Heart of Winter (15 page)

The light streaming in the window woke her. This time she opened her eyes, and found Mary standing at the curtains.

“How you feel?” the Sioux woman asked.

“Fi…” Her voice sounded hoarse. She tried again. “Fine. I think.”

“You look pale. I bring oatmeal. Best thing for scratchy throat and cold. Also buttered toast and coffee with lots of cream. Sound good?”

“Oh, yes,” Nicky sighed. “I'm so hungry!”

Mary paused beside the bed and bent down to touch Nicky's forehead. “No fever. Good. You live yet.” She pursed her lips at the clear indentation of a head in the pillow beside Nicky's. “You have pajama party last night?”

Nicky grinned. “He was sprawled in the chair and groaning in his sleep. I figured his leg was giving him the devil. So I got up and led him over here and tucked him in. He never knew.”

Mary's normally placid face came alive. “He never knew?”

“That's right,” Nicky told her, smiling broadly. “He was gone when I woke up, but I'll bet he doesn't remember how he got in the bed.”

“Well, well. New weapon, hmm.” Mary grinned, too, showing even white teeth. “Poor man. Shame on you. You should not take advantage of the helpless.”

“He wasn't very helpless yesterday, was he?” Nicky asked with pride. “He carried me through a snowbank.”

“That leg is not as bad as he thinks it is,” Mary returned. “If he exercised it more and favored it less, it would heal properly. It is his hiding place, Nicky. He cannot accept being a whole man again because that would make him vulnerable to his emotions.”

“Not so anyone would notice,” Nicky sighed ruefully. “He can be pretty formidable.”

“He is still only a man.” Mary tucked Nicole back into bed. “Need medicine for your throat?”

“A lozenge would be wonderful. It's scratchy.” She paused to sneeze and grab for a tissue. “And I think I have a cold.”

“It would seem so. I will bring your breakfast. And I will bring you venison stew for lunch. That should help clear your head.”

“It may take more than venison stew to do that,” Nicky replied.

“I make it with Tabasco sauce.” Mary leaned over her. “Trust me.” And she grinned again before she went out.

To Nicky's dismay, Winthrop didn't come back all day. She expected him every time the door opened. Mary brought breakfast and then Gerald came, red-nosed and sniffling, followed by her father and even Carol, who gave her a pretty scarf to cheer her up. But no Winthrop, not even when the venison stew was served.

When Mary came back after lunch to pick up the dishes, she cocked her head at Nicky's forlorn expression.

“Something troubles you?” she asked.

“Of course not.” Nicky finished her cup of hot black coffee and set the cup on the tray Mary was holding. “I don't care if he ignores me. I'll just lie here and die.”

“He cannot get up just yet,” Mary said after a minute.

Nicky was immediately contrite and worried. “It's his leg, isn't it?”

Mary nodded. “The strain, you see. I think he may have pulled a tendon. I have made a poultice for it, which will take away the pain and make it heal. But in the meantime, he is an invalid. Mr. Mike has taken the hunting party out for him, and Miss Carol is watching…would you care to guess?”

“I thought I heard laser cannons,” Nicole replied grimly. “Does he have something for pain?” she persisted, her green eyes troubled.

“He will not take it,” Mary grumbled. “Even now, he is trying to work with a board across his lap on which to write.”

“It sounds as though he might need a little nursing,” Nicky suggested.

“You need it more. Lie down.”

“I could talk to him. It's only a cold and a reaction,” she said and then added when the other woman looked doubtful, “Oh, please, Mary. How can I lie here knowing that he's in pain?”

Mary shrugged. “Good point. All right. But put on your robe and leave door open.” Her dark eyes held Nicky's with subtle warning. “He is still a man.”

“I love him,” Nicky said simply.

“Yes, I know. That will make it harder for you. He is a man who does not trust love.” The expression on her face was serious. “He will fight being vulnerable. Now more than ever.”

“I wouldn't hurt him,” she said.

“You will have to prove that to him. And it will not be easy. But I would think less of you if you did not try,” Mary added. And she smiled as she went out.

Nicky put on her long white chenille robe and went along to Winthrop's room, a little nervous about how she'd be received.

Her nervousness was justified as it turned out, because he was moody and restless and more irritable than she'd ever seen him.

He glared at her from his bed, where he lay taut-faced with only a sheet drawn haphazardly over his lean hips for cover. His dark hair was disheveled, his face unshaven. His long, powerfully muscled legs were bare, like his tanned chest, and all of him was covered with a very masculine feathering of black hair. He looked like an outlaw in his sprawled dishabille, and Nicky wondered if any woman could see him like that and not be affected. Her heart began to run away from her the minute she knocked on the door and was invited to open it.

“What do you want?” he asked curtly, and she noticed the scattered paperwork that had apparently been cast to one side with irritation.

“I thought you might need something,” she said, hesitating.

“If I did, Mary could get it.”

“Mary's got her hands full with your hunting party.”

“They've gone out again. Carol's watching movies. Gerald's on the phone. So all Mary has to do is look after me. In any event,” he said with a mocking smile, “that's what she gets paid to do.”

“And here I am about to cause a labor dispute by offering to do it for free,” she sighed. Her throat still felt a little raw, but at least her nose had stopped running. She moved closer to the bed, eyeing him warily. “How about some fruit juice?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “How about telling me how in hell I wound up in bed with you last night?”

Her eyebrows arched. “You were in bed with me?” she asked with pretended horror. “How scandalous!”

His lips made a thin line. “Don't be cute,” he ground out. “And it wasn't scandalous. Nothing happened!”

She lifted her chin. “A likely story,” she said.

He sat up, disrupting the sheet, but her eyes stayed on his face so that she didn't see what it revealed. “Nothing happened,” he enunciated. “I don't ravish women in their sleep.”

“Ah, but you don't know what I might have done to you,” she said, lifting her eyebrows mockingly.

The glare got worse. “Cute. Real cute.”

“Anyway, you rejected me,” she reminded him. “You cut and ran before I woke up. But not,” she added with a slow smile, “in time to fool Mary, who saw the imprint of your head on the other pillow and asked how it got there.”

His eyes widened. “What did you tell her?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” she assured him. “I told her I didn't have the slightest idea how you'd gotten in my bed.”

“Oh, my God.” He put his face in his hands.

“It's all right, she understands perfectly that these things happen. She didn't say a word; she just grinned.”

“Oh, my God,” he repeated.

“And she promised she wouldn't tell anyone except family and close friends and any acquaintances that happen past the mailbox.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Now, now, you don't have to get upset, this is the twentieth century, after all—”

“This is rural Montana,” he said, half shouting. His eyes blazed at her. “You little fool! Your reputation will be in shreds!”

“People in Chicago don't notice things like that,” she reminded him. “And Gerald and I are going back next week, you know. Your reputation will have hardly a blemish. In fact, it might even make you more desirable to some of the local belles if it gets around that you're the same devil-may-care rake you used to be.”

He narrowed one eye. “How do you know what I used to be like?”

“I asked Gerald, of course. He said you used to score with every woman you dated—”

“Nicky!”

“Well, not in exactly those words, of course,” she amended at his shocked expression.

“Have you lost your sweet mind?” he demanded. “What were you trying to do?”

“Get you comfortable and warm,” she said with a smile. “You were groaning and I knew your leg was hurting you. Since you seemed determined to sit up with me, I thought you should be comfortable. So I led you into bed, and you went with me just like a lamb.”

“Which wasn't what I felt like when I woke up,” he replied curtly. “Your gown was up around your hips and half off your shoulder, and men have it rough early in the morning anyway. Oh, honey, you had a close call you didn't even know about!”

“I did?” Her eyes were wide, trusting and innocent. He sighed impatiently.

“Never mind. What did you really tell Mary?”

“The truth. She grinned and mumbled something about a new weapon.”

“It will backfire.” He bit his lip suddenly and grimaced. His hand went to his knee, where she noticed a poultice tied with white gauze.

“Will that help?” she asked.

“Mary says so. She usually knows. Even the local doctors have a measure of respect for her way with herbs. In the old days, the Indians had to have a healthy knowledge of it, since they didn't have a neighborhood clinic.”

“Mary's told me a lot about Montana and the way it used to be,” she said. “It's a fascinating country. Big and sprawling and special.”

“That's why I stay here,” he said. He leaned back against the pillows, studying her face. “I have no desire to go back to the life I used to lead.”

“Well, that's one thing we can both agree on,” she said quietly. “Neither do I.”

His chiseled lips pursed thoughtfully. “Are you really worth three million?”

She nodded. “If I sign the necessary papers. But I don't want three million dollars. If I refuse that trust, do you know what the money will be used for?”

“No.”

He seemed honestly curious, so she told him. “It will fund a research program to find new ways of treating cancer in children.”

“Three million would go a long way,” he said.

“Yes, wouldn't it?” She smiled. “And since I've gotten used to working for the Christopher Corporation, and nobody's fired me yet, I expect I can support myself without that trust.”

He stretched lazily, watching her eyes drop to his chest with the movement and follow the sensuous tautening of muscle under thick hair. He liked the way it felt to let her look at him like this.

“You're a surprising girl, Nicole,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, deep and sexy.

“Am I? I thought I was a gold digging adventuress.”

“That sounds bitter,” he mused.

She shifted from one foot to the other and stared down at the thick beige carpet. “It felt bitter, too. You never believed a word my father said, really, but it gave you the excuse you needed to draw back before things got complicated.” She looked up, catching the surprise in his dark eyes even as it registered that she'd hit on the truth.

“I told you at the beginning that I didn't want commitment,” he reminded her sulkily.

“I don't remember asking for any,” she replied.

“You said you loved me.” His dark eyes slid down her body. “Several times.”

“You'd just saved my life.” She steeled herself not to let him see how vulnerable she was. She'd thrown herself at him for the last time. He didn't want to make a life with her, and there was only one other thing he might offer. She couldn't accept that kind of relationship, so what was left?

His face didn't reveal a single emotion. “And it was only gratitude?”

“Gratitude, and a natural response to a very experienced man. Which you are,” she said, watching his eyes narrow. “I must have been a real pushover.”

“You're twisting it.” His voice was deep, but a little more curt now. “What I saw in your eyes wasn't completely physical.”

“I'm young, as you keep reminding me,” she shot back.

“Yes.” His gaze swept over her face, memorizing lines and curves and expressions. “Eleven years my junior. Almost another generation, especially in sensual ways.”

“You don't have to remind me about how experienced you are.”

“In my day, I was,” he agreed. He propped himself against the pillows, righting the sheet with a careless hand. “But in recent years, I've given up jet-setting around the world. I've changed my values, Nicole.”