Winter Kiss Read online

  “Just Delaney.”

  Her eyes sparkled again, a sign that she wasn’t daunted by him. “All this and mystery, too. That could be too much for a little country girl like me.”

  “I think you can handle anything I’ve got.”

  Her smile turned coy and she let her gaze slide over him again. “Maybe.”

  “Everything I’ve got,” he corrected.

  Her smile broadened. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe a little chemistry is all we need.”

  “Maybe.” Ginger nodded, and her gaze flicked to their interlocked hands. Delaney let his thumb slide across her skin, savoring its silky smoothness. A trail of embers followed in the wake of his slow caress.

  Ginger stared at it, then licked her lips. “I think I’ve had too much to drink,” she said, and fanned herself. “Do you find it hot in here?”

  “It’s only going to get hotter,” Delaney promised softly, and she blushed a little. The bartender brought his beer and shooter, but Delaney wasn’t interested in drowning his sorrows anymore.

  He was interested in seducing tiny, perfect Ginger.

  ASAP.

  The DJ put on a slow song, perfect timing. Delaney paid for the drink and left it behind, spinning Ginger toward the dance floor. “Come on, they’re playing my tune.”

  She spared a glance over her shoulder at him, tilting her head to meet his gaze. “My gran told me not to slow dance with strangers.” She was smiling, so he knew she was teasing him.

  Flirting, maybe.

  It felt good.

  Light.

  Closer to happy than he’d been in a long time.

  He was going to make the most of the moment.

  “I only slow dance. Are you turning me down?” He let his fingers slide up her bare arm and Ginger shivered with what he knew was desire.

  “My gran also said you only live once,” she said firmly, and took his hand in hers. She pivoted on the edge of the dance floor to face him, anticipation in her eyes. The dance floor was old, with pulsing lights in the floor, and the red and blue lights made intriguing shadows as her skirt flared out.

  “Show me your best moves, Delaney No-Surname,” she challenged, and Delaney didn’t need a second invitation.

  He knew they’d be doing more than one slow dance together before the night was through.

  When he pulled Ginger into his arms and the firestorm shimmered between his chest and her breasts, she caught her breath and looked up at him in awe.

  That was when he knew that she knew it, too.

  “Only if you show me yours,” he murmured.

  The mischief in her smile made his heart skip. “You’ve got a deal, hotshot.”

  Delaney No-Surname was hot.

  Not only was he the handsomest guy on the dance floor, not only could he dance, but he made Ginger feel like a queen. She knew her friends were checking him out, didn’t doubt that they were wondering where he’d come from, but she didn’t care. He was completely fixated on her and it felt good.

  They could have been alone.

  Ginger was starting to wish they were alone.

  He was tall, more than just taller than she—everyone was taller than Ginger, but Delaney was taller than most of the men in the bar. He was lean but broad through the shoulders, and his jeans showed his legs and his butt to advantage. He looked as if he worked out all the time.

  Maybe he had a job at a gym.

  He wore a striped polo shirt and a leather jacket, the forest green in the shirt making his hair look more auburn. His hair was cut short, so short that the haircut and his trim build made her wonder whether he was in the service.

  He had that taut authority, as well, his expression so impassive that his sudden smile felt like a gift. She liked the silver Celtic cross that he wore on a silver chain around his neck—it was both beautiful and spoke of their having a shared faith in something greater than themselves. There were shadows lurking in his eyes, all the same, and it took an extra beat for him to smile, making Ginger think he’d seen more than any person should.

  Back from war, then. Not physically wounded but emotionally scarred. Ginger could relate to that.

  Suddenly it didn’t seem so depressing not to have had a date for the party she’d arranged for her two best friends.

  It seemed more like kismet.

  Delaney was a perfect gentleman, spinning her and making her look good, his eyes gleaming with admiration when she flaunted her stuff. He wasn’t a predator or a violent person: Ginger could sense that sort of thing. He was scarred, but not bad.

  He’d lied about only dancing slow dances: once they took to the floor, they kept dancing, regardless of what the DJ played. Ginger was hot and knew she was flushed—not the best look for a redhead, but she’d never have guessed by Delaney’s obvious fascination with her. His attention made her feel gorgeous.

  Sexy.

  Daring.

  The music changed to a slow beat again, the lights dimming, and Delaney swung her into his arms with no doubt that she’d be glad to be there. He was right. It was easy to fall against his chest, to be held close, to just enjoy a man treating her well. Ginger felt heat radiate from him and caught a whiff of his scent, masculine and clean. The little flurry of sparks that danced from every point of contact tickled and sizzled, making her laugh.

  “How do you do that?” she asked, tipping her head back to watch him.

  “Do what?” he asked, but she knew he was putting her on.

  “Make the sparks.”

  “I thought you were the firecracker,” he said, his voice dropping low as he smiled down at her. His intent expression made her heart skip a beat. “I thought you were the one who was hot stuff.”

  Ginger laughed. She wasn’t so drunk that she’d lose her head, but she was feeling impulsive. She’d followed her heart for a long time and it had never steered her wrong.

  And there was something about Delaney No-Surname that caught her attention and held it fast. He was a keeper and she knew it, maybe down on his luck, maybe a little lost, but she sensed his integrity and honor.

  They moved slowly to the music, fitting together better than she could have expected. Her breasts brushed against his chest, the casual touch leaving her simmering.

  Ginger was well aware of how long she’d been alone. Dancing with Delaney gave her one good idea what she could do about it.

  Delaney’s hand rested on the back of her waist, resolute and proprietary. She liked its weight there, liked it even better when his fingers began a slow stroke.

  She was already hot, but his caress stoked the heat in her veins. Desire was kindled and coaxed to a flame. Ginger didn’t believe in coincidences. She didn’t believe that people came together by accident. She believed in destiny and kismet, and finding what—or whom—you needed right on time.

  Her intuition told her that Delaney needed her, and she had a strong sense that she needed him, too. Stone-cold sober on a Tuesday morning, she might have waited to see. A little bit drunk on a Friday night—at yet another stag-and-doe, for yet another wedding of people she had introduced to each other—Ginger surrendered to impulse.

  She moved closer to Delaney, putting her cheek on his chest. He hesitated only a moment before pulling her tighter into the circle of his arms.

  A gentleman.

  Ginger smiled. She’d read him right. She felt surrounded by his strength and exhaled with pleasure as his fingers slid into the hair at her nape. She swallowed when he rested his chin against the top of her head and closed her eyes as his breath slipped through her hair.

  They moved together easily, keeping the beat of the music, as if they’d danced together a thousand times. As if this was meant to be. Ginger kept her eyes closed and listened to the pulse of Delaney’s heart, content for the first time in she didn’t know how long.

  She would have been happy for the song to last forever, but of course, it didn’t.

  “Let’s liven it up, people!” The DJ’s voice boomed abr
uptly through the bar, followed by the strong beat of a dance song. The lights began to pulse brightly and the dance floor suddenly became crowded.

  Delaney and Ginger parted reluctantly and she saw an echo of her own surprise in his expression. She saw desire and she saw that he would wait for her to make the first move.

  She did.

  Ginger reached out and took Delaney’s hand, giving his fingers a squeeze. There was a blaze of light between their hands, an orange flame that she halfway thought was a manifestation of her desire.

  “There’s something between us,” Ginger said, raising her hand to his chest. Those sparks danced again, flickering yellow and orange around her fingertips, then settling to a glow that outlined her hand. She stared at them in awe, unable to explain their presence. The strobe lights came on, disguising the sparks from casual view, but Ginger could feel their sizzle. “It feels like magic.”

  “Not quite magic,” Delaney agreed quietly. His eyes were dark, filled with mystery and shadow. He was solemn and intent, watchful, letting her set the pace. “But maybe close enough.”

  “You feel it, too?”

  He nodded. “I felt it as soon as you tried to throw me out.” His reluctant smile made her heart skip a beat. “As if you could.”

  Ginger laughed at the truth of that. “Points for effort?”

  “Points for guts.” He sobered then, his gaze admiring. “There’s something very sexy about people who believe in themselves.”

  His hand slid along her jaw then, easing into her hair and cupping the back of her head. It was a possessive caress, one that made her tingle to her toes and left her mouth dry. Ginger knew what he was going to do and on one hand, she wished he would hurry.

  On the other, it was delicious that he moved so slowly.

  So deliberately.

  It made her yearn.

  Delaney studied her and Ginger simmered with the conviction that he was really looking at her. Ginger had been a substitute for another woman’s affections before, and she was touchy about going that route ever again. Delaney, though, seemed to marvel at her, seemed determined to let her know that she was the one he wanted.

  If that weren’t sexy enough, if it weren’t enough that he actually liked the outspokenness that some men found annoying, there was his kiss. He bent his head slowly toward her, giving her lots of time to evade him if that had been her plan.

  As if.

  Ginger slid her hands over his shoulders.

  Delaney cupped her head in his hands, tipping her face upward. His mouth closed over hers with surety, leaving no doubt that he was claiming what he wanted.

  Her.

  Ginger melted. His kiss was firm and persuasive, his hands gentle and strong. It was a kiss as Ginger had always thought kisses should be: confident not tentative, resolute, honest. As intent upon giving pleasure as getting some.

  It was Ginger’s kind of kiss.

  She let Delaney know she approved. She leaned against him, her breasts crushed against the hard strength of his chest as she locked her hands around his neck. She felt only solid muscle beneath her hands and knew he was stronger even than she had guessed.

  But he was tender with her, tempering his power. Ginger would never have called herself fragile, but she liked being treated like a treasure. Delaney didn’t try to curtail her passion, didn’t disapprove of her desire or her communication of it.

  He simply deepened his kiss. Ginger was captivated. She shivered as she ran her fingers over his short hair and felt his erection against his stomach.

  Delaney wanted her, just as she was.

  There could be no aphrodisiac more potent than that.

  Delaney spread one hand across the back of her waist, lifting her to his toes as their tongues tangled and danced. Ginger felt the heat of desire burn within her, felt her body lust for more than just a kiss. She kissed him with fervor, encouraged that he responded immediately to her touch.

  “Whoa!” Tanya said from close at hand. “Take it outside, Ginger, or keep it legal.”

  Ginger jumped at the sound of her best friend’s voice. Her face heated as she blushed, but Delaney closed his arms protectively around her.

  To her surprise, she and Delaney stood in a warm glow of light, as if they were in the middle of a bonfire. Some jerk must have turned one of the yellow spotlights on them.

  If it bothered Ginger, it didn’t bother Delaney. He brushed his lips across her forehead, then bent to whisper in her ear. His murmur was low enough to resonate in her veins, his intent expression enough to eliminate her reservations.

  “I have a rental car,” he said softly. “Let’s drive.”

  “No,” Ginger said, speaking so firmly that he met her gaze with surprise. “Come home with me.”

  He hesitated, looking deeply into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you turning me down, hotshot?”

  Delaney shook his head, as if surprised that she could imagine such a thing. “You said you’d had too much to drink.” His gaze turned warm, as his fingertip slid across her cheek so slowly that Ginger shivered at the trail of heat. His words turned husky before his confession. “I won’t regret anything we do, so I don’t want you to, either.”

  His touch would have dissolved her knees, if his words hadn’t done so first. Ginger had been matchmaking for a while, and she knew a good fit when she saw one.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, placing her hand in his and heading for the door.

  To Delaney’s surprise, Ginger directed him away from the bright lights of the roadhouse and down a network of unlit roads. The power lines ran beside them, looping from pole to pole, occasional lights burning in the darkness from houses set well back from the road. They rode in silence, the warm glow of the firestorm between them. It was snowing, the white flakes spinning out of the sky in an endless dance. The world seemed quiet, pensive, on the cusp of a profound change.

  When Delaney glanced Ginger’s way, she smiled at him. He liked that her confidence in her choice never faltered.

  His certainly didn’t.

  At her instruction, Delaney turned into a driveway beside a large sign that he couldn’t read in the darkness. The house was several hundred yards from the road, on the left, and was an old two-storied house with ornate gingerbread trim hanging from the rafters. There was an old barn just behind it, then a large modern barn several hundred yards beyond that. A massive light illuminated the space in between house and barns. He could see the silhouette of solar panels on the roof of the new barn, although they couldn’t have been effective with so much snow.

  He parked outside the kitchen door beside a large faded red pickup truck.

  Ginger got out of the car before he could open her door, bouncing up the steps of the wooden porch. She didn’t teeter on her heels quite as much as she had in the bar.

  Delaney took his time following her, gathering a sense of who she was from her home. The house was old, made of clapboard. It was in good shape, well-maintained, the shutters on either side of each window intact and straight. He smelled manure and straw in the crisp air, earthy scents of cultivation.

  Delaney had missed farms, not the hard work that he’d found on them in the past, but the integrity and sense of unity with the earth. He felt a stab of regret at selling his own land, then dismissed it as irrelevant.

  Maybe Ginger’s connection with the earth was part of what he found so alluring about her.

  She pivoted before the unlocked door and flashed him a smile. “Too long in the city,” she said with an apologetic shrug. “I even lock the doors out here.”

  “That’s only sensible.”

  Ginger laughed, a merry sound that lightened Delaney’s heart. “Crazy city stuff, according to my gran.” She mimicked a stern tone. “No point in living someplace where you aren’t safe or you don’t feel safe. That’s what she always said.”

  Delaney understood that Ginger’s grandmother had passed away. “Do you feel safe here?” he asked, curious.
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  Ginger’s gaze flicked over the fields, sky, and barn, then she smiled at Delaney. “Depends. There’s something to be said for the sound of others close at hand. It was strange to come back here, back to the quiet.”

  “Back to the earth.”

  “That part I like a lot.” She seemed about to say more, then glanced at him. “Did you grow up on a farm?” He sensed that she was changing the subject, maybe to hide some of her own story.

  “I worked on a farm for a long time.” Delaney omitted the detail that he had later owned the farm. “The owner told me that once I got the earth under my nails, I’d never get it out.” He shrugged. “He was right.”

  “He was,” Ginger agreed softly. “I could never stop missing this place.” She sighed. “It’s just good, knowing where your food comes from and seeing your connection to the earth every day.”

  “You grow crops, then?”

  “Well, not enough. I want to take the farm organic, to raise market vegetables, all organic, mostly heirloom varieties.” She winced. “It’s a ton of hard work, but I can taste the difference.”

  “Is that common here?”

  Ginger laughed. “No! Everyone thinks I got crazy in the city. They’re waiting to see me fail.”

  He saw her lips tighten as she looked across the fields and knew then the depth of her determination. “You won’t fail,” he said softly.

  She met his gaze with a smile, an appealing conviction in her eyes. “No,” she said with confidence. “I won’t. Ten years from now, maybe twenty, they won’t be able to believe they ever did anything different. I’ll find a way to get it done. For now, there are the girls and they’re a lot of work.”

  “The girls?”

  “Sinclair Farms has always been a dairy farm. I have a hundred cows in the barn, most of them pregnant.” She smiled. “We always had Guernseys, but I’m adding other heirloom and endangered breeds.”

  “They’re easier on the land.”

  She smiled at him. “Exactly! Tanya went to chef school with me and followed me back here to become an artisan cheese maker. Then she met Steve and that was that.”