Her Holiday Secret. Jennifer Greene

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СКАЧАТЬ the silky brown color shot with honey and sunshine. She’d brushed it over her right temple, but he could still see the blotchy jewel colors of a bruise hiding beneath. A little careful makeup was obviously intended to conceal the circles under her eyes, and her red jacket collar was pulled up over a bandage on her neck. Maggie clearly didn’t want anyone worrying about her—and that smile and full-of-hell spirit could easily distract a man from believing she’d ever been hurt.

      “Well, all my best bruises are out of sight. They’re so brilliantly colorful at this point that I’d love to show ’em off...but I’m afraid I won’t do a strip search without a warrant, even for you, Sheriff.” She hesitated. “Of course if you brought a warrant...?”

      “Damn. No. But if you give me a second, I’ll try to think up some charges—”

      She chuckled. “Well, in the meantime, you like your coffee black or prettied up?”

      “Black’d be great—but I don’t want you going to any trouble.”

      “Nonsense, I’m freezing and could use something hot to drink myself. Come on in—and no, you don’t have to take off your boots. This floor’s seen snow before.”

      He stomped in behind her, shrugging off his jacket and placing it on a hook, next to where she hung hers. Under the outer gear, she was wearing a red turtleneck sweater over jeans and thick socks. Practical, comfortable clothes, but the loose cut of her jeans still showed off the curve of her fanny, and the sweater faithfully outlined ripe, firm breasts.

      He was only watching her—he told himself—to judge if she were really as recovered from the car accident as she made out. Her movements seemed a little careful and deliberate to him, and he noticed she unconsciously pressed a palm to her ribs, as if the bruises there were still giving her trouble. Still, she was obviously getting around okay... which made it all too easy to shift his eyes to body parts that had nothing to do with any judicious, altruistic motives.

      Forcefully he cut his attention to safer territory, while she bustled around finding mugs and coffee. It wasn’t hard to inhale her place in a single gulp.

      The main floor was all open space, with the kitchen two steps up from the great room. The kitchen had brick walls, with an old-fashioned baking oven built into one. A vanilla-colored counter served as her table. Pots hung from a metal turnstile overhead, and spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, the scent hot and spicy. Somehow he didn’t think it came from opening a jar.

      Below, the great room had one stone wall with a fireplace carved in—where a huge fire now roared, splashing sparks up the chimney. Two sets of double glass doors led to a wraparound cedar patio, with a view of secluded woods and a sharp ravine.

      Maggie obviously liked blue. Furniture clustered in the room’s center, blue couches, blue chairs, and a thick plush blue carpet made for bare feet. Nothing looked too pricey or overly color-coordinated...more like she just plain loved blue, and had chosen comfortable furniture big enough to curl up in.

      She came up behind him, carrying two steaming mugs. “You might as well just tell me that you think the place is splendiferous. You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t.”

      “I think it’s beyond splendiferous. The whole place has a great hideaway feeling.”

      “Good boy.” She grinned. “Built it myself. Or that’s the story I tell. The truth is more like I couldn’t possibly have handled the chimney or window fittings or plumbing. But I designed it, did the stonework and even the roof, so I figure I should get the lion’s share of the credit.”

      “You won’t get any argument out of me. I’m impressed. Seriously.”

      “Well, I almost killed myself tackling the roof...got my feminist knickers in a twist trying to play Superwoman, when I should have had the brains to call for help. But that’s water over the dam.” She took a fast sip from a royal blue mug, and then motioned with it “Come on, I’ll show you the rest. There isn’t much. Just a sleeping loft upstairs and my office and a storage room...”

      The storage room combined laundry with a squared-off space for sports gear—she was an experienced skier and climber both, judging from the sturdiness of her equipment—and she had a shop section with tools serious enough to make a man drool. Her office, by contrast, was pure female. A fancy high-tech computer setup was back-dropped by girl stuff everywhere—scented candles and bowls of potpourri, a hanging lamp with a fringy shade, doodads and plants and pictures all fighting for the same space.

      “I take it you work from your home here?” he asked.

      “Yeah. I do technical writing for Mytron, Inc.—they’re out of Boulder. I put together brochures and manuals for them, that sort of thing. Once every few weeks—at least once a month—I drive to Boulder and stay overnight, do the face-to-face meetings kind of thing. Otherwise all I really need are the phone, fax and modem to make the telecommuting style work just fine. And I’ll show you the loft, but only if you promise to blind your eyes.”

      He had to chuckle. “Trust me, I’ve seen messy before.”

      “Uh-huh. I’ve heard big claims like that before. But I’m talking bad messy. I’m talking disgrace. I’m talking my sister is ashamed to know me, it’s so bad.”

      An open staircase led up, where a waist-high balcony viewed the stone fireplace below. The room was a cluttered mess, so much so that Andy’s first thought was Good, not too likely she’d had men sleeping over recently.

      She whipped a bra out of sight, kicked a scrap of something pink under the bed, kept him chuckling, but a second and more serious thought had already followed the first...for all her apparent pep and lively spirit, she’d had some rough nights since the accident. Her queen-size bed had a white down comforter over salmon sheets. The sheets weren’t just rumpled but untucked and pulled out, as if her dreams had been wild and troubled.

      It was her architecture and design she was showing off, though, so he played along. The slanted roof had a skylight. The floor was carpeted with an Oriental rug that looked ankle-deep, but it was tricky to tell the pattern with the clothes and papers and books she had piled all over. The adjoining bathroom was big enough to have a square tub and a sit-down counter space. Her scent pervaded the bath. Soft, not sweet, not a scent he knew or could pin down, but distinctive and evocative. Like her.

      “So how long have you lived here?” he asked.

      “Almost four years now. Grew up in Colorado Springs, got the job at Mytron in Boulder when I graduated from school. But I really like country life, and my sister lived here, and when her husband was diagnosed with cancer about then...well. She’s my family and they needed some help. It took a while to convince Mytron that I could do the job via telecommuting, but once I could see that was going to work out, I started looking at land to build a place. I really love the area.”

      “I was born and raised here, but I love it, too. Think I’m addicted to the mountains, and I can’t imagine living in a place where buildings close you in.” As they climbed back down the loft stairs, Andy again noticed the slight limp in her right leg. But a shadow moving on her porch snapped his cop’s eyes in that ditection...at least for a second. “Um, I believe you’ve got a deer on your patio.”

      “Yeah. Horace. He’s a voyeur—around this time of day, he usually shows up for a handout and peeks in my windows at the same time. He was in love last fall. God, there is no worse doofus than a buck in love. Brought Martha up to the patio to meet me. But I haven’t seen her since, think the love СКАЧАТЬ