Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  Feeling his eyes on her, Quinn practically leaped under the blankets and drew them up to her chin.

  "Anything else I can get you?" he asked.

  "Just your promise that I won't be bound and gagged when I wake up in the morning." She tried to make light of it.

  "You've got it." Cale did his best to smile.

  "Well then," she said, rubbing the. wet strands of hair with the towel, "I guess I'll see you in the morning. And thank you."

  "For what?"

  "For taking me in."

  "Right." He backed away from the sofa as if it were on fire. "Good night, Quinn."

  "Good night, Cale."

  Sweet dreams, she wanted to call after him, but did not. Instead, she lay in silence and listened to his footsteps echo on the wooden floor. Hearing his bedroom door close, Quinn sat up and took a deep breath, then got up quietly, creeping across the rag carpet to the fire, where she bent forward to let her hair dry the best it could. When she had finished, she draped the towel along the stone mantel, and tiptoed back to the sofa, grateful to be alone for the first time in hours. Alone to contemplate what the fates had delivered to her. Had anyone told her that she would spend the days before Christmas in a remote cabin with Cale McKenzie she'd have laughed in their face.

  And yet here she sat, wearing his clothes and bundled in blankets a mere fifteen or twenty feet from where he slept, right down that hallway. And with him out of sight, it was easier for her to dwell on him, on how well he had filled out over the years. His face had changed so little, maybe a little less angular, but his eyes still had that glow and his smile still carried that same old warmth, that same sweet promise____

  That promise he had never kept, she reminded herself. Tortured by the memory, she wished she had the nerve to ask why, but then again, surely he'd think her a fool to have harbored that all these years. Better, perhaps, to pretend that the episode never happened, than to open those old wounds.

  Old wounds that never really healed, but that's mine to deal with. He doesn't need to know that.…

  Quinn sighed deeply and lay back down, pulling the covers around her to make a nest of sorts, knowing that there would be little sleep for her while the. man who had filled her dreams for so many years was really here, under the same roof. In the flesh. Just seeing Cale had touched her in places she hadn't even known were still alive and well.

  She sighed again and turned over to stare at the fire, watching its dancing tongues lick the sides of the brick firebox and the shadows move slowly, sinuously across the room, like lovers dancing in the dark.

  Arrrghhh.

  Wrong image.

  She turned her back to the fire and punched the pillow, then began to count backward from one thousand. Anything to keep her mind off the beautiful man with the hazel eyes who slept just a short stroll down a darkened hallway.

  Cale turned over for what must have been the four-hundredth time. Sleep, which was, for him, always hard to come by, was, on this night, a total impossibility. Not with her curled up on his sofa, just thirty-two steps away. He'd counted after he'd turned his back and walked to his room.

  The reality of it stunned him and almost made him giddy. Quinn was there. His golden girl was there, under his roof. How different things could have been—should have been—if things had gone the way they had been intended. They would be cuddled together under this down quilt right now, sharing their warmth and sharing the night, instead of being separated by thirty-two steps.

  Why, he had wanted to ask her. Why, his heart had wanted to know. But surely, after all this time, it should not matter. And would it not hurt more to find that he had had his heart bruised by the whim of a schoolgirl? Why embarrass himself now by demanding from the woman an explanation for the actions of the girl she had once been?

  He turned restlessly once again and closed his eyes, but all he could see was that face, eyes green like new grass, mouth ripe as mountain berries…

  Cale groaned and turned over again, knowing that this was a night that was not likely to pass quickly.

  Quinn had sensed him before she saw or heard him. Opening one eye into a mere slit, she watched as he bent down to lift a log and leaned over to place it on the diminished pile of smoldering wood. He added a second log, then a third. He brushed his hands on his dark sweatpants, then softly crossed the rag rug to straighten her blankets. Pausing just slightly, he reached down and touched the side of her face, touched her lips with his fingertips in a gesture of longing that took her breath away. Drawing his hand back abruptly, he turned and padded back down the hall.

  Raising one hand to her face, Quinn traced the path his fingers had made on her skin, and with the other, she wiped the tears from her cheek.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Sensing that a new day had actually managed to dawn somehow through the intensity of the storm's fury, Quinn stretched her arms over her head and looked around. It hadn't been a dream after all. She was really here. And that meant that Cale was here, too. What a strange twist, she thought as she slid the blankets off and went to the window. As suspected, the storm still raged outside. Funny, though, that it seemed to confine itself to the mountain. Her mother had said they had had but an inch or so of snow, not even enough to keep Trevor from picking up her sisters at the airport.

  Grabbing her clothes out of the bag, she tiptoed to the bathroom and washed her face and dressed in the same brown wool tweed pants and heavy oatmeal-colored sweater she'd worn the day before. Standing in the hallway, she listened for sounds from either of the two bedrooms. Hearing none, she went into the kitchen and poked in the cupboards.

  Val had most certainly stocked up. There were several bags of flour and sugar, lots of herbal teas, and several packages of pudding mix, cans of soup and jars of spaghetti sauce, and boxes of pasta. In the refrigerator she found milk, several boxes of butter and eggs, some apples, oranges, and raisins. The freezer held packages of frozen food, and she poked through them. Remembering the boys' complaint about Cale's spaghetti, she lifted out a bag of mixed vegetables and a package of rock-hard beef. Guessing that Cale might welcome a little help as much as the boys would welcome the variety, perhaps she would suggest a simple stew for that night.

  In a basket near the back door, she found small pieces of wood for the stove, and soon she had a pot of coffee on. By the time the two small tousled faces had appeared in the doorway, she had already planned the breakfast she would make. It was the least she could do, she reasoned. Cale clearly did not enjoy cooking, and she did. Besides, she was up and he was not, the boys were there and hungry.

  "Pancakes?" she asked, and they nodded enthusiastically. "Go get dressed, and by the time you get back, there should be a few ready for you."

  "Yea!" they shouted as they ran from the room and down the hall.

  Within minutes, their father had emerged, and following his nose to the kitchen, he, too, soon stood in the doorway.

  "I hope you don't mind, but I come from a long line of take-charge types," she told him. "Besides, I was awake and I just thought…"

  "Thank you. I appreciate the help. You probably noticed that I'm not exactly James Beard." He smiled, and her knees turned to jelly. "What can I do?"

  Just stand there and let me look at you for a while. A few days might be enough.

  She swatted at the thought and handed him a cup of coffee, saying, "Nothing. It's all done. Look what I found in the cupboard. Chokecherry sauce. Val must have bought it at the Larkspur Fall Festival in October."

  "I cant remember the last time I had this on pancakes." Cale lifted the jar to give his hands something to do and pretended to read the homemade label. The scent of lilac was gone, he noted regretfully, and had been replaced with the musky smell of his own soap. It was just as well, he told himself. That soft flowery scent had brought back too many memories of too many nights he was better off not thinking about right now. Time enough to look back, when the snow stopped and she would leave him to go back t