Christmas In The Snow

“It’s all right.” His fingers relaxed again. “I don’t write because I can’t.”

She hesitated, then went on impulse. “I know your music. Something that intense doesn’t fade.”

“It hasn’t mattered a great deal in the past couple of years. Just lately it’s begun to matter again.”

“Don’t be patient.”

When he smiled, she shook her head, at once impatient and regal. Her hand was gripping his now, hard and strong.

“No, I mean it. People always say when the time is right, when the mood is right, when the place is right. Years are wasted that way. If my father had waited until we were older, until the trip was safer, we might still be in the Ukraine. There are some things that should be grabbed with both hands and taken. Life can be very, very short.”

He could feel the urgency in the way her hands gripped his. And he could see the shadow of regret in her eyes. The reason for both intrigued him as much as her words.

“You may be right,” he said slowly, then brought the palm of her hand to his lips. “Waiting isn’t always the best answer.”

“It’s getting late.” Natasha pulled her hand free, then balled it into a fist on her lap. But that didn’t stop the heat from spearing her arm. “We should go.”

She was relaxed again when he walked her to her door. During the short drive home he had made her laugh with stories of Freddie’s ploys to interest him in a kitten.

“I think cutting pictures of cats from a magazine to make you a poster was very clever.” She turned to lean back against her front door. “You are going to let her have one?”

“I’m trying not to be a pushover.”

Natasha only smiled. “Big old houses like yours tend to get mice in the winter. In fact, in a house of that size, you’d be wise to take two of JoBeth’s kittens.”

“If Freddie pulls that one on me, I’ll know exactly where she got it.” He twirled one of Natasha’s curls around his fingers. “And you have a quiz coming up next week.”

Natasha lifted both brows. “Blackmail, Dr. Kimball?”

“You bet.”

“I intend to ace your quiz, and I have a strong feeling that Freddie could talk you into taking the entire litter all by herself, if she put her mind to it.”

“Just the little gray one.”

“You’ve already been to see them.”

“A couple of times. You’re not going to ask me in?”

“No.”

“All right.” He slipped his arms around her waist.

“Spence—”

“I’m just taking your advice,” he murmured as he skimmed his lips over her jaw. “Not being patient.” He brought her closer; his mouth brushed her earlobe. “Taking what I want.” His teeth scraped over her bottom lip. “Not wasting time.”

Then he was crushing his mouth against hers. He could taste the faintest tang of wine on her lips and knew he could get drunk on that alone. Her flavors were rich, exotic, intoxicating. Like the hint of autumn in the air, she made him think of smoking fires, drifting fog. And her body was already pressed eagerly against his in an instantaneous acknowledgment.

Passion didn’t bloom, it didn’t whisper. It exploded so that even the air around them seemed to shudder with it.

She made him feel reckless. Unaware of what he murmured to her, he raced his lips over her face, coming back, always coming back to her heated, hungry mouth. In one rough stroke he took his hands over her.

Her head was spinning. If only she could believe it was the wine. But she knew it was he, only he who made her dizzy and dazed and desperate. She wanted to be touched. By him. On a breathless moan, she let her head fall back, and the urgent trail of his lips streaked down her throat.

Feeling this way had to be wrong. Old fears and doubts swirled inside her, leaving empty holes that begged to be filled. And when they were filled, with liquid, shimmering pleasure, the fear only grew.

“Spence.” Her fingers dug into his shoulders; she fought a war between the need to stop him and the impossible desire to go on. “Please.”

He was as shaken as she and took a moment, burying his face in her hair. “Something happens to me every time I’m with you. I can’t explain it.”

She wanted badly to hold him against herself, but forced her arms to drop to her sides. “It can’t continue to happen.”

He drew away, just far enough to be able to take her face into both hands. The chill of the evening and the heat of passion had brought color to her cheeks. “If I wanted to stop it, which I don’t, I couldn’t.”

She kept her eyes level with his and tried not to be moved by the gentle way he cradled her face. “You want to go to bed with me.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t certain if he wanted to laugh or curse her for being so matter-of-fact. “But it’s not quite that simple.”

“Sex is never simple.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested in having sex with you.”

“You just said—”

“I want to make love with you. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t choose to romanticize it.”

The annoyance in his eyes vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Then I’m sorry I’ll have to disappoint you. When we make love, whenever, wherever, it’s going to be very romantic.” Before she could evade, he closed his mouth over hers. “That’s a promise I intend to keep.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“Natasha! Hey, ah, Natasha!”

Broken out of thoughts that weren’t particularly productive, Natasha glanced over and spied Terry. He was wearing a long yellow-and white-striped scarf in defense against a sudden plunge in temperature that had sprinkled frost on the ground. As he raced after her, it flapped awkwardly behind him. By the time he reached her, his glasses had slipped crookedly down to the tip of his reddening nose.

“Hi, Terry.”

The hundred-yard dash had winded him. He dearly hoped it wouldn’t aggravate his asthma. “Hi. I was—I saw you heading in.” He’d been waiting hopefully for her for twenty minutes.

Feeling a bit like a mother with a clumsy child, she straightened his glasses, then wrapped the scarf more securely around his skinny neck. His rapid breathing fogged his lenses. “You should be wearing gloves,” she told him, then patting his chilled hand, led him up the steps.

Overwhelmed, he tried to speak and only made a strangled sound in his throat.

“Are you catching a cold?” Searching through her purse, she found a tissue and offered it.

He cleared his throat loudly. “No.” But he took the tissue and vowed to keep it until the day he died. “I was just wondering if tonight—after class—you know, if you don’t have anything to do… You’ve probably got plans, but if you don’t, then maybe…we could have a cup of coffee. Two cups,” he amended desperately. “I mean you could have your own cup, and I’d have one.” So saying, he turned a thin shade of green.

The poor boy was lonely, Natasha thought, giving him an absent smile. “Sure.” It wouldn’t hurt to keep him company for an hour or so, she decided as she walked into class. And it would help her keep her mind off…

Off the man standing in front of the class, Natasha reflected with a scowl; the man who had kissed the breath out of her two weeks before and who was currently laughing with a sassy little blonde who couldn’t have been a day over twenty.

Her mood grim, she plopped down at her desk and poked her nose into a textbook.

Spence knew the moment she walked into the room. He was more than a little gratified to have seen the huffy jealousy on her face before she stuck a book in front of it. Apparently fate hadn’t been dealing him such a bad hand when it kept him up to his ears in professional and personal problems for the last couple of weeks. Between leaky plumbing, PTA and Brownie meetings and a faculty conference, he hadn’t had an hour free. But now things were running smoothly again. He studied the top of Natasha’s head. He intended to make up for lost time.

Sitting on the edge of his desk, he opened a discussion of the distinctions between sacred and secular music during the baroque period.

She didn’t want to be interested. Natasha was sure he knew it. Why else would he deliberately call on her for an opinion—twice?

Oh, he was clever, she thought. Not by a flicker, not by the slightest intonation did he reveal a more personal relationship with her. No one in class would possibly suspect that this smooth, even brilliant lecturer had kissed her senseless, not once, not twice, but three times. Now he calmly talked of early seventeenth-century operatic developments.

In his black turtleneck and gray tweed jacket he looked casually elegant and totally in charge. And of course, as always, he had the class in the palms of those beautiful hands he eloquently used to make a point. When he smiled over a student’s comment, Natasha heard the little blonde two seats behind her sigh. Because she’d nearly done so herself, Natasha stiffened her spine.

He probably had a whole string of eager women. A man who looked like him, talked like him, kissed like him was bound to. He was the type that made promises to one woman at midnight and snuggled up to another over breakfast in bed.

Wasn’t it fortunate she no longer believed in promises?

Something was going on inside that fabulous head of hers, Spence mused. One moment she was listening to him as if he had the answers to the mysteries of the universe on the tip of his tongue. The next, she was sitting rigidly and staring off into space, as though she wished herself somewhere else. He would swear that she was angry, and that the anger was directed squarely at him. Why was an entirely different matter.

Whenever he’d tried to have a word with her after class over the last couple of weeks, she’d been out of the building like a bullet. Tonight he would have to outmaneuver her.

She stood the moment class was over. Spence watched her smile at the man sitting across from her. Then she bent down to pick up the books and pencils the man scattered as he rose.

What was his name? Spence wondered. Maynard. That was it. Mr. Maynard was in several of his classes, and managed to fade into the background in each one. Yet at the moment the unobtrusive Mr. Maynard was crouched knee to knee with Natasha.

“I think we’ve got them all.” Natasha gave Terry’s glasses a friendly shove back up his nose.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t forget your scarf—” she began, then looked up. A hand closed over her arm and helped her to her feet. “Thank you, Dr. Kimball.”

“I’d like to talk to you, Natasha.”

“Would you?” She gave the hand on her arm a brief look, then snatched up her coat and books. Feeling as though she were on a chessboard again, she decided to aggressively counter his move. “I’m sorry, it’ll have to wait. I have a date.”

“A date?” he managed, getting an immediate picture of someone dark, dashing and muscle-bound.

“Yes. Excuse me.” She shook off his hand and stuck an arm into the sleeve of her coat. Since the men on either side of her seemed equally paralyzed, she shifted the books to her other arm and struggled to find the second sleeve. “Are you ready, Terry?”

“Well, yeah, sure. Yeah.” He was staring at Spence with a mixture of awe and trepidation. “But I can wait if you want to talk to Dr. Kimball first.”

“There’s no need.” She scooped up his arm and pulled him to the door.

Women, Spence thought as he sat down at a desk. He’d already accepted the fact that he had never understood them. Apparently he never would.

“Jeez, Tash, don’t you think you should have seen what Dr. Kimball wanted?”

“I know what he wanted,” she said between her teeth as she pushed open the main doors. The rush of autumn air cooled her cheeks. “I wasn’t in the mood to discuss it tonight.” When Terry tripped over the uneven sidewalk, she realized she was still dragging him and slowed her pace. “Besides, I thought we were going to have some coffee.”

“Right.” When she smiled at him, he tugged on his scarf as if to keep from strangling.

They walked into a small lounge where half the little square tables were empty. At the antique bar two men were muttering over their beers. A couple in the corner were all but sitting on each other’s laps and ignoring their drinks.

She’d always liked this room with its dim lighting and old black-and-white posters of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. It smelled of cigarettes and jug wine. There was a big portable stereo on a shelf above the bar that played an old Chuck Berry number loudly enough to make up for the lack of patrons. Natasha felt the bass vibrate through her chair as she sat down.

“Just coffee, Joe,” she called to the man behind the bar before she leaned her elbows on the table. “So,” she said to Terry, “how’s everything going?”

“Okay.” He couldn’t believe it. He was here, sitting with her. On a date. She’d called it a date herself.

It would take a little prodding. Patient, she shrugged out of her coat. The overheated room had her pushing the sleeves of her sweater past her elbows. “It must be different for you here. Did you ever tell me where you were going to college before?”

“I graduated from Michigan State.” Because his lenses were fogged again, Natasha seemed to be shrouded by a thin, mysterious mist. “When I, ah, heard that Dr. Kimball would be teaching here, I decided to take a couple years of graduate study.”

“You came here because of Spence—Dr. Kimball?”

“I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. I went to New York last year to hear him lecture.” Terry lifted a hand and nearly knocked over a bowl of sugar. “He’s incredible.”

“I suppose,” she murmured as their coffee was served.

“Where you been hiding?” the bartender asked, giving her shoulder a casual squeeze. “I haven’t seen you in here all month.”

“Business is good. How’s Darla?”

“History.” Joe gave her a quick, friendly wink. “I’m all yours, Tash.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” With a laugh, she turned back to Terry. “Is something wrong?” she asked when she saw him dragging at his collar.

“Yes. No. That is… Is he your boyfriend?”

“My…” To keep herself from laughing in Terry’s face, she took a sip of coffee. “You mean Joe? No.” She cleared her throat and sipped again. “No, he’s not. We’re just…” She searched for a word. “Pals.”

“Oh.” Relief and in security warred. “I just thought, since he…Well.”

“He was only joking.” Wanting to put Terry at ease again, she squeezed his hand. “What about you? Do you have a girl back in Michigan?”

“No. There’s nobody. Nobody at all.” He turned his hand over, gripping hers.

Oh, my God. As realization hit, Natasha felt her mouth drop open. Only a fool would have missed it, she thought as she stared into Terry’s adoring, myopic eyes. A fool, she added, who was so tied up with her own problems that she missed what was happening under her nose. She was going to have to be careful, Natasha decided. Very careful.

“Terry,” she began. “You’re very sweet—”

That was all it took to make his hand shake. Coffee spilled down his shirt. Moving quickly, Natasha shifted chairs so that she was beside him. Snatching paper napkins from the dispenser, she began to blot the stain.

“It’s a good thing they never serve it hot in this place. If you soak this in cold water right away, you should be all right.”

Overcome, Terry grabbed both of her hands. Her head was bent close, and the scent of her hair was making him dizzy. “I love you,” he blurted, and took aim with his mouth; his glasses slid down his nose.

Natasha felt his lips hit her cheekbone, cold and trembly. Because her heart went out to him, she decided that being careful wasn’t the right approach. Firmness was called for, quickly.

“No, you don’t.” Her voice was brisk, she pulled back far enough to dab at the spill on the table.

“I don’t?” Her response threw him off. It was nothing like any of the fantasies he’d woven. There was the one where he’d saved her from a runaway truck. And another where he’d played the song he was writing for her and she had collapsed in a passionate, weeping puddle into his arms. His imagination hadn’t stretched far enough to see her wiping up coffee and calmly telling him he wasn’t in love at all.

“Yes, I do.” He snatched at her hand again.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, and smiled to take the sting out of the words. “You like me, and I like you, too.”

“No, it’s more than that. I—”

“All right. Why do you love me?”

“Because you’re beautiful,” he managed, losing his grip as he stared into her face again. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“And that’s enough?” Disengaging her hand from his, she linked her fingers to rest her chin on them. “What if I told you I was a thief—or that I liked to run down small, furry animals with my car? Maybe I’ve been married three times and have murdered all my husbands in their sleep.”

“Tash—”

She laughed, but resisted the temptation to pet his cheek. “I mean, you don’t know me enough to love me. If you did, what I looked like wouldn’t matter.”

“But—but I think about you all the time.”

“Because you’ve told yourself it would be nice to be in love with me.” He looked so forlorn that she took a chance and laid one hand upon his. “I’m very flattered.”

“Does this mean you won’t go out with me?”

“I’m out with you now.” She pushed her cup of coffee in front of him. “As friends,” she said before the light could dawn again in his eyes. “I’m too old to be anything but your friend.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh, yes.” Suddenly she felt a hundred. “Yes, I am.”

“You think I’m stupid,” he muttered. In place of confused excitement came a crushing wave of humiliation. He could feel his cheeks sting with it.

“No, I don’t.” Her voice softened, and she reached once more for his hands. “Terry, listen—”

Before she could stop him, he pushed back his chair. “I’ve got to go.”

Cursing herself, Natasha picked up his striped scarf. There was no use in following him now. He needed time, she decided. And she needed air.

The leaves were beginning to turn, and a few that had fallen early scraped along the sidewalk ahead of the wind. It was the kind of evening Natasha liked best, but now she barely noticed it. She’d left her coffee untouched to take a long, circular walk through town.

Heading home, she thought of a dozen ways she could have handled Terry’s infatuation better. Through her clumsiness she had wounded a sensitive, vulnerable boy. It could have been avoided, all of it, if she had been paying attention to what was happening in front of her face.

Instead she’d been blinded by her own unwelcome feelings for someone else.

She knew too well what it was to believe yourself in love, desperately, hopelessly in love. And she knew how it hurt to discover that the one you loved didn’t return those feelings. Cruel or kind, the rejection of love left the heart bruised.

Uttering a sigh, she ran a hand over the scarf in her pocket. Had she ever been so trusting and defenseless? Yes, she answered herself. That and much, much more.

It was about damn time, Spence thought as he watched her start up the walk. Obviously her mind was a million miles away. On her date, he decided and tried not to grind his teeth. Well, he was going to see to it that she had a lot more to think about in very short order.

“Didn’t he walk you home?”

Natasha stopped dead with an involuntary gasp. In the beam of her porch light she saw Spence sitting on her stoop. That was all she needed, she thought while she dragged a hand through her hair. With Terry she’d felt as though she’d kicked a puppy. Now she was going to have to face down a large, hungry wolf.

“What are you doing here?”

“Freezing.”

She nearly laughed. His breath was puffing out in white steam. With the wind chill, she imagined that the effective temperature was hovering around twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit. After a moment, Natasha decided she must be a very poor sport to be amused at the thought of Spence sitting on cold concrete for the past hour.

He rose as she continued down the walk. How could she have forgotten how tall he was? “Didn’t you invite your friend back for a drink?”

“No.” She reached out and twisted the knob. Like most of the doors in town, it was unlocked. “If I had, you’d be very embarrassed.”

“That’s not the word for it.”

“I’m suppose I’m lucky I didn’t find you waiting up for me inside.”

“You would have,” he muttered, “if it had occurred to me to try the door.”

“Good night.”

“Wait a damn minute.” He slapped his palm on the door before she could close it in his face. “I didn’t sit out here in the cold for my health. I want to talk to you.”

There was something satisfying in the brief, fruitless push-push they played with the door. “It’s late.”

“And getting later by the second. If you close the door, I’m just going to beat on it until all your neighbors poke their heads out their windows.”

“Five minutes,” she said graciously, because she had planned to grant him that in any case. “I’ll give you a brandy, then you’ll go.”

“You’re all heart, Natasha.”

“No.” She laid her coat over the back of the couch. “I’m not.”

She disappeared into the kitchen without another word. When she returned with two snifters of brandy, he was standing in the center of the room, running Terry’s scarf through his fingers.

“What kind of game are you playing?”

She set down his brandy, then sipped calmly at her own. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What are you doing, going out on dates with some college kid who’s still wet behind the ears?”

Both her back and her voice stiffened. “It’s none of your business whom I go out with.”

“It is now,” Spence replied, realizing it now mattered to him.

“No, it’s not. And Terry’s a very nice young man.”

“Young’s the operative word.” Spence tossed the scarf aside. “He’s certainly too young for you.”

“Is that so?” It was one thing for her to say it, and quite another to have Spence throw it at her like an accusation. “I believe that’s for me to decide.”

“Hit a nerve that time,” Spence muttered to himself. There had been a time—hadn’t there?—when he had been considered fairly smooth with women. “Maybe I should have said you’re too old for him.”

“Oh, yes.” Despite herself, she began to see the humor of it. “That’s a great deal better. Would you like to drink this brandy or wear it?”

“I’ll drink it, thanks.” He lifted the glass, but instead of bringing it to his lips, took another turn around the room. He was jealous, Spence realized. It was rather pathetic, but he was jealous of an awkward, tongue-tied grad student. And while he was about it, he was making a very big fool of himself. “Listen, maybe I should start over.”

“I don’t know why you would want to start something over you should never have begun.”

But like a dog with a bone, he couldn’t stop gnawing. “It’s just that he’s obviously not your type.”

Fire blazed again. “Oh, and you’d know about my type?”

Spence held up his free hand. “All right, one straight question before my foot is permanently lodged in my mouth. Are you interested in him?”

“Of course I am.” Then she cursed herself; it was impossible to use Terry and his feelings as a barricade against Spence. “He’s a very nice boy.”

Spence almost relaxed, then spotted the scarf again, still spread over the back of her couch. “What are you doing with that?”

“I picked it up for him.” The sight of it, bright and a little foolish on the jewel colors of her couch, made her feel like the most vicious kind of femme fatale. “He left it behind after I broke his heart. He thinks he’s in love with me.” Miserable, she dropped into a chair. “Oh, go away. I don’t know why I’m talking to you.”

The look on her face made him want to smile and stroke her hair. He thought better of it and kept his tone brisk. “Because you’re upset, and I’m the only one here.”