Cara Colter Read online

  CHAPTER THREE

  MICHAEL looked at the small purple tricycle with deep satisfaction. He attached the silver and white plastic tassels to each handlebar with a flourish—the final step in assembly—and took a step back.

  “The tricycle king,” he decided out loud. It was the second bike he’d put together. The first one had ended up with the handlebars on backward, but now he was pretty sure he had it down to a system. The rest of them were going to be a piece of—

  “Pizza,” Kirsten said, and came into the main room with a flat box, nicely grease-stained and wafting incredible aroma. “Sorry it took so long. The delivery guy said the roads are bad. Hey, that’s cute.”

  He had the absurd masculine thought that maybe she was talking about his butt in blue jeans, but when he looked at her, she was regarding the trike with a look that made him feel big and confident and like he could assemble the Space Shuttle. For an understated kind of woman, he had the uneasy feeling she could make a man jump through hoops to make that admiring look appear on her face.

  He decided hunger and the aroma coming off that pizza were two forces combining to make him a little bit more vulnerable than he wanted to be. Michael had managed to live in a world where he didn’t need approval for quite some time, and he planned to keep it that way.

  “It reminds me of something a chimp would ride at the circus,” he said, and folded his arms over his chest. He wanted her to know the tough guy, not the trike king.

  “Funny, isn’t it, how we make associations? Trikes and chimpanzees. Cute.”

  That’s not what he intended! Was she deliberately misunderstanding him? He slid her a look as she balanced the pizza on her hip, and used her free hand to shove the brand-new jackets down to one end of the table. She set the pizza down in the cleared spot. He frowned.

  What was different? She wasn’t quite as understated as before, that’s what was different. She had lost the natty sweater somewhere, though he had not noticed it getting any warmer in this old drafty building. Not that he noticed things like that.

  But his antennae were up, now. Without the bulk of the sweater, it was pretty hard not to notice her figure. For a delicately built woman, she had amazing curves in all the right places. Had she wanted him to notice?

  Then he realized something else. She had put on lipstick. Not anything as bold as red—a kind of peach color, high gloss.

  Speaking of associations, when a man looked at lips like that, he thought of one thing. And it wasn’t eating pizza. His instincts had told him not to come back to this place, not to come back to her.

  Of course, a police escort had a way of making a man ignore his instincts. But what on earth had made him ask her out for dinner? Had made him steamroll right over her refusal?

  It was easy. Those tricycles had seemed like a better option than a night alone in front of his TV, and more loneliness than a man knew how to handle.

  “Take a break,” she said, and drew a pair of chairs up to the table.

  He felt a certain reluctance to join her, probably because of the lipstick and the association and his acknowledgment of his own loneliness. Why had she put on lipstick?

  For the same reason any woman put on lipstick, he deduced, and not happily. And it wasn’t because it went well with anchovies, either.

  No, it was to make a man notice her lips. And associate .

  Which he did. For a book club kind of girl, her lips were at least as surprising as her figure—her lips were plump and sensuous, lips that looked as if a man did kiss them, she’d kiss back. She took an innocent bite of her pizza, as if she was totally unaware that she had succeeded in drawing his attention to her so completely. She closed her eyes with what seemed to him to be far more pleasure than a mere piece of pizza could deserve.

  He took a gulp of his. Just as he thought, except for the anchovies, it tasted exactly like cardboard, a pizza completely unworthy of the happy little moaning sound she was making.

  That sound had definite associations, too!

  The name should have let him know he was in for a surprise or two. Not Molly or Sarah, nothing old-fashioned or sturdy about it at all. Kirsten. An uncommon name, that felt oddly familiar in his mind, as if he knew her well enough to know it suited her perfectly. He thought the name had a certain poetic quality to it, and he hated that he was even thinking about it at all. He had not spent one second contemplating Calypso’s much more exotic moniker.

  Perhaps it was just much safer to think about her name than her lips, and the delicacy of the curves pressed into a white blouse. Which brought him back to her lips. She made a happy smacking noise.

  “I think this is the best pizza in Treemont.”

  It was? He took another desperate bite of his pizza, hoping to fight off this strange weakness that was overtaking him. It was true. In a moment of clarity he realized the pizza was utterly delicious and that he could barely taste it. He looked longingly at the tricycles, glanced at her lips once more and with every ounce of strength left in him, he put the pizza down.

  The woman’s lips were an association that spelled one thing. Temptation. They made him feel hungry—and it was not a hunger a pizza could solve. They made him aware that he was lonely and empty, and they made him long to know if her taste, her touch, held salvation.

  He wondered what those surprisingly luscious lips would taste like. Ripe peaches? Honey-kissed almonds? Maple syrup and smoke?

  Anchovies, he chided himself. Still, he felt as if he touched them they would give him back something he had lost.

  Insane to believe that!

  If he kissed her on such a short acquaintance, she was the kind of girl who would probably hit him—which would be exactly what he deserved.

  He realized he’d been playing the recluse for too long if a girl like this could be making him have thoughts like these ones. Maple syrup and smoke-flavored lips. The thoughts of a man becoming eccentric in his misery. As if his torture was not already complete, Michael remembered his earlier torment, the renegade thought of her fingernails on his back.

  He looked at her hands. If he was not mistaken there was a little clear gloss on the neatly manicured nails now, too. He was certain they had been unvarnished before.

  A woman didn’t take off her sweater, polish her nails and apply lipstick just to eat pizza! Even if a kiss was out of the question, she wanted him to notice her in that way.

  “Well, I think I’ll get back at it.” He stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, ignored her look of distress. “Trikes to build, forty days until Christmas.” He had no idea how many days there were until Christmas.

  “Thirty-nine,” she corrected him automatically.

  “Ah, even less time than I thought.” He took a step away from her.

  “Don’t you like the pizza?” she asked, worried.

  She’d admired his trike assembly, now she was worried that he wasn’t getting enough to eat. Nobody had acted like that since his mom. Until this evening, he had been blissfully unaware that he missed being admired. He missed being worried about. He did not want to think of all the things a woman like her could make him so achingly aware he missed.

  Despite the lipstick, that’s the kind of girl she was: apple pie and ice cream, loved-little-kids-and-kittens, bring-her-home-to-meet-Mom. Except he no longer had a mom for her to meet. He felt that barbed sting: one of the ways he had disappointed his mother. He had never brought home a girl for her to meet. He felt a need, growing more desperate by the second, to disentangle himself from this situation that was causing these uncomfortable, wayward, painful thoughts. But it was going to be harder than he thought.

  Kirsten’s eyes were very wide on his face, and he had an ugly feeling she was also the kind of girl who would take it personally if he didn’t like the pizza.

  So he grabbed the whole piece and shoved it in his mouth, chomped, gulped, nearly choked and chomped some more.

  She was looking slightly distressed over his barbarism, which he tried to convinc
e himself was a good thing.

  “I love the pizza,” he managed to mumble, finally, when he’d managed to swallow it without strangling. But he knew a greater truth. He loved her lips. And she’d known he would! Lipstick. He was finishing the tricycles and then he wasn’t coming back here, not for nothing.

  With just the slightest effort, mousy Kirsten Morrison was making him weak. He needed so damn badly to be strong. How was he going to get through this season if he was not strong?

  And wasn’t strength to be untouchable? And didn’t being untouchable mean to live in a haze where a man didn’t notice lips? And worried looks? And cast-off sweaters?

  “I’m not available,” he said after he’d managed to swallow. “You should know that about me.”

  “Excuse me?” There was a slightly strangled note to her voice, too, but he soldiered on.

  “I just thought you should know.”

  “Available for what?” she asked, a trifle shrilly.

  “You know.”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Brewster. Maybe you could spell it out for me.”

  Mr. Brewster, that was good, a nice step backward from freshly applied lipstick. So, he continued to dig himself in.

  “Well, earlier when I suggested dinner, you jumped to the date conclusion, and that’s what I’m not available for.” There! It didn’t get any clearer than that.

  “Maybe a man who is not available shouldn’t be inviting a woman out for dinner, not that I want to give the impression I care. You might remember I said no. Emphatically.”

  What was the point of pussyfooting around with a woman who tossed out a word like emphatically with such ease? This would be a lot easier if she never knew the power her lips held over him, if she just thought he was an arrogant ass, which of course he knew damn well he could be!

  “Well, you did say no,” he conceded uncomfortably, “but then you put on lipstick.” He decided, given the fact the light in her eyes was becoming quite dangerous, it might be wiser to not mention he had noticed the disappearance of her sweater, or the nail polish.

  “You thought I put on lipstick for you? ” She got up so fast her chair fell over. Her hands balled and unballed. He could see the nail polish had looked clear but it really had a hint of pink in it. She had an unfortunate splash of tomato sauce on her blouse that he was pretty sure he was responsible for.

  He realized she was surprising him again. He had thought she would blush and retreat when confronted about the lipstick. He had thought she would take his rejection like a little mouse, but he was looking at a tiger. A very angry tiger!

  Unfortunately it just made him want to kiss her more than ever.

  “Of all the gall,” she spat out. “That is the most unbelievably arrogant thing I’ve ever heard!”

  He thought maybe he was going to end up with a little tomato sauce on his shirt, too. Was she actually reaching for a slice of pizza? Did she think it would hurt if she threw it at him? No, she wouldn’t be the kind of girl who was into hurting. Making a point would be more her style, though he doubted if she had ever made a point with pizza before. Now would be the wrong time to laugh. He knew that. This had all the makings of a crucial moment, one of those turning point places that had to be handled with care and sensitivity.

  A caring and sensitive man, or even a man with more selfprotective instincts would now apologize for his error—for the unbelievable ego it took to believe that makeup had been applied for his benefit—and back away from her.

  But Michael had used up every ounce of his self-preservation months ago in the icy waters of the sea off the unforgiving coast of Alaska, and he never would have won points for sensitivity. He was aware he actually wanted to see just how surprising Kirsten could be, if she had what it took to throw the pizza at him.

  “So, you put on lipstick to eat pizza?” he asked skeptically.

  She went very still. He knew, instantly, he had not goaded her, as was his intention. He had hurt her. Kirsten did not pick up the pizza, and he knew darn well his callousness deserved the whole box dumped on his head. Instead, the anger drained from her face.

  Her beguiling lip trembled, and she blinked hard.

  He realized he didn’t know what he was going to do if she started crying. He had wanted her to think he was an arrogant ass, not that she was defective. This was precisely why men like him did not end up with women like her. Kirsten was too sensitive. Giving in to the desire to taste her lips, ever, would be a disaster, tantamount to posting banns at the church.

  “I didn’t put it on for you,” she said. “Ridiculous.” Sniffle. “Anyone looking at me could tell a man like you would never think I was attractive no matter how much lipstick I slathered on.”

  This was going right off in the ditch. But if he told her, now, she was attractive it was going to sound insincere as if he was desperately backpedaling because of the tears. He chose a safer route. “Uh, it didn’t exactly look like you slathered it on.”

  A tear squeezed out her eye and trickled sadly down her cheek. She scrubbed furiously at it.

  He continued in a rush: “It didn’t look slathered. Not at all.” Tears stopped a man’s brain dead, so he was pleased with the reassurance he came up with. “Dabbed!”

  She did not appear reassured. “Your girlfriend probably models part-time for men’s magazines, or at least for underwear ads,” she said, and then made the whole miserable situation even worse by blushing and crying at the same time.

  God, that girl had a blush that put Rudolph’s nose to shame. Who blushed anymore?

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said, and then regretted it, for a little dishonesty would have been an easy out of this mess. A girlfriend. He could have gone back to building trikes—which he was finding surprisingly agreeable—without the complication of Kirsten painting her lips or moaning over her pizza.

  “So,” she said, backing away from him, her hand over her heart as if she had to protect it from him. “It really isn’t about whether you’re available or not. It’s about whether or not you’re available to a girl like me.”

  “No!”

  “Pathetic book-clubber putting on her lipstick for the guy in the leather jacket and sports car with the green to-die-for eyes. The guy nice enough to buy fifty coats for needy children.”

  To-die-for eyes? His? She had to be kidding, though even he knew now wouldn’t be the best time to press her on that.

  “Kirsten,” he said firmly, “You are not pathetic. Are you crazy?”

  She nodded glumly. “Crazy and pathetic.”

  He said a swear word he was pretty sure they did not use at the Secret Santa Society or the book club. He took a step toward her, and she turned and bolted.

  He reacted out of pure instinct. He went after her, took her shoulder, spun her around.

  She looked like a kitten, hissing, getting ready to scratch. She jerked out from under his touch, but not before he had felt the suppleness of her skin, the richness of it, the softness of it.

  He dropped his hand to his side and said evenly, straight from his heart, “Kirsten, it’s got nothing to do with you. It’s all about me.”

  “Why do I feel as if that’s the story of your life,” she said, and the haughtiness of her tone did not hide how much he had managed to hurt her. By noticing the damned lipstick, by being stupid enough to mention it.

  See? He was out of practice at life, at social interactions. He had been breathing, surviving, nothing more. His pain was so great, it oozed out of him, and touched others, even when he didn’t want it to.

  But that did not give him the right to inflict pain, no matter how unintentionally, no matter how much they threatened the walls he had built around himself with their damned lipstickpainted lips!

  Mr. Theodore was going to be so disappointed in him. He’d sent him here to help, and instead he was causing pain to someone who did not deserve it.

  “Kirsten,” he said, and something about the way he said her name stilled her, a
nd him, too. His most hidden self was about to speak. He knew what was coming next, and he wished he could stop it, but he couldn’t. From a long way away he heard his voice say, “I was in a terrible accident. That’s why I’m not available.”

  “An accident?” she echoed.

  Shut up, he ordered himself. He didn’t tell anyone about that accident. Not anyone. He could not stand their pity, their platitudes. He could not stand it.

  “I lost my whole world.” Shut up! “My mother, my father, my brother. I have nothing to give anyone except pain, just like I gave you pain tonight.”

  Shut up. Please, please shut up. But his voice was going on and on, as if it had waited for this moment, like water waiting to burst out of a dam. “It’s my first Christmas without my family. I don’t know how I’ll get through it.”