“School night,” she repeated and smiled.

Then she laid her pocket-warmed hands on his cheeks, brushed her lips to his in a light, friendly, close to sisterly kiss.

He blanked. He moved before he thought, acted before he checked. He took her shoulders, pulled her in—pressed her back to the door as he took the simple brush of lips into the long and the dark.

What he’d imagined at seventeen plunged into reality at thirty. The taste of her, the feel. That moment of lips and tongue, and the heat rising in the blood. In the quiet of snowfall, that elemental hush, the sound of her breath sighing out broke in his mind like thunder.

A storm gathering.

She didn’t nudge him back, push him away, protest his shoving open the door of her friendly gesture into the hot and wild. Her first thought was, who knew? Who knew the nice-guy English professor who walked into walls could kiss like this?

Like he planned to drag you off into the nearest cave and rip off your clothes, while you eagerly ripped off his.

Then thinking stopped being an option, and all she could do was try to keep up.

Swept away. She’d never actually believed that one, but this was swept away.

Her hands slid up from his face, forked through his hair. Gripped.

The movement slapped him back. Now he did step away, nearly slipping on the snow that covered the path. She didn’t move an inch, but stared out at him from eyes that gleamed in the dark.

God, he thought, God. He’d lost his mind.

“I’m sorry.” He fumbled it as arousal and mortification warred inside him. “Sorry. That was—wasn’t—Just . . . really sorry.”

She continued to stare as he hurried away, his strides made awkward by the fresh fall of snow. She heard, somewhere in the roaring in her head, the beep of his key lock, and watched him climb into his car in the overhead light after he wrenched open the door.

He pulled out before she got her breath and her voice back. As he drove away, she managed a weak, “No problem.”

Feeling a lot more buzzed than she had on wine, she let herself into the house. She went to the kitchen, poured his untouched wine down the sink, followed it with what was left in hers. After looking blindly around, she turned, leaned back on the counter.

“Wow,” she said.

CHAPTER FOUR

SOME MORNINGS YOU JUST NEEDED MORE THAN A POP-TART and a hit of coffee, Mac decided. She figured she’d been spared the unhappiness of a hangover—thank you, Carter Maguire—but several fresh inches of snow meant she’d be hauling out the shovel. She wanted real fuel. Knowing where she’d find it, she pulled on her boots, dragged on her coat, and headed out.

And went back inside immediately for her camera.

The light, bold and bright, blasted out of the hard blue sky onto the still white sea. Untouched, untrampled, that sea spread over the ground, washed over it. Drowned it. Shrubs became hunched creatures crossing that frozen sea, and the rocks forming the lagoon of the swimming pool a tumbled barricade.

Her breath drew in, the cold like tiny shards of glass, then expelled in frigid clouds as she framed in the winter palace of a grove.

Landscapes and pictorials rarely gripped her imagination. But this, she thought, this black and white, with so many shades of each, the shadow and light under the almost savage blue sky demanded its moment. So many shapes, so many textures with branches buried and bark laced offered countless possibilities.

And the grand and gorgeous house rose out of the sea, an elegant and graceful island.

She worked her way to it, experimenting with angles, using the light, honing in on the sparkling cotton balls of azaleas that would burst into bloom come spring. A movement caught her eye, and as she turned to follow it she saw the cardinal take its perch on the snow-covered branch of a maple. It sat, a single spot of vivid red, and sang.

Mac crouched, zoomed in rather than risk going closer and losing the shot. Was it the same bird who’d smacked into her kitchen window? she wondered. If so, he certainly seemed undamaged and unruffled as he sat like a single flame on the white-laced branch.

She caught the moment then, taking three shots in rapid succession, slight changes in angles that coated her jeans with snow as she inched left.

Then the bird took wing, swooped over the frozen sea, through the bright light, and was gone.

Emmaline, beautiful Emmaline in her old navy coat, white cap and scarf trudged toward her through the snow. “I wondered how long I’d have to stand there until you finished or the damn bird took off. It’s cold out here.”

“I love winter.” Mac swung the camera up again, and with Emma in the crosshairs, depressed the shutter.

“Don’t! God, I look awful.”

“You look cute. Gotta love the pink Uggs.”

“Why did I buy them in pink? What was I thinking?” She shook her head as she joined Mac, and both continued to the house. “I thought you’d already be inside, nagging Laurel to make breakfast. Wasn’t it you who called me and said pancakes nearly an hour ago?”

“It was, and now we can both nag her into it. I got caught up. It’s amazing out here. The light, the tones, the texture. And that damn bird? Bonus round.”

“It’s twenty degrees, and after pancakes, we’re going to be shoveling this snow and freezing our asses off. Why can’t it always be summer?”

“We hardly ever get pancakes in the summer. Crepes maybe, but it’s not the same.”

As she stomped snow off her pink Uggs, Emma slid her baleful gaze toward Mac, then opened the door.

Mac scented coffee instantly. She dumped her gear, set her camera carefully on top of the dryer, then strode in to give Laurel a rib-crushing squeeze. “I knew I could count on you.”

“I saw you playing nature girl out the window, and figured you were coming over to whine for pancakes.” Hair clipped back, sleeves rolled up, Laurel measured out flour.

“I love you, and not only for your snowy-day pancakes.”

“Good, then set the table. Parker’s already up, answering e-mail.”

“Is she calling for snow removal?” Emma asked. “I’ve got three consults today.”

“For parking. The consensus is there’s not enough to call in the troops for the rest. We can handle it.”

Emma’s face clouded into a pout. “I hate shoveling snow.”

“Poor Em,” Mac and Laurel said together.

“Bitches.”