by J. H. Croix
“We can drop him off on the way,” I said, my voice coming out gruffer than I intended. “Give me five to shower.”
I hurried to the bathroom, tossing my work clothes in the hamper. Moments later, the water sluiced over my body, and I rolled my head side to side, savoring the hot water beating down. It had been a long afternoon. A branch had fallen on me when we were dealing with a fire at an abandoned cabin. The wilderness of Alaska was dotted with hunting cabins, some used with frequency and others forgotten and left in disrepair. Inexperienced hunters or hikers were prone to accidentally starting fires, which was exactly what had happened today. Fortunately, the cabin in question was tiny, and there weren’t too many dead trees around it. We’d gotten it taken care of within a few hours. We were getting into autumn, and fire season was just now starting to slow.
I couldn’t keep Madison out of my thoughts. I’d texted her in a pinch because my brain couldn’t think of anybody else to ask to pick Allie up. Of course, after I texted her, I’d been able to think of a few other friends I could have called. It was a reflection of how deeply she’d burrowed her way into my thoughts. She was waiting in the wings and whisked her way into my consciousness.
I didn’t need to be thinking about Madison when my teenage daughter was sitting in the kitchen with her. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I finished showering and toweled off before tugging on clean jeans and a T-shirt. When I strode into the kitchen, Allie glanced up.
“That was seven minutes, Dad,” she said, her lips pursed.
I chuckled. “Sorry. You ready to roll?”
Her ponytail bounced as she nodded. “Let me go grab my backpack. I already have it packed.”
After she hurried down the hallway, Madison stood from the kitchen table, brushing her palms over her jeans. She looked up at me just as she smoothed a hand over her hair. Her dark locks fell in a glossy tousle over her shoulders. I wanted to wrap my hand around her hair and pull her close and kiss her. Now that was crazy thinking.
She cleared her throat just as I said, “Thank you for picking Allie up. I’m sure she appreciated you coming over to paint nails with her too.”
Madison’s lips twitched with a smile. “No problem. I did suggest she teach you how to paint your nails.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m a pretty good sport about it.”
Madison’s throaty chuckle sent electricity sizzling up my spine. Allie reappeared at the end of the hallway. “I’m ready.”
In short order, we were in my truck with Allie in the middle of the bench seat practically vibrating with excitement. I sensed that Allie had decided to play matchmaker with Madison and me. Her instincts were spot-on because I did want Madison, but it wasn’t practical, not at all.
While my body might want Madison, I knew she couldn’t be right for me. We were nothing alike. She was always tidy and perfectly put together, even in the middle of the wilderness in Alaska alone on the side of the road when her dog was chasing a moose. I couldn’t imagine her tromping around through the woods, much less really wanting a guy like me. I didn’t dress up very often. When pressed, I could, but I always felt like I was wearing someone else’s skin. The last time I’d worn a suit was at a friend’s wedding. I’d spent the day feeling itchy and out of place.
I forced my mind to the moment and dutifully drove over to Madison’s place. She hopped out. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried into the house with Wilbur excitedly following her. He paused by the steps to pee on a bush before bounding up the stairs.
Allie giggled. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Wilbur’s so cute.”
I chuckled. He was currently wiggling at high speed as Madison opened the door. “He is a cute dog,” I agreed. I waited for her to beg me to get a dog.
Instead, she said, “Thanks for letting us have dinner with Madison. It’s nice. She’s new.”
I knew that feeling. I’d grown up in this very same small town. The lure of one new person showing up was exciting when you were younger. As an adult, I appreciated the town differently. I had plenty of friends and family for support. I loved where I lived. I didn’t know how Allie would feel when she was older. If I hadn’t had her, I probably would’ve wanted to leave and go to college somewhere out of town. She was young enough yet that she didn’t bring it up often, but she loved meeting new people. I’d always assumed that was why she and Harold had gotten close. He was only here about half the year, and she loved it because he was a breath of fresh air.
“Everyone has to have dinner at Wildlands at some point,” I commented.
Madison returned to the truck, and off we went to Wildlands. All the while, I wondered just how big this mistake was. After I dropped my daughter off for her slumber party with her friends, I would be alone with Madison in the truck. I needed to think long and hard about what that might mean. Specifically, I probably needed to keep my hands to myself.
Chapter Sixteen
Madison
I looked around the large timber-frame-style building with wide plank hardwood floors and exposed beams. The restaurant was on one end of the hotel with windows looking out over the lake. The setting sun cast a watercolor of pinks and lavenders over the water’s surface. The bar ran the length of one wall, and tables and booths occupied the rest of the space. The place suited Alaska. Living in Alaska, it felt as if I was toeing the edge of the wild.
Allie wanted me to try the caribou burger with fries, so I did. After we ordered, Allie chattered about school, occasionally catching her ponytail in her fingers and twirling it in circles. I couldn’t help the tension humming in my body. It seemed impossible to be near Graham without that electricity crackling to life. Ever since our last kiss went a little crazy, I kept reminding myself Graham wasn’t good for me. He wouldn’t want a girl like me, and I didn’t need to be trying to have a fling, much less a relationship.
I was terrible at being casual. That was probably how I ended up getting engaged so young. I mentally chastised myself. While other girls managed to test the waters of dating in college, I couldn’t seem to pull it off. I’d wanted so badly to please anyone, to be wanted. That was the downside to my distant parents, who mostly paid attention to what I could do for them.
I’d been ignoring another message from my mother, pleading with me yet again to talk to our father’s attorney and “update” the paperwork. I swatted those thoughts away and looked around while Allie showed her father her grades on her cell phone.
“Well, hello,” a voice said.
I glanced up to see an older couple approaching the table. I knew without knowing that these had to be Graham’s parents. The man looked like an older version of Graham with his brown curls liberally salted with silver and the same intense blue eyes. The woman had silver hair twisted into an elegant knot. They stopped by the table, and Allie smiled up at them.
“Hey, Gram and Grandpa.” She spun in her chair to stand and hug them both quickly. She smiled over at me. “This is Maddie. She’s living in Harold’s old place. She’s his granddaughter.”
“Oh, hello,” the woman said. “I’m Rose.” She held her hand out, and I stood to shake it. “This is my husband, Bill.”
Graham’s father smiled and reached out to shake my hand after Rose released it. “Nice to meet you. How are you settling into Willow Brook?”
I followed Allie’s lead and sat down after she did. “I’m settling in, and I like it so far.”
“What brings you here?” Rose asked next.
I wasn’t about to share the truth—that my father was facing fraud charges, the family business was falling apart, and I’d lost my job in the aftermath—so I simply said, “When I inherited my grandfather’s place, I took it as a chance to come see what he loved so much about the area. He meant a lot to me.”
All of that was true, but I still felt as if I misled them. If things hadn’t blown up in my father’s business, I doubted I would ever have come here.
Graham’s mother looked at me curiously and
then turned her attention to Graham. “Heard you handled that fire this afternoon.”
Graham dipped his chin. He was leaning back in his chair and had an elbow hooked over the side. He seemed oblivious to my unsettled state. “It’s my job, Mom.”
She smiled before her eyes shifted to me again. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Madison.” She glanced at Allie while Graham’s father said something to him. “I thought you had a sleepover tonight?”
Allie’s chin bobbed up and down. “I do.”
Now, his mother’s look got even more curious when she glanced at me. I was certain she deduced that meant Graham would be driving me home. I felt like chiming in to explain we were just having a neighborly dinner, whatever that was. I held my silence, simply smiled and hoped my expression was calm and entirely unreadable. I didn’t want Graham’s mother to sense I was lusting desperately after her son, which was completely inappropriate because he had a daughter who did not need him having a fling with some woman he wanted nothing to do with. I hadn’t forgotten Graham’s initial reaction to me, and I knew he thought I was foolish.
After Graham’s parents left, I breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were nice, really nice. Unfortunately, being around nice families elicited a prickle of unease. I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin because I didn’t know how to be around families like that. My legs were crossed, and one of my feet bounced restlessly. I willed it to stop. I couldn’t do anything about the family I had. The past was one thing you couldn’t change. I had the parents I had, and I didn’t have a warm, friendly family. I told myself I was reading too much into it, but I hadn’t missed the glint of wondering in Rose’s eyes. I’m sure she thought I was totally wrong for her son, and I was. He was a good, solid man. It just so happened he was also ridiculously sexy.
Allie got up to go to the bathroom before we left, leaving Graham and me alone at the table. When I looked over and met his eyes, it literally felt as if a current of electricity snapped in the air between us. My pulse took off at a fast gallop, pounding through my body, while my belly did a little shimmy when his eyes held mine for too many beats of my heart.
“Your parents are nice,” I blurted out.
He nodded, one corner on his mouth curling up and sending my belly into a swoop. I felt hot all over.
“They are,” he said, his voice all gravelly and sexy.
“Do you like having them nearby?”
“Of course. I couldn’t have raised Allie without them. Sometimes being in a small town can feel…” He paused and then shrugged. “Small. Everyone knows everyone. I’m sure you can guess that’s why people are so curious about you. We get plenty of tourists in the summer, but it’s major news when someone moves here.”
Allie returned then. “Are we ready to go?” she chirped, bouncing on her toes lightly, her impatience showing.
“She’s ready to go,” Graham observed as he glanced at me with a wry smile. “You ready?”
I knew he didn’t mean anything sexual in that comment, nothing at all. But my hormones were all, Hell to the yes! We are ready.
I simply nodded because I wasn’t so far gone I couldn’t manage to be polite. We stood, and Graham snagged the check the waitress had left on the table. He flipped his wallet out and promptly dropped several bills on the table.
I started to open my purse, and his voice stopped me. “I’m paying.”
“You didn’t expect to take me out to dinner,” I protested.
Allie slipped her hand through my elbow. “Dad gets all manly about things like this. Just let him pay. You can get him dinner another time.”
Feeling even more flustered now, I closed my purse with my free hand as I looked back and forth between them. “Thank you. I’ll get our next meal.”
Graham said something under his breath, but I didn’t catch it. With Allie avidly watching us, I wasn’t going to press the issue. We walked out to his truck together. Not much later, we had dropped Allie off for her slumber party, and Graham was driving back toward my place. The tension was practically killing me. I was tied up in knots inside, and my need was pulsing in electric waves through my body.
I managed to take a shallow breath, and asked, “What did you say when we were leaving?”
He stopped at a stop sign, and his gaze turned toward me. I’d swear lightning crackled in the space between us.
“You’re not going to buy me dinner,” he said flatly, his eyes daring me to argue.
I let out a puff of breath as he turned onto the road. The sound of his blinker clicked loudly until he completed the turn.
“That’s ridiculous,” I replied. “We’re well past the era where only men can pay for dinner.”
“So what?” he scoffed.
“You are ridiculous,” I muttered. I crossed my arms, tapping my foot on the floor.
His chuckle sent a wash of heat through me. Everything Graham did turned me on. He annoyed the hell out of me, and somehow even that turned me on. I could give the silent treatment like a pro, though. I stared out the window at the moon rising above the mountains and casting them with a pearly glow against the inky dark sky.
A few minutes later, the sound of gravel underneath his truck tires was all I could hear over the pounding of my heart. When he stopped at the end of my driveway, I turned to look at him. The engine quieted when he pressed the button to turn it off. With the sharp edge of desire riding me, I practically jumped out of the truck. By the time I rounded the front, he had climbed out.
We stared at each other, and I swallowed before saying, “Thank you—”
His words crossed over mine. “Thank you—”
I finished, “For dinner.”
“For picking Allie up from school.”
The air felt loaded and heavy. The distance between us felt malleable—massive like a chasm but also small and crowded. I could hardly catch my breath. All I could think was I needed to kiss Graham again.
I had no idea what he was thinking. His eyes were dark as he stared at me. In a flash, he caught my elbow in his hand and tugged me closer before I could even wrap my brain around what was happening.
“Madison,” he murmured roughly. “I need to kiss you.”
I couldn’t even form a word, yet I was in complete agreement. Kissing Graham, right this very second, was a requirement of the universe.
His lips met mine, and it felt like a lightning strike where our lips met. Searing energy flashed through my body and set all of my cells aflame.
Chapter Seventeen
Graham
None of this was graceful. I plastered Madison against my truck, caging her between my palms. The cool metal of my truck did nothing to quench the fire of need blazing through my body. Her mouth was warm and soft, her lips—sensual, plump, and cushiony—made for mine. All the while, her kiss was hot, slick, and overwhelming.
Our tongues dueled. There was no finesse, it was all a fiery mess. Madison made these little sounds in her throat that drove me fucking crazy. We broke apart, each of us gulping in air. It was chilly out tonight, enough that our breath misted in the air around us.
The only thing that snapped through the madness was the sound of Wilbur’s sharp bark muffled by the door. She stared at me, her eyes hazed with passion. “I need to let Wilbur out.”
Fuck me. Even that comment sounded sexy in her throaty voice.
“Should I go?” I heard myself asking.
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to spend the night with her and steal every minute I could have with her for myself. I usually had to think about my daughter, but she wasn’t here. This felt like a stolen moment, something I could have.
I knew it wouldn’t be more. Maybe it was stupid, but we’d already done stupid. We’d already snapped the ties of sanity by kissing more than once. I waited as the moment spun out between us, my heartbeat thundering.
Madison blinked when Wilbur barked again. “Do you want to go?”
I loved that she challenged me with that question. She was not
a woman who would be vague about anything. Everything about her got to me, even when she was annoying.
“No, I don’t,” I finally said. “I want to stay. I want to make you forget everything except my name.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath.
“Okay. Well, come on in then,” she whispered.
I stepped back from the truck and curled my hand around hers as we walked up to the house. She opened the door. Wilbur was beside himself, dancing around our feet as we both greeted him.
“Give him a second. He needs to do his business,” she said.
I walked with her and Wilbur as we made our way down the driveway in the darkness. He stayed close and stopped to pee on a few trees. I chuckled when he paused to do his “other business” as Madison said.
“He looks like a canine comma,” I observed.
She threw her head back with a throaty laugh that tightened the coil of need inside me. “He does. He’s so short his body just curls a little.”
Wilbur glanced our way. “It’s okay, Wilbur,” she offered. “Humans aren’t dignified either when we go to the bathroom.”
Madison was a puzzle to me. I had tagged her as a prissy woman, more worried about her appearance than much else. I still wasn’t sure how to categorize her, but I knew there was much more to her than the surface. I also knew I’d underestimated her and wasn’t sure I liked what that said about me.
A few minutes later, we were in the house. Following her lead, I hung my jacket by the door and left my shoes next to hers. Wilbur had promptly curled up on his bed in the living room.
Madison lifted her eyes to mine. She took a breath, almost as if she were steeling herself. The sound of her swallow was loud in the kitchen. “You, um—” she began.
