She could barely breathe for the cold air and fear eating away at her lungs as she stopped in front of him. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Who are those men? I thought you were doing some inspection on the property you’re buying. What’s going on, Cole?”
With a grim set to his jaw, Cole stepped closer, tried to touch her. She jerked away. Her attention shifted over Cole’s shoulder to where Abe stood gaping at the two of them. The implications of him being there weren’t missed on Holly. She knew that Abe was supposed to meet Cole for the property inspection.
She ground her teeth and cast him an accusing glare. “What are you doing here? What is Abe doing here?”
“Holly,” he pleaded.
She squeezed her eyes shut, his lack of explanation the only answer she needed. “Oh God. This can’t be happening.” Slowly, she opened her eyes and forced out the question burning a fast-deepening hole in her gut. “This is the property you’re buying, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know. I—”
It was true! “You’re buying my family home?!” She exploded with a combination of panic and anger. Her hands went to the side of her head, fingers in her hair. She was coming home to Haven, and home didn’t exist. Had her parents’ retirement put them in financial distress? Were they ashamed to ask for help? She flung her arms out to her sides. “How could you not tell me that?! How?”
He held his hands up. “I didn’t know, Holly. I didn’t know. Your last name isn’t even Reddy. How would I know?”
“My last name is Reddy!” she yelled, fully aware that the other men, Abe included, were staring at them, jaws to the ground. Well, let them stare. She hoped their eyes popped out and their ears fried. She balled her fists by her sides, and added, “It’s been Reddy every damned day of my life! ”
Helplessly, he shook his head. “Your book. I thought—”
“My God, Cole. It’s a small town. I can hardly pee without a report being sent home to my parents. You want me to believe that everyone but you, the man who has been fucking me nightly, knows my real name?”
She didn’t ever use the F-word. She didn’t. But she was hurting, panicked. Shaking.
“Get off! ” She pointed. “Get off the property, now. It’s not for sale. I’ll take care of whatever financial mess my parents are in. You won’t steal this property from them. You can’t.”
Cole jerked back as if slapped, his jaw setting in a steely hard line, a solemn expression in his dark eyes. “It’s not like that, Holly,” he said, his voice low now, as tight as a rubber band ready to pop. “And I can’t believe you’d think that of me. Your parents want to travel. They’re excited about selling.”
Of course, they said that. Who admitted having financial difficulties?! She drew in a hard-earned breath. “Leave, Cole,” she whispered. “Go away and don’t ever come back.”
She turned on her heels and raced toward the door, expecting him to follow. But she reached the stairs, reached the door, and Cole wasn’t there. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and knew he was still standing where she’d left him and it hurt. She shoved open the door and went inside, leaned on the wooden surface and waited for the knock that didn’t come. A stinging sensation bit at the back of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She refused to cry over Cole Wiley, a man who’d obviously been manipulating and using her in some way.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn, damn, damn. She was crying.
AS EXCITED AS HOLLY WAS about seeing her sister Rachel, and as hard and long as she hugged her, it was torture to bite her tongue through the happy homecoming and not pull her parents aside. It was, after all, only an hour after she’d wiped her tears from her confrontation with Cole. She’d pulled herself together, after being instructed to bring the ruby to the main house, and now Holly sat next to Rachel in the family living room. She watched as her mother placed the stone on the mantel and announced that the ruby’s destiny would be disclosed Christmas morning.
“Grandma left a sealed letter with instructions,” Margaret explained. “She wanted us all here when it’s opened.”
“Well, of course, it’s going to Holly,” Rachel said, casting her a sideways look. “The oldest. The golden child who did no wrong.”
Holly snipped that idea immediately, not about to carry the added weight of this childhood argument at a time like this—with their family home on the line. “The golden child, as in the babysitter, diaper changer, the one who got in trouble for everything you guys did. You sound like Mason now. Please.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes on Holly and laughed. “God, I’ve missed arguing with you.”
Holly found herself smiling despite the stress weighing on her shoulders. “I’ve missed arguing with you, too.”
“Whatever the destiny of the ruby,” Margaret said, “Grandma found a way to make it special for the entire family.” The family story of the ruby followed—including Grandma Reddy’s belief that it held the magic of love—and Holly fought back a wave of emotion. The ruby wish had started her down the path that had led to Cole, and looking at the whimsical expression on Rachel’s lovely, heart-shaped face, she was headed to the same place.
“So all I have to do is wish for a big, hunky guy, and he’ll come calling?” Rachel joked. She shoved a wave of dark hair behind her ear and bit her lip. “I think I’ll wish for someone tall—at least six foot three, broad shoulders, a six-pack, and blue eyes.” She sighed. “Yeah. That would be nice.”
Holly scoffed at that before she could stop herself. “Careful what you wish for,” she said, thinking of her own wish. “You might get it.”
Rachel and Margaret both stared at Holly. Rachel arched a dark brow. “Something you need to talk about, sis?”
“What?” she asked. “No. I’m just uptight about my deadlines. I need to get back to work.” She hugged Rachel. “I want to hear all about that big-time advertising career of yours before you leave. Love ya, sweetie. Glad you’re home.”
Holly stood up and tried to sound nonchalant. “Mom, that contractor who came today left some paperwork he said you needed, if you want to walk over to the cottage with me to get it?”
Her mother’s face froze. “Contractor?”
“Cole Wiley,” Holly said. “He went over everything with me in detail.”
“Yes,” Margaret said. “I’ll be right over.”
The doorbell rang and before anyone had a chance to respond it was open. Buzzy, the nosy neighbor next door, sounded off as she let herself in. “Hello, everyone!” Holly’s eyes met her mother’s and in silent, mutual agreement, they made a path for the door. Neither of them wanted to deal with Buzzy’s questions right now. Poor Rachel would just have to deal with the joy of a welcome home, Nosy Buzzy style.
FIVE MINUTES LATER, HOLLY’S MOTHER sat across from her at Grandma Reddy’s kitchen table.
“Is this about money, Mom?” Holly asked. “Has retirement put you in a bad spot?”
“No! ” she said, looking appalled. “Of course not. The house is paid for. We want the money to travel. We want to live a little. And none of you are here. Why should we sit back and let life pass us by? We planned to tell everyone after the holidays. We thought it was best that way.”
Holly pursed her lips. “Because you knew we’d be upset.”
“We hope you’ll all be excited for us. We’re going to see the world, sweetheart. But yes, we worried that one, or all of you, would be upset, and we didn’t want to upset the holiday festivities. We never intended for you to find out the way you did. That had to be a shock.”
Her mom didn’t know the half of it. Finding out that Cole was buying their property shook her in a way her mother couldn’t begin to understand.
“You’re sure this Cole Wiley isn’t pressuring you in some way?”
Her mother laughed at that. “Oh, goodness no. If anything your father is pressuring him to finish up the paperwork.”
Holly leaned back in the chair. Everything was spinning out of control, and she had
to get it back to normal. Maybe Cole really hadn’t known her last name. Maybe he was innocent of any wrongdoing. So why did she still feel so betrayed and angry at him?
THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER SPENDING an hour with the banker handling the house sale, Holly exited the shelter of the bank building to find herself smack in the middle of the beginning of a blizzard, the wind whipping big, white snowflakes around her. Holly hun kered down in her long, black coat, her best black suit far from adequate cover even with knee-high boots. She was lucky she’d thrown it in her bag at all. It had been a last-minute whim. Old habits were hard to break. A suit was still familiar territory she clung to like a security blanket. Too bad she hadn’t chosen a pair of dress pants. But then, she hadn’t figured she’d really need the darned thing at all.
She slid into her car and quickly flipped on the heater, her hands shaking. She tried to tell herself it was from the cold. Frozen and for what? Nothing. No. That was wrong. She now had the peace of mind of knowing her parents were not in financial distress, and she wasn’t sitting at home wishing Cole would call so she could yell at him. She wanted to hit him. She also wanted to kiss him. She dropped her head to the steering wheel. How did everything get so out of control?
Cole had the control. He was about to take ownership of her home in Haven. And he had her heart. She felt completely vulnerable. And the wall all this had erected between her and Cole felt as if it reached clear to the sky. She felt her choices had been taken from her. If she wanted to come home, if she wanted her family home, she had to be with Cole. And didn’t she want to be with Cole? She did. She wanted it as readily as she did her next breath.
“So what’s the problem, Holly?” she murmured. “What’s the problem?” Her stomach rolled with the answer. She was scared, she realized. And the longer she went without talking to Cole, the more frightened she became about the control he held over her life. And the more certain she was that she couldn’t give someone that kind of power over her.
Holly started driving, determined to get a grip on herself and everything happening around her. Cole didn’t dictate her actions, her future. He could own her house, but he didn’t own her. Whatever happened, whatever choices she made, they were hers. She would take back control.
That resolve lasted all of ten minutes, until the weather and her car proved she was nowhere near having any control. One minute her hands were steady on the wheel, the next her tire blew, and she was wildly trying to steer the car in a straight path with no hope of actually doing so. Her car skidded and landed with two tires in a ditch. She sat there, in the middle of a storm, and burst into tears.
SITTING BEHIND THE WHEEL OF his truck, Cole drove toward town, the radio announcer talking about yet more early-season bad weather. He didn’t give a damn if a blizzard had rolled in. Let it snow. Let it sleet. He was going to get hammered. Absolutely flipping hammered, like he hadn’t been in a damned decade. After damned near twenty-four hours, it was clear that Holly showing up to apologize was about as likely to happen as a heat wave in Alaska. Evidently, he’d been a fool for thinking she’d figure out he’d done nothing wrong and show up to kiss away the pain of her attack. He sniffed. Fool, he thought. Nothing but a fool.
With a grimace, Cole turned the corner leading to the main road and squinted past the windshield wipers. There was a car in the ditch to his left, and his heart froze.
“Fuck!” That was Holly’s car. How long had she been there? Oh God. Had she been coming to see him the night before and gotten trapped? The worst-case scenarios flashed in his mind. She was injured, bleeding, freezing to death.
Feeling as if his heart would explode from his chest, he accelerated and U-turned near her location. He had his door open before the gear was fully in park, the wind gusting against him as he charged toward Holly and wrenched open her door.
She gasped. “Cole?”
He bent down, framed her face with his hands, checked for injuries.
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?” She stared up at him, silent, a look of shock registering in her face. “Damn it, Holly. Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said. “No. My tire blew. I’m fine.” Abruptly, she pushed him away, her eyes colder than the wind beating at his back. “I’m fine, Cole. Let go.”
Grinding his teeth, he let her go, and leaned back on his heels. Now he had confirmation of where they stood. In the sewer. He pushed to his feet.
“Are your parents on the way?”
“They didn’t answer. I called a tow truck.”
“I’ll take you home. They’ll bring your car along later.”
She hugged herself against the cold that his body was no longer blocking.
“No, I—”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
Her chin lifted defiantly. “You can’t make me leave.”
“Try me,” he said, his voice implacable.
He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the car, and smack into his arms. “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder and carry you, Holly.”
Her eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”
“You already think I’m some sort of monster,” he ground out between his teeth, trying not to notice that damned vanilla scent of hers. “What do I really have to lose here besides keeping you from letting pride freeze you to death?”
She glared at him. “Fine. Let go of me.” She shoved at his chest. “I’ll get in the damned truck!” He released her and she started walking, almost slipping in the process. He reached for her, and she slapped him away. “Don’t touch me! ”
He dropped his hands and gave her an exaggerated wave to the truck. “Get in my side so you don’t end up in the ditch, like your car.” She didn’t respond, but treaded the precariously icy ground with a bit more care than before. That made it easy for him to outpace her and grab the door. She slid across the seat and didn’t stop until she was plastered to the passenger door.
Cole slid inside the truck and didn’t move. He sat there, absorbing the discomfort of the space between them. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. And it was ending, one way or the other. Tonight.
Chapter Nine
The short ride to the cottage was full of stiff silence that only served to piss Cole off. And when she bolted out of the door the minute he pulled the truck to a stop, that was the last straw. He deserved more than a slammed door.
He managed to reach her door a second before she shut it, shoving it open and closing it behind him. She was facing the wall, hanging up her coat and suit jacket. She whirled to face him, surprise in her face. “Cole—”
He didn’t give her time to say more. With two long strides, Cole pinned her against the wall, his legs enclosing hers. “You have no idea how pissed off I am at you.”
“I know,” she whispered hoarsely, squeezing her eyes shut. “I know. Cole, I—”
He kissed her. It was a hard, angry kiss, meant to punish her for distrusting him. The kiss of a starving man who desperately needed sustenance. And she gave back all that she got, her tongue lapping at his with fierce strokes, her body pressing against his. That primal caveman side of him that she brought out screamed with demand. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled the soft scent of her desire. His cock thickened, pulsed.
“Holly,” he whispered by her ear. He wanted inside her where he belonged, where she knew he belonged. Wildness careened inside him. A wild desire to claim her.
And so his mission began, to claim his woman. His hands branded her hips, her breasts. She arched into the touch, moaned with pleasure. He savored the gentle touch of her fingers gliding through his hair, caressing his scalp. He shoved her skirt to her waist, wrapped his palm around the curve of her lush ass and wrapped her leg around his hip. Then, he fixed her in a heavy-lidded stare as he pressed his hips to her, his cock thick against her stomach.
“Cole,” she gasped, her head resting against the wall, her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy.
His gaze didn’t waver as he reached up and ripped open
her shirt, tiny buttons flying everywhere. He yanked the material of both bra cups down and exposed her nipples. Bent and licked them, then kissed her. She clung to him, her soft sounds of pleasure, of desperate need, driving him wild. Making him hot. He was so hot. And so was she. Writhing against him, she rocked her hips, soft sighs sliding from her throat.
He ripped her panty hose, and slid his fingers along her drenched lips. She shivered and moaned. Whimpered his name. He unzipped his pants, wasting no time sliding inside her, damned happy they’d had the birth control conversation because he wasn’t sure he could have stopped himself from taking her here, now, at this moment.
Hot wet heat milked his cock as he sunk deep. That wild need to claim her was all his mind could manage, that and the anger at her because she’d pushed him away. A frenzied rush of punishing, erotic thrusts followed. It was the pulsing and pounding of two people trying to break through an emotional barrier with their bodies. A frenzied pumping that ended when her body claimed his, when her muscles spasmed around him and pulled a release from him so deep he could barely breathe.
Neither of them spoke, but the silence was rich with tension, with the barriers that passion could not erase. Cole pressed his head to hers and inhaled the moment, not sure if it would be the last between them. This hadn’t been his intention when he’d followed her. They had to talk. He knew it and he had no doubt she did, too.
Anger started to burn all over again, anger over the way she’d shut him out. She’d let him inside her body, but not into her mind, not into her heart. He’d be damned if he was playing that game.
He picked her up and carried her to the bathroom, setting her on the counter and stepping away, feeling the disconnect of their bodies like a blast of cold air. He adjusted his pants and then grabbed a robe off the wall hanger and tossed it to her.