She loved to listen to the water. As much as she fought coming to the valley, there were things she’d miss when they went back to Denver. The river and all its personalities topped her list. Sometimes, when the wind picked up and the sky darkened, the water seemed to rush over the rocks with an angry passion. Other times, when the day was hot and still, the water moved so slowly she saw the different colors of the rocks below the surface. That night, it moved somewhere between angry and slow, as if it didn’t quite know how to feel. She wondered if the water could read her emotions.
She was no longer angry at Jack for bringing them to the valley. She was getting used to the quiet and predictability of small town life. The same cashier worked the day shift at the Safeway, and the same old man who worked the register at the gas station knew her name and asked about her and Jack every time she went in to fill up and grab a fountain soda. The restaurants opened for lunch, closed, and then opened again for dinner. If she wanted a late night meal, she had to fix it herself because there weren’t any drive-thrus open past nine o’clock.
She glanced at her watch. At nine thirty, she was too late to treat herself to an ice cream at the Dairy Barn. It was just as well, she thought, remembering the popcorn and licorice she’d devoured at the movie. By the light of the full moon, she walked along the path by the river. A light in the distance caught her attention and had her going farther along the path than she’d intended.
The little cabin across the river looked like a Disney cottage with smoke coming from the chimney and the windows glowing. Lyle’s cottage. Erica wasn’t quite sure how she felt about finding Lyle Woodward’s cottage all lit up when she felt edgy and had no where to go. She could always go back home, but that meant listening to her brother flirt and God knew what else with Olivia.
When the door to Lyle’s cabin opened, Erica stumbled backward and gasped. Her foot landed on a branch and snapped it in two. Lyle’s head jerked in her direction.
“Hello?” he called. “Is someone there?”
Mortified at getting caught spying, Erica considered saying nothing and creeping back home. When Lyle called out again, she knew he was determined to discover who’d shrieked. “It’s me. Erica.”
“Are you okay? Do you need help?”
Help was the last thing she needed. “I’m fine. I tripped on a branch.”
“Why are you walking in the dark?”
“Your roommate is on a date with my brother,” she shouted. “They don’t need an audience.”
“So you’re walking in the woods? At night?”
“So?”
“So, there are animals. Coyotes.”
“I didn’t mean to go this far, but I saw your light. When did you get power?”
“I haven’t yet. I’ve got a lantern.” He stepped forward and searched along the bank. “I’m coming over to get you.”
“What?” she said. “No, no, don’t do that.”
“This is silly, shouting across the river. You’ll be my first guest.”
“Lyle, really,” she said as he eased down the bank and into the water. “You’re going to get wet.”
“Just my shoes and they’re waterproof.” He was across the river and in front of her in less than twenty steps. “See.” He looked at her feet. “Do you care if your tennis shoes get wet?”
She was about to say yes when he offered to give her a piggy back ride. “No, I don’t care.”
He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come on. It’s shallow, but the rocks can be slippery.” He went down the bank first and helped her down. She shrieked when her foot sank in the mud. “The river will clean the mud off.”
He led her over the jagged surface with a firm grip on her hand. She felt a ridiculous thrill at holding his hand, even though it was only to keep her from falling. He was stronger than he looked.
“There we go,” he said when they reached the other side. “Nothing to it.”
Then why was her heart racing and the blood surging through her veins? As stupid as it was, crossing the river at night was one of the most exciting things she’d ever done. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face.
Lyle stood in the moonlight, staring down at her with a serious and unreadable expression. If she’d had more experience with men—normal experience—she may have thought he was about to kiss her. As it stood, she thought maybe she’d done something wrong.
“You should smile more often,” Lyle said. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”
She didn’t have a clue how to respond, but she was glad for the darkness when she felt her cheeks heat. “Are you going to show me your cabin?”
“Right this way.” He ushered her inside with a wave of his arm. “It’s small. I like to think of it as homey, and it’s just me, so I don’t need a bunch of room. This is the den,” he said of the enclosed space the door opened into. “Where all the pipes are sticking out of the concrete is the kitchen, well, kind of a kitchen. I have room for a refrigerator/freezer, a tiny dishwasher, and an oven/stove combination.”
Erica felt his hand on her back and jumped. He led her to an opening on one side of the den. “This back here is the master bedroom. Again, it’s small, or what I call cozy. There’s one bath with a tub shower.” He led her to the other side. “This will be my office. It can double as a guest bedroom, but really, any guests will want to stay at Mom’s.”
She heard the excitement in his voice and she was pleased to see the pride on his face. He’d done a lot of work, although it seemed as if there was plenty left to do. “I like it. It must feel wonderful to build something like this from the ground up.”
“Oh, I didn’t build it. This thing has been on the property since we bought it. It’s an old hunting cabin. Dodge and I gutted it just for fun.”
“Dodge?”
“My stepdad.”
“You must be close to your family if you want to stay this near.”
“Yeah, we’re close. I guess I should want to cut the apron strings and go out on my own, but I can’t seem to work up the energy. Besides, where would I go? I like it here, my parents leave me alone for the most part, and I can write from anywhere. I’d like to travel and see the country, but I think I’ll always end up back here. It’s home.”
She smiled because she couldn’t say anything. Home had never been a happy place, and she went wherever Jack went. She thought he had settled in Denver, but she’d never asked about his long-term plans. He could pick them up and move them to Japan, and she’d have to go right along with him. “I like the one you’re making.”
He stepped closer, too close. She felt her heart skipping against her ribcage. “Jack told me about your mom dying and your dad’s drinking.”
She backed away, out into the main room where the lantern shone bright and she didn’t feel so trapped by his questions and his eyes. “If Jack told you, then you should understand why I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He left home when you were so young. I’m just curious how that must have been for you? On your own with a man hell bent on drinking himself to death.”
“It wasn’t fun.”
“Erica, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t fair, my knowing the intimate details of your childhood.”
“What intimate details?”
“Nothing intimate, I just mean details. Stuff I wouldn’t ordinarily know.” He paced around the room and then back to stand in front of her. “I like your brother, and there’s something about you that’s grabbed hold of me and won’t let go. Knowing about your past…”
“You don’t know anything about my past. If Jack told you—”
“Jack didn’t tell me anything. He’s very careful to leave you out. I just… I just wonder. I’m a writer, Erica. I obsess over characters, I wonder about their lives, their backgrounds. Only with you it’s not fiction, and I can’t seem to get you out of my mind.”
“How do you get the characters out of your mind?”
“I write their story.”
She turned away from his searching gaze and picked up a tool from bench by the wall. “My past isn’t a story. If it was, I would have rewritten it a long time ago.”
“I think that’s part of the reason Jack wants to work on this book. He can’t change the past, but he’s trying to do better with the future.”
“Do better?” Erica scoffed. “He did better than anyone I’ve ever met or heard about.”
“His success isn’t just about money. It was. It might still be if he hadn’t lost his vision, but now…now I think he’s trying to succeed in a different way.”
She turned back, too curious about what he was trying to say to keep her back turned. “What way?”
“With people. With you.” Lyle shrugged and flashed a dangerously sexy smile. “With Olivia.”
“Oh, please. If anything, with her, he’s reliving his past. Do you know how many women he dated? Beautiful women? Models?”
“I’ve done my research.”
“And you’re not worried about Olivia getting her heart broken?”
“Olivia’s a big girl.” He took the tool from her hand and placed it back in the toolbox. “I worried about Jill, my friend I told you about, and it was all for naught. I can’t worry about or control who my friends choose to love.”
“If Olivia’s looking for love, she’s going to get hurt.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Your brother’s not the same person he was before. I think talking it out with me is kind of a way for him to let go of the past.”
“If that’s what he’s doing with you, and I’m not convinced it is, then I’m okay with that. But you need to understand that whatever he’s doing with you has nothing to do with me.”
“Good,” Lyle said and stepped closer, boxing her against the wall. “Because what I want to do with you has nothing to do with your brother.”
Chapter 27
Olivia stood with her back to the room and rinsed the dishes she’d carried over from the table. She’d needed to stand up and give herself some space from Jack. She had never, in all her twenty-four years, felt more drawn to a man. If she didn’t take a moment and gather her wits, he’d have her sprawled on the table where he’d just charmed the life out of her.
He’d explained his rise to fame, the hereditary condition responsible for altering his life, and his struggle with learning to live with his vision loss as if recounting the plot of a cable series. And he’d listened, really listened to her story. She’d told him about her sweet but flighty mom, the devastation of losing her dad at fifteen, and her brother who’d taken over the role of her parent. They’d laughed, commiserated, and bonded over Erica’s excellent jerk chicken.
With all the highs and lows he’d experienced, Olivia couldn’t help but wonder what he had planned for the next phase of his life. One thing she knew for sure about Jack Forrester, he never did anything without a plan.
Her heart was in serious danger of being broken into a thousand tiny pieces. Knowing that, feeling certain he would leave her shattered when he moved on, she still felt tempted.
“You don’t have to do the dishes,” Jack said as he came up behind her, making her gasp when his hands rested on her hips. When his lips trailed a path from her ear, along her neck, and ended with a nip on the delicate skin of her collarbone, she let go of the sponge and gripped the sink for purchase. “You taste good. What is that scent you’re wearing?”
She struggled to collect her thoughts. “I’m not wearing one.”
“Impossible,” he muttered as the kisses continued.
“Jack…”
“Ummm?”
“I can’t do this.” Yet she bowed back and tilted her head, giving him more access to the pulse throbbing in her neck.
“Do what?”
When she turned and ended up trapped between his rock hard chest and the counter, she knew she’d made a tactical error. His lips, so soft, so tempting, were only inches from hers. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?”
When she tried to reply, he moved in. Everything she felt before, at their first kiss, came flooding back. Only it felt more intense, more vital. If he didn’t kiss her, if he didn’t press his body into hers, she’d have slipped boneless to the ground. Her protests turned to whimpers. Her hands, the ones she’d placed on his chest to push him away, dug in and clung. Her hips arched greedily without thought, without guile. She only knew she needed and in him she found every answer. “Jack…stop…I can’t think.”
He pulled back a fraction. Olivia felt only a slight joy that he wasn’t as unaffected as last time. Their heaving breath mingled between them.
“Thinking is overrated.”
“Please,” she begged. When he stepped back, she physically mourned his absence. “I…I’m not this easy.”
He laughed, a deep, barking sound that reverberated along her skin. “No, you’re not.” He stepped back and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m ready to beg you, Olivia.”
“You wouldn’t have to, Jack. I’m asking you not to.”
“Can I ask why? And if you tell me it’s about this accusation, I may be tempted to strangle you. What we do, Olivia, in the privacy of my home is no one’s business but ours. If you think I’d tell anyone, you’re mistaking me for a much different kind of man.”
“I don’t think you’d tell. It’s not you I’m worried about. I have a reputation problem. I date a lot, or at least I used to. Apparently, people thought I slept with everyone I dated. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, but the truth doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. I’m afraid of adding another man to my roster.”