The Millionaire's Snowbound Seduction
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Sandra Marton
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Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
NICK BRENNAN figured that Scrooge had gotten it right.
Christmas was definitely the most overrated holiday of the year. He’d had plenty of time to think about it, considering that he’d been stalled in a barely-moving line of traffic for the past forty-five minutes.
A horn blared angrily behind him, setting off an answering chorus from a dozen other cars.
Nick smiled thinly. Right. As if that would change anything. This was New York traffic. Friday afternoon New York traffic, the Friday afternoon before Christmas. Anybody dumb enough to be trapped in it deserved what he got.
Including him.
‘Stupid,’ Nick muttered, tapping his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel.
That was the only word for it. He’d been living in Manhattan for almost a decade. He knew the score. Even his PA, who was just a few years out of some Iowa cornfield, knew that leaving New York today wasn’t terribly bright.
She’d tried to talk him out of it.
‘Why don’t you let me phone around, see if I can’t book you onto a flight to Vermont?’ Ellen had said.
He’d given her a bunch of reasons, all of them logical. Because she’d never find a seat for him at the last minute. Because not even the charter service Brennan Resorts employed would be available at the eleventh hour. Because even if she lucked out, who knew for how much longer anything would be able to take off? The weatherman, as usual, had gotten it wrong. The predicted light snow was about to turn into a major storm.
Nick had told Ellen all those things. The only thing he hadn’t told her was the truth. He was driving to North Mountain because he hoped the six hours on the road would give him time to talk himself out of reaching it.
Oh, he’d come up with practical reasons for going. After all, he owned the mountain now, most of it, anyway, the same as he owned the cabin that stood on its crest. And, as soon as the details were settled, his people would bring in the equipment necessary to demolish the cabin and start work on the newest Brennan resort. Nick was a hands-on kind of guy. He always looked a site over before work began. It was, according to Wall Street, one of the reasons for his success.
But nobody was going to bring in any kind of equipment, until the harsh New England winter ended in April, or maybe even May.
No matter how you looked at it, there wasn’t a reason in the world to make the trip now.
Nick blew out his breath.
A couple of months ago, he hadn’t even known he owned North Mountain. His people had brought him an estate deal that contained several prime parcels of land in New England. Nick had moved fast, as he always did, and quickly given them the okay to make the buy.
He’d had no idea the mountain was part of the package. Not that he’d have cared, if he’d known. The mountain was perfect for development, and no amount of sentimental claptrap would change that. No, it wasn’t sentiment that was sending him to Vermont.
Vermont, in December.
Christmas carol time. Horse-drawn sleigh time. Cold, star-studded night time…
Holly time.
Seven years ago come Monday morning, he and Holly had been married. One year later to the day, they’d agreed to a divorce.
And all of it had begun on North Mountain, in a cabin a million miles from anywhere.
The horn behind him blasted Nick into reality. He shot a nasty look into his mirror and inched the Explorer forward.
Okay. So, the realization that he’d bought the mountain, and the cabin, had hit him hard. That had surprised him. He didn’t think about his once-upon-a-time marriage anymore. Hell, why would he? Nick’s jaw tightened. He’d made a mistake. So what? Life was like that. You made a mistake, you rectified it and moved on. The one thing you never did was look back.
Then, what was he doing, sitting in this God-awful traffic, heading for the place where he’d made his biggest mistake? It made no sense.
Maybe it did. Maybe it would help him get rid of the memories.
Memories of Holly, wearing a flannel nightgown instead of the silky one she’d bought for their honeymoon, because the cabin had been so cold that first night…until he’d slowly stripped her of the gown and warmed her with his body. Memories of Holly, laughing after he’d tumbled her down in the snow, shrieking when he threatened to wash her face in it…her smile fading, turning soft and sexy as she became aware of the sudden pressure of his aroused flesh against hers.
Nick’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Memories were all they were, foolish shadows of a dead past, and they made no sense because he wasn’t in love with the woman in those memories. Not anymore. Not ever, when you came right down to it. Holly, herself, had been an illusion. A fantasy, conjured up by the lonely kid he’d once been.
He needed closure.
Nick almost laughed. Closure. The most popular word in the good old U.S. of A. Every two-bit TV talk show, every tune-in-and-spew-your-guts radio shrink, went on and on about closure. And, yeah, dumb or not, maybe that was what he needed. No point pretending that the seventh anniversary of his failed marriage hadn’t affected him. How could he not be affected by the death of a dream?
Nick shifted his long legs. Okay. He’d go to the mountain, spend a few days, and find ‘closure.’ He’d bury his memories the same way his crew would bury the cabin, once Spring came, once his attorneys got things sorted out. The mountain was Nick’s, but there’d been a rider attached to the deed, a ‘no commercial construction’ clause the owner had tacked on before he’d sold.
No problem. His people would find a way around the stipulation, and he would find a way around the memories. He’d see the cabin, walk the mountain one last time—and then a construction crew would come in, level the place and start building the most luxurious ski resort in New England. It would be the newest, finest Brennan resort in the chain and all the ‘closure’ a man could possibly want.
And, in the process, he’d have himself a weekend off. Time to unwind, enjoy a break. No boardrooms. No meetings. No desk heaped with memos. Not that he’d be cut off completely. A three-room cabin high on top of a Vermont mountain, no matter how plush, was not an eight-room penthouse, or three floors of office space on Fifth Avenue, but Nick had come prepared. He had his cellular phone in his pocket, his portable computer on the seat beside him, and his wireless fax on the floor.
The guy behind him honked again.
Nick felt his blood pressure zoom. For one sweet moment, he thought about getting out of the Explorer, marching back to the jerk’s car, banging on the window and asking the guy if he really, honestly thought things would go any faster with him leaning on his horn…
The breath hissed from his lungs.
Closure was what he needed, all right.
He was angry at Holly, angry at himself, and he had been for six long years because he’d never had the chance to tell her the truth, that he’d never loved her, not really, that she wasn’t the only one who’d made a mistake.
Not that he’d ever get the chance to tell her anything. But going to the cabin, to the mountain, would be the next best thing. He’d feel better, afterwards. He wouldn’t snarl at Ellen, bark at his staff, sit in traffic with his adrenaline pumping as if he were a boxer waiting for round one to begin.
The tail lights ahead of him winked. Slowly, miraculously, the line of vehicles began moving. Nick downshifted. It was one of the great mysteries in New York, how you’d be creeping along, measuring your success in inches and all of a sudden, the road would open up. It was like life. You’d plod along and then, wham, wings would sprout on your feet and you’d find yourself flying, measuring your success in millions of dollars instead of the twenty bucks still in your pocket after all the bills were paid…
Measuring it alone. Always alone, no matter how many well-wishers crowded around, no matter what the papers said or how many gorgeous women you were with, because the only woman you’d ever wanted to share your success was gone, had been gone for six years, would always be gone…
The horn sounded. Nick shot a look at his mirror and glared at the guy in the Chevy. Then he shot into the fast lane, poured on the gas, and let the Manhattan skyline fade into the fast-gathering darkness of the winter night.
* * *
Holly Cabot Brennan figured she’d reach the top of North Mountain in two or three millennia.
She frowned, bit down lightly on her bottom lip, and tried to see through the whirling snow.
At the rate she was going, even that might be too much to expect.
The old guy at the gas station had tried to warn her. He’d looked at her, her rented car and the sullen sky through rheumy eyes and announced that she’d need more than a full tank to get much further.
‘Gonna be a bad ‘un,’ he’d said, in the clipped, Down-East twang she hadn’t heard in years.
Holly had smiled politely. ‘The weatherman says the storm’s not going to hit until after midnight. Besides, I’m not going very far.’
‘Weathuhman’s wrong,’ the old gent replied. ‘How far you goin’?’
‘Not very,’ Holly said, looking over at the battered ice machine that stood beside the gas station office. ‘Does that thing work?’
‘Aye-up, it works, though why you’d be wantin’ ice in the dead of winter is beyond me.’
Holly thought of the big ice chest she’d crammed into the trunk. It was stuffed with shrimp, lobsters, lobster tails, butter, clams, oysters and assorted other goodies. Then she thought of trying to explain all that to the old man.
‘I’ve got some stuff in an ice chest,’ she said, leaving off the details. ‘And I figure, just in case they forgot to clean out the freezer and turn it on, up in the cabin…’
‘Cabin on North Mountain?’ The old guy looked at her as if she were certifiably insane. ‘Is that where you’re goin’?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Holly popped open the trunk, dropped coins into the ice machine, then marched back to the car with two bags of cubes. ‘You just about finished there?’
‘Won’t have much worry about the freezer bein’ on, Missy. Storm like the one that’s comin’, you won’t have no power at all. Assumin’ you’ll make it to the top, that is, which you most likely won’t.’
Holly shut the ice chest, then the trunk, and wiped her gloved hands on her wool slacks.
‘Ever a font of good cheer,’ she said brightly. ‘Okay, how much do I owe you?’
‘Chains.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Chains,’ the old guy said. Holly held out a twenty-dollar bill, and he took it from her hand. ‘Bettah still, you ought to have a cah with four-wheel drive.’
‘I’ve driven up the mountain before,’ Holly replied politely. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Aye-up, most times, mebbe.’ He cocked an eye towards the sky. ‘ But there’s a storm comin’ in.’
‘Not really,’ she said, even more politely. ‘The weather reports say—’
The old man’s lip curled. ‘Don’t care what they say.’ Carefully, he plopped Holly’s change into her outstretched hand. ‘Storm’s comin’. Bad one. You at least got them new-fangled brakes in that car?’
What new-fangled brakes? Holly almost said. She hadn’t owned a car in years. What was the point, when you lived in the heart of Boston? Besides, she’d spent the past six months in a Tuscan farmhouse, up to her elbows in olive oil, plum tomatoes, and garlic, and the last three weeks on a whirlwind tour across the States, signing copies of Ciao Down With Holly, the book that had come out of her stay in Tuscany. She knew all there was to know about the differences between the cuisines of Northern and Southern Italy, but brakes were something else entirely.
Not that it mattered. She’d be at the cabin before the old doomsayer’s prophecies came true. So she’d smiled pleasantly and said her brakes were just fine, thanks, and then she’d driven off, watching in her rearview mirror as he’d stood looking after her, shaking his head mournfully.
‘Ridiculous,’ Holly had muttered to herself, as she’d made the turn onto the road that led up North Mountain. As if some old man in the middle of nowhere could do a better job predicting the weather than the CNN meteorologists…
Halfway up the mountain, the snow started falling.
At first, the flakes were big and lazy. They settled prettily onto the branches of the tall pine trees that clung to the slope on Holly’s left while sailing gracefully off the precipice to her right. But within minutes the wind picked up and the snow went from lazy to fierce, changing direction so that now she was driving headfirst into an impenetrable cloud of white. And there was no way to turn back. The road was too narrow and far too dangerous for that.
She was driving blind, trapped in the heart of what seemed to be the beginning of a blizzard. All she could do was hunch over the steering wheel, urge the car forward inch by slippery inch, and try not to wonder whether or not she had the ‘new-fangled’ brakes she’d pooh-poohed just half an hour ago.
The old man had been right. She’d been stupid not to have rented a car with four-wheel drive. Who was she kidding? She’d been stupid to have decided to come to the cabin at all.
Everyone had tried to tell her that. Not just the guy at the gas station. The clerk who’d rented her the car. The traffic cop in Burlington, when she’d asked for directions. Even Belinda, her agent, who knew as much about New England as a vegetarian knew about a pot roast, had blanched when Holly had said she was taking off for a few weeks in Vermont.
‘Where?’ Belinda had said incredulously—but Belinda figured that civilization ended once you took the Lincoln Tunnel out of Manhattan.
‘It’s a place called North Mountain,’ Holly had replied. ‘I’ve rented a cabin.’
‘You’re going to spend a few weeks in a cabin?’ Belinda repeated, the way someone else might have said, ‘You’re going to spend a few weeks on the Moon?’
‘That’s right. It’s very luxurious. There’s a Jacuzzi, a huge stall shower, a big fireplace in the living room…’
Belinda snorted. ‘Try the Waldorf. It’s got all that, plus room service.’
Holly did her best to offer a cheerful little laugh.
‘I need a change of routine,’ she said. ‘ A real one, before I start on the next book. You know how hard I’ve been working this year, and there’s a whole bunch of ideas I want to try before I begin writing…’
And then she stopped, because she knew she was babbling, because she could tell from the look on Belinda’s elegant face that she knew it, too.
‘Poor darling,’ Belinda crooned. ‘You really do sound exhausted.’
‘Oh, I am,’ Holly said quickly, because it was true. She was stressed.
That was what she told herself, at first.
She’d been working hard. She had been for the past seven years—well, six years, ever since she and Nick had been divorced. Her parents had wanted her to come home and pick up her life as if nothing had happened but something had happened, and Holly wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. The last vestiges of girlhood had fallen away the day she took off her wedding ring. So she’d explained, as gently as possible, that going home just wasn’t possible. She’d refused her father’s offer of financial support the same as she’d refused Nick’s, and set out to create a life for herself.
And she’d done it.
The little column for the Green Mountain Daily had blossomed into a monthly feature for What’s Cookin’? magazine, and it led to the contract for her first cookbook. Holly had found herself on the fast track, and she loved it. She could put in six hours in the kitchen, another two at the computer, tumble into bed and wake up the next morning, eager to start all over again. At least she had, until a couple of weeks ago.
The first time she’d awakened in the middle of the night with a knot in her belly and another in her throat, she’d figured it was a sign she’d put too many capers into the Putanesca.
By the fourth time, though, she knew it wasn’t a recipe gone wrong that had awakened her.
It was her dreams.
She was dreaming of Nick, which was ridiculous. She hadn’t done that in almost six years, hadn’t seen him in almost six years, hadn’t thought about him in almost six years…
It was a long time. The realization hit at three o’clock on a cold December morning, when she awakened with Nick’s name on her lips. That wasn’t heartburn she was feeling, it was anger. And why not? She was coming up on the seventh anniversary of what had begun as a marriage and had ended as a disaster.
Holly rose from bed, wrapped herself in her robe and padded out to the living room. She clicked on the TV and surfed through a bunch of movies that had been old before she was born. She zipped past a pair of talking heads that were deep in what she’d thought was a discussion of ghosts, then zipped right back when she realized the ‘ghosts’ they were discussing weren’t spooks at all but memories, unwanted ones, of people in a person’s past.
‘So, Doctor,’ the interviewer chirruped, ‘how does one put these memories to rest?’
Holly, with one hand deep in a bowl of leftover gourmet popcorn, paused and stared at the set.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘how?’
‘By facing them,’ the good doctor replied. He pointed his bearded jaw at the camera, so that his bespectacled eyes seemed to bore straight into Holly’s. ‘Seek out your ghosts. You know where they lurk. Confront them, and lay them to rest.’
Pieces of nut-and-sugar-encrusted popcorn tumbled, unnoticed, into Holly’s lap as she zapped the TV into silence.
‘North Mountain,’ she’d whispered, and the very next morning she’d phoned her travel agent. Was the cabin on the mountain still available? The answer had taken a while but eventually it had come. The cabin was there, it was for rent, and now here she was, about to face her ghosts…or to turn into one herself, if she didn’t make it up this damned mountain.
There! Off to the left, through the trees. Holly could make out the long, narrow gravel driveway. It was still passable, thanks to the sheltering overhang of branches.
The car skidded delicately but the tires held as she made the turn.
She pulled up to the garage, fumbled in the glove compartment for the automatic door opener the realtor had given her. The door slid open. Holly smiled grimly. So much for the old man’s predictions about a power outage, and thank goodness for that. Night had fallen over the mountain and for the first time it occurred to her that it wouldn’t be terribly pleasant to be marooned here without electricity.
Carefully, she eased the car into the garage. Seconds later, with the door safely closed behind her, she groaned and let her head flop back against the seat rest.
She was safe and sound—but what on earth had she thought she was doing, coming to this cabin? You didn’t bury your ghosts by resurrecting them.
‘You’re an idiot,’ she said brusquely, as she pulled her suitcase from the car and made her way into the kitchen.
She switched on the light. There was the stove, where she’d prepared the very first meal she and Nick had shared as husband and wife. There was the silver ice bucket, where he’d chilled the bottle of cheap champagne that was all they’d been able to afford after they’d blown everything on renting this place for their honeymoon. There was the table, where they’d had their first dinner…where they’d almost had it, because just as she’d turned to tell Nick the meal was ready, he’d snatched her up into his arms and they’d ended up making love right there, with her sitting on the edge of the counter and him standing between her thighs, while their burgers burned to a crisp.
The lights flickered. Deep in the basement, the heating system hesitated, then started up again. Holly sighed in gratitude.
What on earth was she doing here? She was an idiot, to have come back to this place.
‘Worse than an idiot,’ she said, in a voice blurred with tears—not that she was weeping with regret. Why would she? Marrying Nick had been a mistake. Divorcing him had been the right thing to do, and she didn’t regret it, she never had. She was crying with anger at herself, at the storm that was going to make it impossible for her to turn around and drive down the mountain…
The lights blinked again. In a moment, the power would go out. She’d never be able to open the garage door without it; the door was old, and far too heavy. The power had gone out for a couple of hours when they’d stayed here years ago, and not even Nick—muscular, gorgeous, virile Nick—had been able to wrestle the door open.
Holly swallowed dryly. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, be trapped here, with her memories. She had to get out before that happened, and never mind the raging storm and the treacherous road. She could manage the drive down. She’d be careful. Very careful. Nothing was impossible, when you put your mind to it. Hadn’t life taught her that?
‘I am out of here,’ she said, exactly at the moment the lights went out.
