A Coulter's Christmas Proposal

“I think I’d kill for a steak,” Eli said fervently.

Jane shot him a sympathetic glance. “Baked potato? Salad?”

“Yes to both.”

Eli crossed to the deep sink to wash up. By the time he’d dried his hands and taken a seat at the island, the steak was sizzling and filling the air with a tantalizing aroma. His stomach rumbled in anticipation.

While he waited for his meal, he brooded over his conversation with Amanda. He didn’t want a reporter digging into his mother’s life. He was convinced Amanda would inevitably ask questions about what happened to Melanie’s family after her sudden death. Neither he nor his brothers wanted the story of their father’s alcoholic rages and the unraveling of their childhood exposed in a book. His gut told him it would be like ripping open a barely healed wound when the inevitable publicity meant they’d all have to revisit bad memories. Life after their mother died had been a nightmare. He’d prefer to never again have to think about those years.

And if Amanda Blake was hell bent on conducting research for the story of his mother’s life, she’d stir up all the old stories in Indian Springs.

Too bad she can’t just focus her work on the good days prior to Mom’s accident, he thought morosely as he watched the chef remove a thick steak from the grill.

“I appreciate this,” he told Jane when she slid a plate onto the counter in front of him a moment later.

“Not a problem,” she assured him. The door to the hallway pushed inward and crowd noise from the lobby was suddenly much louder. “Just stay out of the way of the servers,” she warned him with a smile as three women and two men hurried in, carrying empty trays.

Eli ignored their curious glances and focused on the food. Two of the servers left with loaded trays, and by the time another two exited, the first two had returned with more empty trays.

When Eli finished eating, he carried his plate and utensils to the sink, rinsed and stacked them, and waited to catch Jane’s eye to nod his thanks before leaving the room. He paused in the hallway, considering for a moment whether to return to the lobby. Did he want to avoid Amanda—or was he hoping to run into her again? He frowned, wondering why it mattered, before he pushed the question aside. He was too tired to figure out the answer. Instead of returning to the lobby, where the decrease in the level of noise told him the party must be winding down, he turned right down the hallway and entered the office.

Just as he’d hoped, a leather sofa stood along one wall, and he stretched out on the cushions, crossing his booted feet at the ankle. But each time he closed his eyes, the image of Amanda Blake’s hazel eyes and lush pink lips, parted in surprise as she’d turned to look up at him, flashed in vivid color on the inside of his eyelids.

Exhausted, he managed to doze fitfully as the sounds of the party became gradually muted outside the closed door.

With Eli’s departure, Amanda no longer found the Lodge so intriguing and she located her friends, said good-night and left the crowded lobby.

As she drove back to Indian Springs and parked outside her old-fashioned, two-story hotel, the memory of those moments spent talking with Eli Coulter dominated her thoughts. The instant he’d learned she was researching his mother’s life story, his green eyes had cooled, his expression suddenly remote.

His reaction matched that of his brothers Cade and Zach when she’d approached them with a request for an interview.

And look how well that ended, she thought wryly as she climbed the stairway and entered her quiet hotel room.

Apparently, none of the Coulters were willing to discuss their mother.

Sighing, Amanda stripped off her clothes, hanging her little black dress in the closet and tucking underwear and hose neatly into a laundry bag before turning on the shower.

Twenty minutes later, her face scrubbed free of makeup, the ends of her hair damp, she folded back the sheets, propped fat pillows against the headboard and settled into bed with her laptop and a mug of hot green tea.

She opened the file with notes on Melanie Coulter and spent several moments jotting down her impressions of the Lodge.

Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to stay focused on details of the Lodge. As she paused to sip her tea, her thoughts once again drifted to Eli. The brothers looked very much alike with their black hair, green eyes, powerful bodies and frames over six feet tall. All of them were unquestionably handsome and aggressively male.

But only Eli had made her pulse pound and her heart race.

The intense physical reaction she’d felt had surprised her. She’d never felt anything quite like it before. Even now, with time and distance separating her from him, her pulse beat slightly faster at the thought of him.

She’d met good-looking, charming men before, but there was something unique about the alert intelligence in Eli’s green eyes and the way he seemed to listen intently when she spoke, as if she were the only person in the room. He’d had an easy, unforced patience while he waited for her to choose as they’d filled their plates at the buffet table. In fact, everything about him had intrigued her and made her want to learn more about the man behind the handsome face and sexy body.

Clearly, however, nothing would come of her interest, since he’d obviously put her on the don’t-speak-to list.

She sighed, considering her options. She had four months left of a six-month leave of absence from her job as an editor and occasional reporter for the Artist, a glossy monthly periodical with offices in New York City. She’d spent the first two months researching Melanie Coulter’s art. It wasn’t necessary to leave her Village apartment in New York for the early research since many of the people she’d wanted to interview—Melanie’s one-time agent, the art gallery that had sponsored her first showing and prominent collectors of her work—lived either in the city or within driving distance.

Her trip to Montana was the first away-from-home research she’d done for the book. She’d keenly anticipated doing on-site interviews with the people who’d been a part of Melanie Coulter’s everyday life.

But while the residents of Indian Springs had been friendly and polite, they’d been surprisingly vague about details when it came to the Coulter family. And the brothers themselves had been downright uncooperative.

Amanda unconsciously tapped her fingertips against her thigh and frowned. She was tempted to think there was a local conspiracy to withhold any information about Melanie Coulter. Melanie was a well-known figure and, by the very nature of her work, had achieved a certain level of fame. While her name wasn’t a household word everywhere in America, she certainly was well-known in art circles.

Puzzled by the mystery, Amanda searched the internet, clicking on several sites, only to stop at a website she’d been to before. The Fordham Gallery in San Francisco had artist photos of their regular contributors and she clicked on the page that featured Eli Coulter. He wore a Stetson, the brim of the cowboy hat pulled low over his brow in a pose that did more to conceal than reveal. The head shot was clearly professionally done and Amanda guessed the photographer had purposely found a way to create a sexy yet mysterious photo.

She scanned the brief note below that told fans there were no exhibits currently scheduled for Eli but the Gallery hoped to hold one sometime during the following year.

Quickly clicking through the information pages, she noticed there hadn’t been an exhibit in more than a year.

She wondered where he’d been and what he’d been doing that resulted in his falling off the gallery’s list for such a long time. Could there have been a woman involved? This random thought filled her with inexplicable jealousy.

Despite spending the next hour searching the internet and browsing websites for information, Amanda didn’t find anything that would explain why any of the Coulters were so reluctant to talk with her about their mother.

She turned off her laptop, shifting it to rest on the nightstand before she snapped off the lamp and pushed all but one of the pillows to the far side of the bed. Lying flat, she tucked the sheet and blanket under her arms and stared up at the ceiling.

I have to find a way to get people to talk to me and share their memories of Melanie Coulter, she thought. The concept for her book relied on personal touches. She wanted to tell readers not only about Melanie’s artistic successes but also about the woman behind the unique artwork.

Eli’s eyes are like hers, she mused. Despite her need to find a way to break through the reserve of Indian Springs’ residents and get them to confide in her, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from returning to Eli.

She was surprised at how much his rejection bothered her. She’d worked as a reporter at home in New York for several years and having a potential subject of an article resent her questions wasn’t that unusual.

So why did Eli’s coolness bother her so much?

She had no answers. Frustrated, she rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, determined to not think about him anymore.

But when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of a tall, black-haired man with green eyes.

Eli woke to the sound of knuckles rapping on the hall door of the Lodge office, accompanied by Cade’s voice.

“Hey, Eli. You in there?”

“Yeah, come on in.” He sat up as Cade entered. “Is the party over?” He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to wake.

“Everyone’s gone, except for Zach, Mariah, Cynthia and me,” Cade confirmed. “It’s nearly midnight. Come join us in the kitchen.”

“Sure.” Eli stood, hearing bones crack as he stretched, yawning. Fully awake, he followed Cade down the hall and into the kitchen.

The big room was brightly lit, stainless-steel appliances and the polished floor’s black-and-white tiles gleaming. The quick efficiency he’d noticed in the chef and her helpers earlier was obvious in the kitchen’s appearance. Gone was the earlier clutter of platters, stemware and food—now everything was spotlessly clean, the counters neat and tidy.

Mariah and Cynthia perched on the tall stools at the island counter, their gowns bright splashes of crimson and blue in the black-and-white kitchen. Both women were barefoot; their stiletto-heeled sandals lay tumbled on the floor beneath their seats.

“Hey, Eli. Want dessert?” Zach lifted the tray he carried in one hand. It was loaded with miniature iced cakes.