She jerked her hand away. "What are you doing here?"
"I knew the welcome wouldn't last long." His voice was filled with the same bitter, insolent arrogance she remembered. "I was coming to see you. It's colder than hell. Can we get in your truck?"
Noreen stumbled backward, away from him, her white poncho billowing in the crisp, cold air, and when he tried to follow her, he staggered.
She moved toward him, not wanting to touch him, knowing she had to. Wordlessly she gave him her hand and he clasped it tightly. Although his fingers were icy, her flesh burned from his touch. She began to tremble. He put his arm around her and leaned on her heavily as she helped him pull himself out of the ditch.
He was so weak she had to open the truck door for him. Her groping hand found Darius's cow costume and tossed it behind the seat. Grant heaved himself inside and collapsed.
When Noreen climbed behind the wheel, she was instantly aware of how big and male and virile Grant was beside her. As always he was wearing a flawlessly cut three-piece suit. His lawyer uniform, he'd once jokingly told her. The cuffs of the pants were as muddy as the hem of her white skirt.
"Why did you want to see me?" she whispered, her breathing as rapid and uneven as his.
His mouth curled contemptuously. "It was crazy, I know. But then, our relationship always was a little crazy."
The conventional Hales had thought her too uninhibited.
"More than a little."
His fathomless eyes were boring holes into her. "Yeah. More than a little."
"You should have stayed away."
"Maybe you're right," he muttered thickly. "I tried to talk myself out of coming a dozen times." But he reached for her hand, and with the last reserves of his strength, he pulled her hard against him. As his muscular body pressed into hers, she began to tremble all over again.
Anger flared in his eyes. "But then maybe you're wrong."
"Grant, please, let me go," she begged in a small voice. "It's been five years. We're strangers now."
"Whose fault is that? You ran away."
That old familiar undercurrent of electricity was flowing between them, even more strongly than ever before.
"Because I had to," she said desperately.
She felt the heat of his gaze on her mouth, and the emotion in his eyes was as hot as the night was cold. With a light finger he gently touched her red lips, traced the lush, full curve of them.
Her own eyes traveled languorously to his hard handsome face, and she felt the old forbidden hunger for his strength, for his wildness, for the feel of his powerful body on hers.
A long tremulous silence hung between them.
"It's wrong, Grant." She gasped out the first coherent words that came to mind. "So wrong."
"Maybe so, but whatever it is, it's lasted five hellish years."
"You should be out with one of your beautiful women."
"Yeah, I probably should be."
He let go of her, and she jumped free.
He fell weakly back against his seat as she started the truck.
Grant lay woozily with his head against the cold glass. No telling what he'd done to his Cadillac. No telling when he'd get to Houston to check on his apartment projects, but at the moment, he didn't much care. His right knee throbbed, and so did his chest where he'd banged it hard into the steering wheel. Every bump in the road made the pain worse, but he said nothing. He was too aware of this woman, too aware of how she still stirred him.
Tonight when he'd stepped free of his car, she'd seemed like an angel, a Christmas angel, in her white swirling clothes and gypsylike looped earrings. Funny, because he'd never really cared much for Christmas. As a child he'd thought it the loneliest season of the year. His wealthy mother had been too busy socializing to pay much attention to him or Larry, and Grant had never known his real father or even his real father's name.
The truck skidded, and Grant watched Noreen struggle with the wheel to maintain control. She was such a fragile, delicate thing. She was the kind of woman that made a man feel protective. He didn't like the idea of her driving this lonely road at night.
The fragile scent of her perfume enveloped him, tantalized him. She was as sweet as roses. And as prickly, too.
Five years. To remember. To want. To do without. And he wasn't a man used to doing without. At least not where women were concerned.
She'd thrown that up at him once.
You only want me because I belong to your brother.
Well, she'd been wrong. Larry had been dead five years, and here was Grant. He was such a fool for her, he'd come the minute he'd found out where she was.
Why? None wasn't the traffic-stopping kind of glamorous beauty Grant usually dated. But she was lovely in her own way. It wasn't her black hair, her red lips, her breasts, not her slim body-none of the things he had wanted from other women. It was her, her personality, something inside her that captivated him. Something that was quiet and powerful and completely honest.
He loved the way she liked to read quietly. The way there was always an aura of contentment around her. The way she was so gentle with children. The way she'd almost tamed Larry. Even the bright, offbeat styles she dressed in appealed to him. None didn't try to pretend to be something she wasn't.
Grant had gotten off to a bad start with her. He hadn't met her until Larry had written to their mother that he was seriously interested in her. Georgia had become hysterical. "This girl's different, Grant! Smarter! Larry's going to marry her if you don't drive up and stop him!"
"Maybe she's okay."
"No, she's a gold digger like all the others who've tried to trap him before."
It had never occurred to either Grant or his mother that Larry might be trying to stir her up and get some maternal attention.
Bad start. That was the understatement of the year. That first night in Austin had been a disaster.
Just like tonight, Grant thought coldly, suddenly furious with himself for coming. Why the hell had he bothered? She was as unfriendly as ever. He'd driven all this way, wrecked his car, and she'd hardly had a single kind thought.
"So, how long are you here for?" she asked.
"That depends on you," he replied grimly.
"There's no motel in town, and I don't feel like driving twenty-five miles to get you a room and then back again. It's nearly Christmas, but I-I can't very well put you in the stable."
He knew she didn't want him anywhere near her. But the mere thought of sleeping in the same house with her made him shiver with agonizing need.
"Cold?" she whispered.
"Thanks for the invitation," he muttered, getting a grip on himself.
She started nervously twisting knobs on the dashboard, adjusting the heater. "We'll call the wrecker in the morning."
A gust of hot air rushed across his face. His hand covered hers on the knob, and he felt her pulse quicken. "Hey, there's no reason to be so flustered. Honey, it's just one night."
She pulled her hand away and let him fix the heater.
"Right. It's just one night," she murmured, with an air of false bravado.
"I hope I'm not putting you out," he said softly. Without touching her again, he swept his gaze over her body.
The silence in the cab was breathlessly still.
"Oh, I have a spare bedroom."
"Then you live alone?"
There was another long moment's silence, and he wondered if there was a new man in her life. He thought she blushed.
"Y-yes."
She was lying. He felt it. "What a shame," he murmured, pretending to believe her.
But she didn't hear him. She was leaning on the steering wheel, turning the truck, braking in front of a locked gate.
She got out and unlocked it. The least he could do was slide across the seat and drive the truck through.
So he did. She relocked the gate and climbed back inside.