Upon a Midnight Clear (Legend, Colorado 2)

then coming over to Hope as if to say, "I've checked things out and everything's okay." She patted him, then shed her heavy shearling coat and hung it on the hall tree, sighing in relief at the immediate sense of freedom and coolness.

Her home was beautiful, she thought, looking around. Not grand, not luxurious, but definitely beautiful. The front of the A-frame was a wall of windows, giving a wonderful view of the lake and the mountains. A big rock fireplace soared the entire two stories, and twin ceiling fans hung from the exposed-beam ceiling, circulating the warm air that gathered at the top back to the ground floor. Hope had a green thumb, and luxurious ferns and other houseplants gave the interior of the house a lush freshness. The floor was wide wood planking, finished to a pale gold and covered with thick area rugs in rich shades of blue and green. Graceful curving stairs wound up to the second floor, and the white stair railing continued across the balcony. For Christmas she always wound lights and greenery up the stair banisters and across the balcony, and the effect was breathtaking.

There were two bedrooms upstairs—the master bed and bath and a smaller bedroom, which they had intended to use for a nursery—and a large bedroom downstairs off the kitchen. Her dad used the downstairs bedroom, saying the stairs were hard on his knees, but the truth was the arrangement gave them both more privacy. The kitchen was spacious and efficient, with more cabinet space than she would ever use, a cook island she loved, and an enormous side-by-side refrigerator-freezer that could hold enough food to feed an army. There was also a well-stocked pantry, a small laundry room, and a powder room, and after her dad had moved in, Hope had added a small full bath to connect to his bedroom.

The total effect was undeniably beautiful and comfortable, but every time the electricity went off, Hope wished they had made better decisions about what would or would not be hard-wired to the generator. The refrigerator, cook-top, and water heater were connected. To save money by buying a smaller generator, they had decided not to connect the heating unit, the lights, or any wall plugs except those in the kitchen. In a power outage, they had reasoned, the fireplace in the great room would provide enough heat. Unfortunately, without the ceiling fans working to keep the air circulated, most of the heat produced by the fireplace went straight to the second floor. The upstairs would be stifling hot, while the downstairs remained chilly. The situation was livable, but not comfortable, especially for any length of time.

Forget the satellite dish, she thought. The money would be better spent on a larger generator and some electrical rewiring.

She looked out the windows; though it was only three o'clock, the clouds were so heavy it looked like twilight outside. The snow was falling faster now, fat, heavy flakes that had already dusted the ground with white just in the short time she had been inside.

She shivered suddenly, though the house was perfectly comfortable. A big pot of beef stew would hit the spot, she thought. And if the electricity was off for a long time, well, she might get awfully tired of beef stew, but reheating a bowl of it in the microwave drained a lot less power from the generator than cooking a small meal from scratch each time she got hungry.

But maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wouldn't snow that much.

* * *

Chapter Two

She wasn't wrong.

The wind began howling, sweeping down from the icy mountaintops, and the snowfall grew steadily heavier. With nightfall, Hope could no longer see out the windows, so she opened the front door to peek out, and the savage wind slammed the door into her, almost knocking her down. Snow all but exploded into the great room. She couldn't see anything out there but a wall of white.

Panting, she grabbed the door and braced all her weight against it, forcing it shut. The wind seeped around the edges in a high-pitched whine. Tink sniffed at her legs, assuring himself she was okay, then barked at the door.

Hope pushed her hair out of her face and blew out a deep breath. That was a full-fledged blizzard, a complete white-out, where the wind whipped the snow around and blotted out visibility. Her shoulder ached where the door had hit her, and snow melted on her polished floor. "I won't do that again," she muttered, going in search of a mop and towel to dry the floor.

As she was cleaning up the water, the lights dimmed, then flickered brightly again. Ten seconds later they went off.

Having expected it, she had a flashlight close to hand, and switched it on. For a moment the house was eerily silent, then the generator automatically switched on and in the kitchen the refrigerator hummed to life. Just that faint noise was enough to banish the alarming sense of being disabled.

Anticipating, Hope had put out the oil lamps. She lit the lamp on the mantel, then put the match to the dry kindling and rolled newspapers under the logs she had already laid. Small blue-and-yellow flames licked at the paper, then curled up the sticks of kindling. She watched the fire for a moment to make certain it had caught, then moved around lighting the other lamps, turning the wicks low so they didn't smoke. Normally she wouldn't have lit so many lamps, but normally she wasn't alone, either. She had never thought herself timid and she wasn't afraid of the dark, but something about being alone in a blizzard was a little unnerving.

Tink settled down on his rug, his muzzle resting on his front paws. Perfectly content, he closed his eyes.

"You shouldn't get so worked up," Hope advised the dog, and he responded by rolling onto his side and stretching out.

Television reception had been nonexistent all afternoon, and the radio was picking up mostly static. She had turned it off earlier but now switched it over to battery operation and turned it on again, hoping the reception was better. It wasn't. Sighing, she switched it off. Why, at this rate, it might be a couple of days before she learned there was a blizzard.

It was too early to go to bed; she felt as if she should be doing something, but didn't know what. Restlessly she prowled around, the shrill whistle of the wind getting on her nerves. Maybe a bath would help. She climbed the stairs, peeling out of her clothes as she went. Already the heat was intensifying upstairs, and because her bedroom door was open, that room was toasty.

Instead of showering, she ran a tub of water and lolled in it, her blond hair pinned on top of her head and the mellow light of a lamp flickering over her. Her naked flesh gleamed in the water, oddly different in lamplight; the curves were highlighted and shadows deepened, so that her breasts looked more voluptuous, the hair between her legs darker and more mysterious.

It wasn't a bad body, for thirty-one, she thought as she inspected herself. In fact, it was a damn good body. Hard work kept her slim and toned. Her breasts weren't large, but they were high and well-shaped; her belly was flat, and she had a nice butt.

It was a body that hadn't had sex in five long years.

Immediately she winced away from the thought. As much as she had enjoyed making love with Dylan, on the whole she wasn't tormented by horniness. For a couple of years after his death she hadn't felt even the slightest flicker of sexual need. That had gradually changed, but not to the extent that she felt frustrated enough to do something about it. Now, however, her loins clenched with a sharp surge of need. Maybe the tub bath had been a mistake, the warm water lapping at her naked body, too much like a touch, a caress.

Tears stung her eyes and she closed them, leaning back and sinking even deeper into the water, letting it envelope her. She wanted sex. Hard-thrusting, sweaty, heart-pounding sex. And she wanted to love again, to be loved again. She wanted that closeness, that warmth, to be able to reach out in the night and know she wasn't alone. She wanted a baby. She wanted to waddle around with bloated breasts and an extended belly, her bladder under constant pressure, feeling their child squirming within her.

Oh, she wanted.

She allowed five minutes for a pity party, then sniffed and briskly sat up, using her toes to open the drain. Standing, she pulled the curtains closed and turned on the shower, rinsing away both soap and the blues.

Maybe she didn't have a man, but she did have nice, thick flannel pajamas, and she put them on, reveling in their warmth and comfort. Flannel pajamas possessed the same powers of reassurance as a hot bowl of soup on a cold day, a subliminal "there, there."

After brushing her teeth and hair, moisturizing her face, and pulling on an extra-thick pair of socks, she felt considerably better. Indulging in a hot bath, the sniffles, and a bout of self-pity was something she hadn't done in a long time, and it had been way overdue. Now that the ritual was behind her, she felt ready to deal with a blizzard.