Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing)

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Lucy had agreed to stay until that weekend so she didn’t have to miss the wedding, which was one more thing she wasn’t sure how she would endure.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with the assignments other than to hand them out,” Genevieve protested now. “Claire McKnight and Charlotte figured out all the details this year.”

  Charlotte. She should have known.

  “Is there a problem?” Gen asked innocently. “You and Brendan are friends, right?”

  Right. Friends who happened to ignite whenever they found themselves in the same room.

  “It’s going to be fun,” Genevieve said. “In fact, maybe I’ll trade you. I would much rather be outside enjoying this beautiful June day than spending all day decorating for the gala.”

  Under other circumstances, she might have been thrilled at the chance to spend the day in the mountains. Her time in Hope’s Crossing was giving her a definite appreciation for the Colorado landscape.

  Being assigned to work in the mountains all day with the man she had been doing her best to avoid was a different matter.

  “What will we have to do?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know. Cut back the overgrown branches, pick up litter. That sort of thing. It shouldn’t be too hard,” Genevieve said. “It’s really beautiful up there. Dylan and I were just up there the other day walking with Tucker. It’s not very steep, and once you reach the overlook, you have some great views down into the valley, almost as good as the Woodrose Mountain trail. It’s a shame more people don’t use it.”

  “It sounds lovely.”

  “I do think you’ll enjoy spending the day there. But we can switch things around if you would rather not tackle that assignment. I’m sure we can find someone else to help Brendan. The whole point of the Giving Hope day is to have fun helping each other. You shouldn’t be stuck doing something you would rather not.”

  She didn’t know how to tell Genevieve the problem wasn’t the assignment itself but the person who was to share it with her.

  Anything she said now would sound ridiculous. She would just have to deal. They were assigned a mile section of trail. She could see no reason they had to work cheek to jowl. She probably wouldn’t even see him all day.

  “No. I don’t need a new assignment. It should be fine.” She spoke the words so stiffly it made her jaw ache a little.

  “Oh, perfect. And look. Here’s Brendan now. Maybe you can ride to the trailhead together!”

  She really liked Genevieve and considered her a good friend and a fantastic decorator. But in that moment, she wanted to pick up one of those water bottles they were handing out to the volunteers and dump the whole thing on the other woman’s perfectly styled hair.

  Apparently she hadn’t completely shed her juvenile delinquent ways.

  She could do this. Lucy manufactured a polite smile from somewhere and turned to face him for the first time in two weeks.

  “Hi,” she said, hating that her voice came out breathless and a little squeaky.

  Something flared in his eyes when their gazes met. “Morning,” he murmured, his voice rough and a little raspy.

  Her insides seemed to shiver. Those furtive little schoolgirl glances she stole as he was driving home on the occasional morning hadn’t prepared her to remember how gorgeous he was—big, tough, muscular, especially in a T-shirt that molded to his pecs and low-slung cargo pants.

  Amazingly, Genevieve looked wholly unaffected by so much in-your-face masculinity.

  The woman had to be crazy.

  “Hey, Bren.” His sister-in-law-to-be beamed at him. “No kids today?”

  “No. Each class at their school is working on a project together. Faith’s class is sorting donated books at the library, and Carter is on playground cleanup duty.”

  “Oh, that’s right. The teachers have been working closely with the Giving Hope committee this year to make sure the elementary school children are involved.”

  “That seems like a great idea,” Lucy said, grateful she sounded a little less flustered now. “The earlier they learn to help others, the better.”

  “That’s the idea,” Genevieve said.

  “I should probably get going,” Brendan said. “Where’s the rest of my crew?”

  Gen pointed to Lucy with a wide smile. “You’re looking at her.”

  Dismay spread across his features for just a moment before he returned them to a stoic mask. “Seriously?”

  “You two are going to have so much fun,” Genevieve said. “I don’t know what supplies you brought, but if you think of anything else you might need, Chief McKnight and Brodie Thorne are handing out tools in the parking lot.”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw—the same jaw she had pressed her mouth to a few weeks ago.

  “Do you have gloves?” he asked.

  She held out her flowered cotton gardening gloves. “Will these do?”

  He snorted. “Sure, if we were picking petunias. Since we’re not, you’re going to need a heavy-duty pair. I’ll stop at the fire station and pick some up for you. If I can find a small enough pair for you.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “You want a lift to the trailhead?”

  Reluctance filtered through the question. He obviously didn’t seem any more eager to spend time together in an enclosed space than she was.

  “I’ll meet you there, just in case you’re called out on a fire or something and have to leave early.”

  “Smart,” he said, and she tried not to be hurt at the relief she saw in his eyes.

  That was her. Smart Lucy Drake, who was a braniac in just about every aspect of her life—except when it came to protecting her heart.

  * * *

  IF HE HOPED the hard physical labor of cleaning up a trail would distract him from the simmering hunger for Lucy, he was doomed to disappointment.

  Two hours after they started work on the Wild Iris Ridge trail, Brendan’s mood still hadn’t improved.

  She was a hard, hard woman to ignore.

  He thought he had a system figured out by sending her ahead to pick up trash along the trail—the occasional cigarette butt or water bottle left over from last summer’s hiking season—while he focused on clearing the deadfall branches that blocked the path.

  Out of sight should have meant out of mind, but he still couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her, wondering about her, worrying about her.

  He should have figured his plan wouldn’t work, after the past two weeks. He hadn’t seen her once in that time but every single day he had to fight the fierce temptation to go up to Iris House.

  The kids hadn’t stopped nagging him about it. They were getting a little tired of his excuses and Faith had even asked him if he and Lucy had had a fight.

  He had made up some kind of answer to her about how they were all really busy right now. It wasn’t a lie. His life was a constant juggling act. Homework, shopping, school pickup, not to mention his actual job as fire chief responsible for fifty volunteer firefighters and EMTs.

  As the kids wrapped up their school year, he had the added fun of trying to figure out day care for the summer and making sure they were enrolled in art camps, baseball clinics, the horseback riding lessons Faith had been begging to take.

  He didn’t find it very amusing that while all those things might fill every waking hour he still managed to fit in plenty of time to wonder about Lucy and miss her like hell.

  He could have found a chance to see her. A few times late at night, he had been sitting on his favorite chair on the porch and could see the flutter of a curtain or lights going off in one room and on in another up at Iris House.

  Was she having the same trouble sleeping as he was?

  He could have seen her anytime these past two weeks but he had decided it wouldn’t be wise
.

  He lost his head when he was with her. That night in Pop’s kitchen, he had been so hungry for her, he would have taken her right there against the cabinets if she hadn’t forced him to come to his senses.

  He hadn’t thought for a second about the fact that anybody could have walked in on them. She had been the one doing the thinking for both of them.

  Afterward, he had sat out on the patio with his gut a tangled knot of emotions as he watched her with Aidan or talking to his sisters or smiling at Pop.

  After two years, he had just begun to feel as if he had found steady footing again. The kids were doing well, he was coping. The battle had been hard-fought and bloody, but they had all emerged to an okay place.

  How could he let Lucy into their lives to shake everything up again?

  He didn’t want this. The vulnerability. The need.

  She would be leaving Hope’s Crossing eventually. He just figured it was better for all of them if he did his best to keep her at arm’s length until she finally took off.

  So much for that grand plan. It was a little tough to keep a person at a distance when he was forced by circumstances—or meddling friends and relations, he wasn’t sure which—to spend several hours alone with her in the backcountry.

  He finished running his chainsaw through a deadfall tree that blocked the trail and tossed the cut logs into the thick undergrowth beside it just as Lucy headed toward him through the trail carrying another bag of trash to the four-wheeler.

  She looked fresh and beautiful and young out here with the sun on her face and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wanted to yank off her gloves, pull off those sunglasses and tangle his mouth with hers for about three or four hours.

  How was he going to get through this? And why couldn’t she have been assigned to some other project today?

  Lucy hefted the bag into the wagon hooked up to the four-wheeler. “I went all the way up to the overlook and back. That’s as far as we were supposed to go, right?”

  “Yes. Beyond that, it’s the U.S. Forest Service’s responsibility.”

  “That’s three bags of garbage in only a mile of trail. I had no idea the hikers of Hope’s Crossing were such slobs.”

  “It’s been a few years since this area has had attention,” he said tersely. “Hope’s Crossing has a large trail system. It’s impossible to clean every inch of it annually.”

  “Well, I cleaned every inch of this one this year. What can I do now?”

  Leave me alone. Take your curls and your green eyes and that delicious mouth and just head back down the mountain.

  “Hydrate. Take a break. Your water bottle is still on the four-wheeler.”

  “Are you taking a break?” she asked.

  He knew he shouldn’t. What he ought to do was send her back down to Hope’s Crossing but he was weak when it came to her.

  He was thirsty from running the chainsaw. Might as well quench at least one of his needs.

  He set the chainsaw in the wagon of the four-wheeler and grabbed two water bottles for them. Lucy took hers and headed for a sunny boulder alongside the trail that offered a nice view of town through the trees.

  After a pause, he followed her. Though he knew it was a mistake, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from sitting next to her on the boulder, feeling the heat of her skin that warmed him more than the June sunshine.

  A couple of squirrels chased each other up an aspen trunk, chattering the whole way, which sent a nuthatch flitting from branch to branch.

  The air was cool and smelled of pine and the wildflowers just beginning to burst out along the trail. This area was spectacular when all the flowers were out, an explosion of color from blue-and-pink columbine, vivid red Indian paintbrush, the pale lavender plump-petaled wild irises that gave the trail its name.

  He needed to spend more time outdoors with the kids. When he was younger, Pop was always taking him and his brothers—and then Charlotte, after she came along—up into the mountains for fishing trips.

  Sometimes he wondered if those trips were intended more to give their mother a break from them all than to actually catch fish, but some of his best childhood memories had to do with a mountain setting like this, a fishing rod and a slow-moving creek.

  “Genevieve was right,” she murmured. “It is peaceful up here. I don’t think most people in town realize how lucky they are to have this within a ten-minute walk of their house.”

  “Probably not.”

  He certainly didn’t take advantage of all the recreational offerings around Hope’s Crossing, though now that Faith had conquered the two-wheeler challenge, maybe he could take the kids mountain biking this summer.

  “Are you going to the gala tonight?” she asked.

  She was trying to make polite conversation. He couldn’t see the point in being rude in response.

  “Not by choice. Galas aren’t really my thing, but I promised Claire McKnight I would represent the fire department and handle any first aid needs. You never know when a fistfight might break out during the silent auction, especially if Gen is involved.”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t heard the story of how she and Dylan first connected? She started a bar fight at The Speckled Lizard last year at Christmas and Dylan stepped in to protect her. They were both arrested and ended up serving community service at A Warrior’s Hope. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  She looked as if she couldn’t quite grasp the concept. “Genevieve Beaumont? Are we talking about the same person?”

  “One and the same. The mayor’s daughter. Your interior decorator. My elegant lovely future sister-in-law. From what I hear, she’s got a nasty right hook and she’s really good at pulling hair. I’m sorry to say, I missed the whole thing. Who knows? Tonight might be a repeat performance. A guy can always hope. You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I still haven’t decided. Like you, grand galas aren’t really my thing and, well, I don’t have a date, which makes it that much more awkward.”

  Color the same shade as the wild roses blooming behind them burst over her cheekbones. Did she worry he would construe her words as a hint that he should take her to the gala?

  If he were any kind of decent, he would. But how could he possibly spend several hours with her making small talk, brushing against her, maybe even dancing?

  Sitting here alone with her on a sun-warmed rock was tough enough on a guy’s self-control. Holding her soft, lithe form in his arms even for a five-minute foxtrot would be torture.

  “Half the people there won’t have dates,” he said curtly. “You’ll be fine.”

  He felt like a jerk when she pressed her lips together and he thought he saw a trace of hurt in her eyes.

  “I still have a few hours to decide. The auction is really the only reason I might go. I’m intrigued by all the items I’ve heard are up for bid. I mean, a couple of original Sarah Colvilles! I would kill to have one of those, especially when all the proceeds go to a good cause, I understand.”

  “Yeah. The money from the silent auction goes to fund college scholarships for deserving students. It’s in honor of Layla Parker, Maura Lange’s daughter. She was killed in a car accident a few years ago. The whole Giving Hope day was started in honor of her. Over the last few years, it’s become something much more than a celebration of one girl’s life, though.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” she said softly. “The volunteer work, the auction, the gala. All of it.”

  He loved how his town reached out and helped others. It was one of the reasons he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  “Crystal loves it here,” Lucy went on. “She doesn’t want to leave.”

  “When does she go?”

  “Tomorrow. Dad and Pam are taking her a
nd Max back to Denver. She has to start summer school on Monday to make up for everything she’s missed if she’s going to start her junior year on track. I’m going to miss them.”

  “I’m sorry. But you did a good thing, having her here, Lucy.”

  “I know. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

  She didn’t cry, even though her chin wobbled at the words. His chest felt tight and achy. He couldn’t bear seeing her sad.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and then he did the one thing that seemed natural and right. He slid an arm around her and pulled her against him.

  She froze for just a moment and he thought she might yank away from him and scramble off the rock. It would probably be better for both of them if she did. Instead, after a pause, she seemed to collapse against him.

  She still didn’t cry, simply rested her cheek for a moment against his chest, her breathing a little ragged. He had been married for eight years. He knew when a woman sometimes only needed a minute to compose herself so he kept his trap shut, just let her deal with her stuff in her own way while the squirrels chattered at them and some meadowlarks sang out from a nearby bush.

  Finally she gave a long sigh and slid away.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “A little. Thanks.”

  She gave him a tremulous smile, and she looked so beautiful there in the sunlight, as soft and as lovely as any wildflower, he knew he had to kiss her. Even though he knew it was a mistake, even though he had been telling himself for two weeks to stay away from her, even though he knew he was only creating more trouble for himself in the long run, he reached for her and was overwhelmed when she came with a soft willingness.

  Her mouth was sweet and deliciously cool from the water bottle. For two weeks, he had been dreaming of kissing her, touching her again. Now that she was finally here in his arms, he wanted to savor every taste, every sensation. The thick churn of his blood, the soft curves pressed against him, the alluring scent of strawberries and vanilla that made him want to lick every luscious inch of her.