Come Home to Deep River

by Jackie Ashenden

  Sandy was lovely, but she did like to talk, and Hope had a few more important things to do right now.

  Someone rapped hard on her office door. “Hope?” It was Axel. She’d roped him into bar duty tonight, since it was a madhouse out there and she really wanted to get started on her idea and didn’t want to be disturbed. “Where’s that cranberry shit you put in cocktails?”

  Yet here she was, being disturbed.

  Crap. If you wanted something done properly, you had to do it yourself.

  She supposed she could have told Axel that the “cranberry shit” was on the bottom shelf, probably shoved behind the dusty bottles of liqueurs that no one drank, but since she was now distracted, she might as well get it.

  She pushed herself out of her chair and stalked over to the door, pulling it open and stepping out into the main bar area. The noise hit her harder than it normally did, mainly because the place was packed, far more than usual.

  People wanting to talk about Caleb and the oil, she guessed, and of course the Moose was one of the natural places in the evening where people could come together and talk about it.

  She had to say, though, she’d thought the atmosphere would be a lot more antagonistic, yet there was almost a kind of…excitement in the air. Was that just the thought of money? Or was it something else?

  Moving over to the bar, she ducked behind it to find the cranberry juice, grabbing the bottle and rising up to put it on the bar. And then she caught a glimpse of a tall, broad figure in among the crowd.

  Silas.

  He was leaning on one of the tables, talking to Mike Flint and a couple of Mike’s fishing pals, and he was smiling, laughing with them as if Mike hadn’t made a point of saying the money would be nice at the meeting the night before.

  The mood of the table seemed jovial, and then Silas pushed himself away, obviously excusing himself before moving on to another table and joining the conversation there.

  What the hell was he doing?

  Reconnaissance, a small part of her brain said. He’s doing reconnaissance.

  Because of course he was. He was ex-military and getting the lay of the land was probably the first thing a military person did when dealing with a situation.

  Hope leaned her elbows on the bar, watching him as he moved over to yet another table, smiling at the group of women, Sandy included. They all melted visibly under the power of that smile, and Hope felt very bad-tempered all of a sudden.

  Si’s smiles had once been rare and precious, and every time he’d smiled at her, she’d felt like she been handed a diamond for safekeeping. Yet now, he was throwing that smile around to all and sundry, as if he had plenty to waste on people who didn’t appreciate them like she did.

  Surely you’re not jealous?

  No, she wasn’t jealous. She didn’t care that he was smiling and talking to those women. And she didn’t care that those women were looking at him like he was the second coming, one of them even going so far as to put her hand on his arm as if she knew him. As if she had the right—

  Hope pulled her thoughts to a screaming halt before they could get any more out of hand than they already were. Silas wasn’t her boyfriend. Hell, he wasn’t even her friend these days, so she didn’t have any right getting jealous. They’d shared one kiss, and yes, she was still trying not to think about that, but one kiss didn’t make a marriage. Or even a long-standing relationship. It didn’t even mean friends becoming lovers to share a few nights of casual sex.

  Heat washed through her at that thought, and she shifted uncomfortably, trying to ignore the way her mouth had suddenly become sensitized, memories of the kiss they’d shared hitting her once more.

  She’d had kisses before, from various men whom she’d found kind of interesting. But there had always been something wrong with them that had prevented her from taking it any further. They weren’t tall enough. Had blond hair instead of dark. Their eyes were the wrong color, or their smiles didn’t feel like precious gifts. They didn’t look at her with enough longing, as if she was the most important thing in the world to them.

  Yeah, you’ve told yourself a lot of lies over the years, haven’t you?

  She had. And the biggest lie of all was that she’d always preferred Caleb. That it was him she’d wanted. There had been a single moment between her and Cal, when she could have kissed him. It had been one night on the Wests’ big porch, after Si had gone to deal with his father, and they’d been talking. And she’d had the impression that Cal wouldn’t have minded if she’d kissed him. But for some reason she hadn’t. She’d held back.

  It wasn’t Cal you wanted and you know it.

  Of course it wasn’t. It never had been. She’d even mentioned as much to Silas the night before. But she’d never really admitted it to herself. Not fully. Never let herself think about it either, and yet…

  Yeah, she was thinking about it now. Thinking about that kiss he’d given her and how he’d taken charge of it, his hands in her hair, holding on, kissing her deeply, demanding a response. And she’d given it. In fact, she’d been desperate for more, which was when he’d pulled away. “That’s why,” he’d said, letting her know in no uncertain terms that kissing him would do the opposite of distancing him.

  Maybe you don’t want distance after all.

  The thought was searing, too bright to look at, and she had to wrench her gaze away from him, her lungs suddenly feeling like they couldn’t get enough air.

  “That the cranberry stuff?” Axel muttered from beside her, reaching for the bottle.

  “Yes,” she said, barely paying any attention to what she was saying, conscious still of that woman’s hand on Silas’s arm—Jenny Anderson, one of Kevin Anderson’s daughters, who’d always had an eye for a good-looking man—and how she wanted to go over there and pull that hand away.

  Crazy. Admitting to herself that she was attracted to the man who’d once been her best friend and that she might be a bit jealous was one thing, but going over there and laying some kind of claim on him was quite another.

  Anyway, he’d been the one to end that kiss, not to mention walk away. He might be interested in her, but he was clearly not interested in taking it any further. Which was good. She didn’t want to go there either, not with all this stuff happening in Deep River, not to mention him still planning on leaving.

  Just at that moment, Silas lifted his head, his gaze clashing with hers. And she felt the jolt of electricity go through her like she’d wrapped her fingers around a live wire. Her mouth dried, her lungs trying and failing to find air.

  Something gleamed deep in his eyes, and he kept on looking at her as if there were no one else in this bar. As if she were the only person in this whole damn town.

  Walk away. You have to.

  Hope wrenched her gaze away and turned, walking quickly back to her office, barely conscious of what she was doing, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Axel said something to her, but she ignored it, retreating into the safety of the office and closing the door.

  The noise from the bar was cut off, the silence of her familiar space watched over only by Steve the stag’s calm glass eyes.

  She put her hands on the wood of the door and took a couple of breaths, trying to get her heart rate under control again.

  Well, this was going to be a fun couple of weeks if she had this reaction every time Silas happened to make eye contact with her. She was either going to have to avoid him completely or else…

  Throw caution to the winds and see what happens if you kiss him again?

  Uh, no. He’d already given her a taste of what would happen, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t stop a second time—and that she wouldn’t want him to.

  That wouldn’t be all bad, come on.

  No. And if it had been a purely physical thing, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But as she’d already noted, it would never be pure
ly physical with Silas. They had a history, and it wasn’t a comfortable one. A history that sex had the potential to exacerbate and not in a fun way.

  Forcing those particular thoughts out of her head, Hope stepped away from the door and went back over to her desk, sitting down in the chair again. She glanced at the bottom drawer, where she kept Harry’s firewater. Wouldn’t hurt to have a shot or two, surely? God knew she needed it.

  She had her hand on the handle, ready to pull out the drawer, when there was another knock on her door. Not Axel this time, she didn’t think. The knock was firm but not quite the full-on hammering that Axel usually gave it.

  And then she was certain it wasn’t Axel, because the door opened before she could say anything and Silas walked in.

  Her cheeks got hot, which was just plain stupid. “What the hell, Silas?” she demanded, instantly on the offensive. “I didn’t say you could come in.”

  “I knocked,” he said, as if that was explanation enough, before shutting the door firmly behind him.

  “My complaint still stands.” She knew she sounded graceless and grumpy, and wished she didn’t. Because it gave away far too much. But it was too late to adjust her tone now. “What do you want, anyway?”

  “To talk to you. What does it look like?” He came over to her desk as if he had every right to avail himself of her furniture whenever he liked, propping himself on the desktop and folding his powerful arms over his chest.

  He was much too close, one hard, denim-clad thigh near to where she sat, making her very aware that because she was sitting down, he loomed over her. And it was very disturbing to realize that she kind of liked that he did, that it made a strange excitement pool in the pit of her stomach.

  “About what?” She pushed her chair back to give her a chance to look at him properly, definitely not to put some distance between them.

  God, if he wanted to talk about that moment just before in the bar, she’d get up and walk out. She didn’t want to know whether or not he’d seen the jealousy she’d been feeling in that moment, and she definitely didn’t want him to ask her about it.

  His stare gleamed gold beneath his thick, black lashes, and she knew that, yes, he’d almost certainly seen her jealousy. And that he’d noted her moving her chair away just now too.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  So? Why are you letting him get to you? You’ve been dealing with aggravating men for years in the Moose. This is just one more, right?

  That thought made something harden inside her, and she leaned back in her chair, lifting her chin, meeting him stare for stare. No, she wasn’t going to let him get to her, not the way he had been. So he was hot. So he made her heart race. So what? She could handle it. She could deal.

  “Come on,” she said when he remained silent. “The suspense is killing me.”

  The gold in his eyes glowed brighter. “Just so you know, I’m not planning on kissing you again, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Another jolt of shock arrowed down her spine. “As difficult as it might be for you to believe, I wasn’t actually thinking that,” she said with as much cool as she could muster.

  He raised one dark brow. “You weren’t? Not even out there? While I was talking to Jenny?”

  Oh, dammit. The asshole.

  More heat was beginning to rise in her cheeks yet again, and her earlier urge to get up and walk out was starting to look real good. But that would be to admit she couldn’t handle him, and there was no way she was doing that.

  “So, is this what you want to talk about?” she shot back. “That kiss?”

  He didn’t even blink. “We need a plan on going forward, Hope. Because we need to work together to handle this oil situation, and that’ll be difficult if we keep avoiding each other.”

  “I wasn’t avoiding you,” she lied. “I’ve just been busy all day. And anyway, we don’t need to work together. You said you’d remain here as a support, which doesn’t indicate ‘working.’”

  “If you’re going to be the town’s eventual owner, then yeah, hate to break it to you, but that’ll involve working with me, since I’ll be the one signing it over to you.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask you to sign it over to me. You decided that all on your own.”

  Silas opened his mouth, shut it again. Then quite suddenly, he leaned forward and grabbed the arms of her chair, jerking it close. And Hope found herself sitting caged in the chair, his powerful arms on either side of her, his handsome face right in front of her, the gold in his eyes leaping high like a fire, eclipsing all the green. “Will you stop fighting me for just one damn minute?” he said in a low, intense voice. “This situation is too important to waste time bickering.”

  She barely heard what he was saying, her heartbeat racing yet again, and it was difficult to concentrate on the words because all she was conscious of was his nearness. The heat of his big body so close, the strength in his arms apparent in the flex of his biceps and the iron grip he had on her chair. The gleam in his eyes fascinated her, like sunlight on the river, or a seam of gold glowing at the bottom of the riverbed. He was angry, she could see that, and yet, just like her own anger, it wasn’t really about her fighting him. About him staying when she didn’t want him to or even how he’d left years ago.

  It was about the fact that there was this attraction between them, an attraction that neither of them had expected and yet was there all the same, and they didn’t know how to deal with it. And fundamentally, it was unimportant when faced with the larger issues the town was dealing with.

  Silas was right, though. They had to find some way of handling it one way or another, so they could concentrate on figuring out what to do about the situation Deep River found itself in. And that only left them with two choices: they could either work this out by ignoring it, or…

  Or they could work it out in bed.

  Weren’t you not going to do that?

  Yeah, she was. But sitting here now, with him so close, the warm, familiar scent of him clouding her brain, she couldn’t quite remember her reasons for not doing it or why they were so pressing.

  “You’re right.” Her voice sounded thick and husky. “We need to deal with this.” And before she’d fully thought through the consequences, her hands lifted almost of their own accord and came to rest on his where they gripped the arms of her chair.

  Then, holding his gaze, she curved her fingers around his wrists and slid her palms up the undersides of his forearms, spreading her fingertips out and sweeping them across his smooth skin. “I guess it just depends on what you mean by dealing?”

  * * *

  There was no doubting the deliberation with which Hope touched him, her hands sliding up over his elbows, her fingers brushing his biceps as if caressing him.

  Hell, there was no “as if” about it. That’s exactly what she was doing.

  In a dark, forgotten corner of his brain, a warning siren went off, but he couldn’t concentrate on it. Not when every rational thought had been wiped out the second her palms had come to rest over his hands.

  He shouldn’t have lost patience, because that’s what had happened. She’d done that challenging thing, lifting her chin, her dark eyes full of anger, and he’d abruptly had enough, leaning forward and jerking her chair toward him. Intending nothing more than to tell her to stop being such a damn nuisance, since he didn’t have the time for it and neither did the town.

  And then she’d touched him.

  And everything he intended to say had gone right out of his head.

  It felt like she was searing his skin with her touch, leaving scorch marks, making his body harden with every brush of her fingertips.

  God, did she know what she was doing to him? Did she even understand? He’d thought that kissing her the way he had the night before had made clear that her pushing him by using their attraction was a very bad idea. But maybe he h
adn’t been clear enough.

  Except, what she’d said about dealing with it…

  He tried to keep himself very still, because if he moved, it would be to take her in his arms and he couldn’t do that. He’d told himself he wouldn’t.

  “I think,” he said, his voice gravely and rough, “you need to be very clear about what you mean. And when I say clear, Hope, I mean crystal goddamn clear.”

  Her gaze on him had darkened even further and she didn’t snatch her hands away; she only swept her fingers over his skin again, obviously continuing to have no idea about how that touch affected him. “What do you think I mean? You’re right, the situation with the town is too important to waste time in fighting over nothing. But we’re not fighting over nothing, are we?”

  They weren’t. There was no denying the attraction between them, and it burned hot and deep, and if nothing else, that kiss had certainly proved how hot.

  He stared down into her lovely, angular face, his body getting even harder as her fingers stroked his skin. “You want me. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  The color in her cheeks was a deep and pretty red, making her eyes look blacker than the night sky. “And if I do? If that’s the issue, how do you want us to handle it?”

  Of course she wanted him, and that kiss they’d shared had only confirmed it. And it made the heat inside him burn hotter, brighter.

  He tightened his grip on the chair, conscious of how close she was. Of how her red flannel shirt pulled tight across her full breasts and how the worn denim of her jeans accentuated the graceful flare of her waist and rounded thighs. Of how fast the pulse at the base of her throat was beating. Of how sweet she smelled.

  Of how much he wanted her and always had, right from the very first moment he’d realized that he wasn’t a child any longer and neither was she.

  “Say it,” he almost growled, because he was sick of her pussyfooting around the subject. “I want to hear you say it. To my face.”