SNOWFIRES (5 page)

He lay with his back to the door, cursing
fate and a certain beautiful woman. No longer did he think of hell
as a fiery place. His personal hades became the frozen plains of
Texas stranded with a woman he in turn wanted to choke or kiss
senseless while he worried himself sick over his missed
meeting.

Her lithe body slid across the sagging
mattress into him. For a moment he thought her ready to bolt from
bed and return to the frigid safety of the chair. Although he heard
her gasp as their bodies touched, he made no sound, no movement to
indicate he knew of her presence.

His every sense heightened and he gave thanks
the overly soft mattress was like a marshmallow hammock. He smelled
her hair, almost identified the shampoo she used. Her floral scent
mixed with the smells of the hay she had fed the cattle earlier. He
imagined how she would taste, visualizing her warm mouth molded
perfectly to his.

Gradually the rigidity left her body as she
loosened her grip on the edge of the mattress and relaxed against
him. Cold satin skin nestled against his heat. Try as he might, he
couldn’t rein in his lustful thoughts with her this near.

Feigning sleep, he turned and spooned himself
to her. His hand brushed against silk, lace, and her skin. He
wondered what color underwear she wore and his blood boiled.

She gasped again and reached for the edge of
the mattress. "What do you think you’re doing? I know very well
you're not asleep, Trent Macleod."

"How could I sleep with your popsicle toes
touching my legs?” That was the truth even if she weren’t the
tastiest morsel of woman he’d met in a long time. Like ever.

He figured he’d better reassure her or he’d
never get any sleep. “Look, this is a six foot bed. You may have
noticed that I’m several inches longer than the mattress. I don't
intend to have my feet dangling out in the cold. If I sleep
diagonally, that won't leave you any room. Either we sleep spooned
with your back against my chest and our knees bent, or we sleep
with my back against your, um, chest with our knees bent."

“
You’d better not try anything or I
swear I’ll make sure you sing soprano.”

"Hey, don’t blame me for the cold, the lousy
mattress, or the situation. I told you we'll be much warmer if we
share body heat, remember?"

She shivered. "That's the only reason I'm
here. I've never been so cold in my life."

"And here I thought it was because hell had
frozen over." He nuzzled her neck and pulled her close. "Right? Put
those little popsicles toes between my legs to thaw."

She nudged the tips of her feet between his
calves.

Hell, her feet
were
icicles. "You've had quite a day, Princess.
Damn, I never thought I would see you feeding cattle and
chickens."

He chuckled again, this time at the memory of
her swathed in cashmere and suede boots working in a barn. "What
kind of nut would wave a muffler at a steer to stop him? Haven't
you seen how a bull fighter riles the bull?"

She elbowed him in the ribs. "You find that
funny? All I can think of is that we almost died today. If we
hadn't found this house we would have frozen to death." She
shivered and snuggled closer into him. "We're not that far from it
now."

"Give me a little more credit than that. I
know you don't approve of my management style, but you surely don't
think I would let us freeze to death in a stranded car?"

"It's happened to people before. You hear of
it almost every winter. Years ago Grandpa’s cousin froze when his
car slid off the road on his way home from work.”

“
Did he just wait in the car or go for
help?”

“
He started walking, but froze. We’re
in ranch country and sometimes there are ten or fifteen miles
between houses out here, too far to walk for help. This is the
worst blizzard I can remember. I'm sure it's setting some sort of
record that has nothing to do with your management style. Don't
even get me started on that."

"Then how about telling me why you
deliberately sent us down the wrong road?"

He heard her quick intake of breath. He
wondered if she would refuse to answer until she exhaled slowly.
"It...it wasn't the
wrong
road. Not exactly."

He squeezed her and she elbowed him again.
Damn, if she didn't stop squirming her shapely rear end against
him, he wouldn't be able to control his reaction no matter how cold
the temperature in the room.

Another sigh reached him. Apparently
oblivious to the effect she had on him, she confessed. "Okay, so it
wasn't actually the main road you wanted, but it wasn't the wrong
road either. It goes the right direction and meets up with the
other, um, main highway and the Interstate eventually."

"Why did you do it? Do you hate me so much
you want to ruin my life?" He hated the almost pleading tone in his
voice, but had to seek the answer.

She lay very still. Even knowing of her
careless actions, he loved having his arms around her, her warm
body curled against his.

Her voice hinted at apology. "I...I didn't
mean to ruin your life. I just meant to make us a little later
getting to Dallas this evening, to worry you a little. I didn't
know we would get snowbound and stranded in the middle of nowhere."
She paused before asking, "How did you know I sent us on a
different road?"

He noted she very carefully avoided using the
word "wrong" again. "When we first got here and called the sheriff,
I realized you knew exactly where we were and that it was miles
from where we were supposed to be. I admit I wanted to choke you on
the spot."

She touched the hand that lay at her waist.
"And now, do you still want to choke me?"

"Maybe. Well, at least for a while I did.
This meeting is too important to miss. Then, the sheriff said I40
is closed from Tucumcari, New Mexico across north Texas and over
the Oklahoma line. Highway 287 is closed north from Quanah. I
realized we probably wouldn't have fared any better on the main
highway."

In fact, they might have been even worse off
on the other road if they hadn’t found shelter. At least they had
this house. Her little trick may even have saved their lives.
Didn’t change her intent, though.

He exhaled. "Get some sleep. With the snow
turned into an ice storm, we'll have a busy day here on The
Ponderosa tomorrow."

Sleep evaded Trend, but Holly snuggled her
head into the pillow at his shoulder. Soon he heard her breathing
relax into slumber. A lifetime of work hinged on the meeting he
would miss tomorrow. He prayed the bad weather extended to the
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and prevented the Amberfield Industries
group from arriving on time.

In his mind he replayed the strategies he and
Joe Bob worked out. His first call on arriving at this small ranch
house on Sunday was to his assistant in Dallas with instructions to
postpone the Monday morning meeting. He couldn’t make contact again
to see if his orders had been carried out.

Even cell phone relay towers were no match
for the battering winds of this demobilizing blizzard—especially in
this area where there were a lot of service dead zones. There was
no one left to call anyway. Either the meeting had been postponed
or it had not, and he resigned himself to the fact that he had lost
control over his fate. He suspected electrical lines would be down
before morning with the weight of ice.

Instead of being marooned on a desert isle,
he might as well be trapped on an iceberg. The beautiful woman
stranded with him hated his guts, and he was less than crazy about
her in spite of her beauty, brains and the reaction she incited
from his hormones. His all-consuming lust whenever he thought of or
saw her made this situation even less tenable.

Holly had surprised him, though. He’d
expected whining and a tantrum, at least, and fear. So far, she’d
pitched in to help without complaint. Well, until she realized the
sleeping arrangements.

He smiled as he recalled her shocked
expression when he mentioned shared body heat. At least he got a
little of his own back then. She turned toward him in her sleep,
snuggling up to him with her palms against his chest, one leg
thrown over his.

He fought the instinct to pull her even
closer and make passionate love to her. They fit so well together.
He wondered how she would be as a lover, then mentally kicked
himself for that line of thought.

Now he knew why the young Martin family had
children so close in age. On this sagging mattress, which forced
their bodies into intimate contact, a man and woman who loved one
another would be drawn naturally into frequent lovemaking. Even
with this ice princess with whom he had nothing in common, his mind
and body cried out for their coupling.

He had no idea why she so resented him. It
was more than their differences in business theory, because she had
hated him at their first meeting two months ago. He racked his
brain for a possible reason, but nothing came to him.

Maybe she just resented his buying the shares
lost through her father's gambling. Why hold him responsible for
her father’s stupidity? From all accounts, Walter Tucker was
charming and glib but an absolute loser in all the ways that
counted.

Grayson skirted the issue, but made it clear
he hadn’t approved of his late son-in-law's management of Marvel,
his ostentatious lifestyle, or his choice of Holly’s stepmother.
So, why had Grayson stayed in the background? Buying into what had
previously been solely a family-owned business left Trent an
outsider with insufficient information.

If only Walter Tucker had stopped ranting
long enough that day to listen to him...but why even go there? He
would figure it all out eventually, but so far hadn't discovered
how all the pieces fit. Trying to unravel the puzzle, Trent drifted
softly to sleep.

***

The pirate returned to Holly's dreams. They
were in the cabin of his ship, snug together in his bunk. This time
his caresses inflamed her beyond her wildest imagination. Her
fingers traced the line of the scar on his chest, her lips trailed
kisses along the jagged ridge.

His mouth scorched a path down her neck and
across her shoulders. Strong hands pushed her bra aside. Warm lips
found her breast and his tongue laved her rigid nipple. The
calluses of his fingers scintillated her skin as they moved to the
elastic of her panties. His hand slid gently inside to touch
her—

Her eyes flew open. "Hey! Stop it right now."
Holly pounded Trent on his shoulders. "Get off me."

"Ow! What? Dammitall." He rolled onto his
back and lay with an arm across his eyes and knees bent. His chest
heaved.

"You better have been asleep, mister, or you
have some explaining to do." Her heart pounded in her chest until
surely he heard it. Good heavens, she’d dreamed about him. Who had
he been dreaming of?

"Damn, Holly. Couldn't you just have tapped
me on the shoulder? Did you have to pound me awake?"

She wondered if he had started the caresses
or if she had. "I had to stop you in a hurry. You were...you were
about to...you know."

He lowered his arm and raised himself to his
elbow. "What? Have sex? Make love? Get it on? Do the nasty? Rock
and roll? Just what do the people in your set call it?"

She jerked the cover to her chin.
"My
set
? And what do you mean
by that?"

"Oh, come off it, Princess. I mean the
country club set, the
hoi
poloi
, the lucky stiffs born with silver spoons in
their mouths, the ritzy crowd you run with."

"If you'll remember,
you
are the one who bought my
father's shares of our family company. I guess that makes us in the
same
set
, as you put it."
Never in a million years, buster. They would never be compatible in
any setting other than a boardroom. Even then they totally
disagreed.

He shook his head and lay back, his words
echoing her thoughts. "Oh, no, I will never be one of your set. If
I owned a dozen companies like Marvel I would still be just the
poor schmuck who worked his way up, or the mean corporate raider
who snatched a prize away from the local good ol'e boys. I still
wouldn't belong."

Holly turned her back to him and
punched her pillow. "Oh, I think a
dozen
companies might get you in
there."

Exhaling a deep breath, he turned and spooned
himself to her once again.

She gasped as his rigid arousal touched the
cushion of her hips. “Hmph, men. Here we are freezing to death and
you’re jabbing my rear with your lodge pole.”

“
Don’t take it personally, Princess.
And thanks for the comparison.”

“
It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.
Turn over." She pushed at his shoulder. "Turn over
now
."

He rolled over, and she heard a quiet chuckle
as she folded with his body.

Okay, so being held by him brought far more
satisfaction than snuggling to his back. But she remembered the
heat of his erection against her body and the almost overpowering
desire it created in her. Not that she’d ever admit it to him, of
course, but she’d be darned if she wanted temptation prodding her
all night. Maybe this was better after all.

Her fists and elbows braced against his back
as she slid toward him. “I hate this mattress. It’s like being
trapped in a sausage casing while bouncing on a trampoline. Every
time you move you almost launch me.”

"Relax, Princess. And try to keep your elbows
out of my kidneys, okay?"

She gave a sharp nudge to his back. "Relax
yourself. Rein in those hormones and try for celibate dreams for
what’s left of tonight." Another dig with her elbow punctuated her
comment.