Crushing on Love (The Bradens of Peaceful Harbor, Book Four) (6 page)

“What?” She was good at coming up with solutions for other people’s problems. It was her own she had trouble with.

“Nothing. You’re just not like anyone I know.” He reached into the box and grabbed the cupcake. “This is coming with me.”

She followed him to the door. “You’re seriously going to hold my cupcake hostage? For a man who says very little, that says a heck of a lot.”

He stepped closer. So close his chest touched hers when he inhaled.

“What exactly does it say?” he challenged.

“That maybe you don’t want me to go out with Will.” She didn’t recognize her breathy voice.

His eyes narrowed, and he lifted the cupcake with a devilish smile. “Or maybe it says I like pink frosting.”

She wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “I think it says you like me.”

“Do you?” He dropped his eyes to the cupcake, then shifted them to her mouth, lingering there so long her lips tingled with anticipation.

Kiss me
.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t do a freaking thing, and her entire body ached for his touch. He raised a brow, silent as the day was long. Damn him. No man had ever had this effect on her. She had to break their connection before she took the kiss she so desperately wanted.

“Should I come by later?” she finally managed.

His eyes grew sinfully darker.

“To look for habitats.” The words flew from her mouth and he smiled.
Ugh!
He was messing with her again!

“See you later, Butterfly.”

She watched his perfect butt as he walked away. She needed to up her game if she was going to figure out how to beat him at it.

AFTER TAKING CARE of his duties, Steve made a few calls to the contacts he thought might take an interest in the Cumberland property. He knew it was a long shot, but he wasn’t going to give up before trying everything he could. When Shannon came over to ask him to go with her up the mountain, she was too sweet—
If you come with me, I’ll go with you when you traipse all over the mountain tomorrow doing whatever it is a grizzly guy like you does—
and too insistent—
Grizz, you know you want to see those cute little foxes. You can’t tell me you don’t want to trek up the mountain one more time. You love doing that—
to deny.

They’d been scoping out fox habitats for the past two hours, and she’d been tossing out ideas to help him save the Cumberland property. She was as excited about the prospect as he was frustrated by it.

“There are tons of nonprofits that could probably help raise funds,” she said, stepping around a big rock. “What about private investors? There are lots of philanthropists who are interested in land conservation. I bet we could find a list of them with a quick Google search.”

She was an anomaly to him. Astute and animated. She’d pointed out animal prints, scat, and markings on trees without missing a beat in sharing her ideas for the land. The more time they spent together, the more difficult it became for him to keep a sense of distance between them.

“I’ve made some calls, put some feelers out.” He looked up toward the darkening sky, and his gut fisted. “Shouldn’t we head back so you can get ready for your date?”

“Not yet.” She ducked beneath a branch. Her hair got tangled and she inhaled a sharp breath, bent over beneath the branch.

“I’ve got you.” Steve began untangling her hair. The scent of lilacs rose from the silky strands. Without thinking, he said, “Your hair smells like spring.”

“Uh-huh. Want a real turn-on, mountain man?” she said teasingly. “It’s organic.”

“You do realize I could give your hair a tug for that crack.” He’d like to give it a tug, all right, when she was naked and on her knees. Or in his bed. Or right here against a tree…

“Careful, you never know what a girl likes.”

Great. Now he was hard.

In an effort to distract himself, which wasn’t easy with her bent at the waist in front of him, he said, “You should tie your hair back when you’re out here working.”
So my mind doesn’t wander.

She poked his stomach. “You could have mentioned that an hour ago.”

“You were out here researching for weeks. How’d you get untangled then?” He unwound the last strand. “Okay, you’re free.”

“Thank you.” She straightened her spine and ran her fingers through her hair. “I remembered to tie my hair back when I was working alone.” Her eyes slid down his body. “You’re a bit of a distraction.”

He’d like to distract her, all right, but she had another man waiting for her tonight, and it was his own damn fault. He could have stopped it.

“Maybe you’re just too excited about your date to concentrate.” His gut twisted at the thought of Shannon going out with Will, but he couldn’t afford to get any more tangled up in her than he already was.

“Hardly,” she said, pulling him back to the moment. “Are you sure this is gray fox territory?” She walked around a group of pine trees.

He’d guided her to this area because he knew that just ahead, beyond a thicket of trees, there was a fox den, but he’d given her no forewarning, wanting to enjoy her reaction. When he’d been out looking for the partiers earlier, he’d checked on the dens, and was happy to see they were all in use again this year.

She rounded another group of trees and turned a wide smile to him, pointing to scat—fox poop—on the ground. The sun was just beginning to set, casting an orange glow behind her.

“This whole mountain is fox territory,” he said.
And I’m looking at the foxiest thing around.

She took a notebook from her backpack and began taking notes and sketching the area. Evening brought a different sort of peacefulness to the mountain, as diurnal creatures settled in safely for the evening, giving way to nocturnal wildlife. The air turned crisper, stealing the vanilla-butterscotch smell of ponderosa bark and bringing out sharper, earthier scents.

“Hey,” she said. “You look like you’ve disappeared into some far-off land.”

“Nope. Right here with you.” He didn’t understand how anyone could stand in this forest and not lose himself in the beauty of it.

“What about crowdfunding?” She stepped over a large branch, and he grabbed her arm, steadying her.

“Crowd whatting?”

“Crowdfunding. Surely you’ve heard of it. It’s when you list a project online and promote it to groups who you think will want to take part in the effort.” She moved around the thicket, searching the ground. “Lots of little donations can equate to a massive amount of money. I read about a family who raised two hundred thousand dollars for their daughter’s surgery. Crowdfunding is used for everything from buying a car and making a music video to buying property or taking care of bills after accidents or when someone falls on hard times.”

“Online begging. No thank you.”

She glared at him. “It’s not like that. People don’t see it that way. They want to help.”

“I didn’t take you for naive, city girl.”

“If by naive you mean not thinking the worst about others, then I guess you
would
consider me naive. There are good people out there. Like the connections you already reached out to.”

“Those are people I know and trust. They aren’t strangers.”

“So you only trust people you’ve met?” She took a step behind the thicket and stopped short. She held her finger over her lips and pointed to a kit—a baby fox—peeking its fuzzy little head out from the base of a hollow tree. Her shoulders rose, and she shivered with excitement. She had no idea what her gleeful reaction did to him. This was nature’s foreplay at its best.

They watched the kit peek its head out, then disappear into the dark den. A few seconds later two kits poked their heads out. Their fur had already begun turning russet behind their ears and on their legs. The rest was gray with patches of white around their beady dark eyes.

Shannon squeezed Steve’s hand and mouthed, “Oh my God! So cute!”

They were cute little critters, all right, but not half as cute as she was, bouncing on her toes behind the thicket. They watched the kits poking their heads out, sniffing the air, then ducking back into the den. As darkness fell over them, they left as quietly as they could, though the foxes returned to the den the moment they moved.

Shannon clung to his arm as they made their way down the dark mountain.

“Did you see how cute they were? What do you think, eight or nine weeks old? I wonder how many kits there are. They start going out with the vixen—the mother—around five weeks for short forays. They’re already eating solid foods. If we can find a few more sites, we can figure out the best places to watch them from.”

She spoke so fast, he wondered if she realized she’d said
we
.

“Did you know the gray vixens have eight nipples and the red only have six? That’s interesting to me. Isn’t it to you?” She didn’t pause for a response, and that was just fine with Steve. There was nothing she could tell him about the animals he didn’t already know, but he enjoyed listening to her. “They’re monogamous, too. For life. Did you know that? Of course you knew that. Did they use that same den last year? Do you know? Are we heading to another den now?”

She launched into another one-sided discussion about how humans could take a lesson in monogamy from foxes, and she didn’t show any signs of slowing down. He knew he had to take her down the mountain for her date, but for a split second he debated not bringing it up and allowing her to get so lost in her excitement that time would slip by, her date forgotten. But Will was his friend, and it was a selfish thought. One that could lead only to hurting both Will and Shannon, which was why he stopped walking and gently touched her face to draw her attention.

Her sparkling eyes met his, the corners of her mouth curled up. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling.”

She was so beautiful, with the moonlight at her back and that sweet, excited look in her eyes. How would he survive the night knowing she was in Will’s arms?

“You’re excited,” he said, intensely aware of her hand on his forearm and how close they were standing. “There’s a difference between being excited and rambling.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice.” She lowered her gaze, and her hair fell forward, hiding her face.

He tucked a lock behind her ear so he could see her more clearly. When she lifted her eyes, gone was the excitement, replaced with a darker, more alluring look. Her fingers curled tighter around his arm. The urge to lean down and kiss her was so strong, his muscles burned against his restraint. He didn’t do casual sex, and he knew there would be nothing
casual
about being buried deep inside Shannon. She stroked something dark and deep inside him. Something no one else ever had. Every minute with Shannon was a battle of self-control, and he was hanging on by a thread. If he kissed her, touched her, let himself do the things he wanted to with her, his feelings would only magnify. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there would be nothing left to hold on to. Nothing to keep his head on straight. Nothing to protect his heart—or hers.

She licked her lips, chipping away at his resolve. He ground his teeth together, struggling to rein it back in.

“Shannon,” he managed.

They both stepped closer, their thighs brushing. This was wrong. She had a date, and he’d agreed to bring her to his friend. But he could feel desire rolling off of her, and like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t pull away. He didn’t want to pull away. As he reached for her, her words came back to him.
I’m not like you. I need people
.

The thought sent the gears in his mind churning again, and he reluctantly stepped back. “It’s getting dark.”

She stepped forward. “Yes.”

Her whisper sounded more like an invitation than an agreement about the sun’s rapid departure, and hell if he didn’t want to accept. But he’d never be the type of guy she needed. This couldn’t go anywhere, and he was already teetering on a precarious edge. It took every ounce of his willpower to do the right thing.

“We should head back. You have a date.” He took another step away, and she grabbed his arm, keeping him in place.

She looked at him through long, thick lashes and said, “I canceled it.”

STEVE’S FOREHEAD WRINKLED in confusion, and the conflicted look in his eyes made Shannon’s pulse race even more than their close proximity was causing.

“Why would you do that?”

Definitely not the response she’d hoped for.

“Because I didn’t want to go out with him. I never even agreed to it. He assumed I wanted to go, and you just sat there like you didn’t give a darn one way or another.”

He wrenched his arm free. “I wish you hadn’t done that. Will’s a nice guy. He would have treated you well and you would have had a good time.”

“You didn’t hear what I said. I didn’t
want
to go.”

He looked at her with the pained expression she’d seen earlier when Will had made the comment about Steve not working with his father. He ran a hand through his hair and turned away. Had she totally misread him? Had he honestly been messing with her all day?

“We should get going,” he said gruffly.

“Wait.” Needing answers, she reached for his hand, and he stilled. “Did you really want me to go out with him?”