Mistletoe Man. Kathleen O'Brien

Tall pines were tossing fretfully, bullied by ever-stronger winds. It made her feel slightly sick to think of getting back into that little helicopter.

      “Mr. McKinley,” she began, emboldened by her sense of urgency. If the winds kept growing more and more intense, would even Daniel’s wildman pilot dare to fly? “Mr. McKinley, I’d be glad to answer any questions you might—”

      A loud noise interrupted the flow of words, and her voice strangled on a shocked gasp as suddenly, from some hidden recess in the rear of the lodge, a huge, glowering man dressed all in black appeared in front of the fire. Her throat went dry. Who—? She had been so sure that she and Daniel were the only two people left on this snowswept mountain.

      For a moment the stranger just stood there, his oversize features shifting eerily in the shadows cast by the fire. Lindsay swallowed hard, staring in spite of herself. He was very old, she sensed, though still a giant of a man. His pronounced, overhanging brows were wild and white, and his hair, which tumbled nearly to his shoulders, was as colorless as the snow.

      A flashing glint caught Lindsay’s eye, and she dropped her numbed gaze to the man’s hands. But, on the left side, there was no hand. Instead, just beyond the intense black of his work shirt, a metal hook glistened in the firelight, sharply curved and lethal.

      She was glad she was sitting down, because suddenly the muscles in her legs went limp. She looked toward Daniel, too stunned to speak.

      To her surprise he was smiling. “This better be important, Roc.” His voice was stern, but it was a mock severity. He flipped one of the document’s pages over casually and kept reading while he talked. “Look at Miss Blaisdell’s white knuckles. She’s frustrated by all these interruptions, I deduce, and holding on to her temper with a superhuman effort. She’s eager to finish this deal and get back to civilization.”

      The huge man turned his glower in Lindsay’s direction. “Sick of you already, is she? Well, it’ll curdle her guts to hear my news, then.” He turned back to Daniel. “Landwer called. Seems your chopper’s got a rattle, and he’s scared to fly until he finds out where it’s coming from.” He lifted his hook and scratched behind his ear disgustedly. “Yellow-belly wimp-guts.”

      “Roc, you really are an animal.” Settling the papers onto his lap, Daniel shook his head. “My apologies, Miss Blaisdell. Mr. Richter here is my caretaker, and I suspect he’s been alone in the wilderness far too long. He’s discarded what few manners he ever had.”

      But Lindsay wasn’t even thinking about the man’s rough language. She was too horrified by his message. “There’s something wrong with the helicopter? It’s not coming back?” She stood up, her hands still twisted together, and went to the window, as if she might be able to summon the absent vehicle herself.

      But, of course, all she saw was the ever thicker curtain of snow. She turned. “Mr…Roc,” she said as steadily as she could. “Did the pilot say how long it would take to find the problem?”

      The big man guffawed. Reaching his good hand out, he grabbed a poker and gave the firewood a rough stirring. The flames roared to new life.

      “Don’t hold your breath. Landwer couldn’t find his rump with a compass.”

      “Roc.” This time Daniel’s voice was pitched low and held an unmistakable reprimand.

      The giant grinned, and the sight transformed his ugly face into something surprisingly sweet. “Sorry, Danny Boy, but it’s true. If the lady flew up here with him she already knows what a baggage-smasher he is. Don’t worry, miss,” he added with another of his amazing smiles. “I’ll fix something special for dinner to make it easier to stomach old Daniel here.”

      “Dinner?” Lindsay’s voice rose. “But, Mr. McKinley, I have to get back before that. My sister…Christy’s too young to be alone.” She took a deep breath. She mustn’t panic. There had to be a way out of this mess. She racked her brain. “Don’t you have another helicopter?”

      Daniel smiled wryly. “Sorry. We’re just a one-chopper operation up here. Chintzy, I know, but somehow we’ve limped by so far.”

      “But there must be a car? Or a truck or something?”

      “We do have a Jeep,” Roc began, but Daniel interrupted, slapping the documents down on the desk crisply.

      “No driving,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. Besides, Landwer will probably have the rattle vanquished in no time. Don’t accept Roc’s estimate of my pilot’s abilities, Miss Blaisdell. Roc used to fly for me before his accident, and he’s never been very charitable toward his replacement.”

      Roc was obviously insulted. He stuffed the poker back into its rack with a terrible clatter. “Listen, Danny Boy, you know bloody well you’d be better off with a couple of carrier pigeons. But what do I care? You and Landwer deserve each other. Anyhow, the Jeep’s ready to go, like it is every winter. I could take her—”

      “I said no driving.” Daniel’s earlier lighthearted irony was conspicuously absent. “Go into the kitchen and fix us a good lunch, Roc. Miss Blaisdell will leave when Landwer has repaired the copter. Not before.”

      Roc left the room as quietly as he came, allowing his anger to show only in the rigidity of his broad back. Lindsay, who had been watching the astonishing interchange in silence, finally moved forward. What an infuriating man Daniel McKinley was! His tone couldn’t have been more peremptory if both she and Roc had been his children.

      “Mr. McKinley, I really do have to be home before dark tonight. My sister is only twelve years old, and I haven’t made any provisions for her care—”

      Daniel shrugged one broad shoulder toward the desk. “Feel free to use the telephone.”

      Lindsay narrowed her eyes. “There’s no one to call. I must get home before tonight.”

      Daniel unfolded himself from the desk, his movements slow and full of coiled, repressed power. His blue eyes were icier than ever.

      “You’ll leave when I say it’s safe, Miss Blaisdell.” He looked her up and down, as if assessing her capacity for resistance. “Look, let’s get a couple of things straight. Your boss insisted on this eleventh-hour document delivery, not I. I was content to wait until the new year to purchase Hamilton Homes. I will, in point of fact, survive perfectly well if I don’t buy Hamilton Homes at all.” He met her gaze directly. “Which is more than we can say for your boss, isn’t it?”

      “That’s not the point,” she began, but he raised a finger to quiet her words.

      “It’s the truth,” he said. “Now let’s be even more honest, shall we? You don’t like me. I remember our last encounter with crystal clarity, and I’m well aware that you’d prefer to be anywhere but here. However, here you are, and you must have known the risk you were taking. Winter in these mountains is notorious. If you’ve been caught by it, we’ll just both have to live with that.”

      Her cheeks were burning, but she refused to be intimidated. “My sister needs me, Mr. McKinley,” she repeated stubbornly. “I don’t think you understand—”

      “No, damn it, it’s you who doesn’t understand.” He put his hand on her back and with a rough motion turned her toward the picture window. “Look out there. We have a path that leads to Roc’s apartments. It’s newly paved, and it’s lined with tulips in the spring. Can you see it? Can you even begin to guess where it is?”

      She looked, desperately scanning the blank white ripples of mounded snow for anything that resembled a path, but she could find nothing.

      “No, of course you can’t.” She tried to turn away, but his palm was still hard against her back, forcing her to face the window. She didn’t dare to speak. He suddenly seemed so intense, almost angry, and she wasn’t sure why. Was it because they had finally mentioned the past, that day three years ago when she had uttered one unforgivable sentence?

      “You have no