"Single-minded," he added with a grin. "It seems you have more imagination than I expected. Feeling better now?"
"I'm fine."
"Sure you don't want to sit on my lap again?"
"Quite sure, thank you."
With his eyes on hers, he brushed a cobweb from her hair. "Want to get out of here?"
"Absolutely."
He picked up his coat. "I'd like to take you somewhere."
"That isn't necessary. I said I was..." She stood and, as he held his ground, bumped into his chest. "Fine," she managed.
"Business, darling." He tucked her hair behind her ear, flicked a finger over the square-cut aquamarine at the lobe. "For the moment. I think we can find someplace a little warmer and more hospitable to hash out the details."
That was reasonable, she decided. Perfectly sensible. "All right."
She picked up her briefcase and walked ahead of him to the door.
"Regan?"
"Yes?"
"Your face is dirty." He laughed at the smoldering look she shot at him, then scooped her up in his arms. Even as she stuttered a protest, he carried her over the broken porch. "Got to watch your step," he told her, setting her on the feet next to a Jeep.
"I make a habit of it."
"I bet you do," he murmured as he rounded the hood.
He maneuvered Ms way down the lane, circled around her car and kept going.
"I thought I'd follow you," she began.
"Since I don't think you mean to the ends of the earth, let's just take one car. I'll bring you back."
"From?"
"Home, sweet home, darling."
In the snow, with the sun glazing the white fields, the MacKade farm was Currier and Ives pretty. A stone house with covered porch, an arched roof on the red barn, weathered outbuildings and a pair of golden dogs, barking and yipping and kicking up snow completed the scene—one that appealed to Regan.
She'd driven past the MacKade place countless times—when the fields were brown and furrowed from the plow, when they were high with hay and corn. She'd even stopped once or twice when Shane was riding his tractor, and thought how completely suited he seemed to be to the land.
She couldn't picture Rafe MacKade in the same scene.
"You didn't come back to farm, I imagine."
"Hell, no. Shane loves it, Devin tolerates it. Jared looks on it as an ongoing enterprise."
She tilted her head as he parked the Jeep beside his car. "And you?"
"Hate it."
"No ties to the land?"
"I didn't say that. I said I hated farming." Rafe hopped out of the Jeep, clucking at the leaping golden retrievers. Before Regan could step down into the foot