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Pregnancy Of Convenience
Sandra Field
She bit her lip. “So I decided I should come here and have an affair with you and perhaps I’d get pregnant—I’m sorry….”
Cal’s eyes narrowed. “What made you confess?”
“I couldn’t use you like that,” Joanna said in a low voice. “Or deceive you. It would be wrong.”
She sat up, wishing Cal would pull the sheets over the sculpted lines of his torso. Confession or no, she still wanted him. Her whole body was an ache of unfulfilled desire.
He said in a peculiar voice, “You know, this could all work out for the best. You could have a baby, my daughter could have a mother and as for me—why, I could wake up every morning to find you in my bed.”
A cold fist clamped around Joanna’s heart. “What are you talking about?”
“Marriage,” he said.
“Marriage?” she squawked.
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Pregnancy of Convenience
Sandra Field
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
CAL FREEMAN turned the wipers on high and slid the clutch of his four-wheel-drive into a lower gear. Not that it helped. The snow blowing horizontally across the windshield enveloped him in a world of white, through which he could, occasionally, sight the tall poles that marked the edges of this narrow road across the prairie.
The visibility had been better on the northeast ridge of Everest, he thought semi-humorously. Although the cold was almost comparable. He would never have expected conditions like this in southern Manitoba, not even in January. His friend Stephen had been right to insist that Cal carry emergency supplies when he set off to visit the Strassens, whose isolated home was several miles from the nearest village.
That climb on Everest had been—literally—one of the high points of Cal’s life. The struggle through the pinnacles, the bitter north winds, their decision to shoot for the top without oxygen…suddenly Cal snapped back to the present, his foot hitting the brake. What was that in the ditch to his left? A vehicle?
The snow whirled across the road like a phalanx of ghosts; he could see nothing but a smothering whiteness that mocked his normally acute vision. Slowing to a crawl, Cal peered through the glass. Perhaps it had been his imagination. After all, he and Stephen had stayed up late last night, catching up on the four-year gap since they’d last seen each other. And he’d drunk more than his fair share of that excellent Bordeaux.
No. There it was again, an angular shape skewed side-ways into the ditch, hood tight against a telephone pole. Coming to a halt as close to the side of the road as he dared, Cal switched on his signal lights: not that he really expected to meet anyone else mad enough to be out in such weather. Then he hauled the hood of his down parka over his head and yanked on his gloves.
He wouldn’t find anyone in the vehicle. Not in this bitter cold. But it was just as well to check.
As he stepped from the heated comfort of his Cherokee onto the road, the blizzard struck him with vicious force. The wind chill, he knew from the radio, was in the danger zone: frostbite on exposed skin within a couple of minutes. Well, he was used to that. He tucked his chin into his chest, fighting his way across the icy ruts in the dirt track, limping a little from an old knee injury. How ironic it would be if he, a world-renowned mountaineer, were to slip and break an ankle in one of the flattest places on the planet.
An irony he could do without.
The vehicle was a small white car. Bad choice, he thought trenchantly. And damn lucky the car hadn’t slid completely into the ditch, in which case neither he nor anyone else would have seen it.
There was a brief lull in the wind. His heart skipped a beat. Someone was slumped over the wheel. A man or a woman? He couldn’t tell.
Forgetting his knee, he lunged forward, adrenaline thrumming through his veins. The engine wasn’t running; how long since the car had gone off the road? He scrubbed at the window with his gloved fist, and saw that the driver was a woman. Hatless, he thought grimly. Didn’t she know better? Also, unless he was mistaken, unconscious. He grabbed the door handle, and discovered that it was locked. So were all the other doors. He pounded on the glass, yelling as loudly as he could, but the figure draped over the wheel didn’t even stir.
Cal raced back to his vehicle and grabbed the shovel from the back seat. Then he staggered across the road again. Once again he banged on the window, but to no effect. Grimacing, he raised the handle of the shovel and hit the glass in the back window with all his strength. On the third try it shattered.
Quickly he unlocked the driver’s door and pulled it open. Taking the woman by the waist, he lifted her awkwardly, trying to pillow her face in his shoulder. Once again he made the trip across the ice and drifts back to his vehicle. He eased her into the passenger seat, supporting her as best he could as he anchored her in place with the seat belt. Then he hurried back to her car, picked up her briefcase and threw it on the back seat of his four-wheel-drive. Clambering in on the driver’s side, he turned the fan up to its highest setting, dragged off his parka and draped it over the woman’s body, then tucked the synthetic silver emergency blanket around her legs. Only then did he really take a look at her.
The blizzard, the cold, the loud whir of the fan all dropped away as though they didn’t exist. Cal’s heart leaped in his chest. He’d never seen a woman so beautiful. So utterly and heartbreakingly beautiful. Her skin smooth as silk, her hair with the blue-black sheen of a raven’s wing, her features perfect, from the softly curved mouth to the high cheekbones and exquisitely arched brows.
He wanted her. Instantly and unequivocally.
Cal swallowed hard, fighting his way back to sanity. Sanity and practicality. There was a bruised swelling on her forehead, where presumably she’d struck the windshield when the car had swerved into the light pole. Her face was as white as the whirling snow crystals, her skin cold to the touch, her breathing shallow. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen? Was he crazy?
She was lucky to be alive. Besides, he didn’t believe in love at first sight. A ludicrous concept.
So why was the hand he’d touched to her cheek burning as though it were on fire?
With an impatient exclamation, he checked the odometer. Less than three miles to the Strassens’. His best bet was to take her straight there. The sooner she was in a warm house and regained consciousness, the better. Unless he was mistaken—and he’d picked up a fair bit of medical expertise over the years—she was just concussed. Concussed and very cold.
He eased into first gear and out into the middle of the road, forcing himself to focus on staying between the ditches. He’d expected to arrive at the Strassens long before this; he hoped they weren’t worried about him. His errand, after all, wasn’t the most pleasant.
Dusk was falling, making the visibility even poorer. Snatching occasional glances at his passenger, whose head was now lolling on her chest, Cal shifted into third gear. A lot of the snow was being whipped from the fields, for there was nothing to stop the wind but the occasional line of trees along a creek. He’d always had plenty of respect for heights; he’d have more for flatness from now on, he decided with a wry twist of his mouth that simultaneously acknowledged he was concentrating on the weather so he wouldn’t have to think about the woman.
She was probably married to a local farmer and had a clutch of raven-haired children. Why hadn’t he checked to see if she was wearing a wedding ring?
What did it matter whether she was or she wasn’t? The Strassens would know her name, they’d make the necessary phone calls, and she’d vanish from his life as precipitately as she’d entered it.
He’d seen lots of beautiful women in his life. Been married to one for nine years. So why had the startling purity of a stranger’s profile, the elegance of her bone structure, affected him as though he were nearer his thirteen-year-old daughter’s age than his own age of thirty-six?
Swearing under his breath as the gale flung snow across his path, Cal strained to see the poles along the road. He’d covered nine and a half miles since he’d left the main highway; if the Strassens’ directions were right, he had another half a mile to go. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about them, this elderly couple whose only son Gustave, a fellow mountaineer, had met his death on Annapurna just three months ago.
He, Cal, had come all this way to bring them their son’s climbing gear and the few personal effects Gustave had had with him on his last expedition. An errand of mercy he’d be glad to have over and done with. His original plan had been to stay a decent length of time and then head back to the city tonight. But the weather was putting paid to that; he’d probably have to stay overnight. Not what he would have chosen, particularly as he’d never met Gustave Strassen.
An illusory gleam of lights caught his eye through the snow. That must be the Strassens’ house. Now all he had to do was navigate the driveway.
Four minutes later, he was parked as near to the front door as possible. The house wasn’t as substantial as he’d somehow expected. Leaving the engine running, he took the front steps two at a time and rang the doorbell.
The door opened immediately. A heavy-set man with a grizzled beard boomed, “Come in, come in out of the cold, you must be Mr. Freeman—what, no jacket?”
“Cal Freeman,” Cal said rapidly. “Mr. Strassen, I have a passenger, a woman whose car went off the road. She struck her head, she needs attention right away—can I bring her in?”
The older man took a step backward. “A woman? What do you mean, a woman?”
What kind of question was that? “A young woman. On her own,” Cal said impatiently, “and obviously unprepared for the weather. She ended up in the ditch. I’ll go get her.”
“But we—”
Cal, however, had already turned back to his vehicle, the snow stinging his cheeks. Trying to keep the woman covered as best he could, he lifted her from the seat and with his knee shoved the door shut. The wind seized the hood of his parka and flung it away from her face. For a moment that was out of time he saw her lashes flicker—long dark lashes like smudges of soot. Her lips moved, as though she were trying to speak. “It’s okay,” he said urgently, “you’re safe now, you don’t have to worry.” Then he headed up the steps again.
Dieter Strassen held the door open. But he was no longer smiling. He said, his accent very pronounced, “That woman is not welcome in my house.”
Cal stopped dead, leaning back against the door to close it. “What did you say?”
A strained voice spoke from behind Dieter. “Get her out of here! I never want to see her again. Never, do you hear me?”
Cal knew instantly that this must be Maria Strassen, Dieter’s wife and Gustave’s mother. Short, thin as a rail, her hair in a gray-threaded bun skewered with pins. With a gesture that might have been funny had it not been so venomous, she thrust out one hand, palm toward Cal, as though she were about to push him physically back out into the blizzard.
Him and his burden.
“Look,” Cal said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this woman needs help. She’s concussed and she’s cold. She needs some hot food and a warm bed. Surely you can provide those?”
With a depth of bitterness that shocked Cal, Dieter said, “Better had she died.”
“Like our son,” Maria flashed. “Our beloved Gustave.”
Cal said flatly, “How far is it to the next house?”
“Four miles,” Dieter said.
“Surely you can see that I can’t go that far,” Cal said forcefully, shifting the weight in his arms. “Not in this storm. I don’t know who this woman is or what she’s done to make you hate her, but—”
“If we hate her, Mr. Freeman, it is for very good reasons,” Dieter said with something approaching dignity. “You must allow us to be the judge of that.”
“She married our Gustave,” Maria said icily. “Married him and destroyed him.”
Cal gaped at her, the pieces belatedly falling into place. As though he had actually been picked up and moved, he found himself back in an alpine campsite overlooking the south side of Mont Blanc. Four weeks ago.
It was unseasonably warm for December, and Cal was in his bare feet, luxuriating in the damp grass beneath his toes after an arduous day hiking; he’d been testing some foot-wear for a friend who designed alpine boots. One of the guides who had just brought up a party of Germans and who had introduced himself to Cal as Franz Staebel, remarked, “Gustave always liked to be in his bare feet after a climb…did you ever meet Gustave Strassen?”
“Oddly enough, no,” Cal answered. “Our paths nearly crossed several times but we never actually met…I was very sorry to hear about his death.”
“Ah, yes,” Franz said, grimacing into the sun. “He was an excellent climber, one of the best. Such a waste.” With sudden ferocity he banged an ice pick into the ground. “A totally unnecessary waste.”
“Oh?” said Cal, leaning back against the scaly trunk of a rowan tree. “How so?”
“His wife,” Franz said, pulling the pick out with a strong twist of his wrist. “His wife, Joanna. She was pregnant, he’d just found out the day before. But there was a good chance the baby wasn’t his. She’d cheated on him, had for years.”
“Why did he stay with her, then?” Cal asked idly.
“You should have seen her. Beautiful in a way few women are. And her body…Gustave was only human.” Moodily Franz kicked at a clump of grass he’d dislodged, the pale sun gleaming in his red hair. “So Joanna and the baby were on his mind that morning, the morning he attempted the rock ridge on Annapurna 3. And died in the attempt.”
As Cal knew all too well, distractions could be fatal on the mountains, where a moment’s misjudgment could send a man to his death. “I’m sorry,” he said inadequately. “I hadn’t heard about his wife before.”
“She controlled the purse strings, too. A rich woman, who let Dieter be stuck with second-rate equipment, and forced him to beg for sponsorships for his climbs. Ah, it was bad. Very bad. How that man suffered.”
“Where was he from?”
“Central Canada.” Franz gave a bark of laughter. “The prairies. Not a hill in sight. His parents live there still.”
“I have a good friend in Winnipeg,” Cal remarked. “I’ve known him for years.”
Franz sat up straight, dropping the pick on the grass. “You do? Would you be interested in visiting your friend and also doing a last favor for a climber who deserved better than the fate he met?”
“What do you mean?”
“I have Gustave’s gear back in Zermatt. I was going to mail it to his parents. But how much better if it could be delivered to them personally by a fellow mountaineer.”
Cal said slowly, “I do have a week or so free early in the new year…after I bring my daughter back to school here in Switzerland. And it would be great to see Stephen and his wife again. Providing they’re around.”
“It would help the Strassens a great deal. Their hearts must be broken. Gustave’s wife, she wasted no time after his death—she got rid of the baby. It could have been Gustave’s child, that was certainly possible…in which case she got rid of the Strassens’ grandchild, their only connection to their dead son.” He spat on the grass. “I curse the day Gustave married that woman. She brought him nothing but grief.”
“Mr. Freeman?” Dieter Strassen said, with the air of a man repeating himself.
With a visible start, Cal came back to the present; and to the simple and horribly unwelcome fact that the woman in his arms was the direct cause of a good man’s death and the deep grief of that man’s parents. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and tried to pull himself together. There was no reason in the world for him to feel so massively disillusioned about a woman he hadn’t even known existed half an hour ago. An unconscious woman, to boot, with whom he hadn’t exchanged as much as a word.
“Mr. Strassen,” he said, “I can see my arrival here is causing you and your wife great distress, and I apologize for that. But right now I don’t see any way around it. I can’t just dump her in the snow, no matter what she’s done.”
“So you know the story?” Dieter said sharply.
“Franz Staebel, the alpine guide who had your son’s gear, told me about your daughter-in-law a month or so ago.”
“Gustave thought highly of Franz.” Moving like a much older man, Dieter turned to his wife. “Maria, we’ll put her in the back bedroom, it’s the only thing we can do. She’ll be gone by morning.”
“Someone else can look after her,” Maria said in a stony voice.
Into the silence Cal said, “I will.”
“That would be best,” Dieter said with evident relief. “I’ll show you the room, and in the meantime Maria will heat some soup for you. We are being bad hosts, Mr. Freeman.” He gave a rather rusty bow. “Welcome to our home.”
Two could play that game. “Thank you,” Cal said, and smiled at Maria.
Her response was as cold as a glacier. “That woman will leave here tomorrow morning,” she said, “and she must never come back.”
Cal’s brain, which seemed to have gone to mush since finding a raven-haired beauty on the side of the road, finally made the connection. “Oh, of course—she’d just been here?”
“She had the audacity to bring us Gustave’s silver watch, his album of family photos. As though that would make us take her in. Forgive her for all that she’s done.”
“Now, Maria,” Dieter warned.
“Our grandchild,” Maria quavered, “she even destroyed our grandchild. Aborted it.”
“According to Gustave, it might not have been his child,” Dieter said wearily, running his fingers through his thatch of grizzled hair. “Gustave radioed a message out the very day he died, Mr. Freeman. About the pregnancy and his doubts. He wanted to divorce her.” His gaze flicked contemptuously over the woman in Cal’s arms. “But he knew that would mean no contact with a child who could be of our own flesh and blood.”
Maria bit off her words. “She took everything from us.”
“Enough, now,” her husband said. “I’m sure once Mr. Freeman has settled her, he’ll be hungry.”
“Please call me Cal…and some soup would be delicious,” Cal said with another smile.
Maria turned on her heel in the direction of the kitchen. Dieter lead the way along a narrow hallway to a back annex of the house; the furnishings were sparse, Cal noticed, glancing into what appeared to be a formal parlor, everything immaculately tidy and painfully clean. The back bedroom was no exception. It was also very cold.
Dieter said, “You must excuse my wife, Mr.—Cal. She is very bitter, understandably so. I’ll leave you to settle in, and whenever you’re ready, please come through to the dining room.”
Cal laid Joanna Strassen on the double bed, straightened, and said forthrightly, “Once she comes to, she’ll need something hot to eat.” And with annoyance realized he’d adopted the Strassens’ habit of referring to Joanna Strassen as she. Never by name.
“I’ll look after that. And I’ll show you to your bedroom in the main house.”
“I think I’d better stay here and keep an eye on your daughter-in-law,” Cal said with a depth of reluctance that took him by surprise. But if he didn’t look after her, who would? “After a blow on the head, it’s always a good idea to be under supervision for at least twelve hours.”
“Whatever you say,” Dieter replied, and for a moment directed a look of such implacable hostility toward the unconscious woman on the bed that, even knowing the story, Cal was chilled to the bone. “There’s extra bedding in the cupboard and the couch makes another bed,” Dieter went on, just as though nothing had happened. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Cal went into action. He drew the curtains against the snow that lashed the windowpanes, jammed the thermostat up several notches, and swiftly built a fire in the woodstove that stood in the corner. Touching a match to it, he watched briefly as the flames gained hold. Then he turned to the woman on the bed.
Joanna Strassen. Widow of Gustave. By all accounts an unfaithful and ungenerous wife, who apparently had destroyed her own child.
Nothing he’d learned made her any less beautiful.
CHAPTER TWO
CAL rubbed his palms down the sides of his cords, and with the same deep reluctance that he’d felt a few moments ago, approached the bed. Resting his palm on Joanna’s cheek, trying to ignore the satin smoothness of her skin, he registered how cool she felt. He pulled off her gloves, chafing her cold fingers between his warmer ones. Ringless fingers, he noticed. Long and tapered, with neatly kept nails. She wore no jewelry, which rather surprised him. He met a lot of women, one way or another, and because he was rich and unmarried, spent a fair bit of energy keeping them at bay; most of them dripped with diamonds. So why didn’t the wealthy widow, Joanna Strassen?
As though he had spoken her name out loud, she moved her head restlessly on the pillow, her lashes flickering. Her left hand plucked at his parka, trying to pull it around her chin. Then she gave a tiny moan of pain, a deep shudder rippling the length of her body.
Quelling an instinctive surge of compassion, Cal eased off her boots, practical low-heeled boots that looked as though they came from a factory outlet. Definitely not leather. This, like her lack of rings, seemed oddly out of character. Her tights were black, her plain sweater a deep blue. Her figure was just as much an attention-grabber as her face, he thought grimly, and almost with relief noticed that she was shivering. Hastily he pulled the covers from underneath her body, then tucked them around her.
The room was noticeably warmer, so much so that Cal stripped off his own thick wool sweater. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror by the door, he ran his fingers through his disordered hair, which was the dark brown of polished leather. As for the rest, he’d always figured he had the right number of features in the right places and that was that. He’d never understood his appeal to women, blind to the unrevealing gray of his eyes, the strength of his chin and jaw, the flat planes of his cheeks and his air of self-containment, which many might see as a challenge. He’d been rather less than amused just before Christmas, when he was trying to avoid the attentions of a local divorcée, to have his daughter Lenny say to him impatiently, “You don’t understand why every woman you meet is after you? Get a grip, Dad. You’re a hunk. Big-time macho man. You should hear the girls in my school go on about you.”
“Oh no, I shouldn’t.”
Lenny had rolled her eyes. “You’re also intelligent, rich, charming when you want to be, rich, and a famous mountaineer. Oh, and did I mention rich? I rest my case.”
“Rich you got right,” he’d replied. “The rest—forget it.”
Lenny had laughed and cajoled him into helping her with some supplemental geometry, a subject that was as much a mystery to her as literature was a delight. Cal loved his daughter Lenny more than he could imagine loving anyone else in the world…more than he’d loved her mother for the last few years of his marriage, he could now admit that to himself. Although never to Lenny.
He should remarry. Settle down and provide a proper home for Lenny, add a woman’s presence to her life. Trouble is, he didn’t want to. Nor had he met anyone who gave him the slightest desire to embrace—for the second time—the state of holy matrimony.
If only he didn’t travel so much; it made it more difficult with Lenny. He’d curtailed his mountain-climbing expeditions the past few years. But he also had to travel for his work. Cal had inherited money from his adventurous, immigrant father; after multiplying this money many times over in a series of shrewd investments, he’d purchased an international brokerage firm; then, later, a chain of prestigious auction houses in Europe and New York, dealing with antiques and fine art. Although computer technology had cut back a certain amount of travel, there was still no substitute for a hands-on approach to his various business concerns.
One more reason why Lenny was in a private school in Switzerland.
The woman on the bed gave another of those low moans. Cal came back to the present, thrusting a birch log into the heart of the flames, and turning his attention to the bed. Despite the heaped-up bedclothes and the warmth of the room, Joanna Strassen was still shivering. Moving very slowly, his eyes trained on her face, Cal lifted the covers and got into bed beside her. Gathering her in his arms, he drew the whole length of her body toward his.
She fit his embrace perfectly, as though she had been made for it. Her cheek was resting against his bare throat, her breath softly wafting his skin; he could feel her tremors, the small rise and fall of her breathing against his chest, and the firm swell of her breasts pressed to his rib cage.
His body’s response was unmistakable. He still wanted her. No matter what she’d done.
Gritting his teeth, Cal thought about the ice ridges of Brammah, the ice cliffs of Shivling, the glaciers of Everest. All to no avail. Cursing himself inwardly, he then tried to imagine she was a fellow climber with hypothermia and that he was simply doing the medically correct thing.
Equally useless. Her skin was sweetly scented, her hair in its thick braid gleamed in the firelight as though the flames themselves were caught there, and each shiver that rippled through her slender frame he felt as though it were his own body. He’d been too long without a woman, that was his problem. After all, how long had it been?
If he had to struggle to remember, it had been altogether too long. Time he rectified that. Soon. And when better than now, with Lenny in school in faraway Switzerland?
There was that blonde in Manhattan, he’d met her at a charity ball; she’d insisted he take her phone number, he must have it somewhere. She’d certainly given every signal that she was willing to climb into his bed, no questions asked.
He couldn’t even remember her name. Shows what kind of an impression she’d made.
There was also Alesha in Paris, Jasmine in Boston, Rosemary in London and Helga in Zurich. All of whom he’d dated; none of whom he’d slept with.
Joanna Strassen stirred in his arms. Hastily Cal eased his hips away from hers, wondering if her shivering had lessened slightly. The sooner he got out of this particular bed, the better.
The woman in Manhattan had had a diamond pin stuck through her left nostril. That he did remember. No wonder he hadn’t phoned her.
A shudder suddenly ripped through Joanna’s body. Her eyes flew open, wide with terror, and with a strength that shocked Cal she pushed hard against his chest. “No!” she cried. “No, I won’t—” Then, with another of those racking shudders, she stared full at him. He saw her swallow, watched with a flash of admiration as she fought to subdue the terror that only a moment ago had overwhelmed her.
The terror that Gustave had come back from the grave to haunt her? His admiration vanished. But before he could speak, she muttered, “You’re not Gustave…oh God, I thought you were Gustave.” Her voice rose in panic. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“No,” Cal said evenly, “I’m not Gustave. Gustave’s dead, remember?”
Again terror flooded her eyes, eyes that were the sapphire blue of her sweater. As she pushed away from him, jerking her head back, she gave a sudden sharp cry of pain. Bringing one hand to her forehead, she faltered, “Please…where am I? I—I don’t understand…”
No wonder Gustave Strassen had returned again and again to his faithless wife. If he, Cal, had thought her beautiful when she was unconscious, how much more so was she with emotions crossing her face, with her eyes huge and achingly vulnerable in the firelight? He said with a deliberate brutality that at some level he was ashamed of, “You had an accident. You’re at Dieter and Maria Strassens’ house.”
Her body went rigid with shock. Then she brought both hands to her face, briefly closing her eyes. “No,” she whispered, “no…tell me that isn’t true.”
“It’s true. Where else was I to bring you? They, I might add, were no happier taking you in than you are to find yourself here.”
“They hate me,” she whispered, and for a moment the blue of her irises shimmered with unshed tears. “I don’t want to be here! Ever again.”
Either she was an accomplished actress, shedding a few tears to brilliant effect; or else everything he’d been told about her actions and character was inaccurate. Gustave, Franz, Deiter and Maria; were all of them wrong? It didn’t seem very likely. Cal said coolly, “Little wonder they hate you.”
She edged even further from him in the bed, her wince of pain instantly disguised. “Who are you?”
“Fate?” he said, raising one brow.
“Stop playing with me,” she pleaded, and again tears glimmered on her lashes. “Please…I don’t understand what’s going on, you’ve got to tell me.”
“I’m the guy who happened along the road after you’d run smack-dab into a telephone pole. You should be thanking me. With the car not running, you’d have frozen to death in short order.”
“The car…” She frowned. “I remember now, I got into the car and left here. It was snowing and windy, but the roads are so straight, I was sure I’d be all right.”
“It wasn’t exactly the most intelligent course of action,” Cal said bluntly.
“I couldn’t bear to stay! And they wanted me gone, they almost pushed me out the door. But once I was out on the road, I couldn’t see where I was going and then suddenly that pole was right in front of me…the last thing I remember was turning off the ignition because I was afraid of fire.”
“One more dumb move to add to the rest.”
“So they told you about me,” she said quietly. “And you believe them.”
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” Cal demanded; and discovered to his inner consternation that he did indeed want to be supplied with those reasons.
“Oh God…” she whispered.
She looked utterly forlorn. In one swift movement Cal rolled out of bed. “I’ll go and get you some soup now that you’re awake. Then I’ll run a hot bath for you.”
She tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced her back to the pillow. “Just go away,” she quavered. “Go away and leave me alone.”
If only that were possible. “You don’t like being confronted with the consequences of your actions, do you?” Cal said. “I suppose I should be congratulating you on having the rudiments of a conscience.”
“Stop! Just stop—I can’t take any more.”
She did indeed look at the end of her tether. Cal bit his lip, feeling uncomfortably like the school bully that had made his life a misery when he was seven and small for his age. Now that he was six-foot-two and entirely capable of looking after himself, he made it a practice never to throw his weight around. Especially with a woman. On the other hand, he was damned if he was going to apologize. When all was said and done, nothing could bring Gustave back to life. And wasn’t that the bottom line?
He said coldly, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. The bathroom’s through that door and if I were you, I’d stay in this part of the house. You’re not welcome elsewhere.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she retorted with a flash of spirit.
“Yet you’re the one who came here. Uninvited, I’m sure.”
“If you think I’m going to justify myself to you, you’re mistaken,” she said bitterly, turning her face away from him.
The flickering gold light illuminated the exquisite curve of her cheekbone. Dragging his gaze away, Cal strode out of the room. In the hallway he stood still for a minute, trying to subdue the turmoil of emotion in his chest. What was the matter with him? Yelling at a woman with a concussion? Thoroughly disliking her and wanting to kiss her senseless all in the same breath?
Disliking her was fine. She was, after all, a liar and a cheat, according to people who’d known her intimately. But kiss her? Was he out of his mind?
Lots of women had deep blue eyes and long black hair. Grow up, Cal. Or, as Lenny would say, get a grip.
After checking with Dieter he made a couple of phone calls, to Stephen with his change of plans, and to the airport, where he discovered all flights were canceled. Maria had set a place for him at the plain oak table in the dining room. Mechanically he ate a bowl of delicious wild mushroom soup and some homemade rolls, along with a salad of fresh greens, making conversation with her and her husband as best he could.
At the end of the meal Cal said, “Gustave’s things are in the back of my vehicle—would you like me to bring them in now, or tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow would be better,” Dieter said heavily. “Today, already we have been through enough.”
Maria said frostily, “I have put some soup on a tray. You will take it to her.”
“Of course,” Cal said. “That was delicious, Maria, thank you.”
“We start our day early,” Dieter added. “Living as we do so isolated, we keep to a strict routine. Breakfast at eight?”
“Thanks, that would be fine,” Cal said, picking up the tray Maria had deposited on the table. “I’ll see you then.”
He walked back along the hallway, again glancing into the parlor. The only books were thick, leather-bound tomes, the photos on the wall were of grim-faced ancestors, and there wasn’t an ornament in sight. Had the house always been this joyless? This austere? Had Gustave grown up in these stark surroundings, or were they a product of Dieter and Maria’s middle age?
Either way, Gustave Strassen was beginning to have his entire sympathy.
When Cal went back into the bedroom, his socked feet soundless on the bare hardwood, Joanna Strassen was lying flat on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. Her brow was furrowed, as though she were in pain; the white pillowslips and her cheeks were exactly the same color. A floorboard creaked beneath his heel. She gave a visible start, just as quickly controlled; the face she turned to him was empty of expression.
He said, “I’ll help you sit up.”
“I can manage.”
“Don’t be so dammed stubborn!”
Defiance flared in her eyes. But with that same superhuman control, she subdued it. Where had she learned such control? And why?
And why did he care so strongly about the answers to his own questions?
As Cal put the tray down on the bedside table, she tried to struggle to an upright position, her lower lip clamped between her teeth. He’d been concussed once, on the Eiger, and it had left him with a splitting headache. He slid the pillows from behind her back, propping them against the headboard; then he put his hands under her armpits, lifting her whole weight.
The soft swell of her breast brushed his forearm, the contact surging through his body. Unceremoniously he pushed her back on the pillows, hearing her shallow, rapid breathing. He said with unwilling compassion, “I asked Maria for some painkillers, you’d better take one.”
“They’ve probably got arsenic in them.”
“I’ll take one, too,” he said dryly, “if that’ll make you feel safer.”
“I don’t like taking pills.”
“Is that how you got pregnant?”
He hadn’t meant to ask that. He watched emotion rip across her face, raw agony, terrible in its intensity. As he instinctively reached out a hand in sympathy, she struck it away. “Just leave me alone,” she cried. “Please.”
She couldn’t possibly have faked that emotion. The pain was real. All too real. He said flatly, “So you regret getting rid of the baby.”
“Why don’t you use the real word? Abortion. Because that’s what you mean. And that’s what Dieter and Maria think I did.”
“That’s certainly what they told me.”
“And you believe everything you’re told?”
“Why would they lie to me, Joanna?” Cal asked, and found he was holding his breath for the answer.
“Because no woman in the world would have been good enough for their beloved Gustave! I was their enemy from the very first day he brought me here.”
Could it be true? Cal rested the tray on her lap and reached down to put more wood on the fire.
When he turned back, she was making a valiant effort to eat. But soon she pushed the bowl away. “That’s enough,” she mumbled, her lashes drifting to her cheeks.
He took the tray from her, standing by the bed until her breathing settled into the steady rhythms of sleep. She’d stopped shivering, and there was the faintest wash of color in her cheeks. She was going to be fine and he was a fool to stay in this room overnight. How could he lust after a woman whose every word he seemed to distrust?
First thing tomorrow he’d organize a tow truck and see her on her way. Then he’d give the Strassens Gustave’s gear and head for the airport. They’d rebooked him on a flight midmorning. Twenty-four hours and he’d have seen the last of Joanna Strassen.
It couldn’t be soon enough.
Glancing at his watch, Cal saw to his dismay that it was scarcely eight o’clock. After leaving the bedroom, he checked out the tidy ranks of books in the parlor. He’d been meaning to read the classics, and apparently now was the time for him to start, he thought wryly, leafing through a couple of volumes of Dickens. Then Dieter spoke from the doorway. “Ah, I thought I heard you in here. Maria and I are not our best, Cal, you must forgive us. You have no suitcase, nothing. Please let us give you a new toothbrush, some pajamas.”
Cal never wore pajamas. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Come through to the kitchen, and I will get them for you.”
Maria was putting away the dishes. Cal said pleasantly, “Your daughter-in-law has no nightclothes—could I trouble you for something?”
Her lips thinned. Without a word she left the room, returning with a carefully folded pair of striped pajamas over her arm. “Give her these.”
“We’ll be gone by morning,” he said gently.
“I regret the day our son first saw those big blue eyes of hers!”
Dieter came through the door, passing Cal towels, pajamas and toilet articles. “Thank you,” Cal said. “I’ll say good night now, I’m a bit jet-lagged.”
He was actually distressingly wide awake, all his nerves on edge. Grabbing War and Peace from the shelves on his way by, he strode to the back bedroom. Joanna was still sleeping, her neck crooked at an awkward angle. For several minutes he simply stared at her, as though the very stillness of her features might answer some of the questions that tumbled through his brain. She was too thin, he thought. Too pale. Asleep, she looked heartbreakingly vulnerable.
Normally he was a fairly astute judge of character. But something about Joanna had disrupted his radar. One thing he did know: next time he was asked to do a favor for a dead mountaineer, he’d run a mile in the opposite direction.
He added more wood to the fire and settled down with his book. Two hours later, adding one name to his handwritten chart of the characters, he realized the fire had nearly died out. After he’d added some kindling and a small log, he turned around to find Joanna Strassen’s eyes open, fixed on him. They looked almost black, he thought. Depthless and mysterious. Full of secrets.
He said heartily, “Sorry if I woke you. How are you feeling?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
Moving very carefully, she sat up. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself upright. Abruptly she brought her hand to her forehead, staggering a little. “I feel so dizzy…”
“Here,” Cal said unwillingly, “lean on me.”
She swayed toward him. He put an arm around her waist, furious with himself for liking her height, and the way her cheek brushed his shoulder. “Why don’t you have a hot bath?” he added noncommittally. “It would relax you.”
She stopped, looking him full in the face. “I won’t relax until I’m on a plane heading east,” she muttered. Then her jaw dropped. “My flight—I’ve missed it!”
“Everything’s canceled because of the storm.”
Agitated, she said, “It was a seat sale, will they charge me more?”
Franz had said she was miserly with her money. Is that why she wore no jewelry? “They won’t. But if they did, surely you could afford it?”
Her eyes suddenly blazed like blue fire. “Oh, of course. I’m a rich widow. How stupid of me to forget.”
He’d always liked a woman with spirit. Suzanne, his wife, had made a fine art out of avoiding conflict. But then Suzanne had had something perennially childlike about her; she’d never matched him, adult to adult. When he’d married her, he’d been too much in love to understand that about her; or to anticipate how her behavior would affect him.
Suzanne had also lied to him frequently, with casual expertise. He’d gradually come to understand that she didn’t lie out of malice, but simply because it was easier than owning up to responsibilities or consequences; after a while he’d stopped expecting anything more from her than a modicum of truth. While he certainly was intelligent enough to realize that every beautiful woman wasn’t necessarily a liar, Suzanne’s legacy, overall, had been a deep-seated reluctance toward any kind of facile trust. This trait had done well for him in the world of business. But as far as Joanna was concerned, was it doing him a disservice?
With an effort Cal came back to the present. “Maria’s loaned you something to wear to bed. I’ll get it for you.”
As she supported herself on the frame of the bathroom door, he passed her the pajamas. Automatically she took them, the fingers of her other hand digging into the wood; for a moment Cal wondered if she was going to faint. He grabbed her around the waist. “What’s wrong?”
“How she hates me,” Joanna whispered, and suddenly flung the pajamas to the floor. “Don’t you see? They’re Gustave’s pajamas! She knew I’d recognize them.”
Cal said evenly, “You hated Gustave. Didn’t you?”
“I no longer loved him. If that’s what you mean.”
“I’m not sure it is.”
“You won’t believe me when I say this, because your mind’s made up about me. But a long time ago I realized that to hate Gustave would destroy me.”
Hate was horribly destructive: Cal was certainly sophisticated enough to know that. He said provocatively, “So you destroyed him instead?”
She sagged against the door frame. “Can one person destroy another? Doesn’t destruction come from within?”
Again, Cal could only agree with her. Into his silence, Joanna added fiercely, “So you think I could destroy you? And how would I go about doing that?”
“Like this,” said Cal, putting his arms around her and kissing her full on the mouth.
She went rigid with shock, her palms bunched into fists against his chest. Then she wrenched her head free, her breasts heaving under her sweater. “Tell the truth—it’s you who wants to destroy me,” she cried. “But I won’t let you, I’ll never let a man that close to me again.”
What the devil had possessed him to kiss her like that? And why, when she was glaring at him as though he was the Marquis de Sade, did he want to kiss her again? But differently this time, not out of anger but out of desire.
The bruise on her forehead standing out lividly, she backed into the bathroom and slammed the door in his face. The lock snapped into place. If she’d taken the prize for stupidity by attempting to drive a small white car through a blizzard, he was now a close second. Kissing Joanna Strassen had been the stupidest move he’d made in a dog’s age.
But he’d liked kissing her. More than liked it. It had inflamed every one of his senses.
When he left Winnipeg, he was headed to Boston on business. He’d give Jasmine a call. Wine her and dine her and take her to bed. That’s what he’d do. And the sooner the better.
In fact, he might even phone her from here. Yeah, he might just do that.
Picking up Gustave’s pajamas from the floor, Cal put them on the dresser. He could hear water running in the bathroom. He hoped to God Joanna wouldn’t slip or faint in the bathtub.
He’d broken a car window already today. He could always break down the bathroom door.
That would really impress Maria.
Somewhat cheered, Cal picked up War and Peace again. He had the whole night. He might as well get on with it.
Half an hour later, Joanna opened the bathroom door. She was fully dressed, her cheeks pink from the heat. Cal said calmly, “You can have these,” and passed her the new pajamas Dieter had given him.
“They’re yours,” she said inimically.
“They’re Dieter’s. I never wear pajamas.”
“And where are you planning to sleep?” Her nostrils flared. “Do you know what? I don’t even know your name.”
“Cal,” he said, and held out his hand, adding ironically, “Pleased to meet you.”
She kept her own hands firmly at her sides. “Answer the question.”
“On the couch. Unless you’d rather have it. It’ll be too short for me.”
“As far as I’m concerned you can sleep outdoors in a snowdrift.”
For the first time since finding her in the car, Cal’s smile broke through. “That’s not very nice of you. I did, after all, save your life.”
“And would you have, had you known who I was?”
“Of course I would. What kind of a question’s that?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Thank you,” she said grudgingly. “I guess.”
“Put on your pajamas and go to bed,” Cal ordered. “Before you fall flat on your face.”
She was scowling at him as though her one desire was to strangle him with the pajamas. Cal quelled an inappropriate urge to laugh his head off. He’d give her one thing: she sure didn’t back down.
She shut the bathroom door smartly in his face. He re-made the bed, stoked the fire, and went back to his book. Considering the disruptive effect a black-haired woman was having on his life, he was getting quite interested in the doings of Pierre, Natasha and Prince Andrew. He’d have to tell Lenny. She’d be impressed.
The door opened again. As Cal glanced up, War and Peace fell from the arm of his chair to the floor with a resounding thump. Dieter was a big man: his pajamas were far too large for Joanna. Even though she’d buttoned them to the very top, her cleavage was exposed, a soft shadow in the V of the neckline; the blue cotton hinted at her breasts. The sleeves fell over her fingertips, and she’d turned up the cuffs of the trousers. Cal found himself staring at her bare feet, which were narrow and high-arched. Then his eyes of their own accord found her face again.
She had freed her hair from its braid, so that it rippled down her back. Under his scrutiny, she was blushing as though she were as innocent as his own daughter.
Which, of course, she wasn’t.
Slowly Cal got to his feet.
CHAPTER THREE
AS JOANNA took a nervous step backward, Cal stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been going to kiss her again; that had been his intention. A repeat of a less than clever move.
He said roughly, “Will the light bother you if I read for a while?”
“No,” she stumbled, “no, of course not.”
“I’ll probably wake you up a couple of times in the night—that’s standard practice after a bump on the head.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, the muscles moving in her throat. “I don’t think that’s necessary, I feel much better.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
For a moment he thought she was going to argue with him. But then the flare of temper died from her eyes. She got into bed, pulled the covers up to her chin and turned her back to him. Within a very few minutes, Cal could hear the gentle rhythm of her breathing, and realized he’d been reading the same paragraph over and over again.
Swearing under his breath, he forced himself to read on. Before he made up a bed on the couch at eleven-thirty, and again at two in the morning, he checked her pulse and the dilation of her pupils, both times without waking her. But at five, when the beam of his flashlight fell on her face, her eyes jerked open, full of terror. Like those of a rabbit who sights the talons of an owl seconds before they strike, Cal thought, and said with swift compassion, “It’s okay, I’m just checking to see you’re all right.”
She sank back on the pillow, her pulse hammering at the base of her throat. “Is that the wind I hear?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to get out of here today!”
“It’ll die down soon,” he said without much conviction; if anything, the storm had increased in intensity in the night.
“I can’t stay here any longer.”
She’d spoken in such a low voice he had to strain to hear her. She looked at the end of her tether, as though at the slightest provocation she would start to weep and be unable to stop. “I want to leave here, too,” Cal said dryly. “But unfortunately neither one of us can influence the weather.”
“To be here,” she faltered, “don’t you see, it brings it all back, all those terrible, wasted years. And the baby…I can’t bear to think about the baby.”
The fire had died down; he and Joanna were isolated in the small circle of his flashlight, darkness and the cry of the wind pressing in on all sides. Cal had never seen such desolation on a woman’s face; it cut him to the heart. Clumsily he sat down on the bed and put his arms around her.
For a few seconds she yielded, her forehead burrowed in his shoulder, her spine a long curve of surrender. Through the thin cotton of his shirt, he felt tears dampen his skin, and realized she was weeping without a sound. “Did you really abort the baby?” he asked with sudden urgency.
“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t. It didn’t matter that I no longer loved Gustave, I’d have loved the baby…I already did love it.”
He wanted to believe her—God, how he wanted to! So what was holding him back?
Her hair smelled enticingly of hyacinths, and the soft weight of her breasts against his chest—bare where his shirt was open—filled Cal with a fierce surge of desire. He fought to subdue it. Was he about to take Gustave’s widow to bed in Gustave’s house? What kind of a man would that make him? In a harsh voice he scarcely recognized as his own, he said, “I don’t know who the hell to believe—you or your dead husband’s parents.”
She flinched as though he’d physically struck her. Then she pulled free of him, swiping at the tears on her cheeks with the back of one hand. “You can keep your sympathy,” she said stonily, “I as good as killed Gustave and I certainly killed the baby. Oh, and I was promiscuous, let’s not forget that.”
“I’m not sure sympathy’s what this is about,” said Cal, and kissed her hard on the mouth.
It was as though the flames suddenly rekindled in the hearth, lapping him in their fiery dance. He’d never felt such raw, basic hunger in his life. His arm tightened around her waist. Her ribs were a taut curve, her hair tumbling over the hand that was pressed to her back. Then her lips, warm and soft, yielded so suddenly and so ardently to his kiss that he’d have sworn she was enveloped in the same fire. He thrust with his tongue and fumbled for the buttons on her pajamas.
She struck him hard on his bare shoulder with her bunched fist and yanked her head free. “Don’t!”
His arms aching with emptiness, Cal snarled with no subtlety whatsoever, “You kissed me back.”
“All right, so I did. So what?”
“You’ve been widowed three months and you kissed me as though it’s been three years.”
“For the space of five seconds, I kissed you.”
“Franz said you were promiscuous.”
“Franz? I’d hardly call him a reliable witness.”
She had a point, Cal thought reluctantly. He knew nothing about Franz. Had never met him before that day on Mont Blanc.
“Anyway,” Joanna went on, “what about you? Why would you want to kiss me? You’ve made it all too clear you don’t believe a word I’ve said. Which means you think I’m responsible for Gustave’s death, and—” momentarily she faltered “—the loss of the baby, as well.”
Cal had no answer for her. When he was blinded by lust, how could he possibly discern the truth? But if he really did disbelieve her, he was kissing a woman he should despise.
He’d loved Suzanne when he married her, he’d never been unfaithful to her, and anyone he’d taken to his bed since her death he’d at least liked. He pushed himself up from the bed, noticing with one small part of his brain that Joanna’s cheeks were still streaked with tears and that the bruise on her forehead was now a lurid mix of purple and yellow. “Let’s just call it temporary insanity,” he said tersely. “On both our parts.”
“It’s not going to happen again!”
He could see the hard jut of her nipples beneath her jacket. “You don’t have a worry in the world,” he grated. “I’m going back to sleep. Alone. And we’d better hope the weather improves.”
“It’s got to,” she said with an edge of real desperation.
He felt exactly the same way. Although he was damned if he was going to tell her that. He’d already made enough of a fool of himself, no point in adding to it. “Are you warm enough?” he asked curtly.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He flicked off the flashlight and lowered his body onto a couch that was at least eight inches too short for him. He didn’t care what the weather was doing, he was out of here once it was daylight. And he wasn’t taking Joanna Strassen with him.
Daylight was chinking through the dark brown curtains when Joanna woke up. She lay still for a moment, totally disoriented, wondering why her head hurt and why the wind was howling so ferociously that the house creaked under its onslaught. Then it all came flooding back. Her disastrous and ill-thought-out attempt at reconciliation with Dieter and Maria. Her precipitate departure yesterday afternoon and the way the car had slid so gracefully and inevitably into the telephone pole. Her return to consciousness in this room, the waves of dizziness and pain, the gradual realization that she was back in the one place in the world she’d hoped never to see again.
And then there was her rescuer.
It wasn’t chance that she’d left him to the last. Had she ever laid eyes on a man so magnetic, so masculine, so self-assured? So guarded, so reluctant to trust her? Why couldn’t she have been rescued by a country farmer in a three-ton truck, with a plump, friendly wife and a kitchen smelling of borscht and freshly baked bread?
Cal was his name. And that was all she knew about him.
Except for the inescapable fact that his two brief kisses had melted the very bones of her body.
She had to get out of here. Soon. Sooner. Soonest.
Cautiously Joanna sat up. In the dim light, she could see Cal stretched out on the couch, his feet dangling over the edge, his neck stuck at an awkward angle. A blanket half covered his long body. He was still sound asleep.
He’d saved her life. If he hadn’t come along, she’d have frozen to death.
She shivered, knowing that in spite of all the unhappiness of her marriage, and the acute pain of the last few months, she was deeply glad to be alive. So she had much to thank him for, this dark-haired stranger with eyes as gray and depthless as a winter sea.
If only he didn’t share Dieter and Maria’s opinion of her character. Which was, to put it mildly, rock-bottom. Why that should hurt her so badly, she didn’t understand. He was a stranger, chance-met and soon to be forgotten. So why should it matter what he thought of her?
Not liking her own thoughts, Joanna got up as quietly as she could, parted the curtains and peered outside. Her heart sank. All she could see was the driven whiteness of snow; all she could hear was the howl of the wind. It was worse than yesterday, she thought numbly. But she had to leave. She had to.
From behind her Cal said with a lack of emotion that infuriated her, “Looks like we’ll be stuck here today, too.”
She whirled, frightened that she hadn’t heard him get up, let alone cross the room. He was standing altogether too close, his crumpled shirt unbuttoned from throat to navel, his cords creased from sleeping in them. The sheen on his tousled hair reminded her of mahogany; her mother had left her a beautiful little mahogany end table. Then he yawned, and the corded muscles of his belly tightened; all his muscles were truly impressive, she thought wildly.
“I’m leaving here this morning,” she spat. “You can do what you like.”
“And how are you going to leave?” he said mockingly. “Your car’s wedged to a telephone pole three miles down the road, and I’m not driving you anywhere, not in this.” He lifted one brow. “Unless you think Dieter will lend you his car?”
So angry she could barely talk, she seethed, “I will not stay one more hour in a house where everyone—including you—thinks I’m a cold-blooded, immoral bitch!”
“I’m not—”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she swept on, “I made the biggest mistake in my life—apart from marrying Gustave, that is—to fly out here with belongings of his I thought his parents should have. To believe that now he was dead, maybe we could somehow make peace. I sure go to the top of the class for naiveté.”
“Naive isn’t exactly the word I’d use for you.”
“But you know nothing about me, Mr. Cal whatever-your-name-is. Only what you’ve been told. You’re the one who’s naive. You believe Dieter and Maria, who thought the universe revolved around Gustave. And you believe Franz, who hero-worshiped him and made one heck of a lot of money out of him into the bargain. Three cheers for you.”
She was being very childish, she thought in a sudden wave of exhilaration. And it felt extremely good. She added peevishly, “What is your last name? And what are you doing here? You don’t look the type to be a friend of the Strassens.”
“Cal Freeman,” Cal said, and watched her closely.
Her brow furrowed. “The name’s familiar…but we’ve never met, I’d have remembered you.”
“I’m a mountaineer.”
She paled. “That’s where I’ve heard your name—Franz was telling us once about the team you took up Everest.”
“Franz gave me Gustave’s climbing gear to bring to the Strassens.”
She clutched the bedpost, her voice ragged. “Did you know Gustave?”
“No. But I’d heard of him, of course. I was sorry to hear he’d died.”
“Play with fire,” she said unsteadily, “and sooner or later you get burned.”
The words were out before he could prevent them. “You being the fire?”
She raised her chin. “No, Cal. The mountains. The mountains that I grew to hate because they destroyed any chance I might have had of happiness.”
“So you think all mountaineers are irresponsible dare-devils?”
“You’re darn right I do.”
He tapped himself on the chest. “Not this one.”
Her eyes seemed to have glued themselves to the taut skin over his breastbone, with its tangle of dark hair. “Then you’re the exception that proves the rule,” she said, and couldn’t have disguised the bitterness in her tone.
“Gustave was a mountaineer when you met him.”
“And I was nineteen. Young enough to find both him and the mountains romantic.”
It was an entirely plausible reply. Feeling frustrated and unsure of himself, Cal ventured, “You were jealous of the mountains?”
“I suppose I was,” she said wearily. “Are you married, Cal? Does your wife hate it when the mountains take you away from her?”
Years ago, whenever Cal used to go on an expedition, Suzanne would fly to Paris and indulge in an orgy of shopping. He’d sometimes thought it would have suited Suzanne very well to have been left a wealthy widow; she’d have had the fun of spending his money without the bother of a relationship with a real, flesh-and-blood man. “That’s none of your business,” he said tersely.
“I beg your pardon,” Joanna retorted. “So you can ask questions but I can’t?”
Cal said impatiently, “I’m not spending the entire day trading insults with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re moving into the other part of the house, where you can spend the day with Dieter and Maria.” With a flick of malice, Joanna added, “Have a good one.”
Curiosity overcoming everything else, Cal asked, “Has this house always been so bleak and bare?”
“Ever since I’ve been coming here.” Joanna bit her lip. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Gustave, growing up with such strict, joyless parents. At first I tried to be understanding, but that wore thin after a while.”
Wishing with fierce intensity that he’d just once met Gustave Strassen so he could have formed his own opinion of the man, and wishing with equal intensity that he could spend the entire day in bed with Gustave’s widow, Cal said harshly, “If you’ll excuse me I’m going to have a shower, get breakfast and check the weather report. Then I’ll bring you something to eat.”
“Bread and water?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s not so ridiculous. Because I’m a prisoner in this room, aren’t I?”
She was. No question of it. And he along with her. “Pray for sunshine,” Cal said ironically, and headed for the bathroom.
It would have given Joanna enormous satisfaction to have thrown her pillow at his retreating back. Or drummed her heels on the cold hardwood and screamed out all her frustration. She did neither one. Cal Freeman already thought she was the equivalent of pond scum. A tantrum would really finish her off.
Why did she care what he thought?
So he had a great body. More than great, she thought, her mouth dry. And she’d be willing to bet he was quite unaware of the effect of his physique on a woman who, apart from that one time a few months ago, hadn’t been to bed with anyone for at least four years. Including her lawfully wedded husband, Gustave Strassen.
Not that Cal would believe that.
Cal Freeman. She’d heard about him over the years. That spectacular ascent of the northeast ridge of Everest. His climbs on the Kishtwar range and the Kongur Massif. His heroic rescue of two French climbers in the Andes. Gustave had never encouraged talk about Cal Freeman; Gustave had always wanted to be the center of attention, another facet of his character that a love-blind nineteen-year-old had totally missed.
How ironic that Cal should have effected another rescue, this time of Gustave’s widow, from a blizzard on the prairies.
Hurriedly Joanna got dressed; she was already heartily sick of her blue sweater. Then she braided her hair, made the bed, drew the curtains, and undid her briefcase. If she was to be stuck here for the morning—beyond the morning, she refused to look—she might as well get some work done.
So when Cal emerged from the bathroom, his hair still damp, she had her laptop set up and was frowning at the screen. He said, “I’ll be back in half an hour with your breakfast.”
She nodded without raising her eyes. He added, an edge of steel in his voice, “Where I come from, you look at someone when they speak to you.”
“I’m working—can’t you see?”
“According to Franz you’ve got lots of money. So what kind of work do you do that’s so important that you can’t even be civil?”
This time her head snapped up. “What I do with all the spare time I have as a stinkingly rich widow is none of your business.”
“Don’t push your luck, Joanna,” Cal said with dangerous softness.
He hadn’t yet shaved; the dark shadow on his jawline did indeed make him look dangerous. But Joanna had done a lot of growing up since she was nineteen. “And what happens if I do?”
“I wouldn’t advise you to ask that question unless you’re prepared for the answer.”
Although her pulse was beating uncomfortably fast, she said with credible calm, “He-man stuff.”
His words had an explosive force. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? Especially when you’re in a rage.”
A blush scorched her cheeks. “Don’t change the subject!”
“Oh, I don’t think I am.” He gave her a grin she could only call predatory. “I’ll be back.”
The bedroom door closed behind him. Joanna let out her breath in a long sigh. She wasn’t normally argumentative, nor was she overly aware of the male half of the species: if Gustave had been anything to go by, she was better off alone. But Cal Freeman seemed to destroy all the self-sufficiency she’d striven to achieve over the long years of her marriage.
Her first resolution, she thought fiercely, was to work all morning. And her second, to ignore the dark-haired man who was virtually her jailer.
She turned her attention back to the screen, and by sheer stubbornness managed to immerse herself in revising the tenth chapter. Her New York agent had already found a publisher for this, her second novel; she was determined it wasn’t going to bomb, as could so often happen with second novels. Especially after all the critical attention the first one had gained.
It seemed no time before Cal opened the door, carrying a tray. Quickly she closed the file; she had no intention of him finding out about her other life as a writer. She said casually, “That smells good.”
“I cooked the eggs myself,” Cal said. “Didn’t want Maria pouring hot pepper sauce all over them.”
She steeled herself against the laughter lurking in his gray eyes. “What’s the weather forecast?”
“Like this all day. Wind dying around midnight, the plow should come through during the night, and I’ve booked a tow truck first thing tomorrow. No flights out of Winnipeg today.”
“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” said Joanna, fighting down a wave of panic that was out of all proportion.
Cal’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going out to my vehicle to bring in Gustave’s gear,” he said coldly. “I’m presuming you don’t want any of it?”
She flinched. “No,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t need a harness or a set of ropes to remind me of Gustave.”
Cal plunked the tray down on the table. The trouble was, she fascinated him with far more than her incredible beauty. Anger, sadness, frustration, terror, she’d shown them all; and now he had to add a kind of dignity that he could only respect. “Eat your breakfast,” he ordered. “Any complaints about the eggs can be directed to the chef.”
She suddenly grinned. “I’m hungry enough they could be as tough as climbing boots and I wouldn’t complain.”
Her smile was full of mischief. Turning away so he wouldn’t grab her with all the subtlety of a caveman, Cal said brusquely, “I’ll be back with your lunch.” Then he wheeled and left the room.
The next couple of hours were far from pleasant for Cal. Maria’s iron facade wasn’t equal to seeing her son’s climbing gear; Dieter openly had tears in his eyes. Against his will, Cal’s anger toward Joanna was revived; although he was honest enough to admit some of that anger should be directed toward himself for letting her get past his defences so easily. Eventually the Strassens disappeared to their own room; around noon, his eyes tiring from the fine print of War and Peace, Cal took himself to the kitchen and produced some untidy but interesting sandwiches for himself and Joanna. Picking up hers, he headed back to the bedroom.
He could be very soft-footed when he chose to be. Not stopping to analyze just why he should want to take Joanna by surprise, Cal padded into the bedroom they’d shared last night. She was scowling into her laptop computer, totally focused on what she was doing. He couldn’t help admiring her concentration, for Joanna Strassen definitely didn’t want to be here: that much he did believe. Suzanne, under similar circumstances, would have been indulging in a major sulk. But Joanna was being…stoic, he thought. Stoicism was right up there in his list of virtues.
She’d fastened her hair in an untidy mass on top of her head; skewering the shiny black coils was a yellow pencil. As he watched, she leafed through a black-covered journal to her left, read half a page intently, and began rummaging through the papers on the table, muttering something under her breath.
Cal said lightly, “What’s your problem?”
She jumped, knocking several papers to the floor. “Do you get a kick out of creeping up on people?” she demanded. “Where the hell is my pencil?”
“In your hair,” he said amiably.
Her scowl deepened. “I’ve been doing that for years—I never think to look there and don’t you dare laugh at me.” Her gaze dropped to the plate in his hands. “You expect me to eat those?”
He glanced down. The tomato slices had skidded, the lettuce was falling out, and he’d been so generous with the egg salad that each sandwich bulged bounteously. Like a pregnant woman, he thought. “I couldn’t care less if you eat them or not! After Dieter and Maria saw Gustave’s gear they were very upset, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to ask either one of them to make your lunch.”
Joanna pushed back her chair, stood up and marched over to him. Her chin high, she said, “I’m sorry they’ve lost their son. Truly I am. But Gustave was a disaster waiting to happen—far too taken up with his own ego to be half the climber they thought he was.”
“If he’d just found out you were pregnant and he wasn’t sure who’d fathered the child—that’s completely irrelevant?”
“He knew who the father was. Trust me.”
Why couldn’t he trust her? She wasn’t Suzanne: or even remotely like Suzanne. Deliberately needling her, Cal said, “How could he have known? There are a lot of men in Europe.”
“And according to Dieter and Maria I’ve slept with most of them.” She gave an unamused laugh. “I’d like to know when I’d have found the time.”
Suzanne still on his mind, Cal said with a touch of bitterness, “Some women can always find time for what they want to do.”
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