CHAPTER FOUR
“ANGIE!”
Angela rolled over to find Kayla standing at the side of her bed. “What?” She squinted in the light streaming through the sheers at the hotel window. They’d chosen the Gold Hill Hotel because Angela remembered it so nostalgically from when she’d lived in Virginia City before. “What time is it?”
“It’s only eight. But I just talked to Matt. He’s off work on Mondays, and he says we want to get an early start.”
“Do we have plans with Matt?” she asked, confused. The last thing she recalled was the charming way he’d walked them to their car after the dinner party was over. She’d been terrified he was going to ask her out. Kayla’s story had really affected him, and she’d felt his eyes on her all night, had felt him shift closer to her while they’d been watching the movie after dinner. But at the car, he’d kept his hands in his pockets and had merely told them to get a good night’s sleep, then had waved as they’d driven off.
She’d thought that would be the end of it, at least for a few days. They’d had an enjoyable night, established a friendship. And now she had a lot to think about. Matt wasn’t married, and as far as she could tell, he wasn’t involved in a serious relationship. He had a steady job, family in the area, a solid reputation—what appeared from every angle to be a very normal life.
Which made telling him about Kayla a real possibility.
But Angela wasn’t sure he’d thank her for the news. His jaw tightened anytime Stephanie was even mentioned. What if he grew angry at the deception and rejected Kayla? Angela couldn’t subject Kayla to any more hurt. And Angela was equally afraid of the opposite possibility—what if he decided to take his daughter away from her?
“He wants to know if we’d like to ride the train,” Kayla said. “And afterward, he said we could help him pick out his Christmas tree.”
Kayla sounded thrilled. She and Matt had gotten along famously last night. He’d taught her how to play chess while Angela had helped Peggy clean up and had even given her advice about boys. How could Angela say no?
She wouldn’t. She’d go and make sure he was everything he seemed to be, and then she’d figure out whether or not to tell him.
* * *
THE TRAIN RIDE HAD been fun, but short. It was a narrated thirty-five-minute ride through the heart of the Comstock mining region, after which they went to pick out Matt’s tree. Angela liked tramping through the snow; it was cold, and she was getting wet, but she felt so alive. She tried to convince herself that the flutter of excitement in her stomach was the result of returning home. But she knew it wasn’t just Virginia City. Every time she looked at Matt, she felt a sudden warmth.
How long had it been since she’d kissed a man? she wondered as he tied the tree on top of his truck.
Since before Betty’s death. Angela hadn’t dated in more than a year.
She missed the male-female contact. She also missed the experience of feeling desirable and desiring someone else.
“Are you staring at his butt?” Kayla murmured, her voice scandalized.
Angela hadn’t realized that Kayla was watching her. She considered pretending otherwise, but she could tell by the knowing gleam in Kayla’s eyes that the girl wouldn’t believe it. Regardless of any embarrassment, she decided it was better to acknowledge the truth. “I’ve never seen a pair of jeans fit quite so well,” she said, using her mitten-covered hand to shield her mouth so Matt wouldn’t hear her.
Kayla giggled. “You should go out with him.”
“No, we leave in two weeks.”
“Why not have some fun while we’re here?”
“We are having fun—”
“Hey, what are you two talking about?” Finished, Matt faced them with one eyebrow cocked.
It probably wasn’t too difficult to tell they’d been talking about him. But Angela refused to admit it. “What we want for Christmas?” she said as innocently as possible.
He wiped his sleeve across his forehead as if he’d worked up quite a sweat. She and Kayla hadn’t been much help. They’d chosen the biggest blue spruce they could find and left him to it.
Angela figured firemen liked doing tough stuff. She’d definitely enjoyed seeing him wrestle that tree into submission.
“And what do you want?” he asked doubtfully.
Angela shook her head. It was the first time she’d thought about sex in ages, but now that the idea had crossed her mind, she couldn’t seem to forget it.
“I’m waiting,” he reminded her.
“Um…a purse?”
He scooped up a loosely packed snowball and hit her with it. “Come on, you just made that up.”
She scooped up a snowball of her own. “Are you calling me a liar?”
He grinned as if unconcerned about the threat. “I guess I am.”
She launched her snowball, but he dodged it easily and hit her with another one. “Are you going to tell me what you were saying to Kayla?”
“No.”
“I’m pretty sure I can get you to change your mind,” he warned.
“You couldn’t torture it out of me,” she said and laughed when Kayla managed to hit him while he was distracted.
“That’s it,” he said and then snowballs began to fly from all three of them. Angela could hear Kayla laughing as she held her own in the battle, and quickly created a small arsenal of snowballs behind a fallen tree. Then, when Kayla drew Matt’s fire, Angela took careful aim and bam!
He’d taken off his parka while cutting the tree, so when her snowball smacked him in the back of the head, it showered snow down the neck of his thermal T-shirt.
It was more of a direct hit than she’d intended. As he turned toward her, the look on his face told her she was in trouble.
With a frightened squeal, she began running as fast as she could in the knee-deep snow, but it wasn’t thirty seconds before he tackled her.
“Tell me you’re sorry,” he said.
“She thinks you’re handsome! She said she likes your butt!” Kayla called and seized the opportunity to save herself by scampering into the truck. Angela heard the click of the locks only seconds after Matt brought her to the ground.
“Thanks a lot, Kayla,” she muttered.
He grinned, obviously pleased that Kayla had just handed him total victory, but he didn’t let that distract him from his punishment. “Say ‘Chief Jackson, I’m terribly sorry to have caused you any discomfort.’”
“No way! You started it!”
“Fine. Then I’m going to finish it.” He shoved snow down her jacket, laughing as she bucked and writhed beneath him. But she wasn’t feeling nearly as cold as she should’ve been. And it wasn’t long before she could tell that her movements were arousing him, too.
She stopped struggling, but he didn’t get up. He smoothed the snow and disheveled hair from her face. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” he said passionately.
The fact that she could feel the physical proof of his appreciation didn’t seem to bother him. He kept his body snugly against hers, putting pressure on a very sensitive spot—so sensitive that she wished he’d push a little harder.
Her chest rose and fell while she tried to catch her breath. “You never even looked at me when we were younger.”
But he hadn’t looked at anybody, had he? Except Danielle.
He didn’t mention his old girlfriend. “I didn’t know what I was missing.”
“What do you want for Christmas?” she asked. She was grasping for anything to change the subject, to lessen the tension.
His gaze lowered to her lips, and his voice grew slightly rough. “To catch you under the mistletoe.”
* * *
MATT HELD HIS WINEGLASS loosely in his hands as he lay on the rug, staring at the lights on the tree they’d just decorated. Kayla had done most of the work, but now she was in the other room watching a Christmas program on television. Angela sat a few feet away, petting Sampson, Matt’s German shepherd.
As her hand moved over the dog’s fur, Matt was dying to scoot closer to her—if only to thread his fingers through hers. But after their encounter in the snow, she’d been acting spooked. Whenever he sat near, she backed away. And yet she’d been responsive when he tackled her. The flush in her cheeks had come from more than just physical exertion. He could tell by her eyes.
Maybe she needed more time before she’d consider a romantic relationship. She’d be going back to Denver soon, and long-distance relationships weren’t easy, but he couldn’t help wanting to get to know her better in spite of that. He felt a sort of…excitement he hadn’t experienced in years. He hoped she’d stay, hoped they could explore the possibilities. If nothing else, they should make the most of the time she had left.
“What happened to your parents?” he asked.
She’d been sitting with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, leaning back on her hands to admire the tree. But at his question, she changed position so she could reclaim her wine. “My father died when I was two. My mother died when I was ten.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “How’d it happen?”
“My parents were older when they had me. They’d been told that my father was infertile. And then, at forty-eight, my mother suddenly conceived.”
“They must’ve been thrilled.”
Sampson sat up and barked, but when she scratched him behind the ears, he laid his head in her lap. Matt had never seen the dog take to anyone so readily.
“I suppose, in some ways, they were,” she said. “But the fact that it was a little late in life probably tempered their happiness, you know? And two years later, my dad died of cancer. Pneumonia took my mom eight years after that.”
“Is it hard to talk about them?” he asked softly.
“No, it’s…okay.”
He didn’t want to bring up any subject that might be painful for her, and yet he wanted to hear the details of her life. “Wasn’t there anyone else in your family who could take care of you?”
“No. My parents’ brothers and sisters were even older than they were and had finished raising their families. One lived in Belgium. Another was a widow. She tried to take me, but then she fell and broke her hip.”
She’d indicated it didn’t bother her to talk about her past, but she’d tensed up. He could see it in the way she held her body.
Despite his determination to give her more time, Matt moved toward her.
She watched him warily. But when she finally met his eyes, he saw that she wasn’t unaffected by the chemistry between them. He couldn’t tell what was holding her back, but he knew it wasn’t a lack of interest.
Taking her hand, he began stroking her slim fingers. “So you went to live with Betty.”
She stared at the places where he touched her, as if mesmerized by his movements. “She was my aunt’s husband’s second cousin,” she said slowly. “When she heard Aunt Rosemary was going to have to put me up for adoption, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to find a good home for a ten-year-old, that I’d probably be bounced around in the foster system until I turned eighteen.”
“So she decided to take you in.”
“Yes.” She shivered as his fingers moved up the inside of her arm. Liking the reaction, he immediately imagined her in his bed, and wanted more. But she was still sending him inconsistent signals. Her body responded eagerly, yet she seemed reluctant.
“Do you like this?” he asked.
She nodded.
“What about this?” Lifting her hand, he caressed the sensitive tips of her fingers with his tongue. Then, one by one, he took each finger into his mouth, gently sucking on it.
She didn’t answer. But he heard her quiet gasp. She was breathing faster, too. He was willing to bet her heart was pounding right along with his.
Leaning closer, he brushed his mouth lightly across hers.
Good. Better than good. He was just going back for another pass, hoping to claim one deep, wet kiss. Her daughter was in the other room. He didn’t want to make Angela uncomfortable; he only wanted to show her what could happen if she gave in to what she was feeling.
But she pulled away before he could show her much of anything.
Matt frowned. “You’re not interested?” he murmured in confusion. Surely he couldn’t be that bad at reading her responses. He’d never misjudged a woman’s receptivity before.
“It’s getting late,” she said. “We—we’d better go.”
She tried to get up, but he held her fast. “Why are you running from me?”
“I’m not running from you.”
“What are you afraid of? Why won’t you give me the chance to really know you?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“I want to spend some time with you, Angela. I want to be with you,” he said. “And I want to touch you.”
“I—” She seemed at a loss. “Matt, listen. This…isn’t right.”
He scowled. “Are you married?”
“I already told you I’m not.”
“Are you committed?”
She tucked her silky hair behind one ear. “No.”
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t even live here,” she said.
“That’s the reason?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
“No. Not if you’re feeling what I’m feeling. We have two weeks. Who knows where it could go beyond that? We wouldn’t be the first people to try and manage a long-distance relationship.”
“I’m not feeling anything,” she said quickly. “I—I have too much going on in my life. I can’t get involved right now.”
She was lying about what she felt. The excuse of a busy life sounded flimsy, too.
He opened his mouth to argue. But then he stopped himself. He’d be stupid to press her. She was in full retreat. Pushing harder would make her run that much faster.
They sat still for several seconds, staring up at the tree. “Okay,” he said at last.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Will you do me one favor?”
Her gaze moved over him, as if she were committing every detail to memory. “If I can.”
“Tell me what happened that night. With Stephanie.”
“It’s over, in the past—”
“I want to know,” he said stubbornly.
She pulled her legs in close and propped her chin on her knees. “Stephanie was always so…impetuous,” she said reluctantly.
“Impetuous?” he echoed. “She was the most sexually aggressive girl I’ve ever met!”
“She had a terrible crush on you.”
“Calling it a crush makes it sound normal,” he muttered. “It was more like an obsession.”
“I know. I tried to get her to leave you alone. So did her mother. She wouldn’t listen. She never listened—to anyone.”
The bits and pieces he could recall began to filter through his mind. “I remember seeing her at the party when I arrived,” he said. “You were there, too. She asked me to dance, followed me around. The typical stuff. I was annoyed, but not too worried, you know?”
“Yes.”
“It was Danielle’s mother’s birthday,” he explained. “She’d gone out to dinner with her parents and was supposed to meet me later. I can still hear the music, see the people. Someone offered me a beer, but I knew I’d be driving her home that night and said no.”
“Is that all you remember?” she prompted when he stopped.
“No. I remember the way Stephanie was touching me, my eagerness to let her. What doesn’t make sense is why I did what I did. Things got out of control, and I didn’t seem to care. Then, in the middle of everything, I’m lying naked on the bed, and Danielle’s staring down at me, screaming and crying. Stephanie’s there, too, holding the sheets to her bare chest and smiling smugly, as if she’d wanted us to be caught.”
“I’m sure she did. That would’ve suited her purpose.”
How manipulative was that? He shook his head in disgust. “She told Danielle I’d just made love to her, when, regardless of what happened, there was no love involved, and she knew it.” He winced at the memory of Danielle vomiting afterward.
“Anyway, I couldn’t deny it,” he went on, embarrassed all over again. “I really had…you know. But, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I didn’t stop. I would never have hurt Danielle that way. I’d had plenty of opportunities to be with Stephanie, if that was what I wanted.”
“Did you eat any brownies?”
“Is that where it was?” he asked.
Angela nodded.
“What was it, exactly?”
“Betty’s sleeping pills.”
“Sleeping pills?”
“They were strong. Because of her aches and pains, the doctor prescribed some sedatives. Stephanie simply stole a few from the medicine cabinet and mixed them in when she frosted a couple of the brownies she brought to the party.”
“The ones she made for me.”
“Yes.”
He considered Angela for several long moments. He was relieved to finally have his suspicions confirmed, to know he really wasn’t the callous jerk everyone had thought he was.
But that raised another question, one that seemed far more important now than it ever had before. “Did you know what she was planning before you went to the party? Did you help her?”
“No. I only knew that she had hopes of getting with you. She said you’d ‘be hers’ by morning. But she always talked like that. I didn’t realize, until she admitted it the next day, that she’d drugged you.”
He sighed. “I’m just glad she didn’t get pregnant. Can you imagine? It would’ve ruined my life.”
She said nothing.
“Angela?”
“That would have been terrible,” she said quietly.
He chuckled without mirth. “I don’t know many guys who’ve had to worry about being seduced against their will, especially at sixteen. Do you?”
“Stephanie was determined. When she wanted something, she stopped at nothing to have it.”
He studied her carefully, wondering why she was keeping him at arm’s length. “What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“What do you do when you want something?”
She gazed up at the tree. “I try to think about how it’ll affect others.”
He knew her answer was significant. He just didn’t know in what way.