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Jonas lifted a log from the woodpile beside the shed at the side of the cabin and balanced it on top of the load in his other arm. With luck, that would be enough to keep the fireplace—their only source of heat—going until morning. He certainly hoped so, because the October air held a distinct chill here in the Adirondacks. He'd be willing to bet on frost overnight.
He looked over his shoulder at the cabin. A light glowed from the kitchen through the dark, as warm and inviting as the company of the woman it silhouetted. Kate, doing dishes, waiting for him to return. Kate, who had him feeling tighter than an over-wound clock spring on the verge of tearing apart its housing. Bloody hell.
Jonas shifted his hold on the load of wood and turned his collar up against the cold.. At first, he'd quite liked Douglas's suggestion they stay here, for a couple of reasons: First, there was safety in the cabin's isolation; and second, the peace of a lakeside cabin offered an undeniable reprieve from the insanity into which he and Kate had been thrust.
The idea had seemed perfect—until they'd pulled up in front of the solid, squat log cabin, Kate had switched off the rumbling engine, and solitude had settled around them—quiet, absolute, and knife sharp with the tension that had been building between them.
Far from finding themselves rested or relaxed, he and Kate had circled each other all afternoon with exaggerated care, barely spoken during dinner, and pushed the food around on their plates until by mutual, unspoken consent, they'd given up any pretense of eating. He, acutely aware of every move she made, every look she gave him through lowered lashes. She—hell, he didn't know what she was thinking, and he didn't dare speculate. Not when his thoughts alone had him waffling out here in the cold, yearning to return to the cabin and dreading it, all in the same mangled breath.
He shifted his weight to the other foot, exhaled in a fog, and started toward the cabin. Desire intensified with each step, licking through his belly, adding its traitorous whisper to the sound of the wind rustling the trees. Would it really be so bad? They were both adults, after all. Experienced, with their eyes wide open. Surely they were capable of handling a brief relationship before they went their separate ways...
Except that wasn't how it would go. Not if he was honest. Kate wasn't the brief relationship kind—and worse, he didn't want her to be. If he got involved with her on any level, he'd want more. He'd want it all—forever. And he, of all people, knew there was no such thing. Not where he was concerned.
He tipped back his head to stare at the night sky. Billions of pinpricks of light dotted the dark like specks of dust scattered across velvet. He breathed in. Breathed out. Centered himself. Then he climbed the stairs and crossed the porch.
No. He had no intention of opening himself up to another lesson in the kind of pain that went along with the death of a dream. And that was what someone like Kate ultimately amounted to: a dream. Balancing his load in one arm, he twisted the door handle and pushed into the cabin's darkened living room. He just needed to hold out for a few more days. He’d get his evidence, he and Kate would part ways, and he could go back to his life. Maybe look up someone for a little companionship of the distracting kind—maybe Valerie, if she wasn’t married yet. It had been a couple of years since they’d dated, but—
Jonas stopped dead in his tracks as Kate half-turned from the fireplace she'd been tending. She'd changed from jeans and sweatshirt into a nightgown she'd found somewhere. Voluminous folds of fabric stretched from multiple ruffles under her chin all the way down to her toes. It should have looked ridiculous. Should have, but didn't.
Instead, backlit by the firelight, the garment had become a magical, translucent creation, draped over and simultaneously highlighting every line, every contour. The curve of her breast, the gentle swell of her hip, the long, slender legs. Jonas damned near dropped the armload of wood. Then he clung to it as he might a shield between him and certain doom.
Damnation.
Fireplace poker gripped in one hand, Kate looked over her shoulder. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
A throat that had gone dust-dry refused to let him respond. Kate straightened up, replacing the poker in its stand.
"Jonas? What's wrong? Is someone out there? Did you see—" She started toward him, but stopped when he held up his free hand.
"We need to talk," he said. Using his foot, he shoved the door shut behind him and stalked across the room. He dumped the wood into the box sitting by the fireplace, then toured the living room, turning on every lamp he could find.
"Again?” she asked warily. “What about this time?"
"You. Me." He stopped moving and faced her, fireplace between them and the room as bright as day. The nightgown had turned opaque again. Thank God. He raised his gaze to Kate's. "Us," he said.
* * *
It was funny how a single word could tip a person's entire existence on its head and knock the air from their lungs. Kate went still, trying to process that one word. To decipher it.
To breathe.
"Jonas, I—"
"No. Let me talk." Jonas turned away to lean both hands against the brick of the fireplace.
Us. The word hung in the air between them.
Kate felt for the couch near her and sat down, staring at his back. What ifs whispered through her mind. What if she stood and joined him by the fire? What if she ran her hands over fabric drawn tight across muscular shoulders? Tugged it from the waistband of his jeans, slipped her hands beneath it and around his waist, and then slid them up to caress the deep, powerful chest?
What if she stopped worrying about emotional involvement, threw caution to the wind, and just—
"It would be all too easy to fall in love with you, Kate Dexter," Jonas said. "But I can't let that happen."
Kate blinked at his back. He couldn't have said what she thought she'd just heard...could he?
"I don't trust myself to give you the kind of love you deserve," Jonas continued, still not looking at her. "I don't think I'm capable of it. Hell, I'm not capable of trust, period."
Her heart twisted. "Jonas..."
"No, Kate. I'm not looking for pity or sympathy. I'm just stating facts. My life is what it is. I've come to terms with that. I also refuse to inflict it on anyone else."
At last he looked her way, his jaw set like hardened concrete and his gaze determined. "I could fall in love with you," he said, "but I won't. Because if we become involved, I guarantee it's only a matter of time before I hurt you, and I won't be responsible for that. I can't be."
Kate didn't respond for long, silent seconds. She stared down at the rolled arm of the couch, tracing the faded tapestry pattern with one fingertip. She'd known for a while that she was already in too deep where this man was concerned, and Jonas’s words at breakfast had confirmed he wasn’t entirely immune to her, either. But this latest admission really took the proverbial cake. He didn’t trust himself to fall in love with her? She didn't know whether to admire him for his honesty or sock him one for being so incredibly obtuse.
Or maybe she could just throw herself at him and see how long his ideals lasted. She wiped slick palms against the cotton of the nightgown.
"In other words, all you can offer me is pure, unadulterated sex?" she asked.
Jonas's eyes widened. He coughed, spluttered, made a visible effort to recover. "That wasn't quite what I meant," he said, "and you know—"
"What if I say yes?" she interrupted.
A host of conflicting emotions played across Jonas’s face. White-hot need warred with decency. Desire wrestled with a lifetime of distrust. Yearning struggled against resignation. Kate twisted her hands into folds of fabric.
"What if I don't need all the rest?" she pressed, ignoring the little voice screaming "Liar!" in her head. "What if I'm okay with just this, what we have just now?"
Blue eyes glittered at her, and corded tendons stood out along the side of Jonas's neck. Kate waited. Willed him to—
He turned his back on her. "We'll go into town and call your ex after lunch tomorrow," he said. "You should sleep in if you can. You need it."
She gaped at the back of his head. Was he seriously not going to—? She closed her eyes and gathered her scattered thoughts. Maybe he hadn't understood. Maybe she hadn't been direct enough. She cleared her throat.
Jonas cut her off before she could speak. "Go to bed, Kate. Please."
For a long moment, she didn't move, and the room itself seemed to hold its breath. Her gaze traveled the taut length of the man across from her. The rigidity of his shoulders, the way his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, the shudder of a long inhale. She knew it wouldn't take much to crumble his resistance: a touch, a whisper, a reassurance, a plea.
Her entire body thrummed at the thought of breaking down that final barrier between them after their days of dancing around one another. The imagined feel of Jonas's hands sliding over her body. The ecstasy she knew he would wring from her, and she from him...
But there her thoughts paused and her heart skipped a beat. Then it skipped another. Because just as she knew Jonas would give in to her, she also knew—without a trace of doubt—that he would hate her for it afterward. And that she would hate herself for doing that to him.
With a whisper of fabric and a last, lingering look at the maddening, complicated man who claimed not that he didn't love her, but that he didn't want to love her, Kate rose and left the room.