by Carmen Cook
“Up the side of a mountain?” Humor laced his words as he set her away from him, not enough for her to let go, but so they were no longer plastered together, just as another man turned the corner.
She recognized him as the peeping tom who’d shown up at Gavin’s house last night, Gavin’s partner.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Gavin responded, not looking away from Regan. “Just another stray hiker.”
“In this weather?” The man came up next to Gavin, the blond Ken doll in hiking boots and Gortex. He slapped his gloveless hands against his arms. She hadn’t noticed last night how good-looking he was, but it was obvious now. “Why do people keep coming out in this weather on purpose?”
Gavin grinned. “Jason, you remember Regan. Newly returned to the wilds of Sapphire Creek.”
“Yeah, of course. Are you lost up here?” Jason looked her over, raising a brow when he noticed her arms still at Gavin’s waist.
“No, just out for a hike,” she responded, suddenly unsure what she was doing. She pulled her arms back to her side.
“What are you guys doing up here?”
“Searching for a lost hiker who didn’t come home last night.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Search and Rescue found him on a trail on the other side of the mountain,” Gavin explained. “But some work came up, so I’ll probably be late for our date. I’ll give you a call when I know for sure what time I’ll be done, but just in case, can I get a raincheck on dinner?”
Disappointment hit Regan. She’d been looking forward to their date more than she’d realized. “Sure,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment behind her best smile. “I need to start working on the house and Bethany wanted a girls’ night, anyway. We can catch up another time.”
Gavin didn’t let her go, instead tucking her into his side and pulling out his phone. “I’m going to need your phone number.”
Tilting her head back to look at him Regan had to grin. “We’re going steady and you don’t know my number already? How scandalous. What would the Mom Squad say?”
Jason started laughing at Gavin’s groan at the mention of the women who seemed to know everything about everyone in town. “Good God, don’t tell them. And that means Bethany too. She’s their leader now.”
“She’s determined to see Gavin here settled down,” Jason informed her as he leaned against a pine tree.
Regan opened her mouth to say something when the train whistle sounded again. She pulled her phone from her pocket and made a face at the screen. “How do I have a cell signal up here?”
“The tower is on that mountain over there,” Gavin said, pointing. “Everything okay?”
“Sure.” Tucking the unanswered phone back into her back pants pocket, she stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick smack on the lips. “You come find me when you finish. Then I’ll give you my phone number.” With that, she continued her way up the trail.
Gavin skidded to a stop just inside the office. “What the hell happened?” The place was a wreck. The reception desk had been overturned, chairs broken like matchsticks and file drawers had been dumped, just to add to the chaos.
Deanna popped out of the supply closet, a piece of broken equipment in one hand, her hair falling down around her face and dirt smudged across her cheek. “There was a break-in.”
“My God, are you okay?” Jason shoved his way past Gavin and pulled Deanna into a hug, sending Gavin’s brows north. That was new. Or maybe he just hadn’t noticed and it explained why Jason was so adamant that they give Deanna another chance with the job. He watched as Deanna briefly laid her head against Jason’s shoulder and let out a watery sigh.
“I went out to grab lunch and when I came back, there was a guy in here tossing everything around.” She looked up at Gavin, her eyes pleading. “I swear I locked the door when I left. I know I did. I tried to stop him, but he knocked me down and took off.”
Jason reached over and gently tilted her chin up so he could see her face. From where he stood, Gavin could see the smudge on her cheek wasn’t dirt. It would be a pretty vicious bruise. “Son of a bitch,” Jason swore, dropping his hands to his sides and stalking away from her.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Deanna murmured, looking between the two of them, Jason with his barely concealed rage and Gavin who had made no secret that he wasn’t her biggest fan.
Gavin shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Did you call Connor?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Then we need to clean up, take inventory and see if anything is missing.” He looked her over. “Are you up for that, or do you need to go home?”
She was shaking her head before he’d gotten the question out. “No, I want to stay. Please.”
“Okay,” he repeated. “Then let’s get to work. Start with the files for now. We need to make sure those are secure.” Gavin wasn’t sure her sticking around was a good idea. She probably needed a medic, but he’d keep an eye on her until Connor got there. He’d let him decide if Deanna needed to be strong armed into going to the clinic to get checked out.
He’d also keep an eye on Jason, who was stalking around like a caged animal. This wasn’t what they needed at the moment…not that there was ever a good time for something like this. He shook his head and nudged a garbage can aside with his shoe. The first time he’d had a date in longer than he could remember and this happened. At least he’d already postponed so she wouldn’t be waiting for him.
Regan’s body ached. After her hike she’d spent the afternoon trying to trim the branches hanging over the power lines and eaves of the house. Several people had stopped to chat when they saw her outside, so the task had taken much longer than she’d planned. She’d barely managed to shower and make it to the Bitterroot Tavern before Gwen arrived.
“So what did you do?” Gwen’s eyes were huge, taking in the entire story of Regan’s reunion with Gavin—okay, parts of the story. They’d met up an hour earlier than the other women at the Bitterroot Tavern because Gwen had insisted on hearing every detail of how she’d wound up at Gavin’s house, only to have the tree fall on her car and keep her there.
Setting the wine glass back on the table, Regan shook her head. “There wasn’t anything for me to do. He’d forgotten about poker night and I freaked out when his friend Jason peeked in the window. He said he tried to knock, but the wind was howling so much we didn’t hear it. After Connor arrived, Gavin drove me home.
“Then this morning he showed up and left me his truck so I wouldn’t be stuck without a car while I figured everything out with the insurance. I called them this morning. It’ll probably take a few days to get it all figured out, but it’s not looking good.”
“He gave you his truck?”
Regan cut her eyes to her friend to see her mouth hanging open. “Just for the day. He arranged for someone to haul that tree off the Mini and have it looked at, but it’s toast. I’ll go into the city and buy something once I get the insurance check.”
Gwen’s mouth snapped shut. “He doesn’t let anyone drive his truck. Ever.”
Regan shrugged, squirming uncomfortably on the barstool. Of all the things she thought Gwen might have an issue with, his letting her drive his truck wasn’t even on the radar.
“Did you hear me?” Gwen demanded. “He doesn’t let anyone drive his truck. Ever. It’s his baby.”
Regan took a sip of her wine and eyed her friend. “I don’t know what to tell you. He brought it over this morning with Connor and Bethany. Said he didn’t want me to be stuck. Then he asked me out for an official date. Are you okay with me going out with him?”
“What? Sure.” Gwen picked up her glass and downed the contents. “You don’t have to ask my permission to date my brother.”
“I just didn’t want it to be weird.”
Gwen grinned. “But you didn’t say no when he asked, so you couldn’t have been too worried about it.”
Regan squi
rmed on her barstool, making Gwen laugh. “He’s a good guy and you guys will be great together. Even if he is letting you drive his truck.”
Regan didn’t know what to tell her, but she was saved from having to come up with anything to say when the rest of their party showed up. Regan was quickly overwhelmed with the hugs, laughter, and lighthearted teasing about how long it had been since her friends had seen her.
“What’s taken you so long to come back?” Erin asked, her hair up in a ponytail threaded through the back of a ball cap. She was also wearing what Regan had to assume were fake glasses. They weren’t much of a disguise, but they gave people just enough pause to talk themselves out of the fact that they were seeing a woman who’d grown up on their televisions. “What happened after we last saw you?”
Regan and Erin had managed to catch up a couple years before when Erin was on tour. It had caused a major argument with Todd the jackass, but Regan hadn’t let anyone know that part. In all honesty, that fight had been a wakeup call for her, realizing that the man she thought loved her was actually jealous of her friends.
“Nothing happened,” Regan answered, attempting to gloss over the details. “Nothing specific, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” Erin wasn’t buying it but let the subject drop. “You look different.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Chloe, Regan’s middle sister, slung an arm over her shoulder, the bright pink tips of her bob hitting Regan’s cheek as she shook her head. “She won’t tell me what happened since the babysitting, though.”
“What babysitting?” Erin was quickly brought up to speed. Regan could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks and she longed to bury herself in another drink. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, she just wasn’t used to sharing intimate details anymore. Not that there were any intimate details to share. Not new ones, anyway.
“You’ve been holding out on us! Gavin McCabe.” Erin fanned her face. “There’s no one like him around. Trust me, I’ve looked.”
“Thank God for that,” Gwen quipped, picking up her cosmo and taking a healthy sip. “The only way I’m going to get through this discussion is to pretend we’re not talking about my brother. And to have more of these.” She held up her glass.
“Don’t tell me you aren’t used to people—particularly certain people,” and with that Chloe tipped her head to indicate Regan, “fawning all over your big brother.”
Regan turned to her, pinning her with a mock glare. “Why are you here again?”
“Oh, the love is overwhelming! I’m not sure I can take it.” Chloe laughed. “I’m the third wheel. Well, fourth wheel actually.”
“What does that mean?”
Chloe and Erin both pointed to a guy standing a discreet distance away. He was built like a tank, with broad shoulders and biceps that bulged and strained against the sleeves of his long sleeved T-shirt. The skin that was showing was covered by his tattoos. “He’s my shadow, Mitchell,” Erin explained. “Logan, my other shadow, is over by the door. There’s been a little trouble with an overzealous fan so if I’m out in public, they’re with me. At least until the guy’s caught.”
“And he’s hot,” Chloe chimed in, gesturing toward Mitchell, “so I’m with her, too.”
Regan laughed. “Do you know him?”
“Not as well as I want to.”
“Oh my God.” Regan shook her head. “I hope you’re a little more subtle when you’re talking to him. I meant Erin. Does she know this overzealous fan?”
Erin waved away Regan’s concern and pointed at Chloe. “She barely says a word to him. You can’t get any subtler.”
“What?” Gwen and Regan both exclaimed. Chloe never failed to go after what she wanted. It was one of the things Regan most admired in her little sister. Something she wasn’t sure she’d ever mentioned, now that she thought about it.
Chloe’s face now matched her hair. She peeked over her shoulder to make sure Mitch of the Muscles wasn’t close enough to hear. “I want to talk to him, I just don’t know what to say,” she whispered. “He’s…” she waved her hand in his direction, “all that. And I’m just me.”
“What?” Regan repeated, staring at her sister. “You’re the one who pushed me to stop letting life pass me by, and here you are, doing the same thing.”
“You thought you had the market cornered when it came to being dysfunctional with men?” Chloe shrugged as she shot Regan a self-deprecating grin. “I guess we’re not so different after all.”
Regan pulled her sister close. “Then I guess we both need to make some changes, huh?” Chloe gave Regan a squeeze in return and let out a little sniff.
“Ladies.” Regan turned as yet another blast from her past stopped by the table, sliding drinks in front of Erin and Bethany, and giving Chloe a cherry Coke, complete with a maraschino cherry.
“Brandon!” Regan jumped up and hugged the man, oblivious to the envious looks being shot her way by the single women around the bar. “I didn’t know you were back in Sapphire Creek. Are you hurt?” She patted his shoulders to reassure herself.
Brandon played for the NFL, had been voted Rookie of the Year and was one of the few friends Todd hadn’t freaked out about her seeing when he was in Chicago. Figured. It made him seem like a big shot when he could say they were hanging out with Brandon Turner.
Giving her a rib-cracking squeeze in return, the man laughed. “Seems like that’s going around. You, Erin, it’s a regular reunion. And no, I’m not hurt. It was time to quit.” There was obviously more to the story than he was telling, but Regan let it go while he greeted everyone else. If she was going to be sticking around like she’d promised Bethany, she had plenty of time to catch up and find out what was going on. With all her friends.
Glancing back toward the object of her sister’s affection, Regan almost fell off her stool. “Oh, my.” Chloe turned to see what had startled Regan and started to laugh, causing the rest of their group to look, too. “Guess we can start working on making those changes right now.”
Gavin, Connor, and Jason were talking to Erin’s bodyguard. They were laughing about something, causing the women around them to perk up. These guys weren’t able to blend into the shadows for long.
“Erin,” Regan asked, “who exactly is your shadow? And how does he know Gavin?”
“They work together.”
“Whoa! How exactly do they work together? Gavin said he owns a property security firm, babysitting the houses for all the rich people in the area who only show up once or twice a year.”
“Right,” Erin said, stretching out the word like Regan was dim-witted. “Peaks Security runs the estate and private security business. They hold a lot of big-name accounts, including mine. Mitch works for Skyhawk Security, which is only personal security. They sometimes partner when things overlap.”
Regan blinked. “You have security for everything? I thought your label took care of all that. What about when you’re at home?”
Erin shrugged. “They have their security people, but I always feel more comfortable when I know who’s around.” She pointed to Muscles. “Mitchell is one of the newer guys on my personal security team. There are four of them who go with me pretty much everywhere. When I’m at home, two more take care of the house, but I don’t see them very often unless I call to tell them there’s a problem or one of the alarms go off.”
“That’s…” Regan wasn’t sure how to describe that level of protection, let alone the sacrifice of one’s privacy.
“Intense,” Bethany supplied.
Everyone around the table nodded, making them look like a collection of bobble-head dolls.
Erin smiled and sipped her tonic water. “It’s not as glamorous as it sounds on TV, but it’s manageable. Most of the time, anyway.”
Regan couldn’t imagine living the way Erin did, with someone always around, watching her every move. The very thought made her shiver. They continued to catch up on everything that was happening in everyone’s life for the next several minu
tes. Regan couldn’t relax, constantly looking over her shoulder to see if Gavin was paying any attention to them.
“The next round is on me,” she told her friends, gathering the empties and moving toward the bar. The Bitterroot Tavern had been run by Brandon’s family for as long as she could remember. It was one of the older buildings on Main Street and designed in the style of an old saloon.
Unfortunately, it was showing some signs of age. The wood of the bar counter was scarred and worn, the mirror flecked with age spots. Regan and her friends used to hang out in the back room of the restaurant side, drinking floats and reveling in the fact that they had a place to be after games before heading home. The worn surroundings welcomed and comforted her. She felt more at home here than she had anywhere in years.
She slid the empties on the bar and waited for the bartender to serve up the refills while she continued to look around, trying to pick out what was new from what she remembered. Not much had changed. Funny how that idea wasn’t nearly as suffocating as it used to be.
Gavin looked up from his conversation, his gaze clashing with hers while his smile set off a wild fluttering in her belly. Whatever this was between them, it wasn’t going away. Instead, it seemed to grow every time they were near one another.
She liked it. More than she wanted to admit. He made her feel pretty and interesting and filled her with curiosity about him. Curiosity that could get her in trouble if she weren’t careful. A fling, she reminded herself firmly. Nothing too serious, just a light little thing to get her back on track. A fling with Gavin would solve all these crazy emotions that were crashing around inside her.
Frowning at the direction her thoughts had taken, Regan jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder. “You okay?” Brandon asked, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze.
Shaking off her thoughts, she grinned up at her friend. A couple years older than her, but just as driven to leave Sapphire Creek behind as she had been, Brandon had been one of the few people who understood her. They’d been fast friends, which had sent the rumor mill into overdrive back in high school. God forbid a boy and a girl just be friends without any romantic feelings in the mix. But it had worked well for them, allowing each of them to focus on their sports and studies and everything else they could do to get themselves out of town. “I am,” she assured him. “Much better than I expected to be coming back here.”
