The One And Only

“Pay no attention,” Trevor advised. “He’s just jealous of my charm and wit.”

“Ha,” Beau scoffed. “I once heard a teacher tell him that each time he opened his mouth, general knowledge decreased proportionally.”

Smiling and nodding, she listened to their easy teasing and wished she’d had cousins like these. Trevor took her arm and urged her toward the structure they worked on.

“Lies, all lies,” he said. “Would you like a tour of the lodge?”

“Well, uh, yes. I think,” she amended with exaggerated uncertainty.

Beau swept her away from his cousin. “I need to discuss business with her,” he said loftily.

Trevor sighed in disgust, grinned at her, then returned to work with his twin, setting a foundation sill in place.

Beau, still holding her wrist, led her toward the cottage. “Zack said you were interested in the cottage.”

“I was hoping I could rent it. But it’s sold.”

Dropping her arm, he stepped onto the small brick porch with its charming white columns and rails and unlocked the door. “Enter,” he invited with a grand sweep of his hand.

She did so. “Oh,” she murmured in delight. “It’s as lovely as I thought it would be.”

A half wall divided the living room from the kitchen. White wainscoting in beadboard lined the bottom third of the rooms. Stenciled vines on pale golden walls framed windows and doors. White curtains, looking as freshly washed and starched as her grandmother’s, wafted in the breeze from the mountains. The furniture was mismatched, well-used and simply wonderful.

“You like?” he asked.

“Yes. It reminds me of home. My mother and I stayed with my grandmother a couple of weeks each summer. Her house was like this.”

Her throat closed and she had to stop. Her grandmother had died last summer and the house had been sold.

“You miss them,” he said, his voice deep, rich with understanding that added to her sudden emotion.

She managed a smile. “Yes.”

“Going off on an adventure seems exciting, but then you realize how far you are from home. I went to medical school back east. It was hell.”

Nodding, she continued the tour, needing to escape his kindness and the yearning that bloomed in her like a weed in an orderly garden. She wasn’t here for this.

The kitchen was pale green with white woodwork and yellow accents in a wall clock and the cushions on ladder-back chairs. It was the windows she liked best. Covering most of the back wall, they showed off the view to perfection—lake and mountains and blue, blue sky. A bit of heaven tucked into this high valley.

The bedroom was the only other room. It and a rather large bathroom occupied the other side of the house. The bed, rocking chair, table and armoire were oak. A dustcover protected the queen-size bed that was so high it needed two oak steps to get to it.

The ceiling was vaulted and covered with whitewashed beadboard. A fan was mounted high in the center of it. The walls were creamy beige, again with attractive stencils, but of climbing roses in yellow and pink shades this time.

“Lovely,” she murmured. Her voice was a husky whisper, sounding loud in the silent house. She swallowed, suddenly nervous about being here with this alluring man.

“Yes.”

His voice was unexpectedly close. She glanced over her shoulder and found him only inches away. Slowly she turned.

Her eyes were on a level with his chest. The curly hair there was coal-black, scattered sparsely over his bronzed skin. The defined pectoral muscles flexed once, then went still as she stared at this monument to human male perfection. She lifted a hand, then stopped.

He caught her hand and pressed it flat against him.

The air became heavy, expectant. She had to open her mouth to get it into her lungs. She raised her eyes from the well-developed pecs to his throat, then upward, until she gazed at his mouth. Longing, sharp and poignant, filled her.

“Do it,” he said in a low, strained tone.

“What?” She hardly knew what she said.

“What your eyes are saying you want.”

“I don’t…want…” She didn’t continue because she didn’t know what she wanted…no, because she knew what she shouldn’t want, but did.

“I do,” he murmured. “I want to touch you.”

His lips touched hers, soft, dry, a fleeting brush of mouth over mouth. She licked her lips. His eyes, when she looked up, were dark and mysterious deep blue pools to drown in. She yearned to dive in, to never leave.

No. It was a mistake to give in to desire and let passion lead her into temptation. Once she’d mistaken a romantic dream for a lasting love. She wasn’t so foolish now. She reminded herself of all she’d learned from the past. Hearts were fragile things. They could break again, and again, and yet again.

He moved his hand, slowly caressing her face with fingers that trembled ever so slightly. The passion dazzled, beckoned from his dark, heated gaze.

Fear stirred through her, warning her of the danger. “Dr. Dalton,” she said, the beginning of a protest.

“Beau,” he corrected, and removed the band from her hair. He pushed it into his pocket, then spiked his fingers into the freed tresses, cupping his broad, gentle hands around her skull and holding her still when she would have turned away from those eyes, that mouth.

“Beau,” she said, and wondered why she did and how it could feel so right on her tongue. “Beau.”

So old-fashioned, Beau, with an innocent ring of days long ago. When she’d been young, she would have believed in that innocence.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

The kiss wasn’t a simple brushing of lips over lips this time. It was man to woman, all heat and demand and whimsical yearning.

The impact went all the way down to her toes, something she couldn’t recall ever experiencing before, not with this intensity, these flashes of fire that burned and ached within until she wanted to cry out.

With a gasp she opened to him, letting the kiss go deeper, until she was filled with it. Wonder washed through her and took all traces of fear with it. Breathing became difficult, then unnecessary.

When he at last released her mouth, he laid a trail of flame along her cheek. “You have the smoothest skin. I’ve wanted to touch you since that first meeting, to see if the fire in your hair was in your blood.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Heaven help me, yes,” he said.

But she knew who needed help here. Sanity returned through the foggy haze of hunger. She laid her hands flat against his chest, then lingered to caress the hair-roughened skin. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?”

She forced herself to search for a reason even as she continued to touch him. “You’re my boss.”