Spring River Valley: The Winter Collection (Boxed Set)

by Wynter, Clarice

  Local Hero Begs Gorgeous Nurse for Second Chance.

  Audrey squinted and looked around. Had she read that right?

  She grabbed the bag and slid the paper out of it. The front page contained the outrageous headline, plus a huge photo of Max holding a bouquet of flowers. The article under the picture was by Chad Marchand, and it read: “Photographer Max Shannon met a girl two weeks ago who shook the very foundation of his world. Unfortunately she won’t go out with him again because she thinks he’s a smart-ass and an axe murderer. So he asked his new friend, Herald reporter Chad Marchand to make a mock-up front page for him in which he declares his devotion and determination to put a smile on the face of the incomparably lovely Audrey Desmond.”

  The next line read: “Call me.”

  The rest of the article was gibberish, at least Audrey thought it was, but she couldn’t be sure. With her heart racing and her eyes a bit cloudy from welling tears, she couldn’t read a thing. She dumped her purse on the couch and fished her cell phone out of the flotsam. “Oh, come on…” Her fingers shook as she scrolled through her call list to find his number since she’d deliberately not put it into her contact list. “Come on…there!” She hit dial and waited. And waited. Damn him, was he playing hard to get now?

  “Hello?” The sound of his voice sent a wave of something through her. She had to sit down.

  “Finally! I thought you’d never answer.”

  “Sorry. I’m in my car.”

  “Oh. Call me back if you’re driving.”

  “Okay.” He hung up, and Audrey just stared at the phone. “What the hell? What am I doing?” A second later her phone rang. “Hello?”

  “I parked. What’s up?”

  “What’s up? I got your…note.”

  “What note?”

  “The newspaper! It’s…ah…pretty damn amazing.”

  “Oh…well. Chad said he owed me a favor. He’s pretty good with words, don’t you think?”

  “Yes…I do.”

  “Well. I gotta go. I’m meeting someone. I’ll call you later.”

  “What…oh…uh…”

  “Bye.” He hung up again. Audrey let out a very long, slow breath. The slow simmer had begun. This was all a joke to him, wasn’t it? He was putting her on once again. Just as she wound up to throw her phone across the room, her doorbell rang. She flung the door open, and there stood Max with the same bouquet of flowers he was holding in the picture on the paper.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” he said. “I was on the phone.”

  She gaped at him. He was insane. Completely out of his mind. “Get in here.” She grabbed the front of his coat and yanked him over the threshold into her arms, crushing the flowers in between them as she kissed him.

  “Hey, easy there…some of these roses have thorns.” He broke the kiss for a second and eased the now crushed flowers out from between them, then he tossed them on the couch. “That’s better—”

  Audrey kissed him again, her pulse pounding and her heart doing somersaults. Why was it every time she laid eyes on this man she couldn’t think straight? “This was the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me,” she said, working at the zipper of his coat. She had him out of it in a second and slid her fingers under the hem of his shirt.

  He moaned and kissed her lips, her nose, her jaw while he muttered, “Chad’s a pretty romantic guy.”

  Audrey pulled back. “Should I be kissing him then?”

  “Never.” He lowered his hands to her backside and squeezed.

  Audrey’s knees almost buckled. If she didn’t have him soon, she’d go insane. “You’re pretty lucky this worked. I might have thought it was creepy. Were you waiting outside for me to get home?”

  “I called the hospital earlier and asked when your shift ended…ah…oh…do that again.” She’d tucked her fingers into his waistband and tugged on the edge of his briefs. He wrapped his arms around her and guided her toward the couch, which was full of the contents of her purse and broken flowers.

  “Bedroom. This way. I hope you’re up for some very physically demanding activity.”

  “I am up. I am definitely up.”

  “Wait a minute, the hospital told you what time my shift ended?”

  “No.”

  “But you just said…”

  “They told me they didn’t give out that information, so I called Taverna Fiora and talked to Grant who gave me Harper’s number, and I called her and she told me when your shift ended.”

  “Wow.” Audrey’s swirling thoughts suspended for a second as she pulled Max over the threshold of her bedroom. She paused to pull the top of her scrubs over her head. Oh, God, I’m wearing scrubs! I haven’t showered in sixteen hours! “I smell like a hospital,” she whispered while she helped him open his belt.

  “You smell like crushed roses.”

  He pulled his own shirt off, and she nearly swooned. The perfect abs led up to perfect pecs and those edible biceps of his. She brushed her fingers over his nipples and watched them harden.

  “You’re perfect,” she said.

  He planted at kiss at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder and caught her when her knees gave way. “Save the critique for after. I can top perfect, trust me.”

  “In the nightstand…condoms…” she whispered as she pulled him toward the bed and fell onto it, him atop her. He scooted her body closer to the pillows and settled over her.

  “Good to know, but there’s no rush. I plan to take all night.”

  Oh, God. Her whole body tingled. All night. The adrenaline pumping through her right now would definitely keep her awake until something else was pumping through her. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him with everything she had. “Take me all night.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, if you keep talking like that, I won’t last all night.”

  She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched her back. He sighed, a gruff, feral sound, and started to explore beneath the edges of her bra.

  “I’m…I just want you to know…”

  “What?” He kissed her neck, her throat, covered one breast with his hand, and thumbed her nipple until she whimpered.

  “I’ve been on duty for twelve hours. I’m…a little…oh…oh…Max!” He’d slipped his hand into her pants and found the edge of her panties. When his fingers dipped below that line, she lost her train of thought.

  “You’re a little what?” He met her gaze, and he was the serious, concerned Max whose voice, whose hands, whose whole body turned her insides to liquid.

  “Ah…tired, so I might not…you know…”

  “Do you want to stop?”

  “God no! If you stop, I’ll get my axe.”

  “You want me to do all the work?”

  “No…well…ah…you are doing a pretty good job of…” He found her center and delved in, testing the waters so to speak. She bit her lip and moaned.

  “It’s okay. Lie back and let me handle everything.” To punctuate his words, he handled her…and handled her expertly. “Are you afraid you’re too tired to get to the finish line? Because I know the route.”

  Audrey’s eyes rolled back, and every nerve in her body went taut. She had absolutely no doubt he could get her where she wanted to go, but would she be just as skillful when she’d been dead on her feet less than half an hour ago? What if tired Audrey didn’t live up to Max’s expectations? “I…I…oh…you do know the way there, don’t you?” Her hips bucked of their own accord, and he slid into her, one bold finger taking her to the edge of reason.

  “That’s it…move with me.” She did, her mind a blur.

  “I just…I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  “Make that little sound again…that whimper you made when I touched you.”

  She obliged him and shuddered as a feeling she hadn’t experienced in way too long began to build in the middle of her belly. “Oh, Max…”

  “You can’t disappoint me. If you keep making that sound, you keep moving the way you’re movi
ng, you keep feeling the way you feel to me…”

  “Max!” That did it. She was gone, over the edge, shivering and shaking, crying out as she came.

  He held her steady, easing her over each wave until she lay panting, done, a puddle of satisfaction under his hands.

  “That was perfect. That was just what I wanted,” he said into her ear.

  She nodded. It was just what she wanted too. To start with. “Is there more?” she managed to ask.

  He laughed and rose up to remove his jeans. “There’s plenty more. Are you ready for it?”

  “I’m ready for anything.”

  Chapter Ten

  Max lost himself in Audrey. Up until the moment he held her naked in his arms, he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted her. She’d been a challenge, someone who turned him on and made him want to prove himself. The moment he pulled the covers of her bed up over their entwined bodies and held her while she shuddered through her third orgasm, he knew this was much more than a romantic distraction.

  She lay half asleep next to him now, her hand across his chest, her hair fanning out on the pillow, her lips plump and red from kissing.

  She was more than he’d ever asked for, and he had to wonder if how he felt in this moment might be more than he could handle.

  He wasn’t the commitment type, never had been, but this woman in his arms, wrapped around his sated body, breathing in sync with him, demanded more than he might be able to give. He never wanted to disappoint her.

  She stirred, and he stroked her skin, watching the goose bumps rise along her shoulder and travel down to more interesting curves. “Stop that,” she moaned. “I’m too tired to move.”

  “Then don’t move.”

  “But I’ve been practically limp since we fell into bed. You’ve done…everything.”

  “Twice. I’ve done everything twice.”

  “So I should do something.”

  “You should. It’s practically expected of you.” He shifted his body so he was lying on his back and locked his fingers behind his head. “I’m all yours. Do what you will.”

  She lifted her head then collapsed back on his chest. “I can’t. You’ve exhausted me.”

  “That was my plan all along.”

  “So that was your plan, not to seduce me, not to keep me quiet long enough for me to realize I sort of like you…all you wanted was to just wear me out?”

  “Yes. Wait a minute, you sort of like me?”

  She wove her fingers together and rested her chin atop them. “You have to admit, you’re an acquired taste. I’ve made it all the way to ‘sort of like’ in record time.”

  “So what will it take to get you to the next level?”

  “That depends. What comes after sort of like?”

  He growled and rolled her underneath him. “You do.”

  She protested only half-heartedly, and not long after he had demonstrated what came after sort of like and what came after her, they lay sated again.

  “No more. My muscles don’t work anymore.”

  “You call those muscles?” He squeezed her feminine biceps. “These are like wet spaghetti. No wonder you’re down for the count. We need to work on strength training and build up some resistance.”

  She grinned and met his gaze. “Haven’t you figured it out by now? I can’t resist you. You’re irresistible.”

  He contemplated that. “You’re right. I am. I’m also starving.”

  “What time is it?” Slowly, she crawled over him, reminding him he still had a bit of strength left. He let his hands roam while she felt around on her nightstand for the clock. Squinting in the darkness she said, “It’s after midnight. You know what that means?”

  “My coach turns into a pumpkin, and you’re going to have to run all over town searching for me with a glass Reebok?”

  “No…ugh.” She heaved the clock back onto the little table and rolled off him to snuggle under the covers. “It means this is Valentine’s Day.”

  “No kidding? Best one I’ve ever had.”

  “Me too.”

  “Do you have any plans for later?”

  She stretched next to him, making sure her luxurious curves rubbed against all of his hard angles. “I was going to eat ice cream and watch sad movies.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “That’s a plan for a single girl with no date.”

  “Okay, we could eat hoagies and watch football.”

  “Isn’t that the plan for a single guy with no date?”

  “We can add ice cream and cry over the half time score.”

  “Already this isn’t working out.”

  Max laughed and wrapped his arms around her. “Other than the need to eat, what’s wrong with spending the day right here?”

  “That sounds like a plan. I don’t have to be at the hospital until the fifteenth.”

  “That leaves us back to eating.”

  “You’re the cook. Think of something.”

  He bit her shoulder, and she shrieked. “Problem solved.”

  * * * *

  Audrey kissed Max good-bye almost twenty hours later. They’d spent the day making love in the bedroom, making a mess of French toast and pancakes in the kitchen, and making plans for the rest of the week. She’d had to keep asking herself how the guy she’d wanted to avoid two days ago had turned into the man she wondered how she’d ever lived without.

  His touch, his kiss, everything about him set her on fire. She’d spent so many hours on the brink of melting or shivering she was sure her body had gone into shock. When he finally stepped out the door, so she could get some real sleep and prepare for her next shift at the hospital, her apartment seemed empty.

  Sipping tea after a long, hot bath, she finally checked her phone messages. Harper had called three times, Cassandra twice.

  Uh-oh. Cassandra. She’d asked Max’s cousin to set her up with John, Appendix Guy, again. What if she’d gone ahead and done that? It was past ten p.m., so Audrey didn’t want to call her now. She wrote a note and stuck it to the refrigerator to remind her to call first thing in the morning.

  Before she left the kitchen, her phone rang and she scooped it up. It was Max.

  “I just got home, wanted to hear your voice.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time. I miss you.”

  “I can come back.”

  “I need to sleep,” she moaned. She wanted him to come back, but how would she ever drag herself out of bed to go to work?

  “I could promise not to touch you for a couple of hours.”

  “Don’t ever do that.”

  “Good night, Audrey.”

  “Good night, Max.” She twirled around her kitchen feeling a bit like Cinderella herself. She wondered how things would have gone between them if they’d met at Harper’s wedding, like they would have if the event hadn’t been called off. Max would have been the photographer and Audrey the maid of honor. How weird would that have been? Maybe it was fate after all—events had transpired to keep them apart just a few weeks longer, but they’d been thrown together anyway at just the right time. Audrey had never been sentimental or believed in destiny, but this seemed pretty damned close to it.

  Now all she had to do was not screw it up.

  * * * *

  “I don’t know whether to give you the point or not,” Max said, balancing his studio phone on his shoulder while he spoke. He was rearranging the props in the portrait room for his client while he talked to Cassie.

  “The point for what?”

  “Fixing up me and Audrey. You technically didn’t pick me for her, but you still got us together, so I can’t decide if it’s a point for your matchmaking skills or not.”

  “You and Audrey? I thought that was over.”

  “Over? It never got started. Well, not until yesterday.”

  His cousin made an exasperated sound. “Why am I always out of the loop? When did this happen?”

  “We spent all day yesterday together. Yes, Valentin
e’s Day, but don’t make a big deal out of that. We’re not. When I say all day, I mean starting on the thirteenth.”

  “Wow.”

  “Didn’t she call you? I thought women told each other everything immediately.”

  “I haven’t heard from her, which is odd since as far as I know, she still has a date with John tomorrow night.”

  Max set down the overstuffed teddy bear he’d been trying to pose on a petite rocking chair. “Why would she still have a date with him?”

  “She asked me to set her up with him ag…ain.” Cassie’s voice hitched as though halfway through the sentence she realized she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

  Max straightened his back and gripped the phone tightly. “When did she set this up?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Yes, actually it is.” Audrey hadn’t mentioned John to him. Was she hedging her bets?

  “No, it’s not. Look, I’m sure she forgot about it. She’d called me the other day all rattled and said she still wanted to meet John because…”

  “Because why?”

  “Because she thought he sounded perfect for her.”

  “Nice.”

  “Max, that was obviously before you and her got together. Whatever happened between you definitely supersedes her wanting to go on a date with John.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.” But it irked him, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Had she left his apartment the other day after they’d kissed and immediately asked Cassie to fix her up with another guy?

  “I’m going to call her right now and straighten this out. I’m sure she doesn’t want to go ahead with the date.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Cass.”

  “Max, let me—”

  “I said, I’ll take care of it. Don’t do anything until I call you back.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hold still!” Audrey placed both hands on the sides of Quinn Preston’s head and forced him to look at her.