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“Strictly in self-defense. You kept shoving snow down my collar,” Jonas reminded her.
Her lips parted in a ruefully acknowledging smile at the way she had provoked him all those years ago. The snowballs had only been a part of his retaliation. The rest had come when Bridget lost her footing in the snow and fell while trying to run from him.
She’d lain there laughing, too breathless to move, and he had joined her in the bed of snow, intending only to silence her with a kiss. No, that wasn’t true. He had wanted to make love to her, well out of sight of her father and everyone else. He’d settled for a kiss. One incredible kiss.
But it had been innocent enough until Bridget had seen the veiled look in his eyes and had made an almost inaudible moan of surrender. He’d met her later, in a cabin well away from her parents’ house, after she’d sneaked out to be with him. There had been nothing innocent in the second kiss, nor the third or fourth. Jonas remembered fighting through her heavy winter outer garments to find the slender, feminine body they hid.
Only there hadn’t been any satisfaction in that. He had wanted to feel the warm softness of her flesh, and she had let him go as far as he’d wanted … as far as they’d both wanted to go. Jonas had almost wanted to stop, had hoped her father would come looking for them, the mare’s jingling harness warning them of his approach.
Even then Jonas was afraid of loving her too much. But he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t believe how much he wanted her. After that night, he’d had the feeling her father had known what had happened, known they had gone further than a playful romp in the snow, but he had said nothing.
Their rendezvous in the cabin had been the first of many times that Bridget had driven Jonas slowly and pleasurably out of his mind. There had been moments when he was certain she enjoyed making him crazy with wanting her.
It had been the beginning. But where there is a beginning, there must also be an end. Jonas thought it had ended, until now, this moment, when he wanted her more than he ever had in the past.
Tearing his gaze from her trembling lips, he saw that Bridget felt it, too. It was there in the darkening of her hazel eyes, the sweet torment of physical wanting.
“Bridget.” His low, husky voice said her name in urgent demand.
She looked away, drawing a deep breath and releasing it in a shuddering sigh. “That was a long time ago, Jonas.”
“Was it?” he said tautly, wondering how in hell she could control her emotions when he had so little control over his.
“I … Oh, excuse me, someone’s at the door.” Thank heavens for Dorothy Pomfret, Bridget thought. Dotty popped in whenever the mood took her and someone offered her a ride. “One of my yam suppliers. Excuse me.” Except for that second’s hesitation, Bridget was again cool and composed.
Flicking an impatient glance toward the door, Jonas saw an older woman with thick gray braids, dressed in a colorful, flowing coat paired with work boots and carrying canvas bags brimming over with spun wool. She was a step away from the entrance. He turned instantly back to Bridget, his look hard and demanding. “Send her away,” he ordered. “Tell her you’re closing early today.”
The stubborn set of her chin gave him his answer before she spoke. “I won’t do that, Jonas,” she said quietly. “Not can’t, but won’t.”
The shop door opened and closed to the tinkling of the overhead bell.
“Hello, Dotty,” Bridget said.
“Hiya.” The older woman glanced at Jonas, then turned her attention to Bridget.
As brief as her look had been, he had the feeling that he’d been assessed in an instant. Jonas sensed a shrewd intelligence in Dotty that was at odds with her eccentric attire.
“Have you heard the weather report?” Dotty asked Bridget.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, I can’t stay long. It’s going to snow,” the woman insisted, then looked absent-mindedly around the store. “My sheep can tell. They won’t leave the fold.”
Jonas sighed inwardly. His big moment had been interrupted by someone who talked to sheep. Vermont was still full of oddballs and old hippies. He glanced back at Bridget, who was giving the woman in braids her full attention.
“Here you go,” Dotty said, holding up a canvas bag bulging with skeins of wool. “All the same dye lot, so the color matches perfectly.”
“That’s great, Dotty. Thanks so much.” Bridget took the bag by the handles and looked inside. “Ooh, gorgeous. You’re using the natural dyes, right?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be able to sell all of this right away.”
“Good. I need the money,” Dotty said briskly. “Who’s the customer? From around here?”
It took Jonas a second to realize that she didn’t mean him. She just wanted to know where her handcrafted wool was going, was all. He had forgotten how small a Vermont town could seem. The sense of community was still strong up here, unlike the impersonality of Manhattan.
“No,” Bridget was saying. “A lady up north in Stowe. She wants to make an afghan to go with her new drapes and she sent me a swatch. A subtle celadon green like this would be perfect.”
