HER IDEAL MAN Read online

  Anna looked abashed. Telling himself he did it to comfort her, Tyler reached for her hand and clasped it secretly behind the heavy folds of her gown.

  * * *

  The snow picked up all afternoon, and it finally grew troublesome enough that the reception broke up early, much to Anna's relief. The day had been a bit of a strain, and she just wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere there weren't a dozen eyes peering at her in concern.

  It was only as she donned her coat that she realized she had no idea what she and Tyler were going to do now. Go back to the cabin? She had packed most of her clothing into a small suitcase, but hadn't really given any thought to the fact that this was her wedding night, or what that would entail. She'd packed a warm flannel robe, and a nice enough flannel nightgown, thinking of the cabin and the cold night she'd spent there.

  And now, because she didn't want Tyler to think she expected anything, she was embarrassed to ask where they were going. She waited near the door, deciding she would find out when they got wherever they were going.

  One minute at a time, she'd get through this. Within a few days, they would find their pattern.

  Louise snagged her hand. "Don't you dare get away yet, sugar. I have something for you."

  "Oh, Louise, you can't. You've done enough already."

  "Don't I know it!" She tugged Anna's hand and pulled her into a bedroom. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't been an old busybody, and you have to let me make it up to you."

  With a start, Anna realized that the ordinarily bustling, energetic Louise had been quite subdued today. There were lines of strain around her mouth, and her cornflower eyes did not hold their usual twinkle. Impulsively, Anna reached out and stroked her arm. "You've been wonderful. Thank you."

  Louise's eyes filled with tears. "You are the sweetest child. If that son of mine gives you any heartache, I'll never forgive myself."

  Anna scowled. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Louise. Honestly, why does everyone think I'm so delicate?" With a sigh of frustration, she moved away, looking out the window to the falling snow. "I traveled two thousand miles to make a new life for myself, and one of the reasons I did it was because my family was always sure I could never do anything on my own."

  She turned back. "I'm a lot stronger than you think."

  The troubled expression on Louise's kind face did not ease, but she nodded, and reached for a package. "I got you something special, but I don't want you to open it here. Wait till you get to the lodge."

  "The lodge?"

  "Didn't anyone tell you? Lance wanted to do something special, and he set up a night in the celebrity suite at the Alpine Lodge for you. I'm keeping Curtis."

  "Oh." Anna sank onto the bed, holding the big package in her hands. The Alpine was an old, elegant ski lodge that catered to the highest levels of the moneyed crowds that came to Red Creek to ski. The ordinary rooms were the ultimate in mood and style and luxury—Anna couldn't even begin to imagine what the celebrity suite would be like.

  And she would spend the night there. Alone with Tyler, who had kissed her with the kind of mind-numbing passion a woman only dreamed of. He wanted her physically, of that she had no doubt.

  She also had no doubt that he would expect to make love to her tonight. It was what one did on wedding nights.

  The thought of it made her feel weak and hungry. The thought of Tyler's bare, warm flesh next to hers, his mouth and hands doing all those amazing things…

  But she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to have sex with him again. Not yet. It was too intimate, too intense, and she felt too vulnerable as it was. If she let him make love to her tonight, she would never be able to build her defenses, and then, if things didn't work out, she would be devastated.

  No, she had to somehow keep him at arm's length for at least a week or two, until she got her sea legs. Or marriage legs, in this case.

  The decision made her feel stronger. "Thank you, Louise," she said, and stood up. "I think it's probably time to go. I appreciate all you've done for me."

  "Take care, Anna. I do love you like a daughter, you know. Like the daughter I never had."

  "I know," she whispered, hugging Louise tight. "I know."

  * * *

  Chapter 13

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  The Alpine had been built in the early thirties of native stone and split logs, with commanding views of the valley and special shuttles to the ski areas that spread in a hundred-mile circle around Red Creek. Within, the dark-timbered ceilings and sloped roof and carefully chosen but comforting furnishings gave it the feeling of an old-world hunting lodge.

  The king's hunting lodge, Anna thought as they entered the hushed lobby. It boasted one of the finest restaurants in the country—so exclusive and esteemed that jet-setters had been known to charter a plane in from L.A. or Palm Springs to have dinner. Anna had been there once, when Louise insisted upon giving her a welcome-to-Colorado dinner. The prices had assured she would not return anytime soon.

  But she'd thought it beautiful then, and it was no less beautiful now. Standing in the tastefully appointed lobby with Tyler, she breathed deeply, smelling that faint scent of money and taste that was so much a part of such establishments.

  Neither she nor Tyler had had much to say on the short drive up here. He checked them in while Anna distracted herself from the upcoming evening by trying to name all the flowers in a huge vase. Foxglove, lupine, delphiniums, cornflowers. A tall blue flower stumped her, but then Tyler and an obsequious bellboy appeared to lead them to their suite.

  When the youth had pointed out the features of the room and been tipped generously, then sent away, Anna finally let out her breath. Tyler stood in the middle of the first room, staring around with the same wonder as Anna. He whistled softly. "I don't want to seem like a hick, but I've never seen anything like this."

  Anna laughed nervously. "Me either."

  Two walls were almost completely made of glass, revealing a darkening view of the valley in breathtaking splendor on one side, a view of thick trees far below them on the other. A balcony beyond sliding glass doors invited the occupants to wander out to gaze upon the astonishment of nature in the Rocky Mountains.

  Within, the room was luxuriously appointed, with couches and chairs in sturdy but elegant fabrics, muted to reflect the colors of nature beyond. A table groaned with various food and drink offerings, and a bar sat in one corner. Not simply a small refrigerator, but an entire bar, complete with a small sink. In a silver bucket sat a black bottle of champagne on ice.

  Through an open door, Anna saw the bedroom, with a king-size bed and another wall of glass. She looked away from the bed.

  "Well," Tyler said, clearing his throat. "We may as well enjoy it." He shrugged out of his coat and moved toward the table. "My brother certainly does know how to indulge."

  Anna still carried the box Louise had given her, and she put it down, then took off her coat and hung it up neatly before joining Tyler at the table of food. There were sweets and savories, food carefully prepared and displayed. A silver pot of cheese fondue steamed in the middle of a sea of fruits, breads, crackers and vegetables, and Anna made a small, pleased sound. "I love fondue." She speared a cube of crusty French bread and dipped it, then moaned softly in pleasure when she tasted it. "Oh, that's wonderful. Try it."

  "I've never eaten fondue," he said.

  "Never? You are truly deprived, Tyler."

  He gave her a small smile and followed her lead, dipping bread into the cheese sauce. His eyes widened. "You're right."

  Anna had been patently unable to eat anything but the smallest nibbles all day, but the first taste of the fondue made her stomach growl—loudly. Gratefully she sank into a chair and shifted the tray so that it was close. "Don't tell your mother—she'd be crushed if she knew I couldn't eat at all earlier—but I am totally starving, and I think I'll just make a pig of myself, okay?"

  "Ditto," he said. "First, though, I have to get rid of this t
unic. It's really hot." Comfortably he unlaced it and shrugged out of it. Anna tried not to stare. Below the knee-length tunic, he wore a dashing shirt made of crisp white muslin, with full sleeves, and tight-fitting black jeans. With a quick gesture, he loosened the ties at the throat of the shirt, and it fell open to reveal a wide triangular slice of golden chest scattered with gilded hair.

  In response, a thick heat moved low in her belly, and she looked away. "You look like a pirate," she commented lightly.

  "Yeah?" He settled on the chair next to her. "A hungry pirate, then. I'm starving."

  "How could you live to the age of—" She broke off. "I don't know how old you are, Tyler."

  "Thirty-one." He inhaled a slice of cheese from another tray. "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-five."

  "And what is your middle name?"

  "Kristine. You?"

  He shook his head good-naturedly. "I'm not telling. My mother gave us seriously strange middle names. Not that Tyler is exactly ordinary."

  "I like it."

  He met her gaze. "Do you?"

  Anna was captured in spite of herself, captured by the persuasive charm of a man who knew what pleased a woman, and who intended to indulge that pleasure as soon as possible. Approval and desire emanated from him like a scent. "I do," she said quietly, then straightened. "But you have to tell me your middle name."

  "We can make a deal, if you like. You tell me how much you weigh, and I'll tell you my middle name."

  "Not fair. A woman does not reveal that information."

  His grin said he knew that.

  "Fine, then," Anna said, dragging a slice of apple through the cheese, "I'll just ask Curtis."

  "Curtis doesn't know."

  "Right. What kid doesn't know his father's whole name?"

  "Mine."

  "I'll find out somehow." The taste of cheese exploded on her tongue. "That is so amazingly good, I can't believe it. How is it that you've reached the ripe old age of thirty-one without eating fondue?"

  He lifted a shoulder. "You have to understand how we lived." His brows drew down. "I'm trying not to mention Kara at all, Anna, but it's hard. I spent a good part of my life with her."

  "I don't mind," she said, and meant it. "I don't want to be compared to her, but you shouldn't have to avoid mentioning her name. How did you live?"

  "Very simply, I guess. Kara was very serious about a back-to-nature kind of life. We didn't eat any meat or cheese or sugar or even coffee." He looked at the rolled slice of ham in his fingers and grinned. "Obviously, she was more of a purist than I."

  "And you had no electricity or running water or heat."

  "Nope."

  "Do you think she would have eased up after Curtis was born?"

  He frowned over the tray and selected a cherry tomato. "I don't know. I don't really think so, to tell you the truth. She was dedicated." He paused. "After she died, it made me feel kind of guilty when I started changing things, but she was always too intense about it—and it's damned hard to raise a kid like that."

  "I can imagine." Anna touched her tummy, thinking with suddenness of the baby inside of her, the baby who had brought this moment about.

  Tyler caught the gesture and, with a tenderness Anna did not expect, put his hand over hers. "I'm really happy about the baby, Anna. We can do things to the cabin to make it bigger. Maybe add some more solar panels, or even get Lance to contract the electric lines. I won't make you live like a monk."

  His hand was warm and broad and strong, and Anna covered it with her other hand. "Things will work out."

  He was so close Anna could smell the shampoo in his hair, and the lingering traces of aftershave. "Are you happy, Anna? About the baby, I mean?"

  "Yes." There was, for once, no need to embroider.

  Suddenly, the awkwardness fell between them, and Tyler straightened, looking over his shoulder. "What did my mother give you?"

  "Oh, I'd forgotten. I don't know." Glad to have something to do, she jumped up and sat in a chair a few feet away to open it. Below the festive wrapping was a department store clothing box, and Anna lifted the lid, afraid suddenly of what she would find.

  It was a negligee, made of sheerest white silk, with elegant white-on-white embroidery along the edges and on the bodice. Or what there was of the bodice, she thought as she drew it out of the box, blushing furiously. A silk wrapper matched. "She has exquisite taste," Anna said, without looking at him.

  "Yes," he said.

  Anna heard the rawness in his voice with a ripple of trepidation, and forced herself to look at him. She surprised an expression of bleakness on his face. "Tyler, what's wrong?"

  He said nothing for a long moment, staring at the gown as if it were a serpent. "I wish I had more to offer you, Anna," he said quietly. "I wish this was the wedding night you deserved, that you were going to put on that gown for a man who—"

  He broke off, but Anna finished the sentence in her mind: a man who really loved her. Hastily, blushing even more furiously, she folded the gown. "It's okay," she said.

  "No," he said vehemently.

  "If it bothers you that much, we can just annul it tomorrow, you know."

  They stared at each other across the small space. "No, we can't," he said.

  Anna bowed her head. "No, we can't. Curtis would—"

  "Exactly." He laced his fingers together, leaning forward with an earnest expression. "Anna, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking that I wish I hadn't married you. I was wishing you had someone who—" Color stained his cheekbones, and he swallowed. "I have the social graces of a buffalo, and what I was thinking is how much I wanted to see you in that gown, and how much I want to put my hands on you." His eyes darkened. "I was thinking that you deserved a lot more than that."

  It touched her. "It's okay." With some relief, she realized this gave her the opening she'd been looking for. "The truth is, Tyler, I've been worried about the sexual end of all this."

  "We seemed to do okay before," he said dryly.

  Anna took a breath. "It's not the compatibility I'm worried about. I just don't think I'm ready to be so intimate with you yet. It was different before. It was … just … it was different, that's all. But I think we need time to know each other before we do all that again. I mean, if we ever decide we want to, or— Well, I guess we will want to sometime, I guess." She heard the way her thoughts were tangling and how she was babbling, and the more she said, the worse it got, but she couldn't seem to stop. "I can't see never ever having sex again, you know, but I wouldn't want you to feel you had some duty, and though maybe we want some more children someday, I just don't—"

  "Anna."

  She clamped her mouth closed.

  He lifted one eyebrow. "I'm glad to see the old Anna is in there somewhere. I was beginning to get worried."

  She shook her head. "Sorry."

  "I don't mind." He stood up and closed the space between them, coming to kneel in front of her. "I won't lie to you, Anna. I'm disappointed. I've been sitting here wondering how long we had to talk before I could decently make love to you."

  "Oh." She looked down. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you…"

  With one long-fingered hand, he brushed a curl from her face. "What? You didn't think I wanted you? You didn't think I'd mind if we just put it off?"

  "I guess. Something like that."

  His nearness sent a rippling through her, a quiet cry of yearning she forced herself to resist. She stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, and willed herself not to notice the way black denim clung to his lean thighs, the way light burnished his golden skin.

  He was silent for so long that she was finally forced to look up. To find him looking at her. "Anna, I've only made love to two women in my life." He lifted his hands to her face, tilting it upward. His thumbs moved lightly over her chin, grazed her lips, moved away. "After you left, I dreamed about the way you felt, about how you made me feel, and I was angry. I didn't want to have those thoughts."

  His voice w
as low and raw, and his pale gray eyes bored into her, touching her face, every inch, as if it were a terrain that puzzled him. His mouth was only inches from her own, that talented, giving mouth, and she wanted it. But she forced herself to remain very still.

  "I'll respect your wishes," he said finally, "but I'm not exactly thrilled about it."

  She sighed in relief, but before it was complete, his mouth closed on hers, gently, and she found the sigh turned into a soft moan. He kissed her with great restraint and, perversely, sensual temptation, as if he knew how she felt the stings of arousal with every brush of his tongue, with every slow sup of his lips.

  He ended the kiss, then rested his forehead against hers. "Whew."

  Anna closed her eyes, awash suddenly in a swell of fierce love. Where his brow touched hers, it seemed there was a burning link, carrying her thoughts to him, and his to her. She smelled his skin, and pine and wood smoke, and felt his hands on her neck and jaw, and his thighs against hers, and for one long, floating moment, she felt as if this were no accident, as if time and fate had overcome great obstacles to bring them together. As if they had not only just met a few months before, but had known each other always, in the heavens, through all the centuries.

  Moving in that airy place, Anna unclenched her hands, and was about to lift them to put them on his body when he shifted away. "So," he said, letting her go. "Do you want to play cards or something?"

  Blinking, Anna said, "Uh, sure. Poker?"

  He grinned. "You play poker?"

  "Yes. Very well, as a matter of fact."

  An impish expression crossed his face. "Well, there may be some interesting possibilities in that."

  With surprise, Anna realized that prickly Tyler, silent mountain man, could be every bit as charming as his brothers when he chose to be. It made her wonder how much of himself he had hidden—and what had led him to hide it. Responding to his teasing, she grinned. "Yes, there just might be."

  "Good, then. I'll find some cards."

  "And I'm going to change."

  "Into something more comfortable?"