Page 13 of Christmas at Copper Mountain

“Tell me about your kids,” he said.

Her head dipped. Her voice dropped. “It’s hard to talk about them. Hurts.”

He heard her voice crack and his chest grew tight. It was all he could do to not reach out and caress her cheek. “It doesn’t help to talk about them?”

Her head shook and she lifted her head, looked up at him, eyes bright. “I’m still mad they’re gone. I don’t know why they’re gone.”

It was the tear trembling on her lower lashes that did him in.

He reached out to wipe the tear from her lashes and then the tear from the other side and when he couldn’t catch the tears because they were falling too fast he did the only thing he could think of. He drew her toward him and kissed her.

The kiss wasn’t meant to be sexual, and her lips were cool and they trembled beneath his. Brock was afraid he’d scared her, but then she slowly kissed him back, the coolness of her mouth giving away to a simmering heat.

He liked the way she kissed him back, her lips opening to him, and he took her mouth, craving her warmth. She tasted both sexy and sweet and he drank her in, feeling more than he wanted to feel, feeling more than he ever expected to feel and he leaned into her, backing her against the doorframe, his big body pressed to hers, needing to get as close as he could.

Harley didn’t understand the kiss, only that it was fierce and real, and it opened something inside of her, something blistering, and dangerous, because it silenced her brain and muted all thought.

Suddenly there was nothing but this moment, this man, this kiss.

There was no past, no future.

Nothing but this wild need burning inside her.

The wild need was unlike anything she’d ever felt, maybe because it wasn’t about a particular sensation, but all sensation. She needed to feel and feel and feel because it’d been forever since she felt anything but cold, and anger, and pain.

The rational Harley would have stopped him at a kiss, but the rational Harley was gone. This other Harley was in her place, wanting the kiss, wanting his hands, wanting his knee pressing up where she was so very warm.

She arched against him and kissed him back, craving everything he could give her. She’d felt nothing for so long and now this... this inferno, need so great she didn’t think she’d ever get enough.

He devoured her mouth, his tongue plunging in, stroking, teasing. Her hands rose to his chest and she clung to him, legs weak, heart pounding. His hand tugged at her robe, pulling it open, exposing her breasts. He lifted his head briefly to gaze down at her, and his dark hot gaze so carnal hungry that she felt as though she were melting.

“You’re beautiful,” he groaned, head dropping to kiss her again, as he cupped one of her breasts, fingers playing her taut nipple as if he’d known her body forever.

In a strange way she felt as if she’d known him forever, too, and she would have given him everything, and all of her, but a shout came from below.

“Dad! Dad! Where are you?”

Brock reluctantly lifted his head. Harley felt a pang as he shifted back.

“Molly,” he said, as the girl continued to shout his name.

“Dad, if we promise never ever to be stupid again, can we please have some dinner?”

Molly’s wail was both funny and quirky and sweet, just like the girl herself and just like that, reality returned, practically slapping Harley across the face.

What in God’s name was she doing?

Brock took a reluctant step back and dragged a hand through his black hair. “Bad timing,” he muttered.

“Maybe it’s good timing,” Harley answered, legs trembling. She’d come so close to losing her head. She’d come so close to losing control...

Shocked and more than a little mortified, Harley dragged the edges of her robe closed. Face hot, cheeks flaming she moved inside her room. “Go to her,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then before he could say a word, she closed the door as fast as she could.

CHAPTER SIX

Brock stood in the middle of Molly’s room, grimly listening to the twins recount their tree-chopping adventure, grinding his jaw to keep from expressing horror when he realized just how close his daughter had come to losing an eye... or worse.

“That was as stupid as you could get,” he said bluntly, giving his children a severe look as they sat side by side on Molly’s bed. “And so damn dangerous—”

“I know,” Mack agreed. “I can’t believe I let Molly talk me into it.”

Brock made a rough sound of disapproval. “Don’t blame your sister. That’s pathetic, Mack. It is. You have a brain. Use it.”

The boy nodded, gaze dropping but Molly stared back at her father. “We wouldn’t have to do it if you’d get us a tree,” she said, expressing little of the remorse she’d shown when he’d first entered her room fifteen minutes ago.

“That’s absurd,” Brock snorted “You can’t blame me for nearly losing your eye... or your head.”

“Why won’t you let us have a tree?” she persisted indignantly.

“We have real live trees growing outside. We don’t need to cut one and bring it inside.”

“Why not? They’re pretty,” Molly flashed. “And everybody has one. We want one, too.”

“Well, sneaking off with an ax into the woods isn’t the way to get one.”

“Then how do we get one if you won’t chop one down for us?” Molly demanded.

Brock was losing his temper. “I’m not discussing Christmas trees now.”

“But you never do. You never discuss anything we want to talk about. You just make up all these rules and expect us to follow them—”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “That’s right. I do. You’re the kids. I’m the adult. I make the rules. You obey. See how that works?”

“But your rules don’t make sense,” she protested under her breath.

“Of course they do,” he snapped.

“Maybe to you, but not to us. Some of your rules are just... mean.”

“Mean?”

Her head nodded, her lips pressing flat. “It’s like you’re the Grinch and you hate Christmas—”

“The Grinch?”

She nodded again. “You can’t stand for anyone to play or have fun. You hate it when we want to do something fun. Sometimes I think you don’t even love us!”

Brock’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Maybe you even hate us!” she flung at him, scrambling off the bed and running to the adjoining bathroom where she slammed the door closed.

Brock stared at the bathroom door in disbelief before turning to Mack, who sat very still on the edge of his sister’s bed.

Mack glanced up at his dad and then looked down again at his hands which were knotting unhappily in his lap.

; Brock’s heart pounded as if he’d just run through very deep snow. “Is she being dramatic or does she really feel this way?”

Mack’s head hung lower.

Brock suppressed the queasy sensation in his gut. Did his kids really think he hated them? “Tell me the truth, Mack.”

“I don’t want to speak for her.”

Brock studied his son’s thin slumped shoulders and the curve of his neck. Mack had never been a big, sturdy kid, but he looked downright skinny at the moment. “Then don’t speak for her, speak for yourself. How do you feel? Do you really think I don’t love you?”

“I know you love us,” Mack said in a low voice. He hesitated a long moment. “But... ” His voice faded away. He didn’t finish the sentence.

“But what?”

“But sometimes you seem so... annoyed...by us. Like we’re a pain and always in your way—”

“No.”

Mack shrugged. “Okay.”

His son’s half-hearted response made Brock want to hit something, throw something, which wasn’t probably the right response. Brock drew a breath, and then another, trying to be patient, trying to understand when he couldn’t understand at all. He’d never dated anyone after their mother in order to protect and preserve Amy’s memory. He’d refused to spoil them so his kids would be raised with solid family values. And he’d only sent his kids away to school recently when it became clear that they needed to be pushed, socially, academically, if they were to succeed.

Brock crossed his arms, hiding his hard fists. “Don’t say okay just to placate me, Mack. You can speak up, have an opinion.”

The boy slumped even more unhappily. “I don’t want to make you mad. I don’t like making you mad.”

“You don’t have to be scared of me,” Brock retorted.

Mack looked up at him, worry in his dark eyes. “But you are kind of scary when you’re mad.”

Brock couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Dumbfounded, he stared at his boots, unable to think or speak. Were his kids really afraid of him? His gut churned. “Mack, I’ve never hit you. Never even spanked you. How can you be afraid of me?”