Love, Come to Me(84)

“I only brought you here tonight because you wanted it.” His voice was soft and harsh at the same time. “I wouldn’t care if I never set foot in Concord again.”

“But I grew up here. I’ll need to visit occasionally. ” As his mouth concentrated on a particularly sensitive area of her neck, her head dropped to his shoulder, too heavy to support any longer. “It’s not a bad little town—”

“You were the best thing about it. You were the only reason I stayed here so long.”

She smiled tremulously. “Is that true?”

“After what happened at the river and the two days we spent together, I decided to wait and see just how attached you were to Daniel.”

“You did more than just ‘wait and see.’ ”

“I couldn’t seem to leave you alone.”

“Your lack of self-control is no excuse for ruining my long-standing engagement.”

He brushed featherlight kisses across her lips, lingering at the corners. “Ever have regrets?”

She arched her breast into his hand, straining to be closer to him. “You wouldn’t have asked that unless you knew I didn’t.”

Heath smiled against her skin, reluctantly withdrawing his hand from her bodice. “Answer me anyway.”

With a sudden burst of energy, she twisted away from him and laughed as she eluded his swift attempt to recapture her. Fleeing to a position of precarious safety behind a small, round table, she braced her hands lightly on the edge and threw him a taunting look. “You do like to give orders, don’t you?”

“And I like you to follow them.” He made a feint towards one side of the table and then reached out an arm to catch her as she darted around the other side. Though he could have stopped her easily, he let her wriggle away, and his mouth quirked in amusement as he watched her flee triumphantly to the other side of the room.

“I only follow your orders when I want to,” she informed him, backing into the corner as he approached.

“Answer the question I asked you before,” he commanded, adopting a threatening scowl. “Do you ever have regrets about marrying me instead of Daniel?” She backed up against the wall, her eyes sparkling with laughter as she refused to say a word. “The longer you take to answer, Mrs. Rayne, the more imminent the danger of your backside being paddled.”

Lucy grinned impudently. “I can just picture you trying to get past all these petticoats and my bustle—”

“Honey, of all the things that have ever presented a challenge to me, getting past your bustle has never been one of them.”

“How dare you say something like that to your wife,” she exclaimed, dodging past him and giving a smothered laugh as he caught her at the waist and whirled her around.

Abruptly their private amusement was cut short by a voice from the doorway. “Lucy?” Mrs. Hosmer eyed them both with obvious disapproval. She had never taken well to such goings-on in her home. It provided a bad example for her three sons to follow, besides offending her own sense of propriety. “Lucy, your father has just arrived. He is looking for you. I am certain he would be quite dismayed if you failed to give him your Christmas greetings right away.”

“I’m sure he’d be devastated,” Heath murmured in Lucy’s ear, and it was all she could do to keep from giggling.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hosmer,” she said, slipping out of her husband’s grasp and sending him a properly reproving glance. “We’ll go to him this very minute.”

“We certainly will,” Heath echoed, smiling blandly until Mrs. Hosmer fixed him with a suspicious stare and left the room. Then his expression became disgruntled. “By all means, let’s show your father what a bad influence I’ve been on his little girl.”

“He won’t think that at all. He’s always adored you for having rescued his fallen daughter.”

“And his daughter? What does she think about it?”

“She thinks that . . .” Lucy paused and cast a swift glance over her head. “That you have been very remiss in failing to notice that she is standing right underneath a sprig of mistletoe.”

His laughter was soft and lazy, eliciting a delicious chill from the pit of her stomach. While he stared into her eyes, he reached up, plucked the mistletoe from the top of the doorframe, and slipped the small green sprig into his pocket. “For later,” he said, and smiled at her.

Chapter 10

Heath was still unused to the harshness of the climate, and he was fond of cursing the weather each time he stepped outside. The cold of a Northern winter sank deep into the bones, and the wind blew easily through several layers of clothing. Since Lucy had lived in Massachusetts all her life, she was accustomed to the harshness of winter and thought nothing of it. To Heath, it was almost intolerable. As the season advanced well into the month of January, the cold worsened until it was impossible to go outside for longer than a few minutes at a time. Heath insisted on having every room in the house warm and all the stoves filled with fuel, which pained Lucy; she had been raised on a strict tradition of thriftiness, especially in the matter of heating the house. However, for the sake of keeping him content and even tempered, she forced herself to learn to squander coal and wood without flinching.

During a week of especially bad weather, the graying heaps of snow that lined the narrow Boston streets melted partially, resulting in several inches of ice when the temperatures dropped again. Traveling was difficult and unpleasant at best, while in some sections of the city it was impossible. Heath arrived home from the newspaper office thoroughly chilled, his hair darkened by the wetness of sleet and rain.