“The rest of it was entertaining,” he conceded, “but a general being outsmarted by a teenager is where I draw the line.”
“He didn’t like that airplane cartoon movie where that crop duster could go as fast as a fighter jet either,” Nicholas said gravely.
“Because planes can’t talk?” she suggested.
“Because crop dusters aren’t designed to keep up with military jets,” Wyatt said.
They continued down the wooden sidewalk toward the car. She was still chuckling, and even though it was at his expense, he didn’t mind.
He liked making her laugh.
He liked that she’d talked to him about her problems last night.
He liked that she got more irritated with him every time he pulled away.
Because maybe she was thinking about him now. Maybe she was seeing him.
One thing was certain though.
After a lifetime of thinking she hated him, he’d leave here knowing they were finally friends.
And he’d probably never sleep again.
* * *
Skye had just finished topping a bowl of butter pecan ice cream with a thick layer of caramel sauce when Wyatt wandered into the kitchen.
“Nicholas asleep?” he asked.
She nodded.
When Wyatt had declared it bedtime, Nicholas had asked her to tuck him in for the night.
“Lots of giggling going on up there,” he said.
“He has a good sense of humor. Plus, I’m hilarious.”
“Matter of opinion.”
Three days ago, this conversation would’ve had her rolling her eyes.
But warm amusement had colored both Wyatt’s tone and his eyes. The rest of him was straight-laced as always, and she suddenly wondered what else she’d never noticed about him before.
Or acknowledged.
She slid a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, and her eyes drifted shut while she contemplated both the man and the ice cream.
“Good?” he asked.
Saying the ice cream was good would be like calling the Sierras around them a few small hills. “Mm-hmm,” she answered reverently. “Thank you.”
“Thank Nicholas. It was his idea.”
She squinted at him with one eye. He pulled a beer out of the fridge, but his focus was on the phone in his hand.
“Pokemon Go, huh?” she said. “I didn’t peg you for the type.”
“Pokey what?”
She stifled a smile. “Never mind.”
“Question from my boss.” He tucked his phone back in his pocket. “Sorry.”
“You brought me enough ice cream to last the whole week. I could forgive nearly anything.”
“Nearly?”
“Such a perfectionist,” she teased lightly. If he weren’t such a perfectionist, she wouldn’t be eating her favorite guilty pleasure right now.
Nor would he be wearing another T-shirt that perfectly displayed his muscled shoulders and chest. And his jeans wouldn’t be sitting so nicely on his trim hips.
And the dishes wouldn’t have magically cleaned themselves the last two nights.
He tipped his beer back and took a drink. His long fingers wrapped around the bottle, the cords in his forearms flexed, and the muscles in his throat moved.
Had she truly never noticed how physically attractive he was? Or had he changed that much since he left Copper Valley?
“You’re stationed in…Oklahoma now?”
“For the next two weeks. Got moving orders to Georgia. Taking some leave before my stuff gets packed up.”
“Ah, back in the South.”
A fond smile tipped his lips up. “Like home, but not.” He crossed to the sink and set his beer down, then flipped on the water. “Speaking of home, I didn’t think you wanted to work for the family business.”
“I didn’t think I did either,” she admitted. “But when I started going out on job interviews my last year of college, I got as many questions about what Beck and the band were doing as I got about my qualifications. Going home made sense.”
“Yeah, my commanders are always after me to get him to come do a show for us wherever I go too,” he said.
“Really?”
He tossed her a grin. “Hell, no. They have no idea I know Beck Ryder, or any of the rest of the guys. That would require claiming them in public.”
She tipped her head back and laughed. “Right? That’s what none of my job interviewers ever got. It’s so weird having people flip out over my brother. And that was before Beck started making a living showing off his skivvies. Do you have any idea what he’d do if I tried to model underwear for a living?”
Wyatt ducked his head over the sink. He fumbled a plate, and a loud clink! echoed in the kitchen.
As though he were thinking about her in her underwear.
She eyed his butt. The worn denim stretched across his rear, highlighting two perfect, firm cheeks.
He would probably look amazing in just his underwear.
Did he wear briefs? Boxers? Boxer-briefs?
Or did he go commando?
Her ice cream lodged in her throat, and she bent over coughing.
He glanced back. His eyes went wide, and he turned to thump her on the back. “You okay?”
His hands were wet, but the heat of his touch practically made the water evaporate on contact. She forced a nod through her coughing fit.
She’d live.
But if she quit coughing, he would probably go back to doing the dishes, pretending they hadn’t been talking about her in her underwear, that she hadn’t been thinking about him in his.
She cleared her throat once more. He snagged a clean glass and filled it with water. “Here.” While she drank, he hovered at her side, a solid mass of protective, dependable, unexpectedly sexy masculinity.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded.
He quirked a smile at her. “That’s what you get for thinking about me in my underwear.”
“How did you—”
She cut herself off, because that teasing grin of his had morphed into a serious, surprised, sexy intensity that made heat erupt low in her belly.
“You were imagining me in my underwear,” he growled.
But this was different from his I am in charge growl.
This was an intrigued, borderline dangerous to her emotional health growl.
“T-turnabout’s fair play,” she whispered. “You saw me naked.”
And he’d been a perfect gentleman about it, and then stripped his shirt off for her. But the raw, charged attraction flashing in the depths of his blue eyes now suggested he hadn’t forgotten seeing her naked, and he didn’t want to.
And now she was thinking of that kiss two nights ago again.
“Don’t play with me, Skye.”
“I—”
She what? She wouldn’t?
She was six months past a two-year relationship with a man she’d intended to marry, and she still wouldn’t go home because of him. And yet here she was, flirting with one of her brother’s best friends, a guy her parents thought of as one of their own.
And he liked her.
He’d been very clear about that.
If she led him on, if she slept with him without any intention of giving him a real shot at a real relationship—
No.
She didn’t play games with people’s feelings. With their hearts.
So what was she doing standing here, thinking about Wyatt’s body, about his underwear, about his touch?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
And when she fled the kitchen, she didn’t even try to take the ice cream.
Chapter Nine
Ninety-eight…ninety-nine…one hundred.
Wyatt collapsed onto the rug in his bedroom and rolled to his back. His arms and shoulders stung, his abs ached, and his heart was thumping soundly while his lungs expanded.
Nope.
Hadn’t worked.
He could still
see the intrigued interest in Skye’s emerald eyes. His brain kept replaying the way she’d licked her lips while they stood there in the kitchen last night, that pink tongue swiping her upper lip while her breathing had gone shallow, then the way she’d bitten her lower lip while her gaze asked him to touch her. To taste her. To strip her bare and show her that she was a sexy, desirable woman.
And he was still hard as a lead pipe.
He went into a series of sit-ups, ordering himself to think about his physical fitness test coming in a few months. About the pile of paperwork he needed to tackle before his move. About his neighbor’s incontinent dog. About Nicholas tossing his cookies on the zip line ladder.
There.
That was working.
Should’ve tried that when he couldn’t get to sleep last night.
His door opened. He stopped and peered out into the hallway, dimly lit with the light of the rising sun, looking for Skye.
Nicholas poked his head in. “I’m hungry. Can we have pancakes again? You make good pancakes. Miss Skye thought so too.”
He sucked in a frustrated breath. “Let me get a shower and we’ll see.”
At least one good thing had come of this week.
He was becoming an expert in living with torture.
* * *
“Is Miss Skye coming?” Nicholas asked for the fourth time in three minutes a little later.
Wyatt sucked a breath through his nose. “I don’t think so, Nicholas,” he said more tightly than he had the last three times he’d answered.
Patience, he told himself.
Yes, he was tired. Yes, he was cranky. But it wasn’t the kid’s fault.
Nope, that honor landed squarely on his own shoulders.
He should’ve let Skye leave when she first offered.
“But she needs to eat breakfast too,” Nicholas said.
“She knows how to find breakfast in the kitchen.” Wyatt ushered him into the rental SUV. “You want a cinnamon roll at Sue Ann’s?”
“With bacon?”
With anything he wanted if it meant they could drive down this mountain without another mention of the woman who had haunted his dreams for years. “Absolutely.”
“Do you think Miss Skye likes bacon?”
“Not since she read Charlotte’s Web.”
She might’ve changed over the years, but given how much of her had stayed the same, she probably still refused to touch pork.
And he could add that to the list of things he wished he didn’t remember about her.
He settled into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine.
“Can we have another game tournament with Miss Skye today?” Nicholas asked.
It was going to be a long, long day.
* * *
Skye reached into the bag of Nilla Wafers and kept reaching. She tore her gaze from the sunrise photo she’d been editing in Photoshop to peer into the cookie box.
Empty.
Dang it.
She tossed the box onto the stack of magazines beside her on the couch and went back to the picture, mindlessly playing with filters and special effects.
Not that the image needed any improvement. The combination of deep green pines, the mountain ridges, and the brilliant blue sky were perfection matched only by her beloved, albeit shorter, Blue Ridge Mountains back home.
But since her other option for messing around with photos this morning involved looking at the pictures she’d taken of Wyatt and Nicholas on the hike, before the bee sting, she’d stick to the scenery. An old friend loved to post inspirational quote memes all over social media, so Skye usually sent her a few pictures whenever she had a chance.
Her fingers twitched on the keyboard, and a new image filled the screen, this one of Wyatt bent over on the trail, saying something to Nicholas at the start of their hike. As usual, Wyatt’s face was intense, his brows furrowed, but while all of Skye’s childhood memories would’ve insisted he would be frowning while he pointed at the green aspen leaf on the ground, his mouth wasn’t tipped down in disapproval or frustration.
He wasn’t smiling either, but he didn’t seem unhappy.
Simply focused.
As though he were entirely, completely lost in the moment.
She rubbed at the hollow spot in her chest.
She’d misread him all these years.
She’d misunderstood him all these years.
And now that she was seeing the layers to the man, she couldn’t act on them. Not without jeopardizing their friendship, his friendship with Beck, the entire dynamics of home.
Since last night, all she’d wanted was to kiss him again.
No, that wasn’t all she wanted.
That wasn’t nearly all she wanted.
Wyatt and Nicholas would be leaving here in just a few days. She’d be leaving too, to go home.
Wyatt had been right. She’d forgotten herself. But he believed in her.
The man who had always pushed her to be better believed in her.
How could she not want more of him in her life?
The door banged open, and feet pounded on the stone entryway. “Miss Skye! You’re here!”
She slid the laptop onto the cushion on her other side and smiled at him. “Hey, Nicholas. You’re looking handsome today. Is that a new shirt?”
He puffed up his chest, proudly showing off his Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures shirt. “We went hunting for souvenirs. Uncle Wyatt said I had more adventures there than most people, so I deserve this shirt.”
She barely suppressed a smile.
Four days ago, she wouldn’t have believed the man had a sense of humor.
Now, she realized she’d been the one with a stick up her butt all these years.
She owed him an apology.
And so much more.
“You absolutely deserve it,” she said to Nicholas.
Wyatt stepped into the house and shut the door. He was quiet grace in a sculpted package, and simply knowing he was back in the house made her body flush and a primitive need tug deep between her legs.
She didn’t look at him, but she felt his approach, felt his gaze, felt his hesitation.
Or was that her hesitation?
What if she wasn’t good enough for him? What if she failed him? What if he got to know her better and realized he’d wasted all that time putting her on a ridiculous pedestal?
Nicholas leaned into the arm of the couch and reached for the empty box of Nilla Wafers, but stopped himself before he touched it. “Is that dessert?”
More heat prickled her skin. “Ah, that’s empty. Did you eat lunch?”
“Everything but the plate,” he said proudly.
She swallowed. “If your Uncle Wyatt agrees, you can have some banana pudding.”
Nicholas’s nose wrinkled. “What’s banana pudding?”
“What’s—” Wyatt’s startled gaze met hers, asking a few questions she couldn’t—or didn’t want to—answer, and one she could guess at.
“Your mom’s never made you banana pudding?” she asked Nicholas.
He shook his head.
“At least she taught him manners,” Wyatt muttered.
“It’s a special dessert from back where we all grew up,” she told Nicholas. “Bananas, vanilla pudding, and Nilla Wafers, all layered with meringue on top. You’re going to love it.”
“I’m not allowed to have bananas,” Nicholas said.
Oh, jeez. Were banana allergies a thing too? “Why not?”
“I eat one bite and throw the rest of it away.”
Wyatt glanced between Nicholas and the kitchen. “Still? I thought that was just when you were little.”
Nicholas lifted one shoulder.
“You don’t like bananas?” she asked.
“Bananas and my mouth don’t get along.”
“Oh. Well, I think your Uncle Wyatt will happily take one for the team here. Let’s go see if there’s another box of cookies hiding in a cabinet somewhere.”
; Nicholas skipped ahead with all the grace of a gangly giraffe, but Wyatt tugged on her wrist when she passed him. Her pulse ricocheted through her veins at the heat in his touch.
“You didn’t have to make my favorite dessert,” he said quietly.
“I wanted to.”
He studied her with those deep blue eyes. He hadn’t shaved since he’d gotten here, and the stubble on his cheeks and chin tempted her fingers. Had those dark smudges been under his eyes yesterday?
Or had he spent the night tossing and turning, just as aware of her two floors below him as she was of him two floors above her?
She wasn’t prone to obsessing, but she seemed to have come down with a big ol’ case of it.
Wondering if he was thinking about her. If he never wanted to see her again. What he’d do if she tried to kiss him. If he found her naked in the tub again.
If she’d get over this when they all finally left Hope Falls, or if she’d continue to think about this man whom she felt as though she’d just met.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She blinked, realizing her breathing was too shallow and afraid he’d been able to read every last one of her thoughts. “Sure,” she stammered.
His chest was rising and falling rapidly too. His gaze dipped to her lips.
That ache deep between her legs pulsed. She licked her lips. He visibly swallowed and shifted his gaze over her shoulder.
And his lips parted. He squinted.
She glanced behind her.
His picture glowed on her laptop screen. “Oh! I just—I’ll get you a copy. If you want. There are a few better pictures too, but I—”
His deep blue gaze connected with hers again, and her words died on her tongue.
“Thank you,” he said again.
He let her go and turned to follow Nicholas into the kitchen.
Leaving her with one amazing, sexy, untouchable view.
She couldn’t remember his faults at the moment, but the site of his rear end in a pair of blue jeans was rapidly rising on her list of reasons she couldn’t get Wyatt Owens out of her mind.
* * *
While Wyatt grilled burgers for dinner, Skye and Nicholas giggled over a card game in the dining room. Not that he minded—their laughter was better than any music.
But not better than the sounds Skye made half an hour later when they were eating dinner. “I haven’t had a burger this good in months,” she told him. She bit into her burger again, and one of those moans came from low in her throat, making his groin twitch.
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