A Husband In Her Stocking

Two

The challenge hung in the air between them, as powerful as the pounding of his heart. He noticed her breaths were hollow, and he saw the confusion that raced across her features.

For a second, her lashes drifted together, shutting out the honesty her eyes contained. Would she grant him the gift of her name? Could she?

Could she not?

Her lashes parted, and she looked at him. Directly. Her expression was so direct that the sensation rocked him to the soles of his feet.

“Meghan,” she said.

“Meghan,” he repeated, sliding the syllables around his tongue, savoring its subtle taste.

“Meghan Carroll.”

He nodded. The name fit. Soft Feminine. And with a hint of mystery. Meghan. Yeah. He liked it...liked it a lot.

She shifted; he wondered if she was waiting expectantly for his response.

“Nice name.”

The release of her breath sifted through him. She had been waiting. That said a lot about her. But one thing was sure: she wasn’t frightened of him. Skittish maybe, but not scared. That instantly upped his opinion of her. Kyle didn’t care much for spinelessness.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

Her tone was reluctant, as if she knew she had to ask the question, but regretted the necessity. Still, he answered with honesty. “Starving.”

“I guess...you should eat with me.”

“Is that an invitation?” Kyle cocked a grin.

The tension on her face lessened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.”

“What way?” He waited for her to respond, wondered if she’d do it with the same frankness she’d shown so far.

“Rude. That was rude, and I’m not usually rude.”

“Do you usually have strange men in your kitchen?”

With her right hand, she brushed errant strands of hair away from her face. He stood close to her, closer than she probably liked, yet he didn’t back off.

Kyle caught the faint whiff of her understated perfume—light with a hint of unfulfilled promise—and couldn’t recall the last time he’d been with a woman as sensually appealing as Meghan.

He wondered why he suddenly felt hungry, not physically but emotionally.

“No,” she finally admitted. “You’re the first man who’s been in my kitchen.”

The information stunned him, pleased him. It shouldn’t have, but it did. And how.

“I’ll serve,” Meghan said, shattering the tension that had slowly been building. “If you set the table.”

“Ah, a modern woman.”

She gave a small smile that transformed her features and made his insides flame with awareness.

“You can do the dishes, too,” she said.

“Do I smell homemade bread?”

She indicated a small white appliance. “Bread-maker—my one extravagance this year.”

“All this for the measly price of setting the table and washing the dishes?”

“I hate doing dishes.”

Slowly, she’d revealed several aspects of her personality. Kyle wanted each stripped and laid bare before him. And he had a few thoughts about what to do once they were. “Lady, you’ve got a deal.”

Kyle hadn’t been in a kitchen like this for years. It covered at least three hundred square feet, huge, rambling and, by today’s standards, a waste of space.

But he remembered a similar kitchen, always filled with the scent of spice. Kyle also recalled helping his grandmother, Grandma Aggie, in that kitchen, begging for the honor of cracking the eggs against the ancient metal strip surrounding the counter.

“Something funny?” Meghan asked.

Startled at her perception, he looked up from setting bowls and silverware on the table.

“You’re smiling,” she added.

“My grandmother had a kitchen like this. Brings back memories.” His own designer kitchenette didn’t look anything similar to either. Meghan’s kitchen didn’t have a microwave; his was built in above the stove he’d never used. Nor did she have a dishwasher. But she had something he didn’t: a feeling of home.

Kyle realized he wouldn’t have been as comfortable in her home if her kitchen had resembled his. That thought gave him pause, made him question, again, his reasons for deciding to return to Chicago and accept control of Murdock Enterprises—his father’s business—in the New Year.

Snowflake entered the kitchen, toenails clicking on the worn floor. He curled beneath the table, apparently anxious for handouts. Judging by the extra few pounds on the mutt, Meghan was an indulgent mistress.

A soft heart.

No surprise there. He wouldn’t be shocked to learn Snowflake had shown up on her doorstep—much like Kyle—and that she’d kept the animal.

Meghan poured two cups of coffee, then joined Kyle at the table. Their knees brushed. Their glances collided. And then she slammed him in the solar plexus by licking her lower lip.

Longing. And an urge to possess.

Neither feeling was welcome. But there they were, raw and honest. Trouble was, there wasn’t a thing he could do about them.

Kyle had promised she was in no danger from him. In that instant, he wondered if he’d lied.

He wanted Meghan Carroll with an intensity that stunned him.

And he wouldn‘t—couldn’t—have her.

He was merely passing through town, not intending to stay. His life lay elsewhere, much as he hated that fact. So far his search for answers had revealed only one thing—you were who you were.

No escape.

Exerting the iron control for which he was famous, he tamped down the flare of wanting and picked up the ladle.

“Don’t scoop any from the bottom.”

He paused.

“The bottom part is burned.” She gave a little shrug. “I got carried away with my work. Forgot about dinner.”

Judging by her size, she forgot often. She needed a keeper, Kyle realized. But he couldn’t fill that role.

He envied the man who would.

Taking stew from the pan, he filled her bowl, then his.

She met his eyes, and for a few seconds, silence shrouded the empty house. Did she feel it, too, this tug that was as undeniable as it was real?

And what the hell were they supposed to do?

She raised a spoon to her lips and sipped. Kyle’s gut tightened. Desperate to distract himself, he followed suit. He allowed that first bite to linger, enjoying the flavor. Realizing he was close to a sigh, he swallowed. “My grandmother used to make stew like this.”

Wistful sadness dropped her tone. “I never knew my grandmother.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. His grandmother had been the single bright spot in a bleak childhood. He didn’t remember his mother—he was too young when she died. His father had thrown himself into building the business Kyle’s grandfather had started. Precious little time had been left over for either Kyle or his older sister, Pamela.

Yet Grandma Aggie had tried to fill all the voids. She’d given them birthdays and holidays, given them love and hope.

Meghan broke off a piece of her bread, then fed it to a vigilant Snowflake.

Kyle had a sudden insight into his own lonely life-style. No one cared if he came home at night. No one noticed.

It didn’t matter. Never had. Maybe never would.

Ruthlessly shoving aside the sober feelings, Kyle said, “This is a fabulous farmhouse.” His skilled eye had noted the solid construction, along with the repairs the house cried out for.

Yet there was something else... He drummed his fingers on the table. Something bothered him about the farmhouse, as if it were lacking a detail just beyond the obvious. Try as he might, Kyle couldn’t put his finger on the missing element.

“I fell in love with the house the first time I saw it.”

“How long have you been here?”

She set down her spoon. He’d done it again, pushed past the impersonal to the personal. He stopped his motions and waited for her response. When he’d given up, convinced she’d change the subject, she said, “Three years.”

“You’ve lived out here all alone for three years?”

“Well, not alone, I have Snowflake—”

“And a shotgun,” he added.

That brought a slight smile. He relished the victory. “Do you ever get lonely, Meghan?”

“I enjoy my own company,” she hedged.

Why did it matter to him, anyway? In less than a day, he would climb on the back of the Beast and continue home to Chicago. Meghan would be a comfortable memory, one that would fade once the routine set back in.

A lie.

He’d told himself a lie. Meghan Carroll wasn’t a woman easily forgotten.

After dinner, while she straightened up, he washed the dishes, as promised. Suds foamed everywhere, since he didn’t have a clue how long he should have squirted the liquid under the running water. To her credit, she didn’t say a word.

“Shall we finish our coffee in the living room?” she offered.

Grateful for an excuse to exit the kitchen before she assigned him another task he wasn’t up to, he agreed. While he attempted to wash the white bubbles down the drain, she topped their coffee.

He thought he caught a mischievous glint in her eyes but, since she didn’t say anything, dismissed it as a trick of the lighting.

Snowflake curled up on a rug, and Meghan took the high-backed chair near the crackling fireplace. Kyle tossed another piece of wood on the fire, poked at the still-burning log, then closed the safety grate.

He stood, looking at the blowing snow through the ice-encrusted window. Wind whipped flakes against the pane, making him shiver. Yet a cozy fire licked at dried timber. Outside was frightful, but inside, was so...

That’s when he realized it.

What was missing.

Christmas.

No sign of Christmas—not a single one—existed anywhere in the old farmhouse.

By this time of year, only four days before Christmas, his grandmother would have pestered Granddad into cutting a tree. Evergreen arrangements would adorn each end table, and garlands would hang from every possible place.

Pinecones would dangle from the mantel, tied together with red velvet. Presents, wrapped in every color imaginable, would have been artfully placed beneath the tree’s bottom branches, at least two packages bearing tags lettered with Kyle’s name.

Even though Grandma Aggie had passed away, Christmas still meant a lot to him. It meant a chance to be with Pam, Mark and their kids, and its absence here felt completely wrong.

Tucking a hand in a front pocket of his jeans, he turned back to face her. “Meghan?”

She looked at him over the rim of the coffee cup, steam rising to bathe her face. Although she didn’t say anything, hazel eyes questioned him.

“You don’t have a Christmas tree.”

The fireplace crackled. Snowflake lifted a paw and placed it across his head.

Softly, she said, “I don’t see the point anymore.”

“Don’t see...?”

She raised her shoulders defensively. “I live out here alone.”

Even his empty apartment had an artificial tree, which the housekeeper had dragged from a box after Thanksgiving. “So?”

“Christmas is just another day.”

“Is it?” he asked. “What about the meaning of Christmas—family, caring, sharing?”

“What about it, Kyle?” She placed her coffee cup on a coaster on the end table and looked up at him. “What makes Christmas so special? It isn’t for me.”

She blinked, as if she was trying to disguise some emotion. “I get up, have my coffee, take care of my chores, try to call my parents—the lines are usually all busy—then get to work. It’s another day.”

He heard a shallow, underlying pain, maybe tinged with regret. What was it about him—about her—that made him want to take that hurt and erase it, replacing it with something new, with warm memories?

Kyle dismissed the thought; it was as unwelcome as it was impossible.

He wouldn’t be here long enough. Besides, what right did he have to insist she celebrate Christmas? It was a personal choice.

But damn it, that foolish, sentimental urge just refused to be tamped down. The house all but cried out for attention, for warmth and spontaneity, for a family.

Too bad, he told himself ruthlessly. She wanted no part of it.

The lamps flickered threateningly. Wind howled through the windows, rattling the glass. The fire hissed and jumped. “Do you have flashlights? Maybe some candles?” If he didn’t miss his guess, the electricity would soon fail.

“In the kitchen.” She stood, seemingly anxious to be alone.

He made no move to follow her. Obviously he bothered her, probably more than she cared to admit. Truth to tell, she bothered him. More than he cared to admit.

The lights blinked again, driving him into action. It promised to be a long night. “Meghan?” he asked, following her into the kitchen. “Where’s your wood storage?”

“There’s a closet right there.”

While she gathered a flashlight and candles, he grabbed two kerosene lanterns from a shelf. In the living room, she placed everything on the coffee table, working around the oblivious Snowflake.

By the time he stacked the second load of wood next to the fireplace, the lights gave a final flicker.

Kyle and Meghan’s eyes met. Then their world faded to complete darkness.

Intimacy seemed to take on a life of its own. Kyle was very much aware of the woman standing near him.

“Kyle?”

“Right here. I’ll have a lantern lit in a sec.” The absence of light enhanced his other senses, making the sound of her voice more provocative. He noticed the soft ebb and flow of her breaths, the very feminine scent of her potent perfume and the indescribable impact of her presence.

Want flared in timing with the match he struck against a brick. Within moments, the whiff of kerosene hung pungently in the air. Mother Nature blasted the house and tension dropped over them.

“I guess you’re well and truly stuck now,” she said.

He nodded, then noticed the way dim lantern light and fire glow played on her blond hair.

Temptation.

Kyle tried to resist, told himself to resist, ordered himself to resist.

And failed.

He reached out to her, traced his fingertip down her cheek—soft, so soft. Caught in the spell of lantern light and snow, she seemed ethereal, a result of the magical season.

She stiffened but didn’t pull away.

Their gazes locked, he read loneliness in her eyes and knew it matched his own.

Snowflake belatedly barked, shattering the sensual moment. Meghan slowly moved away, then lit a second lantern. She adjusted the wick when black smoke filled the glass carafe.

He couldn’t help but notice the way her hand shook.

“I’ll...er, set up one of the bedrooms for you.”

“The couch is fine,” he said. “Don’t go to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” she assured him, but she was grateful for his suggestion. The farther away he was the better.

“I don’t mind the couch.”

She nodded and disappeared for a few minutes, carrying a flashlight, a lazy Snowflake her reluctant companion. Kyle sat on the couch and drank from his coffee in silence. Now that he’d spent an evening with someone special in a Colorado Christmas storm, it made him realize how empty and bleak his own life was.

Even if the snow disappeared overnight and he made it home for the holidays, he would still face January 2 as a lonely man.

Although Meghan might not celebrate Christmas, she knew the meaning of the season. She’d taken in a perfect stranger, given him food, warmth, shelter. If that wasn’t the spirit of Christmas, he didn’t know what was.

A tinder leaped, hitting the grate.

Kyle vowed to find a way to pay Meghan back for the generous gift of her hospitality.

She returned carrying blankets and sheets, even a feather pillow. The linens smelled fresh, as if dried in a breeze—not in an appliance.

While Meghan plumped the pillow, he wondered what her hair would look like spread across the soft surface.

Kyle stood and reached for the sheet she’d draped over the chair. “I’ll do that,” he said, freezing her midmotion.

After a few seconds, she said, “Thanks, but I’ve got it.” Meghan accepted the sheet from him, her fingers rubbing across his. Her eyes opened wide before she blinked and turned away.

Motions smooth and economical, she tucked the sheet between the cushions and couch back. Her cotton sweater moved with her, riding high and affording him a view of her thighs and hips.

It was going to be a hell of a long night, he realized again—and not just because of the cold.

He shook out a blanket, then spread it on top of the sheet. If he didn’t do something—anything—he would succumb to the impulse of touching her again, bothering her even more than he already had. That would be unpardonable, a breach of her hospitality.

The resolution didn’t stop him from remembering the feel of her, though.

She turned back to face him, picked up a lantern. The light shed a halo of gold around her, caressing her features the way he wanted to.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Even in the limited lighting, he noticed her blush. The question had been unintentionally intimate; he let it go. Instead, he shook his head.

“In that case, good night.”

He waited until she reached the bottom of the stairs, then spoke. “Meghan?”

She paused.

“I’ll...”

“Yes?”

“Find a way to make this up to you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

Which was why he was doubly determined to repay her. Meghan started up the stairs, leaving him alone and feeling more lonely than he had in years.

Meghan tossed and turned.

Muted sounds from the living room filtered up the stairs. She heard her houseguest moving around.

Undressing?

She thumped her pillow.

The night chill seemed to seep beneath her blankets, freezing her. Her toes curled against the cold.

She ordered herself to go to sleep. The moment her eyes closed, though, thoughts of Kyle made her imagination leap with possibilities. Vivid pictures painted on top of what she’d already noted: broad shoulders, lean hips, muscular thighs.

In her mind, she saw his naked torso, his back, his biceps.

She cracked open her eyes and automatically searched for the digital display telling the time. Remembering the electncal failure, she turned over, willing herself to relax.

The second attempt was no more successful than the first.

She still couldn’t believe she’d invited the man to spend the night, couldn’t believe the way he’d taken over and performed several tasks, lightening the load of her responsibilities.

And she especially couldn’t believe the way her body reacted to his, seeming to hum with vibrant awareness.

His touch hadn’t been anything, really—less than a good-night kiss on a first date. But her insides had turned molten... a crackling need sparked to life. The feel of his finger on her cheek had made her want more, want to turn her head into his palm and rest it there.

He hadn’t meant anything, but heaven help her, she’d wanted more.

She groaned. Meghan Carroll did not respond this way to just any man.

It’d been a long time since Jack—years since her heart had raced. Yet Kyle had done that—oh, so effectively—in mere moments.

He hadn’t respected the lines she’d drawn around her personal life, either. Kyle had tried to push past her walls, asking for answers she had never given anyone. She shivered this time not because of the cold but because she suspected Kyle would demand more if he stayed.

She hoped she was strong enough to brave the storm that was Kyle Murdock.

For several hours, she dozed off and on. A vicious blast of wind rattled the house, shaking the window. Snowflake whimpered and bounded onto the bed, startling Meghan from her disturbed sleep.

She was shivering, the temperature in the bedroom having fallen sharply. No matter how tight a ball she curled into, she couldn’t produce any heat.

Conceding the battle, she sat up and fumbled with the flashlight. After reaching for her heavy terry cloth robe, Meghan climbed from the bed, sliding her feet into furry slippers.

She tiptoed down the stairs, intending to make a cup of tea to warm her up before trying to sleep again.

One hand gripping the banister, she paused, the glow from the flashlight falling on Kyle. Six foot plus of raw masculine energy was sprawled across the cushions of her too-small couch. Suddenly, breathing became an act requiring concentration.

A blanket covered him from the waist down, but his chest was bare and every bit as well developed as her imagination teased.

Even in sleep, he didn’t look innocent, not at all. In fact, he still appeared darkly dangerous.

She swallowed. Aware of acting like a voyeur, she consciously averted her gaze and directed the beam of light at the floor as she continued past him, Snowflake on her heels.

In the kitchen, she lit a lantern, filling the room with a soft glow, and momentarily banishing the blizzard’s fury.

As she turned on the tap and filled the kettle, Meghan released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Glad, for once, of the ancient gas stove that didn’t need electricity, she found matches and lit the burner.

In the silence of the storm, Meghan reached for the clay angel sitting on the counter and traced her fingers across the wings she’d painstakingly sculpted.

This angel, Lexie, was her favorite, named after the grandmother who’d died before she was born. It was one of Meghan’s first-ever attempts at sculpting, yet the one angel she’d been unable to part with. “Well, Lexie, what are we going to do?”

Lexie maintained her perpetually serene smile, offering Meghan some comfort. She replaced the figurine. As the kettle began to hiss, she switched off the gas.

Snowflake plopped down near his bowl, and Meghan carried her cup and tea bag to the table and stirred in a single spoon of sugar.

“Is there tea for two?”

Her spoon clattered to the table. She looked up.

Kyle lazed against the doorjamb, wearing an unbuttoned shirt, tight jeans...and a tempting-as-sin smile.

And the problem was, Meghan realized as her insides constricted into a hyper-aware knot, she was tempted.

Heaven help her, she was tempted.

Three

“Do you see them?” The newer angel’s words were breathless, woven on puffs of air coming from a divinely distant realm.

Lexie smiled as another blip of pure-pink energy zapped past her. “It’s a good sign,” the older angel agreed, folding in her right wing gracefully when another burst of sensually radiant energy sailed by.

“I’m so glad we were able to squeeze so much snow from the clouds.” Grandma Aggie’s eyes opened wide and she looked over her shoulder, as if fearing repercussions from the admission. She twisted her hands together, then she sighed. “Oh, Lexie, do you suppose our reprimand wilt be terrible?”

Lexie smiled serenely, no stranger to breaking the rules. Where Meghan was concerned, Lexie often followed her heart rather than her head. She simply couldn’t bear to watch her darling granddaughter suffer. And now with a co-conspirator... well, Archangel Michael had said it best, himself...trouble had doubled since Aggie’s arrival several years ago, when the two had become fast celestial friends. It hadn’t been long before their individual goals for Meghan and Kyle had become a mutual plan. “I’m sure we’ll have some answering to do.”

Another strand of Grandma Aggie’s hair, black as the coal Santa would leave for some, turned gray.

“But it’s Christmas, and the others are distracted making wishes come true,” Lexie added. “And that’s all we’re doing. Trying to make wishes come true.”

“But neither of them wished for each other.”

“That’s simply beside the point,” Lexie said, sending a mental message of peace to her partner in crime—or in this case, romance.