by Zoe Dawson
Who was he to rain on Rafferty’s parade?
He took the elevator up to his great apartment.
But he didn’t know squat about rebuilding a town. He had a degree in graphic design and business marketing. Weariness rolling over him, he turned down the hallway. Entering his bedroom, he started to strip, hanging up his suit and tie, throwing his dress shirt and underthings in the hamper. Naked, he entered the bathroom and turned on the water, immersing himself in heat and soap, his thoughts straying back to a beach on fire. He got hard. Damn that dream.
He got out and dried off, his exhausted mind whirling about all the things Rafferty had done for him. He looked in the mirror and saw that he really needed a shave, but said to hell with it. As he met his eyes, he looked away. He was being a son of a bitch.
Facing himself meant that he acknowledged that Rafferty was too important to him to blow her off like that. She had never held the fact that he was Susan’s nephew over his head. Even now, when she could have played that card, she didn’t. Feeling uncomfortable in his own skin and head, he scrubbed his hand over his face. He needed some sleep. He wasn’t thinking straight because his thoughts were headed down a really bumpy road.
Whatever did she see in that town? He was again uncomfortably reminded about his deprived history and how he had to claw and fight for everything he had. The town was so run-down and barren. All that had been missing was the tumbleweeds. How could she hope to bring that back?
It was a challenge and that was his Rafferty—all about the challenge. He shifted, thinking that the only bright spot there was, Trinity with her sizzling red hair, her don’t-mess-with-me, I-have-baggage eyes, and sweet, willowy body.
Could be married. Damn, he hoped she wasn’t. Not that it mattered. Damn get off the subject. He suspected he was going to do something crazy before all was said and done.
He towel-dried his hair and that was all the energy he had left. He walked away from the damning mirror and his own conscience, sliding in between sheets cool against his hot body. For the first few minutes, he actually thought he would get to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t shut down, his ethics like a sharp goad.
With a sigh, he sat up and ran his hands over his face and through his hair again. All those working hours and he was numb, but he was left with an unsettled feeling in his gut. A kind of soul-deep restlessness.
He ached and he was determined to chalk it up to sitting for too many hours in an upright position.
He didn’t spend the night in his bedroom. There was something a little too disturbing, a little too solitary, about his empty, king-size bed, and he’d finally moved out to the living room after slipping on a pair of cotton shorts. He told himself it was so he could work some more.
He had fallen asleep on one of the sofas, then awoke when it was dark to his black computer screen again. Still nothing on the ad campaign happening. He groaned, his neck feeling as if he’d suffered whiplash. He figured it probably served him right.
Reaching over, he snagged his cell, sighing in resignation. She meant more to him than his own family because Rafferty, Ross, and Susan were his family now.
“When are you flying in?” she said with a knowing lilt to her voice.
He laughed. “I’ll be out on the next plane I can get.”
“I can’t wait,” she said.
“Me either,” he replied as he set his cell down and made a mental note to research town revitalization.
He rose and paced to the window. That sexy dream implanted on the back of his eyes, a sea of fire and a woman he barely knew, but from the moment he saw her, it was all he could think about.
Back to Laurel Falls.
Why did a dilapidated, barely surviving small town feel so dangerous?
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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