“Color’s better,” he commented, studying her.
“Well.” She pulled the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder. “Thanks for the, um, aid.” Not knowing where to look, she addressed the tips of her boots. “I’ll be on my way now.”
Mac spoke up, a note of caution in her voice. “Brett.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not letting her go anywhere.” Then, without warning, he scooped Angelica up in his arms. He strode toward the swinging door in the counter, ignoring her spluttering protest. “You’ve got eats somewhere around here, right?”
The Walkers were efficient and deaf. Angelica knew this, because they didn’t listen to her during the few minutes it took for them to ensconce her at Mac’s desk and present her a selection of foods. Soon a bowl of steaming oatmeal was in front of her, along with a sliced apple, a handful of nuts and a fresh mug of hot coffee.
When they all stared at her with similar unyielding expressions, she could do nothing but pick up the spoon and begin to eat. Once it scraped the bottom of the dish, Mac gave a nod. “Color’s even better now,” she said.
“I’m sorry to cause such trouble,” Angelica began, misery returning as her hunger was abating.
“Nonsense,” the brunette said briskly. “My newest employee has to have enough sustenance to do a full day’s work.”
Angelica glanced at her, startled.
Mac held out her hand. “Welcome aboard.”
Under the light from Poppy’s delighted smile and aware there was a matching gleam in Shay’s eyes, Angelica returned the gesture. “Are you sure?”
“She’s sure,” Brett answered for his sister, his voice brusque. Then he squatted down so that his gaze met hers. The gray was icy now. “What the hell did you think you were doing sleeping in your car?”
Poppy made a noise. “Brett, now’s not the time.”
“It sure as shit is the time,” he said, not even sending his little sister a glance. “Now, answer.”
Angelica squirmed on the seat, she couldn’t help herself. “The Bluebird closed for the season. I couldn’t find another place.” She couldn’t afford another place.
He frowned. “For God’s sake. You were living at that dump?”
“It was perfectly fine,” she protested, finding some spirit. Straightening in the chair, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Marv and Alice are wonderful hosts.”
Brett rubbed his hand over the top of his head. “How about your car? Has that been pleasant?”
“Well, no. I admit I was a little afraid of the Insane Knife-Wielding Killer Clown.”
“The what?” His lips twitched.
She waved her hand. “Just a little someone conjured by my overactive imagination.”
He shook his head. “You should have come to me.”
“No, Brett,” she said.
“Well, it’s ‘yes, Brett’ now,” he answered, rising so that he loomed over her. “We’ll find you some decent digs.”
“I can’t afford—”
“The cabins,” Poppy put in. “Wouldn’t that be perfect? She could stay in the one next door to you, Brett. You’ll be close enough to keep her safe from the Insane Knife-Wielding Killer Clown.”
“Wait,” Angelica said. “What? No.”
“We already decided it’s all yeses from you from now on,” the annoying man said, his tone implacable.
“I don’t know...” she said, looking around at the faces of the gathered Walkers. There was amusement and something else on the female ones...speculation? They were all staring at their big brother.
“It’s free,” Shay added. “Think of that.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Angelica protested. “I really couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could and you will,” Brett said, in a tone that declared the matter was closed. “We’ll figure out some way for you to work off your rent.”
At the suggestion, she went hot all over. He hadn’t meant it to come out the way it sounded, she told herself. It was her active imagination working overtime again. But Poppy was sending a significant look at Shay, and Mac was actively smirking.
Brett didn’t seem to notice their regard. “It’s settled then,” he said.
Angelica put her forehead in her hand. It seemed she had another job. A place to stay. Her most pressing needs satisfied.
So, yes, she’d changed her circumstances, all right...but what if she’d gone straight from hot water into the fire?
* * *
THERE COULD BE only one person responsible for the knock at his cabin door, Brett thought. For about three seconds he resisted answering, then he cursed under his breath and crossed to it.
It was his own fault Angelica Rodriguez was his new next-door neighbor.
But it should settle him some, shouldn’t it? Since learning of her father’s perfidy, he’d been uneasy. Distracted by wondering how she was feeling, how she was faring. As much as he told himself to forget about it, forget about her, he’d not managed to push her from his thoughts for more than a few moments at a time.
And he’d been right to worry, hadn’t he?
Pulling open the door, he took in the sight of the woman on the doorstep. His belly tightened in lust even as relief coursed through him. She looked a hell of a lot better than she had that morning in Mac’s office. Then, she’d been pale, her big eyes shadowed. When she’d nearly gone down to the floor he’d felt his heart lurch in his chest.
It had pissed him off then.
He was still pissed off now, he decided. “What do you want?” he growled.
There was a plate in her hands, and she lifted it in his direction. “I made you cookies.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he scowled at her. “Why would you do that?”
“As a thank-you? While I was working my shift at the hardware store, someone stocked the cabin with groceries, including flour, sugar and butter. Chocolate chips.”
“Must have been Poppy,” he said. “Maybe Shay or Mac.”
One of her dark brows arched. “Are you saying you don’t want a taste?”
He nearly groaned. Of course he wanted a taste. He wanted a whole feast—of her. “Angelica...”
“Brett.” Her mouth curved. The smile looked wan. “It’s just cookies.”
The husky note in her voice had him studying her more closely in the porch light. Yeah, she looked better than she had this morning, but there was a distinct weariness in her expression. She’d been sleeping in her car after all. And it had been beyond chilly the past few nights. He bet she had a scratchy throat.
He couldn’t let her continue standing out there in the cold. “You should have a jacket on,” he said, opening the door wider. “Come by the fire and get warm.”
She stepped inside. Taking the plate of cookies from her, he pushed her toward the living area. On a braided rug that had come with the cabin sat his own saddle-colored leather couch. Angelica trailed one slender hand across the back of it and he worried he’d feel the phantom touch of it every time he sprawled on the cushions.
Near the hearth, she spread her fingers before the flames. He saw the light of them leap, golden orange and red, between her digits as if they licked her flesh. Brett wanted to run his tongue along there, too, then suck each fingertip into his mouth. Her eyes would widen and then close, her head dropping back to reveal the tender curve of her neck. He’d bite that next.
Shit. Turning his back on her, he placed the cookies on the kitchen counter. The food prep and living areas were just one big space. A hallway teed off to the bedrooms and bathroom. The bungalow was a decent size, but with Angelica between its walls there wasn’t anywhere for the pulsing sexual attraction he felt for her to go.
“Are these yours?” she asked.
He glanced around. She was studying the two framed drawings he’d hung over the fireplace. They were part of a landscape design he’d done in school. One was a plot plan that showed an overhead view of the project, including the structure and the layout of the surro
unding greenery. Beside it was a hand-drawn rendering—an illustration—that showed the same project from a boots-on-the-ground perspective. Nestled in the landscaping features he’d envisioned was a large, lodge-like building.
“They’re mine,” he acknowledged.
Over her shoulder, her gaze found his. “What is it?”
He shrugged. “This. Well, not this. Just an idea we once had for something we could put on this land.”
“I know a little about your property,” she said, turning to face him. The firelight limned her delectable body, her curves covered in denim and a lightweight sweater. “From my work with the historical society. It was a ski resort once, right?”
“And before that, timberland,” he said. “The Walkers came to the area one hundred fifty years ago with a wagon and oxen and bought up acres for logging. A century later, this was the last piece we owned and my grandfather and my father after him operated the mountain as a ski resort in winter. A fire burned everything but the cabins when we were kids. Our father died not long after that.”
“I’m sorry,” Angelica said, her expression going soft. She glanced back at the drawings. “You didn’t portray it in winter, though.”
He shrugged again. The rendering showed the vacation lodge in the glory of autumn, with aspens blazing yellow and the pines laden with cones.
“You did a good job with the building, too,” she said. “It looks both majestic and welcoming.”
“I had a roommate who was an architecture major. I picked up a lot from him.”
She had turned back to study the drawings again. “When are you going to follow through with it?”
“The lodge?”
“Yes.”
“This land is cursed,” he said. It was the simplest explanation and one he almost believed to be true.
She whirled around, her brown eyes wide. “What? You don’t believe that.”
Maybe it was he who was cursed. How could he want her so damn bad when she was so damn bad for him? He was mountain born and bred, his life as deeply rooted here as the oldest evergreens, and when she recovered from this temporary financial setback he was certain she’d beat feet for some other high-class playground, never to return.
Surely Blue Arrow Lake would only hold lousy memories.
“Brett?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, striding toward her.
Her arms crossed over her chest. “Tell you what?”
“That you were in trouble. Broke. No place to sleep.”
She turned back to the fire. “Did you sample the cookies?”
Stopping a foot from her, he stared at her back, frustrated. She was a flatlander. Not above his touch; he didn’t think she was better than him, of course, but her type only caused trouble. Still...
He drew one hand down her hair, from the crown of her head to where the ends tangled at the middle of her back. The stuff was so silky it caught on his workingman’s calluses. That’s what she’d do to him—snag him up, if he didn’t find some way to deal with her.
“You should have told me,” he insisted, twisting the strands around his fingers. “How bad is it?”
She sighed. “I don’t really know. Lawyers are involved. I have my own. My accounts were not tied into my father’s fund, but it appears he found some way to siphon off my monies just before he was arrested. My attorney thinks it’s possible we could recover some of it in time.”
He tugged at her hair. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“I’m...embarrassed. Mortified, really.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She shrugged. “I feel stupid for so badly wanting the approval of a man who could do something so dastardly.”
“You should have come to me when you first found out.”
Pulling free of his touch she stepped aside. Her brown eyes bored straight into his. “Why would I? We’re not friends.”
“Because we’re...” Shit. He didn’t have a good answer. “You hungry? Do you want a beer? Or wine? I think Shay left some here.”
Without waiting for her reply, he found the chilled bottle in the fridge and poured. He took up a beer, twisted off the top and was slamming some down even as he delivered her the glass.
She studied him over the rim. “Your family seems really close.”
He was about to make some disparaging remark about siblings, when she continued in a soft voice. “I envy that.”
“You’re an only child.” He’d thought so.
“Yes. My mother refused to ruin her figure again after she had me. I gained a stepbrother and stepsisters on my father’s side for about ten minutes—the marriage only lasted that long—but it was just as well because they despised me on sight.”
“Threatened by your beauty, I suppose.”
Her cheeks went pink. “I don’t know about that.”
“Haven’t you read Cinderella?”
“Despite what you might think, my life’s been no fairy tale,” Angelica said, frowning down at her wine. Then she looked up. “Why did you do it?”
Fantasize about her night and day since they’d met? Take cold showers too many times to count? Used his own hand twice that many times imagining what they might be like together? His fingers tightened on his beer. “Do what?”
“Get me the job with your sister.”
“I didn’t—”
“I might have been a little woozy, but I could sense the silent messages being passed back and forth.”
“Mac needs a worker. You need a job. No big deal.” Not that his sister had required any prodding to take on a new employee. They’d met gazes over Angelica’s dark head and the deed had been done.
“And why am I living here? Why did you make that happen, too?”
“What’s with all the questions?” he said, glancing away.
“Because I want to understand what’s going on here, Brett. What I owe. And to whom.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “Do I look like the kind of man who expects sex—or whatever the hell you’re worrying about—in return for one small good deed?”
“All summer you looked like the kind of man who didn’t want to be around me at all.”
Because he’d been trying to save himself from getting close to someone who would ultimately leave! Because he’d been trying to save himself from this protective, nurturing urge that had been plaguing him since the first time he’d glimpsed her angel face. Because he’d been trying to save himself from this greedy need to kiss her mouth, caress her curves, possess her body.
Yes, he wanted to have sex with her, but not as payment. He wanted to have sex with her for pleasure. Their mutual pleasure.
“We should be friends,” he suddenly said.
She gaped at him.
“What? Don’t you know you can’t have too many friends?”
“Let me get this straight.” She sipped from her wine. “After months of giving me the cold shoulder, you’ve now gone out of your way to make my life easier—”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“To make my life easier,” she repeated firmly. “Because you want us to be friends.”
Did she have to make it sound so stupid? But there was only one answer to the question. “Yes.”
She shook her head, released a little laugh and then toasted him with her glass. “Okay.”
“See how much better things go when you agree with me?”
“I suppose,” she said, without sounding a bit convinced. She crossed to the kitchen sink, rinsed her glass. “It’s time for me to be on my way, pal.”
“Sounds good, buddy.” Setting his beer aside, he followed her to the front door.
He held it open for her. She paused on the threshold, then turned to face him. The porch light sprinkled gold in her hair. A small breeze blew her scent over him. “Good night, Brett.”
Without thinking, he yanked her into his arms. Or maybe it was she who made the first move. In any case, in a millisecond she was o
n tiptoe and their mouths were fused. Tongues tangled, heads slanted, the intimacy was hot, deep, wet. His hands slid down her back to her ass. He tilted her hips against his hard cock and she crowded as close as could be.
Someone was moaning.
One of his hands slid around and then under the hem of her sweater. He felt the bare skin over her rib cage twitch as his fingertips stroked up toward her breast. His palm covered the soft mound and through the thin fabric of her bra her nipple pebbled into its center.
Every muscle in his body tightened and his heart slammed in his chest. She was going to kill him. Oxygen, his hazy mind thought. We need to breathe.
He tore his lips from hers.
They stared at each other, panting.
Common sense trickled in. This way there be dragons.
Feeling a heartbeat away from sliding off the edge of the world, Brett drew his hand from beneath her sweater. Her expression just as wary as he felt, Angelica stepped back.
“So...” Her gaze trained on his face, she rubbed her palms along the legs of her jeans. “Still friends?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. It had to be this way. “We just...we just sealed the deal with a kiss.”
He watched her walk the short distance to her cabin. Not until she was safely inside did he shut his own door.
We just sealed the deal with a kiss.
Hell! It wasn’t a deal...it was a devil’s bargain.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANGELICA LINGERED IN the offices of the Mountain Historical Society, tidying her desk, then scrubbing the coffeepot. She made up tasks for herself rather than hurrying to her Walker cabin. As a volunteer, no one expected her to finish out her shift if her work was accomplished, but as the only one in the offices at the moment, she felt compelled to stay until the closing hour of five o’clock.
Her cabin would still be waiting, thirty feet from the one that housed Brett.
Her friend.
Sighing, she grabbed up the pet brush that someone had brought in and began to stroke the bristles over their mascot, the good ol’ grizzly named Piney that dominated the center of the foyer. “You’re cheerier than my neighbor,” she told the stuffed beast. “Maybe you and I should spend the night together.”
Can't Fight This Feeling (Cabin Fever) Page 9
