A Loving Man Read online

  He’d give her time to think, Stefan promised himself as the vision of Rose, all hot and sweaty and sexy raced through his mind. Then he stopped thinking and breathing as Rose’s pickup pulled in front of the house. Dressed in her usual T-shirt and cutoff shorts, Rose stalked up the walkway, her thongs slapping against her soles. “I want to talk with you,” she said bluntly, tapping her hand against her bare thigh. “I see no point in beating around the bush, while you’re the cause of all my problems. So I’ve come right to grab the bull by the horns as we say hereabouts.”

  She blinked, hesitated as though she were replaying her own words and pushed on. “I wanted to talk with you privately…Estelle is at my house watching a video with her friends. I know your mother is with my dad—and I’m not certain I like how he’s acting lately, all sappy and happy—enough to make Maggie White take notice. She called to see what was making him seem so frisky. He bought new aftershave and new undershorts, all by himself, a sure sign that he’s up to something.”

  Stefan removed his feet from the railing and stood abruptly. “We have a television. Why is Estelle not here, in my house? She refuses to bring her friends—”

  Rose stared off into the night. “Would you put on a shirt? Just as mosquito protection?” she added, and in the slight glow of the citronella candle, her face seemed rosy.

  Five

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Rose thought as she tried to avoid looking at Stefan. He stood on his front porch, watching her approach on the stone walkway to the Donatien farmhouse. She picked her way through the scent of the insect-repelling citronella candle to the one of a freshly showered man. Stefan’s chest gleamed in the candlelight, that wedge of dark hair still beaded with water. His jeans were opened at the top snap and the worn places in them evidenced the all-male package beneath. She tried to swallow and failed, because she’d never seen a man’s feet look so—big and bold and strong. When he locked them in that wide-legged stance, he looked as if nothing could move him. He looked as dependable as a mountain, as hot as July and as tasty as Mrs. Wilkins’s strawberry jam on buttered, freshly baked bread. Rose fought the ripple of desire within her and damned it for taking a sweeter course.

  Stefan’s black hair was still damp and curling. Rose thought of how a sweet little baby would look with those curls—the idea caused her hands to grip the railing as an anchor…because her knees were giving way at the thought. Long ago, she’d forced the door closed on dreams of her own children and settled into the safe lane of godmothering.

  Pain shot through her and she regretted the soft cry that escaped her keeping. Instantly Stefan reached for her hands, turning them upward for his inspection. The raw blisters left by removing shingling nails mocked her. Stefan’s grim silence demanded an explanation. “I’ve been shingling,” she said. “I had to put it off because business was so good at the store and I pulled off a good quarter of the roof today. I didn’t want Dad up on our two-story roof and I was really feeling up to tearing something apart.”

  “You will wait here while I get the antibacterial cream and gauze to wrap your hands,” Stefan ordered as he placed his hand on her shoulder and firmly pushed her down onto a chair. In a heartbeat, the front storm door closed behind him.

  Rose sat in the quiet night, the fireflies blinking in their mating patterns, and wondered how Stefan could take the breath right from her with one look.

  “I should be going,” she whispered as he came back to the porch, kneeled at her side and began intently applying the cream. She felt a little light-headed with all the intoxicating scents of man and soap and Stefan and summer night curling around her.

  Stefan closed the tube, placed it aside and gently wrapped the gauze around her hands. Then, in one swift motion, he scooped her up. Still holding her, he eased into the big old rocking chair.

  “Now, this is silly,” she whispered, trying to sit upright and away from all that darkly tanned chest, and the enticing wedge of hair. He’d shocked her, treating her as if she weren’t a tomboy and muscle-packed and independent and unavailable.

  Stefan eased her head upon his shoulder and began rocking her slowly.

  “I want to cry, and I don’t know why,” she whispered as her throat thickened with emotions she didn’t understand. Stefan’s lips brushed lightly across her forehead, her brows, her lashes. His kisses weren’t helping her unstable condition. She thought that she could stay here forever, with his big, safe body beneath her, his skin against her cheek. His thumb caressed her wrist, just there, where she was too vulnerable. He made her feel unique, delicate and feminine. Unable to resist, she rubbed her cheek against him.

  Stefan stilled, then his hand cupped her chin, lifting her face to his. “How have I caused you trouble?” he asked gently.

  Looking up into that rugged face and dark, seductive gaze, Rose tried to focus. “I can’t think just now. Things are just too complicated. Give me a minute.”

  “Okay.” Stefan smiled tenderly, then brushed his lips against hers. Lightning went zigzagging through her veins, struck her heart and made it race. Thunder rumbled in her blood and her skin suddenly felt too tight.

  “You didn’t make a bet, did you?” she heard herself ask. Her heart would never recover if Stefan had acted like Mike.

  He frowned slightly. “Bet?”

  “That you could get to me.”

  The seductive smile returned and Stefan kissed her again, lightly and gently, as if he were seeking something precious from her. “I didn’t make a bet, but am I getting to you?”

  “I’d be foolish—with my background in men—to give in to this.” Rose trembled as Stefan’s sizzling-hot look swept over her face and her body.

  He urged her hips toward him, his hand smoothing her bottom and up her back, across her shoulders. Everything inside Rose seemed to clench, despite her restraining order on her body. He looked down to where her breasts nestled against his bare chest, closed his eyes and groaned shakily. He leaned his head back against the rocker and through his lashes, studied her. “Why have you come?” he asked huskily.

  Sitting on a man’s lap—which she hadn’t done in her lifetime, with the exception of her father—gave a woman certain rights, Rose decided. She lifted her wrapped hand and extended a fingertip to smooth the line between his brows. “For Estelle. And for you,” she added, letting that fingertip roam across his thick, fascinating brows. Stefan was a man of textures, of passion and of control. She wondered just how controlled; what she could do to tempt him— He held very still beneath her touch, but the jerk of muscle beneath his jaw said he wasn’t exactly calm. Rose smoothed that taut muscle, wanting to ease his trouble. That was what she did best—understand pain. “You’re too controlled for your own good, Stefan. You’ve got to lighten up. Estelle has some idea that you’re keeping Louie away from her on purpose, which you have admitted to me. She’s invited him to come, but Louie always has an excuse. And you glare at the boys in her new crowd, especially when one of them gets too close.”

  “They are too easy and too quick to touch her, to put their arms around her,” Stefan stated roughly.

  “You’re touching me,” Rose reminded him as she looked pointedly to where his hand was stroking her thigh. Rose decided to put that action into the erotic bin, especially the movement of his thumb, just there on the inside of her thigh.

  “Do not be foolish. You are a woman. I am a man. I care for you. You entice me. Fascinate me. Excite me. I am not a man who relates easily to anyone, but in you, I find…contentment.”

  Rose tried to recover from his rapid statements, her emotions buffeting her. She smoothed his jaw again and realized that he had eased his taut defense slightly. She ran her fingertips across those blunt, wide cheekbones and had the sense she was easing all the brooding storms within him. “You’re a good father, Stefan. Estelle will make the right choices. You have to give her a chance to explore them first, though. You’ve got to stop being so bossy. And never, ever say ‘I forbid you.”’
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  He exhaled as though he had been holding his breath. “In this case, I know what is best for my daughter. Louie undoubtedly has fast-moving sperm. She will not have a chance to know herself until years have passed. He will keep her pregnant and waiting on him to insure his grasp on what our family has worked so hard to keep. I would love grandchildren, but without Louie’s inherited fish-mouth. Yes, it’s true. He has a mouth like a fish and a mind that serves his own purposes. He would not, for one moment, consider my daughter’s welfare or happiness. I caught him in my office copy room with one of the temporary help. They were not studying the menus. I could not bring myself to tell Estelle. And I could not hit him, as much as I wanted to—he is small and slight and wears dark glasses all the time.”

  Rose studied him, seeing all the stormy passages inside and knowing without explanation that Stefan wanted the best for his family. “It’s been hard on you, hasn’t it? Trying to take your father’s place in business and then playing the role of both parents for Estelle?”

  “You feel so much. You know so much.” He kissed the gauze covering her palm and held it gently to his cheek. “I wasn’t a good parent to Estelle.” The admission came raggedly, as though it was the first time he had dragged it into the air. “I worked long hours. Too long and suddenly she wasn’t a baby anymore. I didn’t even spend the time with Claire that I should have—and she was so fragile. It was as if Estelle was a baby, and then suddenly she is a woman, and I don’t understand anything—except that I am making the same mistakes as my father made with me. I am too harsh with her. I am used to managing business, not a family. The ease between your father and you does not flow between Estelle and myself. In business, I am not…sweet. I come home tired and too quick to snap at her about Louie, or her hair or that blue nail polish she used to wear. I work for hours after dinner. It’s different here. It’s good. She is very happy here. She has a glow about her. I never realized how much she really wanted this life. I was too involved with business. Perhaps here, she can find some small bit of what she’s wanted.”

  Stefan frowned and held her slightly away. “Why am I causing you trouble?” he asked again.

  “Everyone is talking about how you kissed me…that unbrotherly way, and then how you dropped me. They’re feeling sorry for me again and I don’t like it. You’re not staying here any longer than it takes and I’ll be left to deal with the pitiful looks of people I’ve known all my life. The tuna casseroles will start to arrive with the poor-old-maid looks, and then people will invite me to visit for Sunday dinner to meet their unmarried cousin, what’s-his-name. He’ll either be a total zero, or he’ll have a houseful of children who won’t want a stepmother.”

  “What about your own children?” Stefan asked softly as he studied his fingertip, which had just come to gently circle Rose’s breast. Her nipple peaked beneath her T-shirt and bra. She shivered and stared at him, trying to fight the raging storm within her. Stefan stared back, and the inches between their faces seemed charged with electricity looking for a place to zap. She couldn’t move as his hand slowly enclosed her breast, so gently, as if it were petals. She tried to breathe, to focus, as he caressed her and slowly moved his hand lower to find the hem of her T-shirt.

  Rose hadn’t been touched so carefully, so lightly and gently, and Stefan’s dark gaze burned at her as though he were waiting for her reaction, and giving her a choice to reject or welcome him. By the time his hand slid upward, she was certain her heart would race away from her keeping into the night. Stefan bent his head to kiss her throat, behind her ear, her cheek, and the warm beat of his heart seemed to wait for her answer. She feared answering the needs of her body, to take the invitation of the hardened body beneath her. “My batting average isn’t good in this department,” she managed to say finally. “I have three ex-fiancés.”

  “You seem to do exceedingly well, ma chérie,” Stefan murmured as he nuzzled her throat and trailed kisses to her breast. Once there, he gently suckled in a rhythm that caused Rose to cry out and to lock her arms around him, holding him close.

  Just there, on the edge, with Stefan’s breath uneven against her skin, the night soft and sweet around her, she sensed him withdrawing and rearranging her clothing. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to the blinding light of head beams and the reality that Stefan was thoroughly aroused beneath her. His hands pressed her close against him and a telling shudder racked his big body. “It appears that privacy is a problem,” he stated grimly as two women moved up the walkway to the house. “Hello, Mother. Hello, Estelle.”

  “I was just leaving,” Rose said as she pushed free of Stefan, stood shakily and hurried past his mother and daughter. “Good night.”

  She hadn’t intended to nick the Donatien’s gate with her pickup’s fender. The post had seemed to leap out at her while she was thinking of Stefan holding her, that big body taut against her and the pulsing, wild rhythm surging between them. “I cannot go through this again,” she muttered.

  Stefan crouched on Rose’s roof, studying the delicate bare feet, which were resting on her windowsill, the lace curtain fluttering over her ankles. At five-thirty in the morning, Waterville was quiet, dawn pushing away the night—a restless night for Stefan, with desire pounding at him, his body awakening after years. Rose’s soft cries of pleasure had curled through his night, the taste of her body feeding his desire.

  He had already been working for an hour, tearing off the old shingles and removing the nails. Rose’s abused hands were a reflection of her emotions, of her fear of loving and being deserted. Stefan scowled at those slender, curved feet, fighting the anger within him. To think that a man would make bets on such a loving woman, who cared for all those around her.

  The lace curtains fluttered delicately around her ankles and Stefan couldn’t resist stroking the vulnerable curve of her insole. Her toes wiggled and he smiled at the red polish, a contrast to the natural woman.

  Suddenly the curtains were ripped aside. Rose stared blankly at him, shrieked and grabbed the curtains. A clump sounded behind them as the curtain rod tore free and slanted out of the window. Worried for Rose, Stefan grimly wrapped the yards of white froth in his fists and pushed it through the window. He glimpsed Rose, struggling to her feet, her rocking chair upended on the floor. She grabbed the lace, hurled it aside and peered through the open window at Stefan. “What are you doing here?”

  If he hadn’t been staring at her breasts through the thin material of her shortie nightgown, he might have been able to speak. “Never have I wanted to tear a woman’s clothing away,” he heard himself whisper raggedly. “But I want to see all of you.”

  She grabbed the lace curtain and held it up to her, a blush warming her cheeks. She blinked rapidly and said, “You’re wearing a tool belt and knee pads and you’re on my roof.”

  “I’m finishing the roofing. You are not to come out here.”

  “Stefan, people will talk. They know that I do most of the home repairs. They’re still talking about my attempt at plumbing. ‘Rose’s great plumbing episode,’ that’s what they call it.”

  “Well, then. They’ll know that I haven’t dropped you as you said last night. They’ll know that the romance continues with Rose Granger. Did you sleep well last night?” he asked and heard his own uncertainty.

  “My feet got too hot—that’s all. I stick them out the window sometimes. I like the drift of the lace across my skin. Last night—you kissing me—had nothing to do with my…um, inability to sleep,” she added firmly.

  Stefan studied her flushed face and couldn’t resist the laughter and happiness bubbling within him. “You’re fibbing, Rose. You are a very sensual woman. You kissed me back. Would you like me to come in there and prove it?”

  He was enjoying her sweet, wide-eyed look when a boy called up to him, “Hey, Mr. Donatien. You want me to put you on my paper route? After I finish my bike route, my dad takes me out in the country.”

  Stefan glanced down at the boy, and at Mrs. Wilkins, an
d at several other townspeople, including Rose’s two ex-fiancés who were scowling up at him. Those dressed in jogging gear had apparently spread the word that he was on Rose’s roof. On their way to work, others had pulled their vehicles against the curb. The early morning fishermen sat in their lawn chairs on the back of pickups, sipping coffee. Rose was beloved by Waterville’s residents, and her roof visitor was clearly under suspicion and surveillance by the curious crowd. “Get in here,” she said grimly behind him, and tugged on his T-shirt.

  “She needs her roof reshingled,” he called to the small crowd below. He couldn’t resist, “She needs me—”

  “Get in here,” Rose ordered more firmly and with both hands pulled his shirt. Stefan had the heady notion that she was claiming him for her own, protecting him. He eased his tall body through her open window and hung the curtain rod that Rose pushed into his hands. He’d never felt so good, so free and happy and couldn’t help his grin as Rose frowned at him, pushing her hair back from her face. She jammed a tattered old flannel robe over her short nightgown and glared at him. Her father’s snore sounded through the rose-spattered wallpaper. Stefan watched, fascinated by Rose’s stormy, frustrated expression, as she stalked the length of the room, her long legs flashing beneath the folds of the robe. He righted the small rocking chair, perfect for a woman, and studied her feminine bedroom—the mussed bed, the pillows on the floor, the family pictures on the wall and the cotton summer dress hanging on the closet door.