaunting himself at her. But only momentarily. “I haven’t agreed to this thing about you being my husband again,” she informed him. “And I think you standing naked in my living room is a little more husband-like than I’m ready for at the moment.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’m not naked.”

“Close enough.” Setting her cocoa on the end table, she stuck her hand in his suitcase and produced a pair of briefs. “Here. These are dry.”

She threw them at him. He caught them. “Thanks.” But when he set down his own cocoa and started to peel off the wet underwear, she turned her back on him and walked back into the kitchen.

He shook his head, disappointed.
Oh, well. One step at a time.

He pulled on his jeans and went to see what she had found to do in the kitchen. But she wasn’t doing anything — just standing looking out the window, into the snow-filled side yard. He stepped up behind her, almost close enough for his bare chest to touch her back, but not quite.

She turned her head slightly toward him, just enough to acknowledge his presence but not far enough to look at him.

“That was fun,” she said.

He nodded. Her shoulders shifted just a little, as if inviting his touch. Hoping he was reading her signals right, he eased an inch or so closer and settled his arms around her waist. She settled back into him. He closed his eyes and let his cheek fall against her head, breathing the smell of her hair. So sweet, so full of memories, just that flowery shampoo smell almost brought tears to his eyes.