Authors: Ruth Wind
Her Ideal Man (2 page)
No one believed her, of course. Not her friends at school or her sisters and brothers or her parents or grandparents or cousins. No one could understand why she'd want to go so far away, how she could survive out there in the world without the comforting bulwark of family. They snorted and chuckled and said she was an incurable romantic. “That's our Annaâsuch a dreamer.”
She stopped talking about it. But she didn't give up her dream. Previously an indifferent student, she became possessed, achieving such high grades that she graduated early from high school, and, at the urging of a kindly teacher, took her degree in museum studies. There were a lot of little museums all over Colorado, and as soon as she was eligible, she joined the Colorado/Wyoming Association of Museums. Twice, by working nights as a tutor, she had saved enough to fly out for conventions to network with the group.
And on the second trip, Lady Luck at last smiled upon her. Anna met Louise Forrest, who had single-handedly won support for a full-time curator for the Tacker House museum in Red Creek, and wanted someone who wouldn't decamp after one winter. Anna was overjoyed at the opportunity. To live not only in Colorado, but actually in the mountains, was more than she had ever dared hope.
Her family had been utterly aghast at her announcement. They had never believed she would really leave. Even as she packed her belongings and got ready for the cross-country drive, her mother had been dropping by her tiny apartment to bring her news of a birthday party that would be held the following week. Swarms of well-meaning emissaries had visited the days before she drove off, but none of them had swayed her even the smallest bit.
They still expected she would be home at any moment. But Anna
was
home.
was
home.
At last.
She missed her family, but in a good many ways, it was a relief to make a new life for herself here, away from their loving, intruding ways. Louise had practically adopted her, anyway.
As she made her way carefully down the mountain, Anna understood Tyler's frustration with his meddling mother, but she wondered if he realized that Louise was only a busybody out of love and worry.
On the road ahead loomed the gigantic pothole. Just in time, Anna swerved to avoid it, taking a long breath when the wheels clung to the outer rim and she stayed on level ground.
She realized she was perspiring. Two more hairpin turns, and the rest of the trip would be a cinch. Maybe. She swallowed, leaning over the steering wheel to peer out the small pocket of windshield the wipers managed to clear.
Visibility was poor, even worse than before, because the wind had picked up. It blew through the hollows and open passes with alarming gusto, shaking the Jeep, turning the huge snowflakes into a whirling, blinding whiteout.
She stopped after one bad gust made it impossible to see. Gnawing her lip, she peered out the window at the uniformly white world and wondered at what point a native would give up and walk the rest of the way. It was still about six or seven miles to town. A long way to walk in a blizzard.
And this had undeniably become a blizzard. It snowed a lot in Red Creekâwhich was one of the reasons Louise had been looking for a curator. Few people were enamored enough of the mountains to put up with almost two hundred inches of snow every winter. Anna loved it. The dry, crisp cold made her feel energetic. She was dressed for it, in layers, with her insulated boots and leather gloves and heavy down parka, with its functional hoodâso she could walk a long way if necessary.
But this was a bad storm, even for Red Creek. If she could just get around the next two turns, she would be all right. Gripping the wheel hard, she inched forward, praying aloud to Saint Christopher, who might have been officially disqualified, but still comforted her at times like this. If he could see her safely through the subways, she figured he could help with a blizzard.
The first turn was coming upâa sharp, almost ninety-degree angle that hugged the mountain on one side and plunged hundreds of feet into a valley on the other. As she approached, her tires skidded on the piled-up snow. Just a little slide, but a knife went through her heart.
A sturdy guardrail protected the edge of the drop, but Anna wouldn't trust it to keep her on the road if she hit it. With a deep breath, she pulled the truck over as far as possible out of the road, grabbed the teddy bear and got out. Much safer to walk. One thing a native knew was when to say when. It wasn't as if she could get lost, after all. The road led right into town, and it was all downhill. It would only take her an hour or so to hike the rest of the way.
Relieved, she settled into a comfortable gait, following the faint path her tires had made in the road on the way up the mountain. Aside from the wind, it was quite beautifulâonly the snow and the sky and the graceful, arrow shaped trees. When the wind stopped its periodic blustering, the world was utterly silent, broken only by the squeak of her boots and the moist puff of her breath through her wool scarf. She lifted her head and breathed in the cold, unsullied air, tasting winter and sky andâ
She halted abruptly, and swore profanely. It was a habit she'd largely given upâit had only been a rebellion, anywayâbut there were times a good Anglo-Saxon curse word summed things up better than any other choice.
This was one of those times. Just below the second turn, a gigantic tree, along with two good-size boulders, a couple thousand gallons of snow and half the mountain, had fallen across the road, clear to the edge of the guardrail. A reddish slash of newly bared earth showed where the tree had once stood, forty feet above the road. Obviously the wind had knocked it down.
Two things crossed her mind. The first was a sick sense of relief. She had been on this road only a little while ago. The avalanche might have buried her.
The second was a sense of panic. How was she going to get back to town? The road was completely blocked.
On one side was the sheer, dizzying drop to the valley a thousand feet below. On the other was a steep mountain that looked none too stable. Anna didn't fancy starting a second avalanche.
Going over the top of the mess was impossible, though she seriously considered it for a moment. The tree's broken, spiky branches, combined with the treacherously unsettled earth and snow, would make it a dangerous undertaking. One she wasn't willing to risk.
She had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she turned around and began to walk up the hill, trying hard not to imagine the reception she would receive from the prickly Tyler.
Chapter 2
T
yler felt restless. Each year on the anniversary of Kara's death he made arrangements to be alone, and this year was no different.
yler felt restless. Each year on the anniversary of Kara's death he made arrangements to be alone, and this year was no different.
Except for Anna's invasion. Unsettled and uneasy after she left, he prowled the cabin end to end, over and over, trying to dislodge the disturbance she'd left behind.
He scowled. Damn his mother. She was prodigiously meddlesome and undeniably canny. Each time he met the little museum curator, Tyler had been surprised by his attraction to her, and somehow, Louise had noticed that.
Desire had become an almost alien emotion to him the past few years, but if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that Anna kindled something. It was an odd seensation. Kara was the only woman he'd ever loved, the only woman he'd ever made love to, the only woman he'd ever even looked at. It was old-fashioned, and his brothers had teased him unmercifully about it, but Tyler was a one-woman man, and when that woman died, he had had no interest in finding another.
But something about Anna had caught his attention the first time he met her, at his mother's house for a Fourth of July celebration last summer. He'd never met a woman made of such vivid colors. Curly black hair as glossy as Chinese lacquer, cherry-red lips, dancing black eyes. There seemed to be a field of snapping energy around her, so much so that it was a surprise to look at her and see that she was actually rather small.
Whenever she appeared, he found his reluctant gaze drawn back to her, to those colors and that vividness, and felt stirrings ofâ
Need. Pure, simple, animal lust. It was as if his body had a will of its own and it wasn't about to listen to any rational, logical or moral reason a man didn't have to have sex. He saw Anna and every nerve in his body went on alert.
But Tyler felt bound to remain celibate. Love and sex were sacred treasures, and he could not betray what he'd had with Kara, or be a good example to his son, by indulging in a casual fling. Love was out of the question, so celibate he would remain.
Until Anna appeared, there had been no conflict. Now he had to fight this struggle he didn't want and hadn't asked for, the old fight a man faced between his body and his mind. If he hadn't been so lonely these past months, the struggle wouldn't have seemed so intense, but watching both of his brothers fall in love and get married in the past year had been hard on him. Their happiness reminded him of everything he'd lost.
Annoyed with his thoughts and his restlessness, Tyter threw on a coat and went outside. On the porch, he halted, surprised at the increasing ferocity of the storm. This particular spot was protected from the wind, but he could see whirlwinds of blinding snow over the trees. The sheer volume was incredible, even for the mountains. In the hour since he saw Anna off, another foot had fallen.
With a frown, he glanced down the road, wondering if she had made it safely to town, and if Curtis would have his teddy bear. Worried, he flipped open the cellular phone and tried to get a line, but it was as dead as it had been the last three times he tried.
There was no help for it. His mother had known Anna was coming. She'd also known his line was dead, or Anna wouldn't have had to drive all the way up here for the bear. If Anna didn't come down off the mountain in a reasonable amount of time, Louise would send a search party out for her.
He frowned. If worse came to worst, he'd try the ham radio later on.
For now, a good stint of woodchopping would do a lot to improve his mood. He was used to being alone, used to being trapped on the mountainâsometimes for weeks at a stretch. It was just the storm and the unexpected appearance of the museum curator, combined with the anniversary of Kara's death, that was making him feel so unsettled. Hard physical exercise would ease that.
He'd cut a quarter cord when Charley started barking fiercely in warning of an intruder. Tyler straightened, brushing snow from his face, and turned to see a bright figure emerging from the storm. Anna, as bright and startling against the uniformly gray-and-white world of the mountains as a toucan. He straightened, feeling a strange, thick dread at her appearance. Carefully he put the ax aside and waited for her.
Judging by the crimson of her nose and forehead, she'd been walking a long time, and genuine concern overrode his dismay. He stepped forward. “God, Anna, are you okay?”
“Oh, I'm fine.” The words, given coppery edges by her New York accent, were breathless. “I had to park the Jeep and start walking to town, but then a tree caused an avalanche down below that nasty turnâyou know the one right beyond that grove of aspens?âand I couldn't get over it.” She paused to catch her breath, and clasped her hands in front of her nervously. “I didn't know what else to do but come back here.”
Shards of some strong emotion needled through his lungs. A mixture of thingsâregret and worry and anger. “So now you're stuck here,” he said harshly.
She bowed her head. “I didn't do it on purpose. Even if you had followed me, it wouldn't have made any difference. No one could have gotten by that mess. A whole tree, and half the mountain, came down.” She brushed snow from the front of her thighs. “I'm sorry.”
“You may as well come inside,” he said gruffly. He couldn't let her freeze to death. “Let's get something hot into you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I know you wanted to be alone, and I swear I won't be a bother. I'll just keep to myself and not talk at all, and I'll even cook for you, if you want. I just feel terrible about imposing like this.”
Tyler halted and turned. “Do you always talk this much?”
She widened her eyes. “Mostly,” she said despairingly. “It's worse when I'm nervous, and now I'm kind of pumped from the walk. It was really beautiful, but I'm tired and cold, and I know you didn't want anybody around and that's why you took Curtis to his grandmother's.” She seemed to realize what she was doing, and closed her mouth. Then: “I promise I'll try to be quiet.”
Snow caught in her hair, sparkling against the blackness. One fat flake drifted down to light upon her mouth, and Tyler found himself watching it melt into a silvery bead upon her rose-red lip. A vivid image of his tongue against that bead and the plump flesh below sent dancing heat over his nerves. Before he could halt it, the vision expanded, showing him the slick taste of the inside of that mouth, a mouth a man would gladly plunder for hours at a time.
She stared at him, waiting for his reply. Furiously, Tyler turned away. “Try harder,” he said.
Â
Inside, Anna shed her parka and boots and gloves, putting them by the door so that they would dry. Discomfort prowled her spine, making her want to chatter. It was her usual response, but this time, she bit down her words with effort.
Tyler moved around the kitchen area smoothly, lighting a small kerosene camp stove on the counter, and drawing water from an old-fashioned pump at the sink. She touched it, charmed, and wanted to ask questions about the way the water got to the cabin, and if there were any other niceties of modern lifeâlike electricity or gasâbut she didn't. She simply settled on a stool at a high counter and folded her hands as if she were in Sunday school.
As she watched him, admiring the shine of his hair and the breadth of his shoulders below blue corduroy, the full scope of the situation sank in. She was stuck, alone, with a man she'd been having fantasies about for months, and just sitting in his kitchen, looking at him, made her thighs tingle. The whole cabin smelled of him, too, although she had not known before what gave him that earthy scent. He smelled of wood smoke from his fires, and pine from his mountains, and herbs from the fragrant tea he gave her.
“There's sugar in the dish over there. A spoon in the drawer.”
“It smells heavenly.”
“Ramona makes itâshe told me what it was, but I don't remember. Lemon something. Maybe some chamomile.”
Ramona was his sister-in-law, the town doctor, who had the biggest herb garden in the county. Anna nodded. “Thank you.” She added sugar and drank the tea gratefully, letting it warm her frozen insides. Her hands ached and her nose tingled as feeling came back to them, but her toes were still little blocks of ice. “Do you mind if I sit by the fire to drink this? My feet are frozen.”
A trace of concern broke through his stoic expression. “Do you think you might have been frostbitten? Maybe I should see your toes.”
“No, I didn't mean literally frozen, you know.”
“How about your hands?”
“Tyler, I'm fine. I swear.”
But Tyler took her free hand and examined the tips of her fingers carefully. “It wouldn't have taken much longer. Didn't anyone tell you leather doesn't keep you dry?”
A flush of heat rose in her cheeks. Stiffly she pulled her hand back. “They have rabbit-fur lining.”
“Which also gets wet.”
“I didn't really intend to be cross-country hiking today.”
“Well, you should know you have to be prepared for anything up here.”
Anna, stung, lowered her eyes. “I do try.”
“Damn, I'm being an idiot,” he said suddenly. “I'm sorry. But you really might have been killed in this storm, and it would have been my fault for letting you leave here by yourself. I knew better.”
“But I did fine!” She'd been so proud of herself for getting back here, for making the right decision. “Except my gloves, maybe. I would even have been okay if I'd had to build a snow fort.”
The faintest gleam of amusement lit those gray eyes. “Is that right?”
“Yes. I learned how at a winter survival class last fall. You have to find a sheltered place, and build the cave with the door facing away from the wind, and you can sleep on pine boughs.”
This time, he almost smiled. She saw the quirk of his lips before he caught them, and the knowledge warmed her.
“You're right, Miss Anna. I'm very impressed. Will you still let me look at your toes to make sure they aren't frostbitten?”
She sighed and put her tea on the counter beside her. What would it hurt, after all? “Fine,” she said, and stripped off her sock before she remembered her nail polish.
He grabbed her foot. “Interesting color choice,” he commented mildly.
Anna blushed. It was purple, with gold glitter. Way too obnoxious for everyday wear on her nails, but the garishness pleased the little girl inside. “My mother always said I have gypsy blood.”
“And do you?”
He still held her foot, and when he raised his eyes, Anna was a little overwhelmed by his nearness. For a moment, she thought she saw something like heat, way back in the depths of those crystal-colored irises, and against her arch, his hand tightened the faintest bit. It was oddly arousing to have him touch her bare foot like that.
For one long moment, she contemplated the forbidden fantasy of leaning forward to kiss those perfect lips, to put her hands on his princely jaw and pull him into her. A ripple of imagined pleasure rushed up her spine, and she lowered her eyes hastily, afraid he would see too much. “Maybe.”
He let her foot go. “I think the toes are fine. Are you hungry?” He stirred something in a heavy black kettle on top of the potbellied stove in the corner. “I've got stew for dinner. I'd planned to eat at dark, but if you're hungry, you can have some now.”
Anna shook her head. “I can wait.”
“All right.” He picked up his coat. “I want to make sure there is plenty of wood. This storm might take a day or two to blow itself out.”
“Okay. Do you want me to do something?”
“No. There are things to read over there on the shelf.”
As he put on his coat, Anna realized there was one more thing she required. “Tyler, I hate ask, but do you maybe have some sweats or something that I could wear? My jeans are soaked.”
The cool gaze flickered over her body, and without a word, he crossed the room to a bureau against the wall, tugged open a drawer and pulled out the requested sweats, a shirt and a pair of socks. He put them on top of the dresser without looking at her, and before Anna could even frame her thanks, he was out the door.
Left in the silence, with only the howl of the wind and the crackling of the fire, Anna let out her breath. She carried her tea over to a small, low table made of unvarnished pine that sat nearby the fireplace. Her jeans, heavily wet, made her thighs feel clammy, and she carried the neat pile of clothes into the small bedroom she'd glimpsed earlier. Gratefully, she peeled off the wet jeans and damp sweater. A low fire burned in a second potbellied stove, and she stood in front of it for a moment, warming her cold legs and hands.
The sweats were way too big, and the extra length pooled in a clump around her ankles, and the flannel shirt wasn't much better. She had to roll the sleeves up four times to find her wrists. Padding back out to the other room, she imagined how she must look, and grinned wryly. So much for the femme fatale.
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