Time and Again

resisted, effortlessly. They might beg. She-Her smile bloomed beautifully at the image of Jacob Hornblower begging. Oh, that would be a triumph, she thought. The enigmatic Dr. Hornblower on his knees, at her feet.
    With a sigh, she began pacing again. It was a shame, a damn shame, that her standards didn't permit teasing or clich‚d feminine ploys. No matter how much of a jerk he was, she had her ethics.
    She was a modern woman, one who stood on her own, with or without a man. One who thought her own thoughts and fought her own fights. She was no Delilah to use sex as a weapon. But she wished, and how she wished, that once, just this once, she could ignore those ingrained principles and seduce him into a pitiful puddle of pleading.
    He'd used sex, she thought, kicking a shoe out of her path. And wasn't that just like a man? They liked to claim that it was women who lured and teased and taunted. Incensed, she gave the hapless shoe a second, vicious kick. Men, the entire bloody species, preferred to play the innocent bystander entrapped by the femme fatale. Hah!
    If anyone dared to call Sunny Stone a femme fatale she'd punch him right in the face.
    He'd forced himself on her. Well, her stiff-necked honesty pushed her to admit that he hadn't used force for more than a fraction of a second-if at all. Before he'd kissed her senseless.
    She hated that. The fact that she'd melted like some weak-kneed romantic heroine. She'd kissed him back, too. What was the word? Wantonly. It made her wince. One lousy kiss and she'd been plastered all over him. So, she owed him for that, as well.
    The best way to pay him back, she realized, was to shoot straight for the ego. As far as she could tell, that was the biggest target a man offered a woman. Hiding in her room would only make him think he-and what had happened between them-mattered to her. So she would go about her business and act as though nothing had happened.
    He was still in the kitchen when she came down. Sunny turned on the stereo and adjusted the volume. If it was loud enough, conversation would be difficult, if not impossible. After adding a log to the fire, she settled on the sofa with her books. Over an hour passed before he came out and went upstairs. She studiously ignored him.
    More from boredom than from appetite, she went into the kitchen and fixed herself an enormous sandwich. Under other circumstances she would have offered to make one for her guest. But the idea of him going hungry just made her own meal that much more palatable.
    Content, she bundled into coat and boots to go outside and fill the bird feeder. The short trip brought home to her the fact that her unwelcome company would be in her way for several days. The snow was blinding, falling in swirling sheets that covered her tracks almost as quickly as she made them. There was wind behind it, a nasty wind that raced keening through the trees and sent the pines roaring.
    With snow up to the tops of her boots, she lugged the bag of feed back to the shed. Catching her breath, she let the storm blow around her. She could see nothing but the power of it, the anger of it. It was magnificent.
    Annoyance faded. All dark thoughts vanished. As she stood with the wind battering her, the snow slapping wet on her cheeks, she felt the excitement and the peace that she rarely felt elsewhere.
    Though she never stayed in the mountains long, though she always became restless and went off in search of noise and crowds, there was no place she would rather be in a storm. Winter snow or summer thunder. It was here, alone, that the force, the energy, the mystery, could be appreciated.
    A city covered with snow would soon dig itself out. But the mountains were patient. They would wait for sun and time. As she stood with the wind wrapped around her like a wild, relentless lover she wished she could take some piece of this with her wherever she went.
    From the window he watched her. She stood like some kind of winter goddess in the whirling snow.
    Hatless, her coat flapping open, she remained still, heedless, as the snow covered her hair. And she was smiling. Cold colored her cheeks. She seemed more than beautiful now. She seemed untouchable. And invincible.
    He wondered as he looked down on her why he wanted her more at that moment than he had when she had been hot and passionate in his arms.
    Then she looked up, as if she knew he was watching. Through the blowing curtain of snow, their eyes met. His hands balled into fists,