Heart of Ice

“You’ll get another one,” Kati said easily. “I’ve never seen anyone with your talent. You got rave reviews in your last play.”

“Well, maybe something will turn up. But, getting back to Egan…”

“Must we?” Kati groaned. She turned, worrying the thick waves of her long hair irritatedly. “Don’t do this to me, Ada. Uninvite him.”

“I can’t. He’s already on the way.”

“Now?” Kati looked hunted. She threw up her hands. “First my royalty check gets lost in the mail when my car payment is due. Now I wind up with a sidewinder to spend Christmas with….”

“He’s my brother,” Ada said in a small voice. “He has no one. Not even a girlfriend.”

“Egan?” Two eyebrows went straight up. “Egan always has a girl friend. He’s never between women.”

“He is right now.”

“Did he go broke?” Kati asked with a sweet smile.

“Now, Kati, he’s not that bad to look at.”

That was true enough. Egan had a body most men would envy. But his face was definitely not handsome. It was craggy and rough and uncompromising. Just like Egan. She could see those glittering silver eyes in her sleep sometimes, haunting her, accusing her—the way they had that last time. She hated Egan because he’d misjudged her so terribly. And because he’d never admitted it. Not then, or since.

She folded her arms over her breasts with a curt sigh. “Well, Mary Savage used to think he was Mr. America,” she conceded.

Ada eyed her closely. “He’s just a poor, lonely old cattleman. He can’t help it if women fall all over him.”

“Egan Winthrop, poor? Lonely?” Kati pursed her lips. “The old part sounds about right, though.”

“He’s thirty-four,” Ada reminded her. “Hardly in his dotage.”

“Sounds ancient to me,” Kati murmured, staring out over the jeweled night skyline of Manhattan.

“We’re both twenty-five.” Ada laughed. “Nine years isn’t so much.”

“Fudge.” She leaned her head against the cold windowpane. “He hates me, Ada,” she said after a minute, and felt the chill all up and down her body. “He’ll start a fight as sure as there’s a sun in the sky. He always starts something.”

“Yes, I know,” Ada confessed. She joined the taller woman at the window. “I don’t understand why you set him off. He’s usually the soul of chivalry with women.”

“I’ve seen him in action,” Kati said quietly. “You don’t have to tell me about that silky charm. But it’s all surface, Ada. Egan lets nobody close enough to wound.”

“For someone who’s been around him only a few times in recent years, and under the greatest pressure from me, you seem to know him awfully well,” Ada mumbled.

“I know his type,” she said shortly. “He’s a taker, not a giver.”

“Neither one of you ever gives an inch,” Ada remarked. She studied her friend closely. “But I had to invite him. He’s the only family I have.”

Kati sighed, feeling oddly guilty. She hugged the shorter girl impulsively. “I’m sorry. I’m being ratty and I don’t mean to. You’re my friend. Of course you can invite your awful brother for Christmas. I’ll grit my teeth and go dancing with Jack and pretend I love having him here. Okay?”

“That I’ll have to see to believe.”

Kati crossed her heart. “Honest.”

“Well, since that’s settled, how about if we go and get a Christmas tree?” Ada suggested brightly.

Kati laughed. “Super,” she said and grabbed up her coat to follow Ada out the door. “And if we get one big enough,” she mumbled under her breath, “maybe we can hang Egan from one of the limbs.”

They trudged through four tree lots before they found just the right tree. It was a six-foot Scotch pine, full and bushy and perfect for their apartment. They stuffed it into the back of Kati’s Thunderbird and carried it home, along with boxes of ornaments and new tinsel to add to their three-year supply in the closet.

Ada went out to get a pizza while Kati tied ribbon through the bright balls and hung them lovingly on the tree. She turned on some Christmas music and tried not to think about Egan. It seemed so long ago that they’d had that horrible blowup….

It had been five years since Kati first set eyes on Egan Winthrop. She and Ada had met at school, where both were majoring in education. Ada had later switched to drama, and Kati had decided to study English while she broke into the fiction market in a small way. Three years ago, after graduation, they’d taken this apartment together.

Egan and Kati had been at odds almost from the first. Kati got her first glimpse of the tall rancher at school, when she and Ada were named to the college honors society in their junior year. Egan and Mrs. Winthrop had both come. Kati had no relatives, and Ada had quickly included her in family plans for an evening out afterward. Egan hadn’t liked that. From the first meeting of eyes, it had been war. He disapproved vehemently of Kati’s chosen profession, although he was careful not to let Ada or his mother see just how much he disliked Kati. They’d hardly spoken two words until that fateful summer when Kati had flown out to the ranch with Ada for the Fourth of July.

It had been the first year she’d roomed with Ada, almost three years ago. Ada’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and the family knew that despite the treatments, it would only be a matter of a year or two before she wouldn’t be with them. Everyone had gone to the Wyoming ranch for the July Fourth holidays—including Kati, because Ada refused to leave her alone in New York. Kati’s parents were middle-aged when she was born, and had died only a little apart just before she finished high school. She had cousins and uncles and aunts, but none of them would miss her during the July vacation. So, dreading Egan’s company, she’d put on a happy face and gone.

She couldn’t forget Egan’s face when he’d seen her getting off the plane with his sister. He hadn’t even bothered to disguise his distaste. Egan had a mistaken view of romance writers’ morals and assumed that Kati lived the wild life of her heroines. It wasn’t true, but it seemed to suit him to believe that it was. He gave her a chilly reception, his silvery eyes telling her that he wished she’d stayed in New York.

But his cousin Richard’s enthusiastic greeting more than made up for Egan’s rudeness. She was hugged and hugged and enthused over, and she ate it up. Richard was just her age, a dark-haired, dark-eyed architect with a bright future and a way with women. If he hadn’t been such a delightful flirt, the whole incident might have been avoided. But he had been, and it wasn’t.

Richard had taken Kati to the Grand Teton National Park for the day, while Mrs. Winthrop soaked up the attention she was getting from her son and daughter. She was a lot like Ada, a happy, well-adjusted person with a loving disposition. And none of Egan’s cynicism. Kati had liked her very much. But she and Richard had felt that Mrs. Winthrop needed some time alone with her children. So they’d driven to the park and hiked and enjoyed the beauty of the mountains rising starkly from the valley, and afterward they’d stopped in Jackson for steaks and a salad.

On the way home, Richard’s car had had a flat tire. Richard, being the lovable feather-brain he was, had no spare. In that part of the country on a holiday night, there wasn’t a lot of traffic. So they walked back to the ranch—which took until four in the morning.

Egan had been waiting up. He said nothing to Richard, who was so tired that he was hardly able to stand. Richard went inside, leaving all the explanations to Kati.

“You live down to your reputation, don’t you?” he asked with a smile that chilled even in memory. “My God, you might have had a little consideration for my mother. She worried.”

Kati remembered trying to speak, but he cut her off with a rough curse.

“Don’t make it worse by lying,” he growled. “We both know what you are…you with your loose morals and your disgusting books. What you do with my cousin is your business, but I don’t want my holidays ruined by someone like you. You’re not welcome here any longer. Make some excuse to leave tomorrow.”

And he walked away, leaving Kati sick and near tears. She hadn’t let them show, she was too proud. And she’d managed to get to bed without waking Ada, who shared a room with her. But the next morning, cold-eyed and hating Egan more than ever, she packed her suitcase, gave some excuse about an unexpected deadline and asked Richard to take her to the airport.

They were on the porch when Egan came out the front door, looking irritated and angry and strangely haggard.

“I’d like to speak to you,” he told Kati.

She remembered looking at him as if he were some form of bacteria, her back stiff, her eyes full of hatred.

“Go ahead,” she told him.

He glared at Richard, who cleared his throat and mumbled something about getting the car.

“Why didn’t you tell me what happened?” he asked.

“Why bother, when you already knew?” she asked in glacial tones.

“I didn’t know,” he ground out.