2

Liam rounded toward the wet bar in the corner of the vast living room he'd kept open and sparsely decorated on purpose. He didn't like knick-knacks, had no taste for antiques, but loved open space and natural materials like mismatched stone and authentic, blemished wood. He'd built his very own camp in New Hampshire exactly as he wanted it.

Summers had been spent on the property as kids—him, his sister, his brother, all tossing one another in the lake, hiding in the thick forest, fighting battles with plastic swords and grimy hands. And after too many adult years spent in New York, building his business, discovering new tech companies to invest in, helping them to succeed, he'd been ready to retreat to the woods that were part of his family's roots.

But he couldn't think about family now—he'd been steeped in his brother's illness, fighting for care no matter the cost, offering to build wings in hospitals if it meant his brother would be okay. He hadn't just been steeped in it, he corrected, he'd drowned in it. And hadn't that been why he'd flown in Emerson? To remind him of adventure? To help him forget about the sanitized scent of the hospital and the constant tug of guttural fear?

Pouring brown liquor from a crystal decanter into two glasses, figuring on two fingers of fine brandy, he calmed at the idea she was there, in his home. Finally.

He knew she wondered and waited, and even though he'd been thinking of this moment in flashes over the years, he took the time to collect himself. He hadn't thought through the words, only the desire. Liam lived in the moment and wasn't one to waver in his desires.

And as he'd left the hospital room for a cup of coffee on a sunny day in Boston the week prior, he'd glanced back in and had seen his sister-in-law holding his brother's hand. He hadn't given consideration to why Emerson flashed in his mind at that moment. Instead he just did what he needed to do to get her there.

"It's great to see you, Emerson. You look even more incredible than when I saw you last in New Orleans."

She frowned as she took the drink he handed her. Instead of sipping it, she simply held it in her hand and waited for answers. "What am I doing here? Are you really interested in a partnership with my company? Is this really a meeting?"

He sat back into the couch, the glow of the fire warming the edges of his fierce face, pulling back a drink of brandy that warmed from within. "One could argue we're meeting now."

Temper that came as natural as her red hair bubbled under the surface. "Fine. You're not going to answer my questions, fine. Since you don't at all seem surprised to see me, let me make some assumptions. You somehow found out my name and what? Brought me here thinking we'd repeat what we did in New Orleans years ago? You made me fly across the country and endure a damn helicopter ride—I hate flying, by the way—all to what? Come here just on some sort of whim of yours?"

Fidgety, she set down the glass so she wouldn't be tempted to throw it.

Hands fisted on her hips, she waited for him to respond. When he only looked at her with amusement hinting at his lips, his confident and competent lips, fury clawed.

"You think just because you're some wealthy businessman you can order people around? You can't pluck me out of my life and trick me into going places just because it amuses you, you unscrupulous, arrant butt-face."

His head tilted slightly to the side and he peered up at her as she paced. "Unscrupulous, arrant butt-face? I've been called a lot of things in my life, never heard that before."

A defiant eyebrow lifted once again. "Maybe not to your face."

He smiled and rose from the couch, his body filling the room, kicking up her temper another notch.

As he walked toward her, she stopped and stood her ground in front of the fire, didn't budge this time; there was no stepping back. "I'm not to be bought or messed with. I...can't believe I'm saying this, but I want to get back on that helicopter and I want to get home to California. Now."

Her words and the flames that came with them didn't deter him. He approached until they were face to face, one breath apart.

"You're right to be mad." His voice was calm in its intensity. "I should've told you that I wanted to see you but I didn't know if you'd come. If that night and morning in New Orleans taught me anything, it's that you're a strong-willed woman who knows her mind."

She scowled at him.

"My life's changed a lot in the past five years and I brought you here because, well I hadn't really thought about it like this, but you've been the one constant question through it all. Something about you stuck with me and I wanted to see how you are. How your life is. Every time I think of you, I wonder if you're happy. Then last week I saw your picture in a technology trade article about the expansion of your company and I arranged for you to come here."

Struggling for her breath, for words, her mind spun as it had on the helicopter. Her thoughts, for one hot blaze of a moment, rushed into temptation, into desire to feel him, their bodies touching. But she wasn't the same woman she was years ago. She was a mother and an executive now. She had a mortgage payment, a business to run, and cupcakes to get to her son's daycare.

Sex and adventure with mystery men didn't factor into her life now.

"I have to get home. I'm sorry, I can't be part of this...whatever this is. It's maddening, and flattering a little bit, I suppose, but you could have any woman you want. I have to get home. You should...put your efforts elsewhere."

He'd had other women and didn't want them. He wanted her.

"You slept for quite awhile today."

She rolled her eyes and poked a finger at his chest to push him away. "Great. Thank you so much for the reminder. I told you, if you couldn't tell from my elegant fainting display, I hate flying. So while I may sound like a masochist, please call the helicopter back as I'd like to leave."

He grabbed for her hand and the strength of his grip had a memory playing back in her mind. His hands on her body, gripping, pulling, feeling, gliding.

She tried to tug her hand away but he only held tighter as he pulled her along, through the cavernous hallway into another room with a tall stretch of windows and yet another fireplace.

They stopped at the glass that reached two stories up and stretched wide across. Her mouth gasped open.

"I meant you were out for awhile and the storm rolled in. Helicopter won't be flying anywhere."

Everything was coated white in every direction. At least three feet, if not more, with flakes falling fast from the sky and swirling with the whipping wind. The expanse of the lake was the only clearing but the surface was frosted with ice.

"You planned this."

Now he laughed. "Money doesn't sway Mother Nature, I'm afraid."

"Okay, whatever, it's fine. I'll just drive. Have a car I can borrow to get to Boston?"

"Emerson." His hands laid on her shoulders and he maneuvered her to face him. "No one's driving anywhere in this stuff. Roads and airports are closed."

"No," was all she could think to say. "No. They can't be. I have to get home."

"I'd say you're stuck here for now. I'll turn on the news so you can see for yourself."

"I can see the snow for myself!" she yelled, knowing she was starting to lose that clenched grip on control. She consciously breathed out the mad to a steaming simmer. "I need my phone. Where's my purse? That man with the black tie...that sounds nuts so hopefully I wasn't hallucinating. Anyway, he took my purse and I need my phone. I need to make a call."

"He works for me but he left for the day to help his daughter with a project for school. Some kind of abstract art deal, hence the black tie. He put your purse in a guest room and I'll get it for you but your phone won't work out here. No reception."

Watching her face set into another storm of mad, he reached for her hand and had her on the move again. "Landline's this way."

"Aren't you one of the wealthiest men in the world or country or something? Why don't you just build a cell-tower so phones work here?"

"Good idea. Want a job?"

"I have a job."

"Want a better one?"

"No. I want a phone that works."

"Almost there," he said as he pushed open double doors to an expansive office overlooking the lake. The desk was broad and curved like wavy lines of the sea, the windows tall and inviting, the computer screen the size of a television.

"Is anything in this place normal sized? Everything is huge."

At his slow side grin, heat filled her body, pink springing to life on her cheeks.

"That was not a reference to...you. Though I suppose it fits. I mean...it fits...really well, actually. Don't know how because you're...and I'm..." She was fumbling and she knew it so she let out a steadying breath. "You're huge, this place is huge, now please leave so I can have the room and make a few calls."

She sat in the chair behind the desk, partly because her legs were beginning to wobble, and partly because doing so helped her feel more in charge of things.

Liam leaned in close and kissed her lips, directly and intently, then lifted and walked out of the room, closing the doors behind him.

He'd been complimented then kicked out of his own office and was completely pleased by the idea.