Nora's Pride. Carol Stephenson
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“David?”
“Yes. The whole town’s expecting the engagement notice any time now.”
Her words only made his flame of longing for Nora burn brighter. He hitched his shoulders. “Good. I’m happy for them.” He moved. He needed to get to the farm and weed through his tangle of thoughts and emotions.
“Connor!”
He paused again, but didn’t turn around this time.
“It would be best if you left town now.”
He shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Mother. I have an obligation to fulfill.”
“What do you know about obligation?”
He looked over his shoulder and looked into eyes devoid of any maternal love. “More than you. While you were busy ministering to your congregation, you shucked your duty to raise me.”
He ignored her gasp and walked around the corner of the church.
Nora’s Mercury Sable groaned, its undercarriage scraping on the deep dip in the dirt track. She gritted her teeth and eased her foot off the gas pedal. The car’s forward momentum was due more to sheer pitching of its wheels from rut to rut than from the engine. Whoever the unlucky heir to the Miller farm, he would be forced to spend a mint paving this nonexistent driveway. With a final shudder, her car lurched around the bend and halted in the clearing.
Nora rested her forehead on the steering wheel, needing a few moments to compose herself. If she’d had half a brain, she would have heeded Eve’s suggestion and cut through the woods between their house and the Miller farm. A ten-minute walk on a well-trodden trail—that was all it would have taken. Eve had dryly suggested she lower herself to wear jeans and sneakers and actually enjoy the fall colors in the process of her visit.
But no, Nora had insisted that she needed to be professional. What new client would want to see his lawyer emerging all burr-covered from a forest? Eve’s mockingly raised eyebrow had sent her in a huff from the house, then over that miserable pitted track.
All because ghosts had awakened in those woods. Shadowy memories stirred by the flash-in-the-pan appearance of Connor Devlin. That was all it would be, too. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, fool herself, despite his puzzling parting comment. With a swagger and a grin, he was here today; without a look back, he’d be gone tomorrow. Just like he had been twelve years ago, without a thought for the consequences of his actions.
Well, she’d lived with those consequences, sacrificing herself to them. She would not feel guilty about decisions made a dozen years ago. The specters of youthful dreams and promises could lurk and linger in that bank of trees. She was in control of her life and would remain so.
Yeah, right, she thought. If she was in so much control, why did she feel eighteen, perched on the slippery precipitous edge of ruin once again? She could still recall the sweat trickling down her back that hot summer day when she had told Abigail. She had been so scared her aunt would turn against her in disgust. After all, wasn’t she just like her mother? Pregnant with no husband? But Abigail had opened her arms and her heart once more.
Now the father of her child had returned. What had he meant by his I’ll be seeing you around? Did he think he could take up where he left off?
She lightly thumped her brow against the wheel. Right now she needed to pull herself together before she met with her law firm’s newest source of income. Nora raised her head and studied the farmhouse. It was a big box of a place, two-story, with a steep-pitched roof and central chimney. Snuggled against the forest’s edge, the dwelling bore its dingy white siding, peeling forest-green shutters and dilapidated wraparound porch with quiet dignity. Yet, in the harsh noon light, its high narrow windows glistened, no doubt due to a recent application of elbow grease and glass cleaner. A sign of hope.
Hope, in the form of whoever owned the outrageous Ford F-350 parked in front. Big, bad and black—every boy and man’s fantasy pickup, topped off with gleaming chrome wheels and bumpers, an extended cab and dark-tinted glass. She would bet a dollar the interior was a wicked red leather.
Clean windows and made-for-sin truck. What kind of a man had Ed Miller left his spread to? She wouldn’t find any answers sitting there. Nora got out of the car and grabbed her leather portfolio. Hugging it close to her body, she hesitated. She couldn’t resist—she had to know. In case the owner was watching from inside the house, she made her way around the clearing, out of sight of the house, to the truck. She took a quick peek inside. Her lips curved. Yep, red-hot leather interior.
A muttered oath came from the far side of the building. Nora stepped carefully over the dirt surface to the grass, mentally ignoring the fact that her good leather pumps were sinking into the soggy turf.
She looked up, and stopped still. What once had been an expanse of green lawn was now freshly turned earth with roped-off areas. Shallow ditches contained pipes leading to one section, while nearby, a tarp covered huge translucent panels. Ed Miller’s pride and joy, a battered old American Harvester tractor, stood to one side, hitched to a tiller. But it was the moving forms that captured Nora’s attention.
A giant dog, its long black fur gleaming with a reddish sheen, picked up a stone, padded across the soil and dropped the rock on a pile at the side. Then it turned its massive head and studied Nora with chocolate-brown eyes. Nora braced herself to call for help, but the animal, with a smooth rhythmic gait, returned to the churned earth, sat and waited.
By the dog’s side worked a shirtless man, his back to her. The man’s powerful, well-muscled body moved with graceful ease as he yanked loose a large stone and tossed it toward the pile. He stretched to scratch the dog behind its ear. When he bent over once more to grip another rock, Nora spotted a tantalizing glimpse of even more skin. Sun-kissed flesh. All over his hard body. The image sizzled, so hot she almost unfastened the top button of her shirt. She gasped softly for air.
The man shot up and spun around. “What’s the matter, Nora? Having a hot flash?” Squinting against the sun, Connor grinned, slowly and wickedly.
Belatedly Nora spotted the motorcycle parked nearby.
Flash, no. Conflagration, yes. The boy she had known had grown up. Damp burnished hair covered the solid wall of his chest, tapering across his flat stomach before disappearing below his belt line. She glanced downward…and caught herself. Her cheeks burning, Nora cast a veiled look at Connor.
“So the ice goddess has mortal thoughts, after all.” His expression was dark, hungry. His eyes slid down her body, moving languidly, assessing her in turn. She shivered under his intense scrutiny.
Forgotten feelings, long frozen, sparked, flickered and spread like wildfire inside her. Want, need, desire. Too long leashed, they shot victoriously to her core.
Nora put a trembling hand over her abdomen. She yearned to touch all that glorious golden skin, slide her palms over the faint sheen of sweat on those wide shoulders. Connor’s strangled sound, half growl, half longing, summoned her. His intense gaze drew her in like a powerful undertow, ever closer to his heat. She felt she would incinerate if she didn’t break free. Summoning all her resolve, she wrenched her gaze away. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes past twelve. The time was as effective as a cold shower on her roiling emotions.
Oh, Lord, what was she doing? The Miller heir could come outside any second.
“Put your shirt on,” she snapped. Rushing to where it was draped over a twisted tree stump, she picked it up and tossed it to him. “The new owner is a client of my firm, and I don’t want him imagining any funny business going on.”
The dog rose slowly; the movement edged her back a step. Connor placed a hand on the animal’s broad head and murmured, “She’s okay, Bran.” With that reassurance, the dog turned, picked up a small rock with its mouth and moved toward the pile.
Connor swiped the shirt across his brow without putting it on. “What’s wrong, Nora?” he asked, all innocence.
She