“It's nothing personal,” he said. “It's just …”
“None of that really matters, does it? You agreed to the terms of the will and—” The toe of her boot caught under a root and she would have gone sprawling if Nathan hadn't steadied her again.
“You're dangerous,” he snapped. “Why don't you pay more attention to where you're walking?”
“Hey, I have you here to catch me.”
“Don't count on that.”
“I am, though,” Keira said, blocking his way by stepping in front of him before she stopped dead. “We're all counting on you. You and your friends.”
The wind sliced in off the lake and cut at them like a knife straight out of a freezer. Keira's hair swept across her eyes and she plucked it free so she could look at Nathan.
He didn't look happy, but what was new about that? His gaze was locked with hers and his mouth was tightened into a grim slash that told her exactly what he was thinking.
“I know you don't want to hear it,” Keira said and reached out to put both hands on his forearms. And even through the icy brown leather jacket, she felt the strength of him, tightly leashed. “But it's true. I can't even tell you how important it is to all of us that you stay for the month.”
“Keira—”
“I know, I know,” she said, lifting both hands in a mock surrender. “You don't want to hear about this anymore.”
“The night of the town party,” he admitted quietly, “I had every intention of calling my pilot and flying out of here.”
“But you didn't,” she said lightly, despite the quick tightening around her insides.
“That doesn't mean I won't,” he pointed out. “I don't want you—or anyone—counting on me. For anything.”
“That's a hard way to live,” she said.
“It's my way.”
“It doesn't have to be,” Keira said, her voice a whisper that was nearly lost in the swirl of the wind. Why was she doing this? Why did she care how Nathan Barrister lived his life?
He laughed shortly, and the sound was so surprising that Keira blinked at him.
“I like my life just the way it is,” he said. “I'm not interested in changing it.”
“Just like you're not interested in a one-month affair.”
His jaw clenched.
Oops.
She didn't know why she'd said that. But now that it was back out in the open between them, she wasn't sure how to un-say it, either.
“Keira …”
A puff of white danced on the wind and flew between them as if trying to end their conversation.
“Was that …?” he asked.
“Snow,” she said.
And in that split second, several more flakes of snow whipped around them, carried on the wind that snapped and rattled at the pine trees. The temperature dropped what felt like twenty degrees and the lowering clouds looked black and threatening.
“Of course it's snow. For God's sake, does spring ever get here?” He inhaled sharply, deeply, and looked at her as if there was something more he wanted to say.
The look in his eyes was nearly electric. Despite the snowflakes just beginning to flurry around them, she felt heat arcing between them.
Her heartbeat was jittering in her chest, her blood was pumping hot and thick in her veins, and she had the most overpowering urge to reach up and smooth his hair back from his forehead.
Instead, she curled her fingers into her palms and took a deep breath. “It's coming down harder. We should start back.”
Six
By the time they reached the lodge, snow had dusted their hair and shoulders and was thick enough in the air that every breath tasted like ice.
When Keira would have turned down the driveway to head for her truck, Nathan caught her elbow and tugged her up the back steps to the house by the lake.
“Nathan …”
He stopped on the top step, looked down into her soft green eyes and said, “You might as well wait out the storm here.”
She hunched deeper into her jacket, swung her snow-dusted hair out of her eyes and said, “It might not stop for a few hours.”
Glad to hear it, he almost said and was glad he'd managed to clamp his jaw shut. But the truth was, he didn't want to go back into that too-damned-quiet lodge. It was bad enough to be trapped there in the silence when the sun was shining. He had a feeling that being alone with the falling snow and lowering clouds would make him feel as though he were buried alive in a dark cave. Not something he really wanted to experience.
“And it might stop in a few minutes,” he pointed out, but, as if to prove that prediction false, the wind kicked up and the snow flew in frenzied flurries.
“If I was home right now,” Keira said, “I'd make myself some hot chocolate.”
“I can probably handle that,” he said. “Or, there's some excellent brandy.”
She climbed up a step, coming that much closer to him, and the depths in her green eyes called to him, reached for him. “Brandy would be good, too. Got anything to eat?”
He held out one hand and waited for her to take it. When she did, his fingers folded tightly around hers. “There's plenty of stuff in the fridge.”
She took the last step that brought her beside him and gave him a smile that warmed him through, despite the icy wind and the snow sneaking beneath the collar of his jacket. “Then why are we still standing in the storm?”
They walked across the covered deck, stepped into the mudroom and pulled off their jackets and boots. Then, together, they went into the kitchen. The room was cavernous, with built in niches for the stainless steel appliances and a mile of granite counter. The walls were painted to give them an antiqued finish, and the colors were warm cream and brown, making the kitchen seem cozy even in the midst of a storm.
“Let's get that brandy first, worry about food later,” Nathan said, and led the way from the kitchen to the great room.
“Good plan,” she said and shivered a little as she followed him down the hall.
A fire was blazing in the hearth and Keira moved straight toward it as Nathan walked to the wet bar. He poured them each a drink, then walked to join her by the fire. Handing her one of the crystal snifters, he watched the amber liquid swirl in the bottom of his glass for a long moment before he took a sip.
He swallowed and felt the alcohol fueled fire rush through him as he shifted his gaze to Keira. Firelight played on her skin and danced in her eyes. The ends of her hair shone with a nearly incandescent light and when she lifted her glass to her lips, everything inside him tightened.
After taking a sip, she blew out a breath, smiled and looked up at him. “Wow. Well, that warms you up fast, doesn't it?”
Nathan ground his teeth together and then took a sip of his own brandy. The heat it produced was nothing like the other kind of heat swamping him. Just looking at Keira made him burn.
For more than a week now, he had tried not to think about her, to put this insane attraction out of his mind. But he hadn't been able to manage it. When he closed his eyes, he saw her. When he dreamed, he touched her. When he thought he would go out of his mind from the silence in this place, she arrived and he nearly went out of his mind for different reasons entirely.
She sat down on the stone hearth, the fire at her