Again, he saved her the trouble.
“It won’t last. He just latched onto me because you were sick. Once the storm has let up, I’ll make myself scarce until you’re well enough to go.”
But she was watching him as he said it, and despite his words, she could see a shadow cross his face.
For a moment, she thought she saw hunger in those dark eyes.
The hunger of a man too long alone.
She’d never met a man more solitary in her life. But hearing the fondness in his voice when he spoke of his grandfather…seeing his eyes when he spoke of her son…Perrie had to wonder, yet again, what had made this man close himself off from love.
She felt an urge to comfort him, to bring him closer to the fire, like a dark wolf who roamed the perimeter of a campsite, starving to death.
But that was foolish in the extreme. He wouldn’t thank her for her sympathy, she knew instinctively. He was a grown man, a strong man who had made it through life without her help. Davey must be her only concern.
So she merely nodded at him and closed off the part of her heart open to his pain.
“Thank you.” And I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say.
Mitch lay in his bed and listened to her moving around the cabin, wishing she’d just go to bed and let him be. Quit playing with his mind.
But his mind didn’t want to quit playing with her.
She wasn’t the china doll he’d first thought. Oh, she looked like one, all right, all big blue eyes, creamy skin and rosy lips. And that hair. His fingers still itched to tangle themselves in it, to stroke from scalp to tips, letting the waves shift against his skin like ribbons of silk. The one sight he’d had of it unbound made him understand why the sight used to be reserved for a woman’s husband. He understood why hair was called a woman’s crowning glory.
He wanted to free it from its braid, separate the heavy skeins with his fingers. Feel it brush over his body with languid, drifting strokes. For a bittersweet moment, he wished that she was someone else—and that he was. That they could meet as strangers. Nothing between them but the night and the wanting.
He turned over with a groan, his body hard and aching.
Damn this storm.
He punched the pillow again and shifted against the sheets. Squeezing his eyes shut, he searched for sleep. But sleep taunted him like a scornful lover.
Who was Perrie Matheson, really? Was she the callous socialite who hadn’t cared enough to come when her only blood needed her? Mitch wasn’t sure what a socialite should look like, but Perrie didn’t fit any description he could imagine. Her car was several years old and nondescript. Her slender fingers sported no jewels, her nails short and unpainted. The only clothes she’d worn so far had seen better days.
And she was stronger than she looked. Still physically weak from her illness, she’d put in a full day’s labor, anyway. Hadn’t considered herself too good to wash his socks. Had cooked a damn good meal on a cantankerous stove.
There was more to her than one would think, just looking at her small frame. But she was lying to him, he knew it. Why? With every day that passed, Mitch found himself more curious, yet as someone with plenty of his own to hide, he’d made it a religion not to pry into the lives of others.
Live and let live had been his motto. Don’t get involved. Pack light and move fast.
And silence is golden.
She had a right to her secrets. And he didn’t need the hassles. A few more days, that’s all he had to survive.
A few more days of watching her…and wondering.
Of wanting to touch.
Of seeing the world through Davey’s eyes, feeling the magic of the boy’s innocent wonder.
Of looking at a mirage that mocked a longing he’d thought long ago drained from his very bones. The way the woman and the boy had moved into a stark cabin—
And made it feel treacherously like what he remembered of home.
Mitch bolted up in the bed and scrabbled for a match in the moonlight. He lit the kerosene lamp and reached for a book—any book—to make the hours pass until dawn.
In the faint morning light, Perrie worked as silently as possible to build up the fire. She should have left the bedroom door open last night to draw in some of the heat, but she’d wanted distance. Waking up to a frigid room had been a real jolt to the system. She’d covered Davey with her own blankets and left the door open.
Mitch’s was closed, too. It was the first time she’d ever awakened before him. She thought about opening his door at least a crack but reminded herself that he was a grown man—and a very private one, at that.
In a few minutes more, she had the coffeepot bubbling on top of the stove, and she was able to remove some of the clothing she’d worn for her trip outside.