Take My Breath Away

by Christie Ridgway

  Behind his back.

  Looking for candles, she turned a corner, almost plowing into the stranger. She drew back to avoid contact, swaying on her feet. He reached to steady her, but she took a staggering step to the rear, instantly sure to her bones she shouldn’t be touched by him.

  His hand dropped and he muttered something under his breath. Ducking her head, Poppy scooted past him, then glanced over her shoulder. She couldn’t help it.

  He was a big man, six-two, maybe, to her five foot four inches. When she’d whipped by, she’d caught his scent. That was expensive, too, but not cologne, no. This was a clean, not cloying smell. Handmade soap, she guessed, triple-milled, and with a mild but lingering note of sandalwood. As she continued to watch him peruse the contents of the shelves, a knot gathered in her belly. Her nerve endings seemed to lift to the surface of her skin, tickling the nape of her neck and sending prickling goose bumps cascading down her spine and racing across her ribs.

  Startled by her visceral response, she stood another moment, rooted to the floor. Then she saw him stiffen and knew, just knew, he could feel her regard and was an eyelash away from catching her staring again.

  Don’t let him catch you at anything! her instincts warned.

  And Poppy, suddenly a tiny bit spooked, broke free of her paralysis. She hurried away from the stranger, finished her shopping and rushed to the checkout stand.

  With her selections paid for and bagged, she paused outside the store, breathing in the cold, piney air. She lifted her gaze to the snow-covered peaks and felt her pulse settle. Inhaling more calming breaths, she picked her way toward her beat-up four-wheel drive, avoiding potholes and patches of icy-looking pavement.

  As she neared her car, something made her glance around.

  And there he was, the stranger, emerging from the grocery. Now, even from behind those dark glasses, she knew he was staring at her.

  That primal alarm inside of her went off again. Her nerves leaped, her feet tangled on themselves, her arms windmilled and her goods scattered as she fell on her butt—for the second time that day—into a deep, cold puddle.

  Damn! Mortified, and aware that color was rising from her neck to her face, she scrambled for her fallen purchases and crammed them into their plastic bag. Then she gathered her feet underneath her, preparing to rise with as much grace as possible.

  “Here,” that deep voice said.

  She allowed her gaze to lift. It snagged on his hand, its wide palm and long fingers outstretched to help her up.

  Eyeing it like a dangerous viper, Poppy shook her head and placed a palm on the cold, gritty pavement, pushing off to a stand in one quick move. She relied on herself.

  And the only hand she intended to ever reach for, to ever hold, belonged to the little man who also had sole claim to her heart. Mason, who was at this moment probably daydreaming about riding the carousel or chasing down Goofy.

  Without a word to the stranger she jumped into her car and drove off, sighing with relief when the grocery store was no longer in her rearview mirror.

  Thank God, Poppy thought on another sigh. Though she might still feel the smothering weight of that family curse, right now she had the distinct sense she’d just dodged a bullet.

  * * *

  NINETY MINUTES LATER, Poppy was in an even better mood as she stood in the clearing outside her home. With Grimm once again at her side, she’d accomplished nearly every step of the energy-cleansing exercise. Rock salt had been scattered near each cabin entrance—these five as well as the seven located deeper in the trees. At each door, she’d clapped loudly, startling Grimm and hopefully any negative energy that resided there.

  Now she bent over the makeshift altar she’d established. Earlier, she’d carried a flat-topped rock to the center of the open area. Upon it she’d strewn petals from the daisies she’d bought. A white pillar candle was already flickering and beside it lay the bunch of sage she’d selected at Johnson’s. She’d turned it into a smudge stick by wrapping the leaves around a brittle handful of slender pine twigs and tying them in place with twine. The whole thing was supposed to be dried for a week, but she figured if she waited that long she’d feel too silly to go through with the ritual. Though she was considered the whimsical Walker by her siblings, as a single mother she had developed a decidedly sensible side.

  She picked up the aromatic bundle. Her final cleansing act was to light the stick and wave the smoke around while thinking positive thoughts. The dry pieces of pine caught easily on the candle’s flame and she held it away from her body as the fire licked toward the first of the sage leaves. Smoke curled into the cool air and she moved her arm slowly. “I now release old stuck energy,” she said out loud. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to this place.”

  Grimm stayed close to her side as she turned, leaving her back to the steep drive that led up to the cabins from the road below. “I now release old stuck energy,” she said again. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to my life.”

  The scent of pine and sage rose and a sense of peace settled over her. Poppy closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Wow, she thought. It works. For good measure, she repeated her last words, even louder this time. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to my life.”

  Grimm’s sudden bark scared the smudge stick out of her hand and shot her heart to her throat. It was his “stranger’s coming” bark, and Poppy whirled to see a monster SUV with tinted windows climbing the drive, crunching over the slushy snow.

  Her dog barked again, the hair on his neck bristling. He was a very effective, although faux, bodyguard. The fact was, Grimm wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he had a deep voice and a brawny chest that gave him a belligerent demeanor. So, curious rather than alarmed, Poppy curled her fingers around his collar and watched the vehicle come to a stop.

  Her jaw dropped when the door opened and a long leg in a familiar expensive boot emerged, followed by the rest of the rich stranger from Johnson’s Grocery.

  Once again, her skin rippled in apprehension and her stomach knotted. Grimm let out another bark, the harsh sound more welcoming than Poppy felt. To disguise her trepidation, she shoved her hands in the pockets of the jacket she was wearing—her brother’s castoff—and leaned back on her heels. “What do you want?”

  She couldn’t see his expression, as he was swathed in that scarf, sunglasses and brow-skimming cap. Shutting the driver’s door, he waved a flyer in his other hand. “A cabin to rent.”

  Her mouth fell open again. Narrowing her eyes, she recognized one of the half sheets of paper she’d pinned around town in hopes of enticing summer visitors. Summer being the operative word, she realized now...and the exact one she’d neglected to include on the advertising. Knucklehead!

  “Sorry,” Poppy said, commanding herself to stand her ground as the stranger moved from his vehicle and across the snow-covered clearing. “We’re not accepting guests right now.”

  “Is that right?” He glanced around. “The coven using all the cabins?”

  “The cov—” She broke off as he nodded toward the small altar and the smudge stick at her feet. Though it had extinguished upon landing in the snow, the pungent scent still lingered in the air. She inhaled a deep breath of it, trying to regain her earlier peaceful feeling.

  For whatever reason, this man rattled her.

  Deciding to ignore the coven remark, she took her hands from her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest as she tried pasting on a pleasant expression. “As I said, I’m sorry. We’re simply not ready.”

  He glanced around again. Smoke rose from her cabin’s chimney, but three of the others ringing the clearing were obviously vacant, not to mention inhospitable-looking with their peeling doors and dirty windows. The one nearest hers she’d decided to work on first, and it looked much better with its new paint and sparkling glass. From
here, the iffy state of the roof was not readily apparent, though she’d have to come up with the money to replace it sooner than later.

  “I’ll pay you twice the going rate,” the man said, as if he’d read her mind. His gaze shifted to the flyer grasped in his left hand. “I’ll take the two-bedroom ‘nestled in the woods.’”

  “Sorry again, not available.” Squirrels had made a home in the chimney and it smelled like something had died in the second bedroom. It was the farthest from the clearing and the last on her list to refurbish, though she’d foolishly—she realized now—advertised it, anyway. As her father’s daughter, she should have realized that unchecked optimism could come back to bite her on the butt.

  Speaking of bites, she glanced down at Grimm, who stood relaxed at her side. Usually he took cues about strangers from her reaction and body language. Odd that he wasn’t picking up on that now...in which case he would be showing a lot of teeth and emitting one of his best back-off growls.

  The long-legged man followed her gaze. “Nice dog.”

  “If you like death-by-canine,” she said. “We call him Grimm, as in the Grim Reaper.” A little white lie. Her brother had chosen the name after some famous NFL player he admired.

  The stranger patted his thigh. “Hey, Grimm.”

  Her dog raced forward, his jaw stretched in a toothy smile.

  The man ran his hand over her pet’s head. “Like I said, nice dog. And I’ll pay you triple for whatever place you have available.”

  Triple? Triple? Poppy thought of her recent layoff, the cost of Mason’s plane tickets to Florida and back, the extra dollars she’d given James to dole out on her son’s behalf.

  “Quadruple, then.”

  A fool and his money...Poppy mused, tempted despite her jittery nerves and knotted stomach. Mountain people were wary of everything about the rich flatlanders who came up the hill for alpine delights—everything except the money they flung about so freely. It was hard for average Joes and Joannas to make do in a place where real estate and gasoline and foodstuffs were sold at luxury resort prices. But people like the Walkers and the other descendants of early settlers were stubborn about staying among their beloved peaks and pines. Maybe Poppy had once dreamed of oceans and palms and big city streets, but then Mason had come along and sticking to what was familiar had made more sense.

  The stranger crossed his arms over the chest of his posh squall jacket, mimicking Poppy’s own pose. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses of his glasses, but she felt them narrow. “Quintuple,” he said. “Final offer.”

  And greed overrode caution. “Done,” she answered.

  Second thoughts popped up the instant the word left her mouth. “Wait—you realize we’re pretty far from civilization. The entrance to the highway is four miles from here.”

  “I realize. I got lost looking for the turnoff.”

  Poppy had the sense he was pleased by the fact.

  Taking a step back, he tilted his head toward the steep slopes to the north of the cabins and woods. Snow covered the surface that was dotted with few of the pines that grew densely on the other surrounding hillsides. “What is this place? Can you ski up there?”

  “If you want to hike up carrying your equipment. The elevation of the nearest town—Blue Arrow Lake—is a little over five thousand feet but here we’re at seventy-two hundred, which means plenty of snow in a good winter. My family had a nice ski business on the mountain, but a wildfire took down the lodge, the rope tow and the chair lifts thirteen years ago.”

  “You didn’t rebuild?”

  Poppy shrugged. “Not enough insurance money. And a bad financial deal with a certain arch-villain.”

  He looked back at her then. “Arch-villain? Like Lex Luthor or Two-Face?”

  “Like Victor Fremont.” Without thinking, she spat in the snow, ground the spot with the toe of her boot then crossed her heart with the tip of her forefinger.

  Only when she felt his stare did she realize what she’d done. “Uh, sorry. Walker family habit.” The physical manifestation of their vow to never forget or forgive how the old man had ruined their father’s livelihood and health was something Brett had come up with long ago. “But, uh, let me show you the cabin.”

  Maybe he wouldn’t like it, she thought, almost hoping that would be true, despite quintuple the going rate. Something was off about him. Or her. Or her around him.

  As she dug the keys from her coat pocket, she walked toward the one-bedroom. There were three wooden steps leading to the narrow porch. Inside, it was cold, but warmer than the outside temperature. He walked past her through the small living area to peer into the room that held a queen-size bed and a Shaker-style dresser.

  “The bathroom only has a shower,” she warned, “and the kitchen...”

  With his back to her, he scraped off his hat. His hair was glossy, nearly black, and when he rubbed his palm over it, the strands settled into lines that screamed “This cut cost a mint!” She saw him finger off the sunglasses. As he stuck them into his coat pocket, she wondered if she’d imagined the surreal shade of his irises back at the grocery store. Perhaps they’d be ordinary on second take. Duller, like the color of a faded cotton patio umbrella. Or with gray overtones, like shadows cast on snow.

  He turned.

  Poppy nearly staggered back. Her mind hadn’t oversold them. His eyes were a hot, electric-blue that seemed lit from within. They were compelling. Mesmerizing. The eyes of a magician or a mystic or some supernatural being. Again, an acute wariness shot through her.

  Grimm whined and she quickly shifted her attention to the dog, needing to look away before she confessed her sins or offered up her life savings. God. Her pulse was racing and there was a queasy feeling in her stomach.

  “And the kitchen...?” he prompted, in that deep voice that carried to the corners of the cabin and maybe to the corners of her heart.

  God.

  “The kitchen.” She focused on the velvety golden hair between Grimm’s floppy ears and made a vague gesture. “It’s over there.”

  His footsteps sounded against the hardwood floor before finding the living room’s braided area rug. From the corner of her eye, she saw his big hand and those lean fingers curled around the scarf he’d had at his neck. If you look now, you’ll see his whole face, Poppy thought. Then she heard a rustle of sound that indicated he was removing his coat. If you look now, you’ll see his whole body, too.

  It shocked her how much she wanted to check out both, despite how anxious the man made her.

  She was a mother, for God’s sake! A Walker, focused on creating something of the family legacy.

  A woman who had proven herself an idiot when it came to romance, so had sworn off it altogether.

  None of which meant it would hurt to take a peek.

  That was the inner optimist in her, always trying to find sunshine on a cloudy day.

  It might even be good for you!

  Ignoring her little voice, she worked the cabin’s key off the ring. “If you’re still interested—”

  “I want the cabin. Until the end of the month.”

  Quintuple the rate until the end of the month! Poppy focused on that, and only that, as she slid the key onto the small table next to the sofa. “You’ll need to plug in the fridge. The heater should keep you warm enough, but there’s wood for the fireplace. I’ll make sure to keep some piled on the porch. Oh—and I should warn you. There’s no internet and there’s no TV.”

  “No TV?” he asked.

  “Don’t plan to put ’em in the cabins. We Walkers grew up without television—our mom’s idea—and I’ve never picked up the habit.”

  “So what do you do for entertainment?”

  “I read, and I—” She almost said she played with her little boy, but for some reason she didn’t want Mason�
�s name in this room, where she was responding so strongly and strangely to this man’s masculine charisma. Those blue eyes had done something to her internal wiring, heating her blood and making it buzz as it raced through her system. “I have a good imagination.”

  Oh, jeez. Why had she said that? Yet another time, embarrassed heat crawled up her neck.

  “We have something in common, then. I have an active fantasy life, too.” The sudden note of humor in his voice made her chin jerk up.

  Their gazes met.

  But there wasn’t a sign of laughter on his face. There were just planes and angles—strong cheekbones, a clean jawline—that made her instantly think of elegant European men stepping into lowslung sports coupes and spectacular parties where people in evening clothes ended up jumping into swimming pools while a band dressed in white dinner jackets plays Cole Porter tunes. He was classically, memorably handsome and his features, coupled with those spectacular eyes, put him at the absolute top of her list of the most beautiful—yet still so male—men she’d ever seen.

  Her skin was tingling, her stomach was pitching and her palms were probably sweating, but she couldn’t tell because her fingers were curled into tight fists. Everything inside her was reacting to him, but in confusing ways. While some of her was going soft and languid, a sense of melting low in her belly, at the same time her defenses were rushing into place and she felt hyperalert and poised to fight her way out of...out of...

  Danger.

  Silly, she told herself. Stop being so silly.

  Still, she backed up, keeping her gaze on him as she retreated toward the door. He remained where he was, though she thought she detected tension in the lean muscles revealed by the thermal Henley clinging to his powerful torso.

  Those magnetic eyes swept over her. “I don’t know your name,” he said, his voice soft now, the near-whisper of that seductive snake in the Garden of Eden.

  She shook her head to dispel the image. “Poppy,” she replied, trying to sound businesslike and brisk. “Poppy Walker.”