She wanted to explore the area and get some separation from Zak so she could think.
Once inside the lodge, she changed into the borrowed sweatpants and her own blouse. She was the height of fashion. What would Melody think of her Alaskan attire? Downstairs, Zak was hanging up their coats.
“I was thinking I’d walk down to Gold Creek,” she said.
“It’s about a mile,” Zak said as he closed the closet door.
“I don’t mind the walk, and besides, it’s beautiful outside.”
“I thought we were having cocoa?”
“I thought you had work?”
“I do, but cocoa sounds good. I thought you wanted some.”
Fine. The man wanted to make her cocoa, who was she to argue? Her private thinking time would have to be later, when she could put some space between her and Zak. “That sounds great. I checked out the library you mentioned. You have quite a few board games. Are you a big board game player?”
He ushered her toward the kitchen. “My family is very competitive, whether it’s board games or hockey. What makes someone a big board game player?”
Was there anything this guy didn’t do? “Oh, I’m wondering if you’d like to play Scrabble…after your work is done, of course.”
“Sure. Maybe later.” He poured water into a kettle and turned on the stove.
“Your entire family plays hockey?”
“Yes. My three brothers and me. My sister, too. We play on the lake after it freezes,” he explained.
“Wow. That’s really neat. And your dad?”
“He died when I was eighteen.”
Her father had been such a huge presence in her life, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he was suddenly gone. “I’m sorry. That must have been rough on you.”
“Thanks. It was. I grew up playing pond hockey. Been playing it all my life. What about you?”
Sabrina noted how quickly Zak changed the subject. “What about me?”
“Well, I know you play Scrabble. Do you play any sports?”
“Yes, I play tennis.” Apparently sports—instead of family—was the subject of choice.
He poured hot water into their mugs, added the cocoa, and slid it across the table from her.
Zak’s life was so different from hers. To take off without her family knowing and without any planning ahead of time was unheard of, especially as the daughter of a prominent politician’s family. Her life and her sister’s life had been meticulously planned since they were in grade school, when her father was first elected into office.
She went to the best private schools and had high demands placed on her by her parents to succeed. Her family went to fundraisers together; they didn’t play hockey, or anything else. Her family did as they were directed to do by her father in any and all situations.
“Does your whole family play tennis?” he asked.
“Yes. My older sister, my parents, and me. We play doubles at the country club once in a while.” When it was good for appearance’s sake to do so and photographers were close at hand. “So, would you be up for a Scrabble game?”
“Sure. I can play Scrabble.”
He answered awfully quick. “What about your work?”
“It’ll still be there later.”
She felt a little bit guilty for pulling him away from his work, but he could have said no to her invitation. They walked into the informal library. Shelves of books lined the walls, and in the center stood an oval coffee table with a green velvet love seat on each side. Sabrina tried to avoid looking at the way he filled out his jeans, but she didn’t succeed. The man had serious thighs bulging beneath the blue denim.
He pulled a 50th anniversary collector’s edition of Scrabble from the shelf.
He opened the box and placed the board pieces, tiles, and dictionary on the table, making quick, measured movements like a chef prepping a meal. His hands, thick and big like his thighs, made her remember him hovering over her in the snow outside. She’d had the nerve to say he should kiss her. What was she thinking? Her stomach muscles tightened and she flexed her legs under the table. Longing pulled at her body even if her mind cautioned her to back off.
“Perhaps we should place a little wager on this game?” she asked.
“What kind of wager?” He held out the bag of letters to her. “Draw a letter to see who goes first.”
She gulped down on the guilty knot in her throat, and took the letter M out of the bag. If she had her way, the winner would have the loser join her in the hot springs tonight, but maybe something a little less obvious. “I would never have pegged you for a Scrabble player.”
He drew a D and earned the right to go first, thus getting a double word score on his first word. “There are probably a lot of things you don’t know about me. Now what was this about a wager?”
“Well, I’d like to win the chance to have my own tour guide. Maybe take me on a trip to town. You know, show me the sights.”
“So if you win, I become a tour guide. What if I win?”
She didn’t have any intention of losing, so she could offer up just about anything. “I could cook you dinner tonight?”
“I could probably be convinced.” He shrugged with a half-smile. “What would you cook for me?”
“Anything you’d like.” He never needed to know she didn’t know how to cook.
“So I become a tour guide or you become a chef. Sure, why not?”
“Great. It’s a deal.” She nodded. “Should we shake on it?”
He reached across the oak coffee table. She grasped his large hand lightly. Warmth seeped up her arm and across her torso.
She must quit staring into his gray-green eyes. Time to concentrate. There was no way on earth she was going to let him beat her. She’d been the Queen of Scrabble among her sorority sisters in college. It had been a few years, but she knew more words than most people—now if she’d just draw good letters.
Zak had spelled GONE to start the game. She hooked AWNING onto the G. He added a Y to her word for yawning. Maybe he wasn’t the amateur she imagined him to be. And so the game went. Sabrina scored big when she spelled ZEAL on a triple word for thirty-nine points. But he surprised her even more when he spelled SEX and managed to get the X on a triple.
Sabrina raised a brow at him but didn’t say a peep. He must be thinking about sex if he’d spelled it. The subconscious mind could confess many things, in Scrabble or otherwise. She knew that better than most people.
He reached for the dictionary and started to flip through the pages.
“You can’t do that. That’s cheating,” Sabrina cried. She grabbed for the dog-eared paperback.
He pulled it back out of her reach. “What? I want to see if this is a word.”
“You can only consult the dictionary for a challenge. If you’re not sure, you better not play it, otherwise I can challenge you. And if it’s not a word, you lose your turn.”
“I never heard of these rules before.”
“Those are the official Scrabble rules. Look at the guide booklet, if you’d like.” She crossed her arms. “Does your family make up the rules?”
“No, but we never used any challenge system, that’s all.” He set the dictionary down.
“Sorry. Read it in the rulebook if you don’t believe me.” She had lousy letters; three I’s never did anyone any good. She added one I to his X, a total waste of a letter, but she’d hope for a consonant next time she drew.
“‘Xi’ isn’t a word,” Zak said.
“Sure it is.” She reached in the bag for another letter.
“I don’t believe you. I’m looking it up.” Zak flipped open the dictionary.
Sabrina placed her hand on his and the firm muscles beneath. “Wait.”
He stopped and their eyes locked. Sabrina swallowed and purposefully kept herself from smiling. This was serious business after all. “Are you challenging me?”
“What do you mean, challenging you? That isn’t a word,” he s
aid.
“That’s fine if you disagree, but if you look it up and it’s a word, then you lose your turn.”
“What kind of rules are those?”
“They are the official Scrabble rules—sorry.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I can tell you’re real sorry.”
She shrugged one shoulder and gave him a half-hearted grin.
“What if it isn’t a word?”
“Then I lose my turn.”
“Fine.” He flipped open the pages. “I’ll take my chances.”
Sabrina felt pretty smug. “Go ahead, read the definition.”
“Xi…the fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet.” He harrumphed and slumped back into the sofa.
“Told ya.” She smiled from ear to ear. “Looks like it’s my turn again…since you lost yours.”
“You set me up,” Zak said dryly.
“How’s that?”
“You knew ‘xi’ was a word.”
“Well, of course I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have played it.” She suppressed a grin. No sense in being self-righteous about her imminent win. She had every intention of getting her very own personal tour guide today.
“Okay, fine.” He moved his tiles around on his rack several times before he gave her an arrogant glance. He placed the tiles on the board with meticulous care. He added a C beside her I, along with an E, R, O, and a T, to spell ‘erotic.’
She stared at the tiles. He was staring at her, she was certain of it, waiting to gauge her reaction. All she had to do was lift her eyes, but suddenly she felt flushed and hot. The man was flirting with her. She glanced to her own tiles and said, “Good word.”
“I thought so.” The baritone sound of his voice dribbled over her.
She couldn’t resist glancing at his mischievous grin, his straight white teeth, and his single dimple on the right side. The man was entirely too sexy for his own good. She eyed her letters and tried to concentrate. What woman wouldn’t be taken with a man finding ways to flirt with her over words on a Scrabble board? Maybe that was his evil plan—to distract her.
His gray-green eyes scrutinized her. “Just how much Scrabble have you played?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A bit.” Unfortunately she didn’t have the best letters, and only managed to add an R and a D to his E to spell red.
“You know,” he paused deliberately, “I haven’t gotten to see you in that red bikini yet. You know, since you left it laying on the shore.”
She felt her face grow hot again and tried to sound casual. She drew the Q and an A from the bag. That should help earn her some points. “Oh, you noticed that.”
He leaned forward. “Yup.” He placed his elbows on his knees. “Noticed the butterfly tattoo, too. I notice a lot of things about you.”
She swallowed at the knot in her throat. He definitely didn’t need to notice her lack of cooking skills, so she had to concentrate on the game. She got lucky and spelled ‘qanat’ on a double for twenty-eight points.
“What kind of word is ‘qanat’? Don’t you have to have a U with the Q?”
“It pays to know your Q words that don’t require a U in Scrabble. You’re welcome to challenge it, if you’d like, but it is a word. A ‘qanat’ is a kind of tunnel system.”
“Oh, I’m sure. A tunnel system for what?”
“I don’t recall.”
He leaned back into the sofa again and crossed his arms over his chest. “What were you, the Scrabble-playing champion of your high school?”
“No, college,” she snickered.
His mouth dropped open. He uncrossed his thick forearms. “You did set me up.”
She raised her eyebrows and put on her most faultless face. “I didn’t set you up. I asked if you wanted to play. You said yes.”
He dove across the table. Letters flew in all directions and he pressed her into the couch.
His warm, heavy weight flattened her. She gasped for breath, but she loved the feel of his body wrapped around hers. Her head spun and she laughed.
He pinned her arms over her head and lightly grazed his fingers on her ribcage. “Say it.”
“Say what?” She squirmed beneath him.
His jaw muscles flexed. “Say you set me up.”
“I didn’t set you up.” Her laughter turned to panting. This kind of torture was worth enduring.
“The Scrabble-playing champion of your college and you expected it to be a fair fight.” Zak’s warm breath puffed against her ear. He tickled her ribs again.
“I could have gotten bad letters.” His hand slid ever so close to her breast, and her inhalation knotted in her throat. She tried to move her legs, but she was frozen by the weight of him. Finally she took a gulp of air. “In fact, I did. I had three I’s. I hate I’s.”
“Greek letters. How am I supposed to know the names of Greek letters or that a ‘qanat’ is some kind of tunnel?”
“Hey, at least I wasn’t trying to constantly distract you with words like ‘erotic.’”
“I liked my erotic word.”
She decided squirming beneath him was turning her on entirely too much, so she stopped moving. “Are you conceding defeat?”
“I hate losing.” He let go of her arms and placed his elbows on either side of her head.
“I can see that. You’re willing to rough up your opponent to win,” she said.
Their breathing mingled together. “I want to do a lot more than rough you up.”
“I dare you.” The words left her mouth without any forethought. She stared at his lips only inches away and mentally willed him to kiss her.
CHAPTER 6
A tremor of longing dribbled through Sabrina and settled between her thighs.
She kept hoping he would kiss her, but he only stared at her. She finally broke the silence and said, “I do believe you owe me a trip into town. That was the deal, after all. Something about you being a tour guide. And you did lose.”
“I didn’t lose.” He lifted himself away from her and paced across the library.
“You quit. Same thing. Although, I was kind of enjoying that ‘rough me up’ thing we had going.” Her voice sounded breathy and light. God, she felt like a teenager hoping to experience her first kiss. Or multiple kisses, if she had anything to do with it.
He strolled toward her like a lion about to pounce on his next meal. The look in his eye was positively predatory, and she loved it. Her heart pounded harder. He stopped in front of her and threaded pieces of her hair between his thumb and middle finger. “All right, let’s get you on your tour,” he said.
Zak strolled down the hallway toward the mudroom. He called over his shoulder, “Have you ever been gold mining?”
Why no, she certainly had never been gold mining, but she refused to yell through the lodge, so she followed the sound of his voice. Sabrina found him pulling out round plastic pans from a cupboard, then digging through a cedar chest for a pair of hiking boots. “No.”
“You’re in for a real treat then. I’ll take you gold mining.”
She didn’t know what to say. The deal was he would show her around town, but somewhere along the way she had wanted to be shown around his bedroom instead. Maybe she had misread his intentions. She hadn’t been in the dating market for so long, maybe she was completely off-base, but the guy had spelled ‘erotic’ after all.
Zak found boots for her and she used the same camel-colored coat she’d borrowed earlier. They walked outside across the gravel driveway to where a pickup truck and four-wheeler were parked. The snow had melted but there was still a chill in the air. Zak secured two gold pans and a backpack to the back of the four-wheeler with stretchy cords with hooks on the ends, then handed her a helmet. “This is probably too big, but it will have to do. It’s getting pretty late to take you into town. The businesses will be closing soon, but I figured since you’re new to Alaska, you might want to try gold panning.”
Zak indicated she should climb onto the four-wheeler behind him. She didn’t w
ant to admit to him that she’d never been on an all-terrain vehicle before, but how hard could it be? Once she straddled the seat, she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands.
Zak twisted around. “You’ll need to hang on to my waist or those bars behind you.”
That was an easy decision. She’d be happy to wrap her arms around him. He felt warm and safe in her embrace. Who would have ever thought a few days ago she’d be riding a four-wheeler, clinging to an Alaskan man, and flying across the tundra? Sabrina could hardly believe the twists and turns her life had taken by taking a chance, doing something unplanned, and flying to Alaska.
Yellow leaves from birch trees fluttered around them as they made their way on a remote trail alongside a creek’s edge. Many of the trees were already without leaves. It was crazy to think winter was just around the corner here, when it was over eighty degrees in California.
When they stopped in an open area beside the creek bed, Sabrina was surprised the water looked so dirty. “Why isn’t the water clear?”
“We got a lot of rain this summer so the creek levels are up. These are glacier-fed streams, so there is a lot of silt in the water that makes it cloudy-looking,” he explained.
“How can we find the gold then?” She was certain she sounded like a complete amateur, like gold was just supposed to be lying there for the taking, but she couldn’t think of a more intelligent way to ask the question.
Thankfully, Zak didn’t look at her like she’d just asked the most ridiculous question on earth. He spoke in a very matter-of-fact, tour guide-type voice. “Generally speaking, the gold is found along the banks, not in the streambed. Look for rough or irregular bedrock surfaces. Gold doesn’t get trapped on smooth surfaces. We’ll find a crevice or crack with some gold in it.” He hoisted the backpack on his shoulders, grabbed the two gold pans, and walked across the rocky shoreline. “Follow me, I’ll show you.”
“It’s that simple?”
He smiled, and beneath his short whiskers she got a quick glimpse of his dimple. “Not really, but I’ve spent quite a lot of time up here, so I know where to look.”
“Recently? As in you go gold panning a lot?”
“No, not often. It’s a lot of work, for very little payoff, but my dad used to take us here when we were kids. So I have a lot of good memories of this place,” he said.
Her Alaskan Hero Page 6
