Breaking the Ice
Kay Gregory
Published by Muse Creations Inc at Smashwords
Copyright 1991, Kay Gregory
Original hardcover edition published in 1991 by Mills & Boon Limited
Cover art images Copyright www.arttoday.com
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Dedication
To Jo and Jim Slade, without whose help
I would never have found the time
To write my books, and to
Their daughter, Heather
Chapter One
IT WAS the feet Sarah noticed first. Big ones, in mud-caked brown brogues. And they were sticking out from under her new chesterfield almost as if they belonged there. She closed her eyes, and then opened them again quickly. The feet were still there.
And of course they didn't belong in her living room at all.
She took a step closer and realized that it wasn't just a matter of feet. Brown woolen socks covered solid ankles, and long legs extended up to firm, corduroy-clad thighs. One of the legs was bent slightly at the knee, but the other stretched out endlessly across her carpet. As Sarah's eyes traveled disbelievingly upward, she saw that the corduroy covered more than just legs and thighs. This vision protruding from beneath her chesterfield was visible as far as the waist, and the view exposed by the hip-hugging beige trousers was altogether attractive. Yes. She swallowed. Very attractive indeed.
She pushed at the short wisps of brown hair which fanned out over her ears and took a long, very deep breath. Was she going crazy? There appeared to be a dead body on her floor, and she was standing here mesmerized, admiring it as if she were some silly, moonstruck adolescent—possibly with necrophiliac leanings.
Without releasing her breath, she extended a tentative hand and placed it lightly on the back of the nearest ankle.
Immediately it moved, and a man's deep voice growled threateningly, "Hairy little horror. Just wait till I get my hands on you, Houdini. This is the last time I'm going through this, my friend, and you had better believe it."
Sarah jumped backwards. Oh God! That wasn't any dead body lying at her feet, as she ought to have known from the beginning.
She had a real live hunk on her hands—or the bottom half of one, at least.
She took a firm grip on the back of the nearest chair as a demonstrably living body eased itself out from under the pale gray fabric. "I do believe it," she said fervently. "And as this is my house, and that's my floor you're making so free with, it most certainly will be the last time you go through this, whoever you are." She watched, fascinated, as the rest of the intruder emerged into the soft, September dusk, and added faintly, "and as I'm not particularly hairy, I sincerely hope this is a case of mistaken identity. I've no intention of letting you get your hands on me, Mr—"
She stopped abruptly.
The top half of the figure rising slowly to its feet was just as appealing as the bottom, and for one mad, illogical moment Sarah thought she wouldn't at all mind him getting his big hands on certain parts of her. He was tall, big, with a strong, very masculine face under wildly disheveled reddish brown hair, and as Sarah stood stunned, gaping at him, he took a step towards her.
She saw something flare in the dark-lashed, tawny-gold eyes as they traveled smoothly over her which looked remarkably like admiration—and that surprised her almost as much as it irritated her, because her sensible brown tweed suit had been chosen specifically for its discouraging severity.
A smile spread across the man's face, a wide, full-lipped smile that was as attractive as the rest of him, and it did strange things to Sarah's stomach as he answered softly, "That's too bad."
She stared at him suspiciously. "What is?"
"That you've no intention of letting me get my hands on—"
He got no further. Sarah's face flamed with furious color as she interrupted bitingly, "Mr Whoever-You-Are, as I said before, this is my house, and I'll thank you to get out of it. Right now."
"Jackson," he replied, as if he hadn't even heard her. "Brett Jackson. And I apologize for the intrusion, Mrs—?"
"Miss Malone," said Sarah through gritted teeth. "Goodbye Mr Jackson." Ridiculously, she held out her hand.
And, even more ridiculously, he took it.
"Miss Malone, I really do apologize." He sounded sincere, and the planes of his face were smoothed into serious lines. If there had not been an ill-concealed hint of laughter in his eyes, she might have been totally taken in.
Sarah pulled her hand away and said briskly, "Apology accepted. Goodbye, Mr Jackson—again."
"Don't you even want an explanation?"
"Not particularly." She did, but she wasn't going to admit it. This man was altogether too unnerving and she would feel safer with him well out of her way. Other than her father and the plumber, she hadn't had a man in her house for years, let alone an uninvited stranger—who in spite of his engaging smile had an aura of dangerous sensuality about him.
He was leaning against the wall now with his ankles crossed and his arms folded loosely on his chest. "Well, whether you want it or not, Miss Malone," he informed her, "as we're going to be neighbors from now on, I owe you an explanation. So you're going to get it."
"Neighbors?" croaked Sarah.
He nodded. "That's what I said. I've just bought the house next door."
"You—you mean the old Francelli house? But that's been sold to some man with a kid who runs an animal clinic in Port Angeles."
"Guilty as charged." The irritating intruder bowed from the waist, smiling complacently.
"Oh, but I thought ..." What had she thought? Not much really, except that if the new owner worked miles away in Port Angeles she wouldn't see much of him. The small community on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula where she had lived and worked all her life was used to people who occupied their houses almost exclusively during the summer, and for some reason she had thought he'd be one of those.
"I thought you weren't moving in yet," she finished lamely.
He shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint you but, as you see, you were misinformed."
"Yes, I do see. What have you done with your son, then?"
"Ah, yes. You mentioned you'd heard about Tony." He cocked an eyebrow at the sort of angle not normally achieved except between the pages of a book.
"Not much happens in a place like this," she explained ruefully. "The grapevine works exceptionally fast."
"I suppose so. Tony's at school, if it matters to you. He started at the local primary today."
"Yes, of course." Sarah was beginning to relax. "What were you doing under my chesterfield, Mr Jackson?"
"My name's Brett. We're going to be neighbors, after all. Do you have a name besides Malone?"
"It's Sarah." Why did she feel that aggravating tightness in her chest?
"That's a pretty, old-fashioned sort of name. Like its owner?" He raised an eyebrow again, this time in taunting inquiry.
"No, not at all like its owner," snapped Sarah. "Mr Jackson—Brett—what were you doing in my house?"
He sighed. "Looking for Fawcett."
"For what?"
"Fawcett. He's my son's ferret. A big, stupid, albino with a passion for running away. He's the reason I bought the house in such a hurry. When my wife died, Tony and I moved to an apartment. We'd been there almost three years when Tony got Fawcett. The third time he escaped and turned up in our landlady's bread bin, she kicked us out. She doesn't like ferrets." He held out his palms and tried, unsuccessfully, to look bewildered.
"I wonder why not," murmured Sarah dryly.
"Can't think. Anyway, it was time we got a place in the country. More space. And Tony wants a dog."
"I see," replied Sarah, as visions of endless raids on her property to retrieve lost animals ran uneasily through her head.
"Yes, so if you—" Brett broke off with startling abruptness as something fast and white darted across the floor nattering softly, then disappeared behind a chair.
"Aha! Got you." He lunged across the floor, pushing Sarah summarily out of the way, dived over her coffee table and, with a shout of triumph, stood up clutching what looked like a white fur muff with teeth.
Against the wall, Sarah's plain but expensive teak lampstand teetered and almost fell.
"I think," she said frigidly, "that it's time you left—Brett."
He nodded, holding the squirming little animal by the scruff of its neck and glaring at it. "Yes. I think you're right." He loped across the room with an easy, devastatingly virile gait, and when he reached the door he turned and added severely, "By the way, if you don't want strangers under your furniture looking for ferrets, you should be more careful about locking your doors. The wind must have blown it open."
Sarah scowled at him. "And you should be more careful where you put your feet. There's mud all over my carpet."
He glanced down. "Good grief, so there is. I apologize—again. I'm afraid I stopped off earlier to see a man with a couple of pigs."
Pigs, thought Sarah. It figures. But aloud she said only, "Never mind. It won't be hard to clean up."
Brett flashed her another stomach-churning, not very repentant grin before he disappeared down the steps.
She stared at the door which he had closed very deliberately behind him—and which she almost always did keep locked. But she had been in a hurry this morning, having slept in after one of her frequent restless nights, and although Angela Baddeley, who was the town's lawyer as well as Sarah's friend and employer, would not have minded much, Sarah hated being late.
Slowly she crossed the room and sank down into the square, not very comfortable chair which matched the chesterfield.
She shook her head. What an extraordinary encounter. It was years since a man had looked at her in that sexy, speculative way. And—she had to admit it—that was probably because she discouraged speculation. There had been several men in the beginning after Jason—she'd gone out with a few of them—and they had certainly tried to get through the wall she had erected so painstakingly around her emotions. Nice men, most of them, but after a few dates they had given up, iced out by her lack of response. And she hadn't cared because at first she'd been hurting too much to endure even the thought of intimacy. After a while, when the wound began to heal as most non-fatal wounds did, she had felt safer, less vulnerable, behind her frozen barricade. With it safely in place, no one could break her heart again. She knew people sometimes called her the 'ice-maiden', but that had long since ceased to worry her. It was true that she was often chilled and solitary behind her protective shield, as if she were indeed sculpted out of ice. But it was comfortable enough. Safe—and she had no particular wish to see it pierced.
Frowning, and wondering why she felt more restless and dissatisfied than she had in months, she jumped to her feet and slammed a frying pan on to the stove with entirely unnecessary force.
***
Sarah stirred and moved her head on the pillow. Vaguely, she was conscious of warmth stealing through the curtains which she rarely bothered to close, and she thought how pleasant it was to lie in bed knowing she would get up to the cheerful comfort of an unseasonably warm September. That dream she'd just had—it had been pleasant, too. Something about a white, fast, furry animal and a man who was not Jason ...
She stretched lazily, smiling with contented indolence—and then, in an instant, the smile was wiped from her face as the morning quiet was shattered by a noise which to Sarah's ears sounded like an assault force going over the top in her garden.
She wrestled the sheets away and struggled to a sitting position. What was happening? Was she being invaded, and if so, by whom? Still groggy with sleep, she staggered over to the window. And it was no invading army which met her accusing eye, but her new neighbor's glisteningly naked torso. His long, muscled arms were raised above his head and he was wielding a purposeful hammer as he rained blows down at something on the other side of the fence. To make matters worse, he was making a sound she supposed was meant to be singing.
She blinked and smoothed a hand over her tousled hair. What was this naked man doing at—she glanced at her watch—eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, attacking some unseen and unfortunate object with enthusiasm and noise enough to wake the dead? Well, maybe not the dead, she amended, but certainly Sarah Malone. And why wasn't he wearing any clothes? Not that the view was unimpressive ...
And that's enough of that, my girl, she told herself firmly, as the last vestiges of sleep vanished and she came fully and furiously awake. The man wasn't naked, he just had his shirt off, and the inconsiderate jerk hadn't given a damn that his only neighbor might still be fast asleep.
There was a momentary pause in the hammering as Brett ran a handkerchief across his gleaming brow. He was just raising his arm to strike again when Sarah flung open the window.
"What on earth do you think you're doing, Brett Jackson?" she shouted. "Don't you know it's only eight o'clock?"
Startled, Brett lowered the hammer and rested his forearms on the fence.
"Did I wake you?" He sounded surprised.
"What do you think?" asked Sarah sarcastically.
"Mm. I guess I did. Sorry. I'm so used to getting up for Tony and animals that I sometimes forget other people like to sleep in. I'm building a kennel for the dog," he explained, as if that excused everything. He passed the now-saturated handkerchief around the back of his neck. "Anyway, seeing that you're well and truly awake now, I might as well carry on with the job."
He started to turn away and Sarah, glaring at his deeply tanned back, felt resentment well up in her like a tide. How dared this arrogant, casually inconsiderate man just shrug off the fact that he'd disturbed her and carry calmly on with his morning-shattering work?
"I suppose," she shouted down at him, "that it doesn't matter to you one bit that you've ruined my Saturday's rest."
He turned back. "I'm not going to lose any sleep over it," he admitted, picking the one phrase calculated to inflame her further. "But if you want the truth—yes, it does bother me. I can't do anything to change it, that's all."
"You can shut up long enough to let me eat my breakfast in peace," retorted Sarah, determined that if her plans for the morning were to be derailed so thoughtlessly, then so were his.
Brett's arms returned to the fence. "Breakfast?" he queried, with unmistakable hope. "I suppose I could take a few minutes off ..."
"Good," said Sarah, not responding to this blatant appeal to her hospitable instincts. "Then do it."
Brett threw back his head and for the first time that morning really looked at her. When his lips began to curve up in a tantalizing smile, Sarah had a sudden, uncomfortable feeling that something was radically wrong.
She glanced down and, to her horror, saw immediately what was providing him with so much free entertainment.
He might be naked to the waist, but she was almost as exposed herself through the soft nylon folds of her nightgown which, she suspected, left nothing to the imagination. Not that Brett Jackson appeared to suffer from lack of imagination. Quite the opposite.
Cheeks reddening, Sarah reached for the curtains and called irritably, "Oh, finish your kennel if you like. What difference does it make now?"
But as she pulled the ice-blue curtains firmly across the window, she was sure she heard the sound of a man's deep laugh, pealing out full-throated and vibrant on the morning air.
Self-satisfied jerk," she muttered angrily. "Inconsiderate brute." And then, unbidden and unwanted, a picture came into her mind of Brett's tough body shining with moisture in the early morning sun.
Deliberately she forced herself to think about breakfast instead, but as she cracked eggs into a pan she found herself remembering with a regretful, almost wistful surprise, that she kind of liked a man who could use his hands ...
Oh, no you don't. You don't like anything about that man, she told herself firmly. And that glorious, supple body doesn't count.
Which made it all the more aggravating that the first thing that came into her mind that evening as she leaned over her front gate and watched her parents' car pull up, was that perhaps they might have heard more about her new neighbor's past history and background than she had. Clara Malone had a talent for ferreting out information.
Ferreting ... Oh, God. Why did everything lead back to that man and his dubious menage?
"What's the matter, dear? You look—flustered." Clara's sharp, deceptively gentle eyes took in the fact that her daughter was exuding a most unusual aura of excitement. Unusual, because it was years since Sarah had permitted herself to be anything other than cool, reserved and undemonstrative. Ten years, to be accurate, thought Clara, and then she had been only seventeen.
"Nothing." Sarah pulled open the gate and ushered her parents up a neatly graveled path to the dark oak front door of her bungalow. "Nothing's the matter. It's warm for September, isn't it?"
Clara Malone recognized an evasion when she heard it. "It's been warm all summer. What's wrong, Sarah?"
"Noth—Oh, all right. My day started badly, that's all. I think my new neighbor's going to be a problem."
"Brett Jackson? Oh dear. Yes, I did hear some odd rumors about the man, but I hoped they were only gossip."
Sarah closed her eyes briefly. She knew it! Her mother had already learned his name, and no doubt by now she had also discovered his age, occupation, hobbies, club memberships and income—not to mention an accurate inventory of women friends past and present.
She took Clara's jacket and waved her to the pale gray chesterfield. George Malone sat down beside her, shaking his white head. Sarah caught his eye and tried desperately not to smile. Clara's 'information network', as she and her father called it, had always been an unfailing source of amusement to them both.
Clara, who never missed anything, noted the exchange and said huffily, "If you're going to laugh at me, you two, I'm not going to tell you what I've found out."
"I may survive," murmured George dryly.
But Sarah, whose curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, was sure she wouldn't.
"We're not laughing at you," she said quickly, "and as I live next door to him, of course I'd like to know what you've heard."
"Oh Lord," groaned George, rolling his eyes up. "I do believe it's catching. You're turning into your mother's daughter, Sarah. That's as splendidly plausible an excuse as I ever heard for nosing into someone else's business."
"There's no need to be rude, George," snapped Clara.
"It's not an excuse," Sarah mumbled, knowing perfectly well it was.
George picked up a copy of the paper from a magazine rack and started to read it for the second time that day.
"Your father has decided to ignore us," said Clara, eyeing him balefully.
"Yes," agreed Sarah. She waited a moment and then said with a sheepish smile, "Supper should be ready in a minute. What sort of rumors, Mother?" She didn't sit down, but stood hovering in the hall doorway.
Clara patted her bobbed gray head and cleared her throat importantly. "Well, he's a widower, of course."
"Yes, he told me. So did Angela, actually. She heard it from the real estate man."
"God," muttered George. "If I were a fugitive from justice, I sure wouldn't try to hide out in Caley Cove."
"Well you're not," replied his wife dampingly. She turned back to Sarah. "As a matter of fact, dear, I understand that his wife died in rather—questionable—circumstances. Leaving him with a little boy."
"Yes, he's called Tony. What circumstances?"
Clara lowered her voice. "It seems, if the rumors are true, that she killed herself. Took an overdose of sleeping pills, poor thing. But they say he drove her to it."
"Are
you sure? And who are they?"
"Your mother's
sources," interrupted George. "Molly Bracken at the Post
Office, Harry Koniski at the real estate office, Doris
What's-her-name at the telephone exchange—"
"George, that's quite enough. It's not my fault that people talk to me." Clara sniffed.
"They talked to the Inquisition too."
"I think supper's ready. Why don't you both sit down," suggested Sarah quickly. Her parents, who were in fact devoted to one another, had carried on in this vein for as long as she could remember. But tonight she hoped they would avoid one of their frequent rows because—she had to admit it—for once her mother had information she was surprisingly anxious to hear.
She waited until they were seated uneasily around the chrome and glass oval table in front of plates heaped with beef, two vegetables and crumbly roast potatoes, before returning, hesitantly, to the subject of her next door neighbor.
"How is Brett supposed to have driven his wife to suicide?" she asked, her eyes fixed firmly on a green bean.
George rolled his eyes up again, bur Clara ignored him and replied in an unnecessarily conspiratorial whisper, "Apparently he was having an affair with his receptionist at the animal clinic. His wife couldn't live with it. So she didn't."
Dear heaven, thought Sarah. Suicide. No, her mother must be mistaken. It was only more Caley Cove gossip. Surely it was. Brett just didn't seem like the type of man who would drive a woman to take her own life. Still—he was incredibly attractive, and that air of easy sensuality might act like a magnet to the more susceptible members of her sex. How lucky she wasn't susceptible—and hadn't been for the past ten years. She had learned a valuable lesson from Jason. From the sound of things, he and Brett Jackson had a lot in common.
Funny, her food didn't seem to have much taste now, and she didn't want to talk about him any more.
But her mother did. "Why did you say he might be a problem?" Clara asked sharply.
"Oh, no special reason. He just makes a lot of noise in the mornings. At least he did today."
Clara wasn't satisfied, but Sarah refused to be more explicit and in the end her mother had to admit defeat.
They discussed the view from the window after that—for the hundredth time—and Sarah reiterated, also for the hundredth time, that she was delighted with her small bungalow above the cliffs overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. On a soft summer evening like today's, with the pink reflections of dusk just beginning to tint a barely ruffled sea, she could feel at peace, contented, as she sometimes wasn't within the more confined boundaries of the town.
"Yes, dear." Clara returned unerringly to the subject she wanted to discuss. "But it's so isolated. Only you and that mysterious neighbor."
"Plus the Mackenzies at the end of the road. Besides, he's hardly mysterious."
"Perhaps not, but I felt much easier about you when the Francellis lived next door."
Sarah didn't doubt that. Mrs Francelli had reported her every move to her mother, and Sarah had been more than relieved when the elderly couple at last decided to move closer to the shops and services of Port Angeles.
"I'm all right, Mother. I've lived here for the past six years, and I haven't come to the slightest harm yet."
"I know you haven't. Not yet. But you didn't have to move the moment you had enough money saved to buy a house. You could have stayed with us, dear. We were happy to have you."
"Of course you were, and I'm grateful," replied Sarah, trying not to scream at this rehashing of a matter which had been decisively settled six years earlier although it had never for a moment been laid to rest.
Clara's eyes darted round the room, seeking another outlet for her frustration. "Your new furniture is too spartan," she complained. "All white and gray and—cold, dear. Just like your old suite. And those odd ship models on the walls … not at all the sort of home to welcome a man."
"As I don't welcome men, that doesn't matter, does it?" said Sarah, her full, soft lips compressed.
"And that's another thing. I know your experience with Jason was unfortunate, but ..."
Sarah gave up and let her mother grumble on. Her weekly dinners with her parents, either here or at their house in town, invariably degenerated into a diatribe from Clara about her daughter's home, furnishings, clothes and lifestyle—with emphasis on the desirability of husbands. Sarah thought she could do without one of those permanent sparring partners. Her parents might thrive on squabbles, but she didn't.
When Clara finally wound down, the three of them played Scrabble, as they did every week, then while the night was still young, Clara and George went home.
Sarah worked for a short time on one of the model ships her mother had objected to, then eventually made her way along the passageway to bed.
The following morning she was again awakened early. As she struggled resentfully out of a deep sleep, once more the sound of loud and unnecessary noise came clamoring from behind the fence next door. But this time Sarah knew it was no invading army that was disturbing her slumbers. The racket drifting through her partially-opened window was very obviously that of an over-excited dog.
She listened carefully. Correction. Dogs. And kid. The human kind. Sighing, she looked at the clock. Nine a.m. today. She supposed she ought to be thankful for small mercies.
Muttering under her breath, she flung off the bedclothes, wrapped a thick terry robe around her tall, slim figure, and marched across to the window.