She was, but not because he’d won a game of solitaire. It was the expression on his face, the passion in his voice, the intensity in his eyes when he’d spoken of flying. Few people truly found a job they loved, or their niche in life.
“How ’bout you?” he asked as he scooped up the cards. “What are you doing up here running a general store in the middle of nowhere?”
“Why wouldn’t I be here? Just because we don’t have multiplex theaters or coffee houses on every corner doesn’t make us ‘nowhere,”’ she defended. “In Twin Pines, it’s not important who drives the most expensive car or who has the biggest diamond on her finger. What’s important here is people. We’re a community, a lifestyle.”
“A family?”
There was something in his voice, in his eyes, the way he was watching her, waiting for her to answer, that made her hesitate, wary even. “Yes,” she said evenly. “A family.”
But family wasn’t something she ever talked about, wasn’t even something she thought about. As far as she was concerned, the people of Twin Pines were the only family she had left. Certainly the only family she cared about.
“I see you had pizza delivered,” she said, shifting the conversation. She lifted the pizza box lid and looked inside, nearly groaned with pleasure. Pepperoni and bell pepper. She loved pepperoni and bell pepper.
“‘The best pizza in town.”’ He pointed to the quote on the box. “’Course, I believe it’s the only pizza in town, but it’s pretty good. Have some.”
“I already ate.” Which didn’t seem to make a difference to her stomach. She stared at the pizza longingly. “And besides, it’s midnight.”
“The best time to eat pizza.”
And the best time to do other things, came the unbidden thought. She shook her head, not certain what she was saying no to.
He pushed the box closer to her. “Come on, Holly, live dangerously.”
Her pulse skipped at his innocent words. Or were they innocent? she wondered. Was she imagining his eyes had narrowed and his voice had turned husky? She met his gaze, felt the intensity of his smoky-gray eyes watching her. He was dangerous, she thought, this man who had quite literally fallen out of the sky and into her life. He made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. Not now. Not with him.
He picked up a slice of pizza, tortured her by waving it under her nose. “One little taste,” he taunted.
A kaleidoscope of sensations swirled through her. The spicy scent of herbs and of man, the deep, throaty sound of his voice, the coarse stubble of dark beard and wicked cut on his temple. Even the silly baseball cap he wore backward added a dash of charm to the image of pure male.
Her mouth watered, but not just for pizza.
“Well,” she murmured, felt her defenses crumbling, “maybe just one.”
Parting her lips, she delicately sank her teeth into the point of the still warm wedge of cheese and dough. It seemed as though all her senses were heightened, and she nearly moaned at the exquisite explosion of taste in her mouth.
“Shoot, that was just a nibble,” he said softly. “You can do better than that.”
She felt his gaze on her, saw his eyes turn the color of storm clouds as he watched her. His jaw tightened; he swallowed when she did. In her entire life, she’d never experienced anything so erotic.
She took another small bite, licked the sauce from her lips. She heard his intake of breath.
“Tell me about Keegan,” he whispered.
“Keegan?” Confused, she simply stared at him. He’d leaned closer to her and she could feel the heat of his body.
“Other than the fact that he doesn’t like my staying here, who is he to you?”
“We’re friends,” she said, then realized that she’d opened a door that was better left closed.
He arched one dark brow. “Just friends?”
“Yes, just friends.” Her fingers brushed his when she took the pizza from him and the contact shimmered up her arm. She took another tiny bite, though this time she hardly tasted it. “Don’t you think a man and woman can be friends?”
“Sure I do. We’re friends.”
Were they? she wondered as his gaze fell to her mouth, but not before she saw something in his eyes, a sadness, she thought. When he looked up again, whatever the emotion had been was gone. In its place was something she clearly recognized, something that had nothing to do with friendship.
Desire.
It was difficult to concentrate with him so close, difficult to breathe. They were moving into new territory here, moving beyond the boundaries of casual banter and mild flirting. They both knew it. The air was heavy with anticipation. With expectation.
With apprehension.
She’d always been comfortable around men before, reasonably confident and secure. But not this man. This man made her nervous and jumpy and more than a little afraid. Without thinking, she held out the pizza toward him.
“Bite?” she offered, then inwardly groaned at the slow smile that spread over his mouth.
His hand covered hers as he took a bite. He chewed slowly, watching her, then slipped the pizza from her fingers and set it down. “That really is good pizza,” he said and his gaze dropped to her mouth again.
“The best,” she breathed. This is crazy.
“Holly.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
No. “Okay.”
Breath held, heart pounding against her ribs, she waited.
He touched her chin, then lightly traced her bottom lip with his callused thumb. A current of pleasure shimmered from that point all the way down to her bare toes.
She parted her lips, still waiting.
It was the barest whisper of his mouth against hers, a tease more than a kiss. It made every nerve ending in her body go on full alert, anxiously waiting, wanting him to deepen the contact.
He didn’t. He moved to the corner of her mouth, softly nibbled, took his sweet time. Oh, and it was so sweet, she thought. So incredibly sweet.
Heat rushed through her body; her skin tingled; her breasts ached. Damn him. He hadn’t even properly kissed her yet, and she was more aroused than she could ever remember. She tightened her hands into fists so she wouldn’t grab him and drag him closer the way she wanted to.
When he turned his head slightly, she felt the stubble of his beard against her mouth, then her cheek. Pleasure rippled through her with an intensity that frightened her, yet somehow that only heightened her arousal, made her want more. And just when she thought she might have to hurt him if he didn’t deepen the kiss, he did.
His hand cupped the back of her head, brought her closer while he slid his tongue over hers. He tasted like spices and something else, something she couldn’t label. Something darker and richer and incredibly primitive. The hands she’d fisted in her lap opened and slid up his chest. She felt the heavy thud of his heart under her palms.
This wasn’t possible, she thought in a haze. A simple kiss couldn’t do this, couldn’t turn a person inside out and upside down. Make them raw with need. It just didn’t happen.
Her fingers curled into the soft cotton of his shirt. But it was happening, as insane as it was, and it was real. His mouth was firm and hot against hers, urgent now, demanding as he deepened the kiss the way she’d willed him to. And she was kissing him back with the same urgency, the same need. She slid her arms around his neck, wanted to crawl in his lap, wrap her arms and legs around him and lose herself completely.
His lips, the mouth she so desperately wanted on her neck and her breasts and every other place she ached, suddenly moved away.
“Holly.”
Her name was a ragged whisper. She opened her eyes, blinked.
“Holly.” He sucked in a breath. “We can’t do this.”
“We can’t?”
He shook his head.
A sudden thought gripped her. Horrified at the possibility, she snatched her hands away from him. “Oh, God. Please don’t tell
me you’re married.”
“No, no. Of course I’m not married.” He yanked off his baseball cap and dragged a hand through his thick, dark hair. “It’s just that, we, I mean, that I—”
“Guy, it’s all right. I understand.” What an idiot she was, she should have realized. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You just had an accident and I’m sure you aren’t quite—” she paused, knowing how sensitive men could be about that sort of thing “—up to par yet.”
He stared at her as if she’d turned purple. “Holly, it’s not that.” He looked heavenward, then sighed heavily. “Believe me, I’m definitely up to par.”
“So what is it, then?” In spite of the awkwardness of the moment, she couldn’t help the irritation that had crept into her voice. She’d just had the most incredible experience of her life and here he was, looking as if he was ready to run for the hills.
“I—” He faltered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Now it was her turn to stare at him. He actually assumed that one kiss between them had the power to hurt her? The man’s ego was nearly as big as the foot he’d put in his mouth.
“Blackwolf,” she said carefully, “if you think one little kiss can hurt me, you seriously underestimate me and ridiculously overestimate yourself.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line. “That was no ‘little kiss,’ Holly. We both know that. All I’m saying, is that it would be a bad idea right now to take it any further.”
“Well, that we certainly agree on.” She stood slowly, eyes narrowed. “Now I know why you’re so good at solitaire. With your social charms, I imagine you spend most nights alone.”
“Dammit, Holly, will you just—”
“There’s a pillow in the hall cupboard and a blanket in the trunk beside the sofa. I’m going to bed now.”
“Holly—”
“Good night.”
With that, she turned, silently wished him to hell, then walked away from him on legs that were still weak from his kiss.
“I was a fool. A complete fool. Please say you’ll forgive me, darling.”
What a wuss, Guy thought, watching in disgust as Gerald pleaded with Victoria, who was still in the hospital following the blast that had taken out half a city block, but left her and Gerald alive. Gerald was wearing a patch over one eye, and the doctors were uncertain he’d ever be able to see from that eye again.
“It’s too late.” Victoria turned her carefully made-up face away from Gerald. And though she was lying in a hospital bed, her blond hair looked as if she’d just stepped out of a salon. “I can’t be married to a man I can never trust. I’m calling off our engagement and going back to Matthew. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Guy snorted. For crying out loud. Why didn’t the woman just tell him the real reason she was dumping him—because the doctors had told her that she wouldn’t be able to have children due to her injuries from the explosion? Gerald would understand. Couldn’t she see the guy was making an effort here? Jeez, Victoria was one coldhearted female.
The show’s theme music came on as the credits rolled. Women. Guy shook his head as he turned off the TV. Who would ever understand them?
Lord, knew, he certainly never would. It had been two days since he’d kissed Holly, and she’d barely said more than a dozen words to him since. He could sympathize with poor Gerald there. They’d both fumbled the ball when it came to the opposite sex, but he’d be damned if he’d beg Holly to forgive him because he’d ended a kiss that had no place to go but bed.
He knew it, and he knew that she knew it. She could call it a “simple kiss” all she wanted, but what had happened between them was as far from simple as it got.
He’d told himself—and her—that he’d put a stop to the kiss because he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, that at least until she knew why he’d really come here, he needed to keep his distance.
But the truth was that when he’d kissed her, he hadn’t even remotely been thinking about why he’d come here. He hadn’t been thinking about Flynn, or the Fortunes or anything other than Holly. His only thought had been of her, of how sweet she tasted, how soft her skin was, how desperately he wanted to feel her naked against him, underneath him. How much he’d wanted to drive his body into hers and ease the ache she’d stirred inside him.
He’d nearly lost control with her. Ten seconds more and he would have. The realization of that had startled him as much as it scared him.
And that was the real reason he’d pulled away.
Beyond sex, there was no direction for their relationship to go. Before it got any more complicated between them, it would be best to keep things the way they were, which was nowhere. He’d contacted his insurance company, and they were sending out an adjuster next week. Once the paperwork was handled and a decision made, his plane would either be repaired or replaced. Either way, he’d be back to business as usual and out of Twin Pines. Holly didn’t fit into that equation any more than he fit into hers.
As soon as she stopped being mad at him, he would talk her into going to Texas to meet her family, then he’d head back to Seattle. And that, would be that.
But first, he had to get her talking to him.
Not an easy task. She’d been slippery as a fish these past two days and had managed to somehow evade him. Sneaking in and out when he was in the bathroom or sleeping. Which meant that he’d just have to go find her. The dizzy spells were long gone and his head had cleared. He’d been cooped up in this apartment long enough.
It was time to break out.
Five
The summer afternoon was slightly warm, with just the hint of a breeze. Guy pulled the scent of pine and fresh air deep into his lungs, happy to finally be outside. The woods behind the apartment were thick and green; the sound of birds filled the tall trees. The sky, a deep blue, carried only a wisp of white clouds.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the beauty of nature before. In his work, especially when he made tourist runs, he saw it all the time. He just couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually taken a moment to stop and appreciate that beauty. A long time, he realized as he spotted a moose and her calf watching him from the woods. A very long time.
He walked down a narrow alley between two buildings and came out onto a wooden sidewalk on the town’s main street. Holly’s store was flanked by Grigsby’s Hardware on the left and Mildred’s Cut and Perm on the right. There was a sandwich shop and dentist office directly across the street and the usual array of quaint, small town shops up and down the two-lane road. There was a stop sign at the closest intersection, but no stoplight as far he could see.
He turned, looked through the large, plate-glass window of Holly’s store, but didn’t see her at the counter inside. A bell jangled when he opened the door, jangled again when he closed it. Still no one.
The store was small, with floor-to-ceiling shelves that seemed to carry a wide range of items. Clothing, dry and canned goods, assorted household items. A tidy display of scented candles on a table by the register counter caught his attention, and he picked one up to smell it. Lavender. The same candle that Holly kept in her bedroom on her nightstand. He’d found a strange comfort in that scent for the two days he’d slept in her bed and it made him smile now.
When still no one appeared, he strolled through the store, noticed several items made by native craftsmen and women: Aleutian baskets, brightly colored wool blankets, soft leather moccasins. He touched the corner of an embroidered red silk scarf and thought how pretty it would look draped around Holly’s sexy neck. But he couldn’t think about her neck without thinking about her mouth, couldn’t help remembering what she’d tasted like, what her lips had felt like against his, the soft little sigh she’d made when he—
“Can I help you?”
He snatched his hand away from the scarf as if he’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. A woman stood behind him—late forties, streaks of silver in her springy brown hair. She wore a man’s blue p
laid flannel shirt and black trousers.
“Oh, heavens, I know who you are.” She smiled and her entire face joined in. “You’re that fellow Holly’s been keeping upstairs. Folks in town were beginning to wonder if you really existed.” She stuck out her hand. “Roberta Jones, but most folks just call me Bob.”
Smiling, he took the woman’s hand. She had a firm grip. “Guy Blackwolf.”
“You’re a handsome one,” she said matter-of-factly as she looked him over. “And tall, too, like my second husband.” Her brown eyes softened and she sighed. “Lord, I miss that man. All I’ve got to snuggle with now is George. He’s not bad company, but keeps me up all night with that snoring of his.”
Not sure if George was another husband or a dog, he simply said, “I was looking for Holly.”
“Just missed her,” Bob said. “She goes over to the school every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Nicholas or I watch the store for her while she’s gone.”
“Nicholas?”
“My youngest boy. He’s only seventeen, but almost as tall as you. Trips over his own feet, though, especially when Holly’s around.”
“Is that right?”
“Last week she gave him a little peck on the cheek to thank him for fixing a squeaky door and the boy walked straight into a wall.” Bob shook her head sadly. “You’d think after having five sons I’d understand the male species a little better.”
Guy understood perfectly. If an older, gorgeous woman like Holly had kissed him when he’d been seventeen—even a little peck—he’d have walked into a wall, too. Even now, at thirty, he’d nearly had cardiac arrest, though the kiss they’d shared had been no little peck by any means. He wondered just how many more admirers she had in this town. Several, no doubt.
But this was hardly the time to be remembering that kiss. “Ah, is the school close to here?” he asked.
“You could hit it with a mean curveball,” Bob said cheerfully. “Right around the corner, third building down, red brick. She’ll be in the back room. Say, now that you’re feeling better, why don’t you come over and meet my boys and George? I make a mean chili and you could—”
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