special woman, who his mother had always told him would come one day, to be a myth, and yet here she was, standing before him with her hand in his.
“A little help?” she said in frustration, and only then did Bren realize he’d been standing there holding on to her for a too-long moment.
He gave Miranda’s hand a tug, pulling her gently up the hill until she was once again standing on the narrow shoulder of the road. She released his hand as soon as she was able, shaking her head mightily, a move that dislodged a few leaves but did little to right the effects of the fall. Bren reached out and gently pulled the largest twig from her hair. She found the move too personal, too intimate, and slapped his hand away.
“You should watch where you’re going,” she said sharply.
His voice was much calmer as he responded, “You shouldn’t be walking on this road. It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous? How about talking on the cell phone while driving a monster truck up a narrow winding road? That’s dangerous. What carrier do you have?” she asked, picking that lucky leaf from the swell of her breast. “I can’t get a signal at all.”
“There’s nothing past the next curve,” he said, trying not to see this woman in an all new light, trying to forget the mental image of her beneath him. The vision had been so real he could still feel her; he could smell her; he knew how her flesh felt against his, how her body gave and took. Forgetting was impossible, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted what she could offer.
There was no place in this world for the Korbinians, not anymore. Their time had passed. Logically he could dismiss Miranda Lynch; rationally he knew what she promised would never work. But a primitive instinct he could not deny now accepted this woman as being his, and he wanted her so sharply that he could think of nothing else.
Chapter There
Bren insisted on driving her back to the cabin, and Miranda only protested once, quite mildly. She no longer felt like walking to the store and then making her way back up this mountain road. The fall hadn’t been dramatic by any means, but it had shaken her, just as standing there with Bren’s hand clutching hers, his dark brown eyes boring into her as if he saw something new and striking on her face, had shaken her.
At least Dee was gone. The meddling ghost had better not show her face again, after pushing Miranda off the road. Miranda squirmed in the passenger seat of Bren’s truck, disturbed on many levels. Dee must be quite powerful to be able to move earthly objects. It wasn’t easy for a spirit to physically affect anything at all, much less generate a push vigorous enough to move a living being. If Dee decided to stick around, there was likely nothing Miranda could do to stop her. What if Dee was actually strong enough to tag along back to Atlanta and even to jobs across the country? What if she could never get rid of the matchmaker? Scary thought.
Bren pulled sharply into the short driveway in front of the Talbot cabin, and then he turned to Miranda with accusing eyes and a firmly set mouth. She couldn’t help but notice—again—that grumpy or not, he was very good-looking. Good-looking but not pretty. There was nothing soft about the man, not in his facial expression or the cut of his jaw or the fire in his eyes—eyes that were the color of dark chocolate, she noted as she stared into them for a moment. What she could see—and had seen—of his body was definitely not at all soft. He had a workingman’s body, sculpted and impressive and hard. If she’d met him years ago, before her life had changed so dramatically, maybe she’d be attracted to him. Maybe.
Who was she kidding? If noticing the precise color of his eyes and admiring his body wasn’t attraction, what was?
“Why were you walking down the road?” he asked sharply.
“Exercise,” she said. “And I thought I’d pick up a couple of cans of soda at the gas station.”
His expression was accusing, as sharp and hard as everything else about him. “I offered to buy you anything you needed while I was out.”
She glanced at the collection of grocery bags in the backseat. They’d been jostled when he’d stopped so suddenly, and his purchases were now in a state of disarray. A few cans had escaped the plastic bags, and a box of cereal had turned upside down onto the floorboard. Oh, my. The tough guy ate Froot Loops. “I’m perfectly capable of—”
“Obviously you’re not,” he interrupted harshly. “I’ll be back in an hour to drive you to the store.”
“I really don’t need—”
Again he interrupted her. “I’ll be back in an hour. I can either take you shopping or I can sit in the driveway and wait right here in case you change your mind and decide to take off on foot again.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Try me.”
Miranda sighed as she opened the passenger door and took the long step down to the driveway. She was still a bit shaky, but when she looked back into the truck and once again Bren’s powerful eyes caught hers, she allowed herself to listen to the instincts that had so seldom disappointed her. Brennus Korbinian was a grumpy, annoying, nudist in a place where to be in a state of undress was not at all wise. He didn’t watch where he was going when he drove. He was definitely bossy.
But deep down he was a good person, and yes, whether she wanted to admit it or not, he was attractive, as Dee insisted he was. It had been a long time since Miranda had allowed a man to take her anywhere on anything that might resemble a date, and like it or not, she thought that he considered his offer to run her to the grocery store a date of sorts.
She’d only be here a few more days, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let a good-looking man take her to the grocery store. It wasn’t as if a week was time enough for what might be a casual interaction to turn into anything more serious. “Fine,” she said. “One hour.” And then she slammed the passenger door and walked toward the front porch, digging the keys to the cabin out of her jeans pocket.
Korbinian stayed in the driveway until she had the door closed behind her. She didn’t look out the front window, tempted as she was to do so, but she did listen as he drove away. Miranda glanced around the main room of the cabin as she brushed a spot of dirt from her jeans. “Dee, show yourself.” The specter had some explaining to do.
In spite of Miranda’s command, the main room remained quiet and ghost-free. As she headed for the bathroom to make repairs to her appearance, she decided if getting pushed off the side of a mountain was the price for peace and quiet, she’d take it.
Fifty-eight minutes after he’d dropped Miranda at the Talbot cabin, Bren was back in her driveway. At home he’d called the plumber who’d been cut off when Bren had tossed his cell aside, put away his groceries and unsuccessfully tried to wipe away or even explain away the visions that had come to his mind so strongly when he’d taken Miranda’s hand.
He sat in the driveway and waited, wondering if he should go to the door and ring the bell like a proper gentleman caller. Was Miranda sitting in the cabin waiting for him to collect her? Would she expect him to open the passenger door for her and carry her grocery bags and make nice? His fingers tapped nervously against the steering wheel; his eyes remained fixed on the front door. He wasn’t known for making nice. Being a loner had its costs, and a lack of social skills was one of them.
Surprised as he was, the woman’s appearance should not be entirely unexpected. Bren’s father had long considered himself the last of the Korbinians, but he’d been wrong. The old man had been nearly sixty when he’d met Denise Brown, a childless divorced woman more than twenty years his junior. They’d married three weeks after meeting, and Bren had been born less than two years later. Maybe if they’d met earlier Bren would’ve had brothers, but they hadn’t, and he’d been an only child, just as his father had been.
According to Joseph Korbinian, as the population of their kind diminished, so did that of the women they were meant to be mated to. In ancient times when the Korbinians had flourished, so had the Kademair, those women with whom they could bond and