Hold Me Tight. Cait London

of his pride, a commodity the Stepanov men held dear.

      Alexi stepped back and stared at Jessica, fighting the hard throb of his body and the knowledge that women like this knew how to strip a man of everything—including his pride. He’d almost given in to that helpless, terrified look—like a little wounded bird needing help and comfort.

      He’d felt the tremor of her body, her panic as he held her. That soft, female body—

      With a contemptuous sidelong look, Jessica turned away, her arms tight around herself. “You really don’t like me, do you?” she asked quietly, the wind’s howl almost swallowing her words.

      “Does it matter?” Alexi removed his coat and placed it over her shoulders. Before he could stop his hand, he reached to lift that heavy silky hair up and over the collar. His fingers crushed the strands momentarily, possessively, but he forced them open and away.

      Jessica eased her arms into the sleeves and allowed him to turn her and button the coat. “Thank you,” she said tightly, as if the courtesy grated. “I’ll return it to you in just a moment.”

      He turned the collar up around her face, needing to touch her hair, her cheek, just once more. She looked like a child, huddled into his too-large coat. A very expensive, spoiled and angry child who didn’t trust him.

      “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” she asked, and moved away from him, staring out into the snowflakes sliding down the window’s plastic coverings.

      “Are your feet cold?” he asked, while his mind prowled around why this woman would leave the warmth, security and luxury of the Amoteh Resort to follow him on a winter night as bitter and treacherous as this one.

      Jessica pivoted to him, a myriad of color—reddish hair, flashing green eyes and flushed face. The emeralds on her hand glittered as she swept it out, a gesture that dismissed his question. “You need money. I have it. I need a job done and you’re the first on my list to do it. My late husband always said, pick the right man for the job. I think that’s you.”

      That grated, and Alexi leaned against the wall, folded his arms over his chest and waited. “What brings you to any conclusion about my needs?”

      “You may be remodeling this now, but you’re making tentative probes on property—probably to start a new life away from Wyoming. You sometimes tend bar at the Seagull’s Perch…the owner is getting ready to retire. Two and two say you’re looking at buying—if you can. I just might be able to help you do that.”

      “That’s a lot of information. Did you hire someone for all that? Or did you just dig it up yourself?”

      “Give me credit. I have resources and I don’t like to fence. Either you’re interested or you’re not.” She picked up a towel between her hands and studied it. As if satisfied, she sat on a low bench, kicked off her shoes and wrapped the towel around her bare feet. She chafed them briskly and watched him. “It’s freezing in here. Make up your mind.”

      “I’m listening.”

      She shivered and huddled within his coat. “I haven’t gotten any assurances that you won’t tell what you know, or that you will do the job.”

      Interesting, Alexi thought. A determined woman, not asking for relief from the cold; she stood her ground, demanding an answer. “One of us has to go first and lay something on the bargaining table. That’s you. And while we’re at it, I don’t like people prying into my business. Tell me just what you know.”

      She seemed to simmer, her eyes lashing at him, her lips compressed. “Okay. I ran a search on the newspaper archives online. You bought an old ranch, started a home on it, and your engagement picture to Heather Pell wasn’t followed by a wedding article. I tracked her to another marriage, quite a wealthy one, near the same wedding date as yours should have been. That must have hurt, because that was three years ago and you’re still guarding yourself. I saw that at the dance last week. No friendly conversation, no polite manners past dancing that one time with me. You tended bar, giving the staff a break, danced with your cousins and their mothers, your aunt and Georgia, the cook, some guests and a few of the staff. You seemed to enjoy dancing with the woman who supplies soap for the Amoteh. Willow? Wasn’t that her name?”

      Jessica seemed to be watching him for a reaction to her question. A sweet, gentle and happy woman, Willow Longstreet supplied the resort with soap, fashioned like a strawberry, from her shop. The Native American word for strawberry was Amoteh, a name used by the town and several of the shops. A strawberry design was used by the resort as a logo on all its bathroom and other amenities.

      Alexi had instantly liked Willow. But he decided to let Jessica take the lead, and he remained silent.

      When he didn’t answer, temper flashed in those green eyes. “At the dance, there was a woman hunting you, and you could have had her. Instead you snubbed her. She loved it, of course, and it only made her game more fun. But you like to do the hunting, don’t you? Men like you do. They enjoy the macho role.”

      “You’ve moved past a job you wanted done into the personal lane, Red. I’d watch that.”

      He thought of Marcella, a frequent guest at the Amoteh and always on the lookout for a new bedroom thrill. Marcella had been chasing Jarek and Mikhail before they married, and now she’d blatantly turned her attention to Alexi. He’d had to peel her off him more than once during his stay and still she managed to waylay him.

      But the woman who had moved against him just moments ago was all natural flowing softness, the kind his hands ached to cup. He could still feel her body in his arms, that tight waist, just the flare of those swaying hips—

      Alexi pushed away from the wall. He was too restless with his emotions, his need to know more about the wealthy Mrs. Jessica Sterling. He watched her shiver again, that lush bottom lip quiver as if her teeth were chattering, but her eyes never left him.

      “You must want me bad, lady,” he said slowly, and instinctively knew those words would set her off.

      Then Alexi opened the door to the living room, stepped inside and closed it behind him.

      He smiled briefly, enjoying Jessica’s furious expression.

      She wasn’t a woman to back down.

      And just maybe he needed to know more about her.

      Two

       J essica sat, hunched in Alexi’s big, warm coat, her bare feet wrapped in a towel that provided no warmth in the chilly, gutted sunroom. Wind rattled the plastic that covered the windows and a draft lifted the tendrils beside her face.

      She shivered; at two-thirty in the morning she could have been snuggled in the resort’s massive bed created by Stepanov’s Furniture. If she’d been unable to sleep, she could be sitting in front of her suite’s blazing fire, working on the corporation business or watching her favorite old black-and-white movie. She could be in a luxurious aromatherapy bath, a rejuvenating mask on her face, and listening to relaxing music.

      Alexi Stepanov had tugged her against him, held her easily. An irritating, arrogant—

      Jessica rubbed her bare toes with both hands, willing warmth into them. If she left now, she might not get him to help protect Willow.

      She inhaled the scent of freshly cut wood. The flapping of the plastic on the windows irritated her, just like the man. A draft on the floor stirred sawdust that had been swept into a pile; bits of it tumbled across the rough board floor toward her.

      She stood abruptly, slipped into her wet shoes and grabbed her jacket, then she pushed open the door Alexi had just entered. “I’m not through with you—”

      “Shut the door.” Alexi was crouched in front of a woodstove, adding kindling to a growing flame. The new stovepipe said it had been recently installed. Alexi glanced at her as he added a chunk of wood from an old galvanized tub.

      She’d taken baths in a tub just like that back in rural Arkansas….