“Oh, well, that certainly explains it.” She gave a snort of laughter when he slammed the door behind him. He wasn’t really crazy, she thought. A little dim, maybe, and so much fun to aggravate. And if she aggravated him enough, Sunny mused, she might just get some more information out of him.
She heard him cursing and didn’t bother to muffle a laugh. Unless she missed her guess, he’d just dropped at least one log on his foot. Perhaps she should have offered him a flashlight, but... he deserved it.
Wiping the grin from her face, she went to the door to open it for him. He was already coated with snow. It was even clinging to his eyebrows, giving him a fiercely surprised expression. She bit down hard on her tongue and let him stomp across the kitchen, his arms loaded with wood. At the sound of logs crashing into the box, she cleared her throat, then calmly picked up her beer and his before joining him in the living room.
“I’ll get the next load,” she told him solicitously.
“You bet you will.” His foot was throbbing, his fingers were numb, and his temper was already lost. “How does anybody live like this?”
“Like what?” she asked innocently.
“Here.” He was at his wit’s end. He threw out his arms in a gesture that encompassed not only the cabin but also the world at large. “You have no power, no conveniences, no decent transportation, no nothing. If you want heat, you have to burn wood. Wood, for God’s sake! If you want light, you have to rely on unstable electricity. As for communication, it’s a joke. A bad one.”
Sunny was a city girl at heart, but nobody insulted her family home. Her chin came up. “Listen, pal, if I hadn’t taken you in you’d be up in the woods freezing like a Popsicle and no one would have found you until the spring thaw. So watch it.”
Overly sensitive, he decided, lifting a brow. “You can’t tell me that you actually like it here.”
Her hands fisted and landed on her hips. “I like it here just fine. If you don’t, we’ve got two doors. Take your pick.”
His little excursion to the woodpile had convinced him that he didn’t care to brave the elements. Neither did he care to swallow his pride. He stood for a moment, considering his choices. Without a word, he picked up his beer, sat and drank.
Since Sunny considered it a victory, she joined him. But she wasn’t ready to give him a break. “You’re awfully finicky for a guy who pops up on the doorstep without so much as a toothbrush.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said you’re awfully—”
“How do you know I don’t have a toothbrush?” He’d read about them. Now, with fire glinting in his eyes, he turned to her.
“It’s an expression,” Sunny said, evading his question. “I simply meant that I wouldn’t think that a man who travels with one change of clothes should be complaining about the accommodations.”
“How would you know what I’ve got—unless you’ve been going through my things?”
“You haven’t got any things,” Sunny muttered, knowing that once again she’d opened her mouth before she’d fine-tuned her brain. She started to rise, but he clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Look, I only went through your bag to see—just to see, that’s all.” She turned, deciding a level look was the best defense. “How could I be sure you were who you said you were and not some maniac?”
He kept his grip painfully firm. “And are you sure now?” He caught the quick flicker in her eyes and decided to exploit it. “There wasn’t anything in my bag to tell you one way or the other. Was there?”
“Maybe not.” She tried to shrug his hand off. When it remained, she balled one of her own into a fist and waited.
“So, for all you know, I am a maniac.” He leaned closer, until his face was an inch from hers, until her eyes saw only his eyes, until his breath mingled with her breath. “And there are all kinds of maniacs, aren’t there, Sunny?”
“Yes.” She had trouble getting the word past her lips. It wasn’t fear. She wished it were. It was something much more complicated, much more dangerous, than fear. For a moment, with the firelight flickering beside them, the candles wavering, the wind beating soft fists on the window, she didn’t care who he was. All that mattered was that he was going to kiss her. And more.
The fact that he would do more was in his eyes. The image of rolling on the floor with him sprang into her mind. A wild, willful tangle of bodies, a free, frantic burst of passion. It would be that way with him. The first time, and every time. Raging rivers, quaking earth, exploding planets. Such would love be with him.
And after the first time there would be no turning back. She was certain, as she had never been certain of anything, that if there was a first time, she would want him, she would crave him, as long as there was breath in her body.
His lips brushed hers. It could hardly be called a kiss, yet the potency of it sent shock waves streaking through her system. And had warning bells screaming in her head. She did the only thing a sensible woman could do under the circumstances. She drove her clenched hand into his stomach.
His breath pushed out in a huff of pained surprise. As he doubled over, nearly falling in her lap, she slipped to one side and sprang to her feet. She was braced and ready for his next move.
“You’re the maniac,” he managed after he’d wheezed some air into his lungs. “I have never in my life met anyone like you.”
“Thanks.” She was nibbling on her lip again, but she let her tensed arms drop to her sides. “You deserved that, J.T.” She held her ground as he slowly lifted his head and sent her a long, killing look. “You were trying to intimidate me.”
It had started out that way, he was forced to admit. But in the end, when he had leaned toward her, smelled her hair, felt the soft silk of her lips, it had had nothing to do with intimidation and everything to do with seduction. His. “It wouldn’t be hard,” he said after a moment, “to learn to detest you.”
“No, I guess not.” Because he was taking it better than she’d anticipated, she smiled at him. “I tell you what—since we are family, so to speak... I do believe you, by the way. That you’re Cal’s brother, I mean.”