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It was an American number, and he was tempted to ignore it, but he pressed play and held the phone up to his ear. After listening to the message, his body tensed.
Kristy must have felt it. “Kash? What’s wrong?”
“That was the coordinator for the Iditarod,” he grunted. “The race has been postponed indefinitely until there’s more snow on the ground.”
“Postponed? Shit. That’s not good. Are you okay? I know how much you were looking forward to the race.”
He had been looking forward to the race, but more importantly, if there wasn’t one, he wouldn’t have an excuse to stay with Kristy.
The thought of leaving her again unsettled him, and he tried to push it from his mind. Instead, he focused on the fact that he was here now, and she was naked and ready beneath him.
“I’m fine,” he muttered as he kneeled behind her. Pulling her hips up roughly, he entered her hard and fast. She welcomed him with a long, low moan, and soon, everything else slipped away.
14
“Faster!” Arella yelled. “Faster!”
Kristy woke up in a panic. Her daughter’s muffled voice came from outside, and she couldn’t fathom what Arella was doing up so early in the morning.
Jack-knifing up in bed, she pushed her hair back and looked around in a panic. At first, she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t in her bedroom until she remembered that she’d spent the night with Kashif.
Groaning, she looked over to his side of the bed and saw that he was already gone. Frantic to check on Arella, she struggled to get out of bed, but last night’s activities had taken a toll on her. The muscles in her thighs were sore, and she winced.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Desperate to orient herself, she glanced at the clock and realized that she’d overslept by two hours. “What?” she gasped as she ran to the window. In the distance, she could see Arella gliding on the frozen pond next to the dog pens.
“Christ, who the hell gave her skates?” she yelped as she struggled to find clothes. Since she’d come to the room naked, the best she could do was a pair of Kashif’s sweat pants and one of his oversized shirts. Still trying to pull everything on, she practically stumbled down the stairs. “Julia!” she yelled as she pulled out her boots. “Kashif!”
There had to be someone that could reach Arella before her daughter fell through the ice.
Her heart pounding, her memories flashed back to when she’d last ventured out across the pond. Thinking that it was frozen solid, she thought that it’d be fun to take her dog, Betsy, and glide across the ice. Halfway across, she and the dog had fallen through.
Her father had pulled them out just in the nick of time.
She hadn’t been much older than Arella. What if she couldn’t get to her daughter in time? “Kashif,” she screamed again as she burst through the back door and ran across the field.
“Whoa, whoa!” Kashif reached out and snagged her around the waist before she reached the ice. “She’s okay, Kristy. She’s okay.”
“Arella,” she gasped.
“She’s fine. She’s not out there alone. Look.”
Finally able to see more than just her daughter, Kristy realized that there was someone else out there on the pond with her. A stranger had her daughter by the hand and gently pushed her across the ice and instructed her.
Dimly, she realized that Julia and Henry were both staring at her. Knowing how she must look dressed in someone else’s clothes; she wrapped her arms around herself and straightened her back. “Can you please explain this,” she finally said hoarsely when she felt a little calmer.
“Arella told me yesterday that she had no interest in dog sledding. She’d rather be an ice skater, so I found an instructor who could give her a few lessons. She’ll either love it, or she’ll get bored with it after a few weeks,” Kashif murmured in her ear. “And I tested that pond myself to make sure that it was safe. It’s solid.”
Indignation rose in her. “She is my daughter! You had no right! I can’t afford an instructor. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Consider this my gift to you,” he said soothingly.
She narrowed her eyes. “We had a deal,” she hissed. “You were supposed to leave my daughter alone.”
“Kristy, she’s happy,” he said softly. “What more could you want?”
“And when you leave? How happy will she be then?” Turning her back on him, she glared at Henry. “Well? Don’t you have things to do today?”
