Stormbound With A Tycoon

He could not stop the little grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. They could pull chairs up close to the fire and drink their morning coffee in a setting conducive to conversation. He would be able to change her abject opinion of him. Yes, indeed. He was very pleased with himself and his plan.

When he had finished with the fireplace he went to the kitchen to retrieve his coffee mug. He called to Jessica when he heard her emerge from the bathroom. “Coffee’s ready. Do you take anything in it or is black okay?” He stood poised with the pot in his hand waiting for her answer.

“Oh, my God! What have you done?” Jessica’s cry of alarm filled the air as much as the smell of smoke that quickly replaced the aroma of fresh coffee. It billowed out of the fireplace and into the living room. Her first thought said the cabin was on fire, but before she could act on that assumption she realized it was something else.

Dylan charged across the room toward the fireplace while shouting instructions. “Open the front door and a couple of windows to draw the smoke out.” He snatched the largest logs that had not yet caught fire and dropped them on the hearth. He used the poker and scattered the burning kindling around the fireplace to break up the fire’s fuel. Then he grabbed the bucket of sand he had spotted on the front porch and spread it over what was left of the fire to smother it.

Jessica stepped out to the front porch and took a deep breath of the crisp fresh air. She was not sure exactly what to think. It was obvious to her that he had stupidly left the damper in the chimney closed—too much high living and not enough practical experience with real life. She furrowed her brow in thought as another realization hit her. He had also taken immediate charge of the emergency and handled it with calm efficiency.

She set her jaw into a firm line and shook her head to clear her mind of the unwanted, compromising thought. After all, she had every right to be angry with him for enveloping her cabin in smoke and causing a potential disaster. She stubbornly refused to allow any contradictory thoughts to cloud the issue. She stepped back inside the living room, paused for a moment, then made her way over to the fireplace where Dylan had busied himself cleaning up the mess.

The morning had been filled with more than enough tension, and she was not sure exactly what to think or feel about the events that had already transpired. She knew she had been a little harsh, and possibly even unfair, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself. It was as if some sort of self-defense mechanism had automatically kicked in to protect her from the charms of this handsome and far-too-sexy scoundrel.

She tried to prevent any irritation from creeping into her voice. “Apparently you failed to open the damper before starting the fire.”

He straightened and leveled an appraising look at her. Was she challenging him? Accusing him? He did not know how to read her. “I’ve lit more than my share of fires in various fireplaces. I can assure you that I know enough to check. The damper was open.” With that, he turned toward the kitchen and the coffee he had left there.

He glanced back at the fireplace just in time to see her kneel down in front of the hearth and reach for the lever that controlled the damper. A little flicker of satisfaction settled inside him as the sheepish expression covered her face when she looked up and saw him watching her. She brushed her hands against her jeans, then slowly walked across the living room to the kitchen.

Dylan cocked his head and arched an eyebrow. “Well?” He saw the crimson tinge of embarrassment spread across her cheeks. She glanced at the floor before regaining eye contact with him.

“You…uh…you were right. The damper is open. I…uh…well, apparently there’s something else blocking the chimney.”

His sharply clipped words carried an edge of sarcasm. “That’s a safe guess.”

He continued to stare at her, waiting for her to make the next move. She had accused him of not knowing enough to check the damper and doubted his word when he told her it was open, even to the point of checking it for herself. She had no option other than admitting that he had not been responsible for the fiasco.

The entire morning he had been on the receiving end of her disapproval and skepticism. Now that he had finally gained the upper hand over the circumstances, he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her off the hook quite so easily. Things were finally starting to feel a little more comfortable and familiar. He suppressed a grin and settled into the game. It was an interesting situation packed with lots of possibilities. So why was he still feeling a little uneasy…and a lot unsure?

He tried to maintain a stern expression, but it wasn’t easy. Even though his feelings about her were very confused, they certainly were not hostile. He took a quick inventory of the physical attributes of this very enticing woman. A band tightened across his chest, and the heat of desire churned deep inside him. His feelings were definitely not hostile…quite the contrary.

She squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, then visibly pulled her composure together. She squared her shoulders and aimed an unflinching stare at him. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

He purposely widened his eyes in feigned innocence. “Make what easy for you?” Justin had told him about his sister hating to admit being wrong, that she was very stubborn in that regard. For reasons he could not clearly define, he was enjoying her being on the spot for a change rather than him. It was an interesting moment of pointed banter with the delightful Jessica McGuire.

She took in a calming breath, then loudly expelled it. An edge of irritation clung to her words. “All right!” She took another calming breath. “You were right and I was wrong. The damper was open.” She glared at him with as much of a challenge in her eyes as in her voice. “There—are you satisfied now?”

He flashed her a dazzling smile, freely allowing the sound of victory to fill his voice. “That wasn’t really so difficult, was it?”

“Yes, it was!” Her angry retort quickly turned to an awkward moment as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She rubbed her hand across the back of her neck and glanced at the floor. Her words were soft, her voice a whisper. “I just assumed—”

“You assumed…what? That I’m a hopelessly inept jerk who isn’t capable of handling the most basic task?” He saw the embarrassment color her cheeks again and he immediately regretted the harshness of his words, regardless of how true they had been.

She tried to recover the upper hand. “You have to admit that your lifestyle certainly doesn’t lend itself to—”

“Perhaps my ‘lifestyle’ isn’t what you think it is.” He clenched his jaw in an attempt to bite off his anger. “True, I’ve spent the past few years more or less wandering around…” The sadness and despair that suddenly welled inside him forced an end to his comments.

He turned the word over in his mind. Lifestyle. He had no purpose in life or even any goals. Always a party to go to, but no one special with whom to share the joys or the sorrows…especially the sorrows. That was not a lifestyle—it was loneliness.

He had always envied Justin, who seemed to have everything he didn’t. Even though Justin was divorced, he had family and was very close to his sister. He had a career he loved, a home and close friends. He had roots, something that was important to him. And Jessica—she was a very together lady. They had everything that mattered. They had what he very much wanted.

What little family Dylan started with had long ago been taken away. He was an only child. His father had deserted the family when he was ten years old. He eventually learned that his father had died five years later. His mother died within two weeks of the time he had been left literally at the altar on his wedding day. It seemed that those closest to him had deserted him. It was a lesson he had learned the hard way—if you allow someone into your heart or to touch your place of vulnerability you will end up being hurt. Close emotional attachments weren’t for him, but he truly envied Justin and Jessica.

Dylan turned away before his moment of melancholy became obvious to Jessica. It was just the type of vulnerability he did not want to show to this woman who had already developed some very definite opinions of him. He grabbed the empty coffee mug from the kitchen counter, filled it and handed it to her. He forced an upbeat attitude to his tone. “You never answered me about cream or sugar.”

“Just black.” She reached out to take the mug from his hand. Their fingers touched for an instant, the warmth much more than what was being generated by the coffee. Her gaze locked with his, held there as if by some force beyond her control. Her breath froze in her lungs. She finally managed to look away, but it did not still the pounding of her heart.

He carried his coffee mug to the living room, taking a swallow as he walked. He desperately wanted to smooth out the tension that permeated the air. Then an incident from his youth popped into his mind. He couldn’t stop the chuckle that accompanied it.

She stared at him, her expression part curiosity and part irritation. “This entire morning has been a disaster. Just what is it that you find so funny?”

He took another sip of his coffee and settled into a comfortable chair. “The disaster with the fireplace reminded me of something that happened a long time ago, when I was about fifteen years old.” Another soft chuckle escaped his throat as the recollection from his past settled over him.

“My mother and I lived in an old house that had a fireplace left over from a time before the furnace had been installed. She was down the block playing cards with the neighbors. I decided it was a perfect evening to invite my girlfriend over on the pretext of our studying together. I planned to build this romantic fire in the fireplace the way I’d seen in movies.”

“At fifteen years old you were planning romantic evenings?”

He shot her a sly sidelong glance. “Fifteen-year-old hormones are difficult to argue with.” He allowed a quiet moment of reflection as the memory of simpler times warmed his consciousness.

“I had wood, newspapers and matches, all the things I thought I needed to build this romantic fire. I had everything put together the way I thought it should be, with newspaper on the bottom, little pieces of wood on top of that, then bigger pieces on the top of the pile. It was time for her to arrive. I struck a match and lit the newspaper which immediately flared up and caught the small pieces of wood. When I was sure the fire was going I opened the front door and went out on the porch to watch for her. Before I knew what was happening, the room filled with smoke and it billowed out the door. A neighbor saw the smoke and called the fire department.”

He turned and looked at her. “And that’s how I learned about dampers in a fireplace.” He emitted another gentle laugh mixed with a hint of embarrassment. “What about you? Do you have any most embarrassing moment from your past that you’d like to share?”

Only two truly embarrassing moments leaped to her mind. The first one was having several people show up for what she thought was her lunch date with Dylan when she was sixteen years old. The other was catching her husband in bed with another woman. She had no intention of mentioning either incident. “I…uh…can’t think of anything right now.”

“Oh, I see. I’m left here with my embarrassment exposed, and you’re keeping yours a secret.” His teasing grin let her know he wasn’t angry or upset.

He had shared a personal experience with her, something from his past. It was a warm few minutes that left her enveloped in a feeling of closeness, one totally different from anything she had been prepared for. It was as if she was seeing a totally different Dylan Russell than the one she assumed she knew. The reflective moment was broken when he rose from the chair.

“I guess the next order of business is to figure out exactly what’s blocking the chimney.” He bent down on the hearth and attempted to look up into the darkness, then turned back toward her. “Do you have a flashlight somewhere around here?”

“Yes, in the kitchen. I’ll get it for you.” She hurried to the kitchen. Her desire to escape the smooth presence that had been lulling her into a very receptive mood was as strong as the need to retrieve the flashlight. She quelled the uncertainty churning in her stomach. Nothing was as it should be—least of all Dylan Russell. It was more than Justin having let him use the cabin. More than her having inadvertently climbed into bed with him. She feared just how much more it might turn out to be.

Every time she tried to force him into a predetermined mold of who and what he was, he refused to fit. The harder she pushed and shoved, the more he seemed to resist. She found it very perplexing and very frustrating. She had a knack for being able to tag people as to who and what they were, but he refused to cooperate. Every time he flashed that sexy smile she increased her efforts to put him in his place and he seemed to resist all that much harder.

She toyed with the idea that she wanted him neatly classified because she felt threatened by his devil-may-care freedom to do as he pleased whenever it pleased him. It angered her that without even seeming to try, he had managed to make a mockery of her ordered and sensible life. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

His nearness sent little tremors of excitement racing through her body…tremors over which she had no control. And all this just from his presence. Other than when he wrapped his arm around her waist while he was asleep, there had been no physical contact between them. Unless you counted the brief moment when their fingers touched—a moment she could still feel as if it had happened only a second ago.

He was not a physical threat, but he surely was a very real emotional one. She reminded herself that she was no longer that impressionable fifteen-year-old schoolgirl who had the major crush on her older brother’s friend. Nor was she the sixteen-year-old whose heart had been broken by the very same Dylan Russell. She swept the inappropriate thoughts from her mind and went in search of the flashlight and spare batteries.

Dylan shuffled through a couple of closets while Jessica looked for the flashlight. He found a broom, an old mop handle and some duct tape. By overlapping the ends of the handles and taping them together, he had ended up with a long pole.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Jessica asked as she handed him the flashlight.

He leaned the pole against the wall and took the flashlight from her. “I’m making something long enough to reach up the chimney so I can dislodge whatever it is without having to go up on the roof and tackle it from that direction.”

“Go up on the roof?” Surely he wasn’t serious about actually doing it. “It’s still raining. The roof has a very steep slope. It’s much too dangerous.”