Rekindled (24 page)

Funny, but the possibility of their bumping into each other hadn’t entered her mind. New York was a big place, and she rarely went out. The man in the corner couldn’t be Mitch. It would be too much of a coincidence.

She refocused on her friends. Shortly before dessert was done, though, the maitre d’ materialized beside her and slipped her a folded piece of paper.

“What’s this,” Alex teased. “A secret admirer?”

Anne unfolded the paper. There, in a bold black script, was the short message. unul DECEMBER 3lst. Her eyes flew toward where the man and his date had been seated, but the table was empty now, reset with fresh linen and silver.

Biting her lip, she reread the message.

“What is it, Anne? Any problem?” Alex’s concern made her aware of the others’ attention.

Embarrassed, she refolded the paper. “It’s nothing. An old friend was in and saw us.” With a feeble smile, she tucked the note in her purse.

“Must have been some old friend,” Alex whispered. “You’re blushing.”

“I am not,” Anne replied. “It’s the wine.”

But her cheeks grew red more than once in the following days. Sometimes it was with annoyance that Mitch had embarrassed her in front of her friends, sometimes with frustration that he hadn’t approached, sometimes with anger that he hadn’t made his note more personal. One or twice, it was even with jealousy. He had been with a woman. His “other obligation”? Anne couldn’t recall anything about her, not her looks, her age, her dress, or her expression. She wished she could, but she’d had eyes only for the man who looked so much like Mitch.

Thinking about this faceless woman, she had second thoughts about returning to Vermont. If Mitch wasn’t free, what was the point? Already she thought about him far too often. Better to cut her losses and make a clean break.

But she did think about him a lot, and she needed Vermont. No matter that it would be safer spending New Year’s Eve home alone, she found herself driving to the cabin.

The landscape was snow-covered and bleak now. Ice hung in spikes from the boughs of trees and the caves of tidy farmhouses and cottages along the familiar route. Everything in sight was either gray, ash-green, or white. With the superhighway far behind, her small car slid often on patches of ice.

Anne drove as fast as she dared. The midafternoon sun cast a feeble shadow through bare trees lining the road. She was mesmerized by the grid it formed, so much so that she lost track of her speed, until the loud blast of a car horn from the village road on her right brought her back.

She recognized the light blue Honda instantly. With a smile of delight, she pulled up on the shoulder of the road. The Honda stopped just behind. When Mitch climbed out, Anne’s heart throbbed. Any doubts she’d had about coming vanished on the spot.

Smiling more widely than ever, she rolled down her window and called a breathy “Hi!” even before he reached the door.

His glower took her by surprise. “What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? You can’t speed on this road.”

“I was only going forty.”

Anger and all, he was a sight to behold. Looking her fill through dark glasses, she kept right on smiling. His hair was more blond than silver in the dull sun, making him look younger and, for a tall, hard man, oddly soft. Then she realized that despite the show of anger, he was glad to see her again.

As though he sensed she had him figured out, he blew the anger off with a misted sigh. “Look, Annie, you stay behind me for the rest of the trip. Okay?”

She humored him. “Did you get everything at the market? All the perishables? Plenty of wine?”

“Behind me!” he repeated.

“Hot chocolate? And whipped cream?”

He wiped the smile from her face with a hard, fast kiss, sucking her lips to his for just an instant before straightening. Shooting her a watch-yourself-lady look, he returned to his own car and pulled out in front. He drove at a sedate thirty miles per hour. It was deliberate, and too slow for the road. Anne smiled and simply adjusted her foot on the gas.

Shortly, they reached the cottage. When the cars were parked in a line on the snow-packed drive, Mitch carried her luggage inside. She took the attic room without a word, because it hadn’t been at all uncomfortable, warmer if anything than the larger room downstairs. And she didn’t have to listen to him over her head. It was bad knowing that he had once slept in this bed. Hearing things would have driven her imagination wild.

She was in the process of storing groceries when she felt him at the kitchen door. He looked her up and down. She still wore the gray wool pantsuit that had been warm and comfortable for driving. Bul its white cowl-neck sweater was a switch from the somber navies and blacks he’d usually seen her in. And then, her hair was loose.

“Well?” she asked, growing self-conscious when he just kept looking.

“Come here,” he said in a low, deep voice.

She didn’t hesitate. Within seconds, she was across the room and in his arms. They were warm and intimate, very dear in a way that said friend before lover.

“You looked beautiful that night in the restaurant,” he said against her hair, then drew back enough to smooth a loose strand from her cheek. “Did you enjoy yourself.?”

She looked up, leaving her hands locked behind his back. “I didn’t realize it was you until I got the note. Why didn’t you come say hello?”

“That’s off limits, isn’t it? Socializing in the real world?”

In that instant, Anne sensed she didn’t want it that way, not anymore. But she needed to get used to the thought, so she blocked out words by dropping her head to his chest. Her arms told him that she’d missed him. The speed of his heartbeat said he’d missed her, too. Okay, so they didn’t use words. That was fine for now.

Mitch shifted her to his side and, with an arm over her shoulder, led her to the living room. He drew her down beside him on the sofa, tucked her head in the crook of his arm, and stretched out his long legs. “Tell me about Christmas.”

She spoke tentatively. “It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.”

“No downs?”

“A few. Jeff and I always went from house to house on Christmas Day. It was more simple this year. Dinner with his parents.”

“Who were your friends that night?”

“At the restaurant?”

“Uh-huh.”

“People I work with.”

“Tell me about your work.” He hadn’t ever asked her that before, but his eyes said that he wanted to know. So she explained her interest in languages and described the evolution of her career. He asked thought-filled questions, clearly catching on to what she did. When she was least expecting it, he said, “That professor-what did you say his name was, Alex?-looked interested in you. Have you gone out with him?”

“I told you that I don’t date,” she chided.

“Ah,” he drawled. “That’s right. I forgot. He’s asked you out, though, hasn’t he?”

Anne saw no point in denying it. “Several times. I’m not interested in dating him, though. That dinner was a group get-together.” When she saw him relax, she made her move. “What about your date that night-excuse me, your companion?” Jealousy was a tough thing to hide.

Mitch played it up with a knowing grin. “What about her?”

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Liz.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Aren’t you glad you asked?”

“Not particularly.” She pried herself away from him and slid to the far end of the sofa. He didn’t seem bothered, simply lifted her feet to his thighs. He slide a lazy hand under the wool of her slacks to massage her calf. It felt too good for Anne to object.

“Jealous?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s good.” He was grinning more broadly than before.

Anne scowled. “You’re an arrogant brute,” she began and turned the discussion around. “So tell me what you do. You must have some line of work. Is it in the city?”

He answered her calmly and clearly. “My corporation has headquarters in the city, but we operate all over the country.”

“Your corporation?”

Strangely, where it might have been appropriate, the arrogance vanished. “I head a corporation. Does that bother you?”

With a sudden, irrational anger, she asked, “Why would it bother me?

It has nothing to do with me.”

He leaned forward and pulled her again to his side. “All I meant,” he said, teasing, “was that-well, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been told I make a good catch. Being the president of a large corporation doesn’t help to discourage overeager women.”

Anne snorted. “Any woman who’d want your strong black coffee and your long hot showers has to be crazy. As for me”-she put her nose in the air-“no amount of money can compensate for your squandering my macadamias.”

He gave her middle a playful squeeze. She was acutely aware of the arm beneath her breasts. More breathlessly, she said, “So. What does your corporation do?”

“We develop real estate, office parks, shopping centers, and so on.”

“Define ‘and so on.”’

“Oh, we have … other interests.”

“Confidential ones,” she surmised.

“For now.”

“The mystery of the year.”

He responded to that by shifting her sideways and down. He followed, holding himself on his elbows. “You talk too much.” His eyes caressed her face, but it wasn’t her face he was talking about when he said, “You not only look good, you feel good.” His body inched over hers, giving her a good feel in return.

If Anne hadn’t been breathless before, she was now. She wasn’t fighting him, because she realized that the attraction wasn’t only physical, at least on her part. It had gone beyond that.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and exerted the slightest pressure at his nape. It brought him in for a kiss that held all the passion missing from the earlier hug. She shivered when his tongue slid into her mouth and their breath mingled. With his shoulders flexing under her palms, her head began to spin. He intoxicated her. But she didn’t want him leaving her, and said so with a cry when he angled his body off, then cried out again, differently now, when his hand found her breast.

He trailed kisses from her eyes, down her cheeks to her neck, while she unbuttoned his shirt. His bare chest was an Eden of sinew and fuzz, a potent aphrodisiac. She was ready to burst when his hand left her breast and held her neck so that he could kiss her harder. She welcomed it, needed it. “Annie, Annie, Annie,” he groaned, ragged against her lips, “what am I going to do with you?”

She held his head, then dropped her fingers down his throat and, again, into the tawny hair on his chest. “Look who started it,” she whispered but she was fascinated by the bunch of muscles under her hand. She moved her palms around, then over his nipples.

He made a frustrated sound and sat up, hauling her along with him. Abruptly he released her and leaned forward. He put his elbows on his knees and his head in his palms.

Everything about him cried of sudden distress. Anne rubbed the taut muscles at the back of his neck. “What is it?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “You don’t know?” When she didn’t answer, he shrugged off her hand and pushed himself into a far corner of the sofa. “I thought I’d be able to chalk what we have here up to a vacation thing, but each time I go home, I can’t put you out of my mind. I want you, Anne. Want you bad.”

She was dizzy with pleasure. “Why does that upset you?”

He stared, then came forward. “Do you know what I’m talking about here?”

“Yes. I’m not stupid. You’re asking yourself the same questions I’ve spent hours asking myself. What am I doing here? Why did I come? What do I want to happen? Where’s my sense of propriety? The list goes on and on.” She caught a breath. “What do you want me to say? I know what you’re saying, but I don’t know what to do either!”

Mitch sighed and drew her back to his chest. “It’s gone past that, Anne. I’m asking myself whether I’m ready to see you in public, in New York, and whether you’re ready for that. I’m asking whether I’m ready for more of a commitment than just a physical one, and whether you’re ready for that.” He tipped up her face. “I want to sleep with you, Anne, but I can’t do that and then walk away when it’s done. For the first time in so long it’s not just a physical need.”

He had echoed her thoughts. Anne was more interested in him than in anyone else since Jeff’s death, but she wasn’t ready for a full-time, open relationship. There was still that loose end to tie up in court, still that emotional barrier.

He pressed her cheek to the beat of his heart. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world, Annie. You deserve the best. You need a guy’s full attention and devotion. I have too many other responsibilities right now.”

It was the right answer, still she felt discouragement and loss. She held on, and was held for long seconds. When she looked up, he brushed a tear from her cheek.

“I won’t ask much,” she whispered falteringly. “I’m not sure what I want any more than you are. The only thing I ask is that you be here for me to come to every once in a while.”

He tightened his arms around her. “I will, honey, I will.”

The New Year arrived with a surge of high spirit that neither of them, weeks before, would have imagined possible. They ate at a small inn where the restaurant was elegant, intimate, and quaint. For Anne it was like a first date. She wore her favorite navy knit, which she had packed for the occasion. Its softness offset her darkness, its gentle wrap showed curves that had begun to return. She wanted to look sophisticated, and to that end, wore makeup for the first time here.

Mitch rewarded her with a glow in his eyes. He looked gorgeous in his fine wool slacks and tailored blazer. They made a stunning duo, drawing the attention of more than one pair of curious eyes.

He avoided intimacy beyond a light hand on her waist when he escorted her to their table. Later, back at the cabin, they rang in the midnight hour with champagne toasts.

And the light-hearted tone held through the week. They took daily walks in the crisp, cold air. The woods were an enchanted place in winter, a safe harbor from winds that whipped across the meadow but couldn’t penetrate the evergreens. Bundled in woolen and down, they hiked over ponds of solid ice and followed the crusty line of the brook from mountaintop to valley. The snow squeaked under their boots, but, aside from their voices, it was the only noise in the forest.