by Annette Lyon
With her face down, the streetlamp highlighted her long lashes fanning across the tops of her cheeks. “So,” she said, dragging out the word. “Where are you going to find someone to kiss whose name starts with M?”
Right. The stupid Ultimate Bachelor Challenge. Trust Trevor to ruin what could have been a great moment. Connor barely bit back an exclamation — one he didn’t want to say around Sam.
“Right. That.” He stared out the windshield, then looked at her. “I don’t suppose your middle name is Maria or Maggie or — wait a second.” He shifted the car into gear and pulled onto the road.
Sam looked at him quizzically. “Let me guess, you remembered an old flame living nearby named, oh, Monique?”
“Not exactly.” He’d have to watch the video again to be sure he wouldn’t lose on a technicality, but he didn’t think that Johnny had been specific enough to rule out Maddie. As he’d suspected, he needed to be creative to complete the challenges. The more he considered the plan, the better he felt.
“You’re grinning like the Cheshire Cat,” Sam said. She shifted positions and gripped the arm rests. “That can’t be good. Please don’t tell me you’re stooping to his level.”
“Nope.” His cheeks almost hurt from grinning. Trevor wouldn’t ruin this night. Not if Connor could help it.
Soon, he pulled into the cracked driveway of his rental house. “Home sweet home,” he said, killing the engine. He reached to open his door, but Sam’s arm shot out and stopped him. He happily turned to her, enjoying the warmth of her touch through his shirt.
“Wait, are you married?” she asked.
He almost laughed at that, but at her serious tone, he refrained. “No.”
“Do you live with a woman, then? A girlfriend? Is it a sister? A cousin? Who’s in there that you’re going to kiss?” Her pretty eyes were pinched, with a worry line across her brow.
He wanted to reach over with his thumb and smooth out the wrinkle. “No one like that. Come on. This will be quick. And then I’ll take you out for breakfast.”
“O ... kay...” she said, sounding skeptical as she opened her door.
Rather than prolonging the suspense, Connor hurried to the porch and threw open the front door. “Maddie,” he called. “Come here, Maddie!”
“She’d better be step-sister who will kiss you on the cheek,” Sam said, elbowing him in the ribs.
Connor laughed but called again. “Maddie? Come on! Where’s my Maddie Mad Dog?”
“What do you mean yours?” came another male voice. Its owner appeared a second later, scratching his beard.
“You must be Ben,” Sam said. “I’m Samantha.”
“Let me guess, the beard gave it away?” he asked. “Or is it my devastatingly good looks?”
“Devastating something,” Connor said, punching his roommate in the shoulder. “You look like a mess.”
“What do you expect when you wake me up in the middle of the night?”
Sam broke in. “Connor wasn’t entirely honest. You do not look like a missing brother from Duck Dynasty.”
Ben leveled a stare at Connor. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered that you assume I can grow a beard that long or to be offended that you think I look like I have a rat’s nest growing from my face.”
“Neither,” Sam broke it. “I think your beard fits you really well.”
“Where’s Maddie?” Connor asked, trying to peer past Ben.
“She’s my dog,” Ben said. “Remember?” He whistled over one shoulder, and at the sound, the Golden Retriever’s claws erupted into a stream of clicking on the laminate floor, followed by Maddie trotting into view.
Connor fished in his pocket for his phone and held it out to Sam. “Would you take the video?”
“I’m going back to bed,” Ben said with a tired wave. “You found yourself a weird guy, Samantha. Hope you know that.”
“Not weird. I’d use a different word,” Sam said, bringing up the camera on Connor’s phone.
He’d lowered to one knee to prepare for Maddie’s “kiss,” but he suddenly straightened and stared Sam down. “And what word would that be?”
The porch light made her face glow gold. She blushed and avoided eye contact, now turning his phone over and over in her hands. “You have the beginnings of a beard too, you know.”
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Yeah?”
She tilted her head one way and then the other and managed, “And I’ve always thought that five o’clock shadows are kind of...”
“If not weird, then… what?”
She laughed and shoved his phone into his chest playfully. “Rugged. Masculine.” She pressed her lips together before finally saying, “Fine. They’re hot. Happy?” Her half joking, half embarrassed tone belied her words, which might have otherwise sounded snippy. She really seemed to think a little scruff was attractive. Connor filed that detail away, inexplicably pleased that Sam thought something about him was “hot.”
Nothing about this night had turned out as he’d expected. He’d dreaded the entire challenge, but now he looked at what it had brought him: he’d met an amazing woman he wanted to get to know better. On impulse, he nudged Maddie into the house and closed the door.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked. “Trevor probably had chicks lined up for every letter of the alphabet, just in case. We need Maddie Mad Dog — is that her name? — to kiss your face. We can watch the announcement again before posting, but I’m pretty sure he said nothing about the girl having to be human.” Sam stepped closer. There was the hint of her perfume again — vanilla, with a hint of something else, maybe cinnamon. “This task is one more way for him to belittle a woman. We can’t let him win.”
Connor looked at the door. He could hear Maddie’s whimpers from the other side. “Trevor will still say I cheated. You know he will.”
“True.” Sam sighed and chewed on her nail, trying to come up with another idea. “One of my roommates is MollyAnne. She’s never had a boyfriend, so she’d totally freak out, but Trevor didn’t say it had to be on the mouth. She could kiss you on the cheek for five seconds.”
“Maybe,” Connor said, but without any conviction.
“MollyAnne would pass out hearing that the host of Wynn Rocks is coming over to—”
“Wait. I have another idea.” He wasn’t sure whether to be excited or terrified of it.
“What?” Sam said. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
Connor decided to ignore the comment and jump into explaining his idea. “When Steve called—”
She stiffened. He immediately regretted having to bring it up. “Yeah?”
“He used your last name.”
“He’s adopted a bunch of things that he thinks make him sound more British. That’s the only reason he sometimes called me Miss McKinley, and — oh!” Her mouth stayed open, and she leaned back the slightest bit but otherwise didn’t withdraw — a good sign, he hoped.
Drawn by the heady scent of her perfume, Connor took a tentative step toward her. This time, she didn’t lean away. “Trevor didn’t say it had to be her first name, did he?”
Sam shook her head and stammered, “I — don’t — think — so.”
Connor drew nearer still. He thought she caught her breath, but he wasn’t certain. The thought made his own heart race. With one hand, he cupped her cheek and stroked her jawline with his thumb. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.
His rational side yelled at him. Are you insane? She was just dumped by a guy who broke her heart. She’ll hate you for taking advantage of her when she’s vulnerable. Besides, why would she want to kiss you? She doesn’t even know you. The thoughts came at him as fast and hard as bullets.
Maybe she’d think he was using her like Trevor used women. He couldn’t stand the thought that she’d think that. Just as he resolved to be a gentleman and not pressure her into a rebound situation, she closed part of the gap between them.
With one hand, she reached up and smoo
thed her hands across the stubble on his cheeks. Before he knew it, she’d threaded her fingers through his hair and was drawing his face toward hers. At last their lips met. In the quiet of the night, he half expected fireworks or shooting stars to accompany the explosions going off inside him.
The only sound was from Maddie Mad Dog, who’d ducked under the curtains by the living room window and was watching. She barked happily at the sight. After a long kiss that still felt too short, they drew apart, but only a hair’s breadth from each other.
Her eyes remained closed as he stroked her cheek and took in every curve of her face. He wanted to memorize it all — spend the rest of his life getting to know every part of her features, her mind, the entirety of the woman before him. He leaned in for another kiss and then another.
After the third, Sam whispered in his ear. “We didn’t record it.”
“I don’t care.” Connor felt as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t care — not about Trevor, not about losing views or subscribers.
She looked at him questioningly. “But—”
“I’m done with the challenge. I’ll concede the loss and donate to his charity — and to mine.”
Still in his embrace, Sam put both arms around his neck. “You hardly know me, but I know everything about you.”
“I tend to overshare on my channel.”
“Not at all. I read between the lines of what you do and say. You are a true gentleman, Connor Wynn of Wynn Rocks. And I don’t mean just tonight. You’ve made me a better person, and I want to get to know you better.”
For his mother’s sake, he hoped he was a gentleman, that he was making a difference. He was trying to be the kind of man she’d be proud of. And to think that those efforts might have led him to a woman like Sam. He couldn’t wait to take her on hiking trips and share his adventures with her, get to know her as well as she seemed to know him.
Connor brushed a wisp of hair from her face. “I really don’t care about losing to Trevor.” He leaned in for another kiss, which she readily returned. Then he smiled against her lips and murmured, “I still win.”
“No,” Sam said, pressing her forehead to his. “I win.”
Want to read more about relationships that bloom in Harvest Valley? Check out Lost Without You, available now!
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Lost Without You
A Harvest Valley Romance
Chapter One
“So what are you saying?” Christopher asked, eyes darting from the road to Brooke and back again. His hands gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter.
Brooke eyed the climbing speedometer and lowered her voice. Christopher had always been a safe driver; she’d never seen the needle go so much as five miles above the speed limit with him. “I guess I’m saying that you’re not the one for me.”
“I see.” Christopher’s voice was quiet. His jaw tensed, and his eyes practically bored holes through the windshield. Brooke couldn’t help but stare at the look in his eyes, as if some other personality had taken possession of him. She hardly recognized the man sitting beside her.
They were in the middle of the canyon for an evening drive, and there wasn’t a good place to turn around. Christopher kept driving, deeper into the canyon and not slowing down, even at the tight curves. Brooke’s fingers gripped the edges of her seat. They made it all the way to Heber City before turning around and racing through the canyon the other direction. Christopher didn’t say another word the entire time; neither did Brooke. There was no point in discussing the matter or causing bigger wounds. They both knew it was over.
They’d dated for only three months, but Brooke had thought Christopher might be the one. That is, until he started acting moody and possessive over the past couple of weeks. Then he began hinting that she needed to change for his mother to approve of the match. The changes seemed benign at first. His mother preferred to be addressed as Mrs. Morris. She hated hearing her son referred to as Chris in her presence. But when Mrs. Morris began suggesting changes in Brooke’s hair and clothing — and Christopher insisted Brooke comply — she realized she’d gotten more than she’d bargained for. This was a case of the umbilical cord never getting cut.
Breakups were never easy or fun, so she’d expected Christopher to be hurt. She hadn’t counted on him reacting by swerving between lanes, barely missing a collision with a truck when he decided to pass a Jeep already going ten miles over the speed limit. “Could you slow down a bit?”
Christopher glanced over and pressed harder on the pedal, the dark look in his eyes now accompanied by a thin smile. A knot formed in Brooke’s stomach as she mentally calculated how much longer the drive home would be.
After he dropped her off, they’d probably never see each other again. She’d miss him, in a way. Not the Christopher of the last two weeks — the one she’d talked to at the ice cream parlor until their pistachio ice cream puddled and their fries were hard. Two and a half great months with him ... gone. This new side of Christopher destroyed everything. She couldn’t have one side without the other, so tonight she said good-bye to both.
As they crossed the light by Jerry’s Pit Stop, the car sputtered, grew strangely quiet, and then gradually slowed to a stop.
“We’re out of gas,” Christopher said tonelessly as the car rolled to a stop — the first words spoken in the last half hour.
With a wham, they jerked forward violently to the sound of crushed metal. After a moment of stunned silence, they whipped around to see what was left of the red sports car that had just rear-ended them. The front had caved in, making a mockery of what had been an elegant vehicle. The air bag had deployed, and as the driver got out, he coughed at the bag’s fumes. Christopher and Brooke both jumped out and ran to the rear to assess the damage. The back bumper had a good-sized dent, and a lot of paint had been scraped off, but otherwise Christopher’s car seemed fine, especially in comparison to the other one.
“I guess you got lucky,” Brooke said.
“Yeah — lucky,” Christopher said sullenly.
The other driver, no more than seventeen, let out a few colorful words and kicked the front tire. “Dad’s gonna kill me,” he said, pulling at his hair. “He’s gonna kill me. And all because some idiot didn’t speed up at the light like he was supposed to!”
“Hey, I saw the light,” Christopher snapped. “I just ran out of gas.”
The young man turned on him. “In that case, I guess you’re not an idiot. You’re a total moron.”
Christopher threw a few nasty and colorful descriptions back at the driver as he took his cell phone off its clip and called the police. Brooke returned to the car, wishing she could hide. The two cars blocked the intersection, with dozens of others piling up and people staring at them. All because Christopher had been too upset to notice he was running low on gas. She fished her cell out of her purse, hoping to call someone for a ride, only to realize that the battery was dead.
I should probably stick around to make a witness statement, she decided. It was that, or leave the scene, walk to the gas station, and hope she could both use their phone and get hold of someone to pick her up — while risking for of Christopher’s ire.
Might as well stick around. Civic duty and all.
The police arrived, probably only a few minutes later, although to Brooke it felt like an eternity. She tried to stay in the background as the officer took care of the formalities of paperwork and clearing the accident, but as she sat in the car, he called out to her through the open passenger window.
“Miss? Could you come over here? I need you to fill out a witness statement too.”
At least he called me “Miss,” she thought. With her thirtieth birthday just a few months away, she was getting all-too-used to being called “ma’am.”
She got out, closed the gap, and took the papers from his hand without a word, but as she turned away, he flashed her a
smile. Brooke hated herself for noticing the dimple in his left cheek and the name on his tag, G. Stevens.
Not tonight.
She had just broken up with Christopher; this was not the time to be thinking about or noticing other men. Brooke laid the papers against the back of the car and began filling them out.
“Your car looks drivable,” Officer Stevens said to Christopher.
“Yeah, but I ran out of gas. I’ll have to hike back to the gas station to get some,” Christopher said, the tips of his ears finally turning red from something other than anger.
Eventually a tow truck arrived for the sports car. The paperwork had been completed, their car was pulled over onto the gravelly shoulder, and traffic had nearly returned to normal. All that remained was for Christopher to return with the gas.
“I’ll stay with you until your boyfriend gets back,” Officer Stevens said.
“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend,” Brooke said quickly, then flushed, cheeks hot. “I mean, not anymore. We just broke up. Tonight. Right before the accident. I mean…” She managed to stop herself from speaking by biting her lips together.
Why did I say that? I sound like a silly high- school girl.
Here she had just broken up with one man, only to make a perfect stranger aware of it. As if this police officer was planning to ask her out. Hardly. And as if she wanted him to. He was probably married anyway, although she hadn’t noticed whether he wore a ring. But he was far too good-looking not to be married. Except for the extra short hair. He’d look better if he grew it out a bit. But cops often had short hair. She wondered if it was to make them look more intimidating or something.
“Thanks for the concern,” Brooke said, looking down to avoid seeing the dimple again. “But I think he’ll be back any minute. I’ll be fine.”
