Burn on the Western Slope (Crimson Romance) (5 page)

“Yee … yes,” she agreed, using that as an excuse to leave his over-powering gaze. “Time to get dressed.”

Naomi laughed as she followed Reagan and shut the door behind her. Reagan grabbed a blanket to wrap around her and walked to the kitchen.

“This town is crawling with eye candy,” Naomi said as she poured a cup of coffee she’d obviously brewed before stepping outside.

Reagan poured her own cup, doctored it with sugar and cream, and stood beside the fire as she drank.

Her neighbor had seen her in nothing but her pajamas, a robe, and old slippers. Let’s not forget holding a stuffed animal like a child.

“I’m such an idiot,” Reagan said, her eagerness to begin her journey now wavering with familiar insecurities. “I hadn’t planned on meeting my first local half naked.”

“You were hardly naked,” Naomi called from the kitchen.

“Naked and clutching a stuffed animal.”

Talk about being reckless. She imagined all sorts of ways to be reckless with her next-door neighbor. Her nerves churned with insecurity. She wanted to run outside and talk to him again, but her thighs shook too much. She’d rather bury her head in the sand.

“That, my dear, is what attraction feels like,” Naomi said as she stood beside her.

“You think?” Reagan asked. “Not that I would understand, or anything.”

“Oh, stop it. That’s not what I meant.”

Reagan turned to her. “I don’t want a man. I don’t need a man. Especially one who lives next door.”

“Why not?”

“Because when it doesn’t work out — and it won’t — things will be awkward when I step out of the door the same time he steps out of his. We’ll run into each other in the hall.”

“It’s only awkward if you make it awkward.”

“Naomi, you’ve been in love with the same guy since high school.” Even if he was an abuser.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about relationships.”

The fire snapped, as if in backlash against Naomi’s rising irritation. Reagan hooked her arm through hers and stared at the flames. She and Naomi had always been honest with each other, even when that honesty hurt, but rarely stayed mad at each other for long.

“Don’t take that the wrong way,” Reagan said. “Anyway, I need some alone time, away from men.”

“According to what I’ve heard from you, you’ve had plenty of alone time with that jerk Kyle.”

“So what are we going to do today?” Reagan didn’t want to talk about Kyle or any other relationship. Even if her new and improved life was supposed to be exciting and full of adventure, she was taking baby steps. She still hadn’t determined whether those baby steps included a man, but one living next door wasn’t at the top of her list.

Even if one that looked like him topped her list.

“After
that
view, I think I need a cold shower.”

“How about a warm breakfast first?”

“Hmm, did you see anything but TV dinners in the freezer? We need to make a trip to the store.”

“Okay, so we’ll shower, have breakfast somewhere, and go to the grocery store. We need to make a list.”

“Or we can go next door and ask our neighbor if he has any breakfast he can share,” Naomi said, laughing as she sauntered away.

Giggling, Reagan cuddled the moose and took him with her to the bathroom. “Oh, Dr. Till, what have I got myself into? And what’s in store for me next?”

• • •

Reagan and Naomi spent the day exploring the town and meeting the townspeople. She would never be able to remember anyone’s name, but everyone treated her and Naomi as if they’d known them forever, even before they’d realized Reagan was Ray’s niece. Afterwards, they invited her to graduation parties and Christmas dinners — and Christmas was over three hundred days away.

They stocked the kitchen with food necessities, ate an early dinner at one of the local restaurants, then stopped at Air Dog for drinks and chitchat.

“Ohmigod,” Naomi said as they slid onto seats near the bar. “There’s the gorgeous bartender with the guy we saw this morning.”

Reagan’s breath caught in her throat when she spotted the two men near the fireplace. They stood side by side and resembled each other enough that they could be brothers. Same height, similar build, comparable face shapes. The bartender was darker — dark hair, dark eyes, skin that looked like he spent most his life outdoors.

The other guy she’d seen on her deck this morning had the golden hair she’d imagined and the most potent eyes she’d seen on a man.

Sea green, she decided, like parts of the Atlantic Ocean, differing between gradients of blue and green and earth. She felt she was being swallowed by the ocean — alone, lost, and afraid — yet giddy with the anticipation of finding shore.

“They gotta be gay,” Naomi said. “They’re too hot to be straight.”

“No way,” Reagan said. “They’re too masculine.”

“All the cute, masculine guys are either taken, psychopaths, or gay. Bet you a hundred bucks they live together. Didn’t we see the one on the deck? And didn’t the bartender tell us he was Ray’s neighbor? They definitely live together.”

“For gay men, they’re sure giving us the eye.” Reagan moved her gaze across the room to act uninterested. Isn’t that what usually caught a guy’s attention?

She couldn’t ignore the waves of chemistry, even from this distance. She kept her gaze from them, striving to keep her shoulders from hunching and revealing her insecurity.

“Here they come,” Naomi whispered, but didn’t turn away. Instead, she faced them with a sultry smile.

“Hi,” Chayton said. “Good to see you here again.”

“Hi, handsome,” Naomi said, fluttering her lashes as Chayton kissed her hand.

The other guy’s cheeks dimpled as he smiled at Naomi, and Reagan curbed a harsh pull of jealousy. When he focused his gaze on her, she reeled with the intensity. Was she truly the only woman in the room?

No, stupid, she told herself. Charming men always make a woman feel she’s the only one. Don’t fall for it.

Her brain screamed to run, but she took his hand instead. The earth rocked when she touched him and she jerked her hand away, curving her mouth up in what she hoped was a pain-free smile.

“This is Garret,” Chayton said. “And we met yesterday. I’m Chayton.”

Reagan accepted his hand, but the aftereffects of Garret’s bewitchery left her immune to Chayton’s charm.

“We remember your hot buttered rum specialty,” Naomi said. “I’m Naomi.” Of course her cousin spoke first. Naomi never had any trouble getting a guy to eat out of her hand.

Reagan let her have the floor. At least if she made a fool of herself, she was too stunning for anyone to notice.

“This is my cousin, Reagan.”

“You just get here?” Garret asked, already wearing a puppy dog look of love and devotion. Okay, maybe not so drastic, but Reagan squelched the desire to roll her eyes at her cousin. She hated to feel jealous. If left to Reagan’s devices, these men would run away in the next five minutes. Sexy, Reagan was not. Charming? Definitely not her.

What do you say to a guy like him, anyway? How do you keep a conversation going?
Oh hey, my life totally sucks right now. I’m falling apart and may have a mental breakdown any second. Wanna have sex?

She didn’t think so.

And why was she thinking about sex, anyway? She wasn’t here to have sex. She was here to contemplate her life. Take a break. Learn something about herself and family she never knew. That did not entail having sex. A perfectly normal female would not be thinking about sex, would she?

Of course she would. Wouldn’t that be the perfect consummation of a new, rash life?

“We got here last night,” Naomi said, breaking into Reagan’s erratic thoughts. Reagan struggled to focus on the conversation without feeling completely out of whack.

“You want a round of drinks?” Chayton asked.

“Make mine a shot of tequila,” Reagan managed to say, her insides quaking.

Chayton pounded his fist on the bar. “A round of the best tequila for everyone.”

Garret slid onto the seat beside her, his thigh grazing hers. A cute, busty blonde with pink streaks in her hair set their shot glasses and a plate of limes in front of them, and the boys waited for Reagan and Naomi to grab their drinks first.

Sex flirted with her as she shot the tequila down her throat and bit into the lime. Hot tears burned her eyes and she slammed the glass on the bar.

“Yowzer,” Chayton said. “Another?”

“No, no, not yet.” Reagan stifled a cough. She relished the burn in her throat. It offered something to mull over besides Garret’s eyes and his thigh so close to hers.

With every breath, she detected wood and vanilla and lime and … what? Coconut? Nutty and fruity and something in between. Amaretto maybe. Something to activate the spinning of her head, and it wasn’t the tequila.

“I’m ready for another go,” Naomi said.

Garret declined the next round. Naomi turned to face Chayton, her back to Reagan, which left her and Garret alone. They’d broken the ice with a shot of tequila, but she still had no idea what to say.

“You ever been here before?” Garret asked her.

“I was here last night,” Reagan said.

“I meant Montana.”

Heat flushed her face, but she laughed and flicked a piece of hair out of her eye. Thank God for stray hairs that gave her hands something to do. “No, this is my first time,” she said hurriedly, trying to prevent her thoughts from running rampant, which they always did when she was nervous or shy or befuddled.

What kind of conversation could she hold with a jock, anyway? Not that he entirely resembled a jock, but he wasn’t a normal business suit guy or an artsy guy or a …

“It’s a great place. My brother lives here, owns some businesses here including this one. I’m here visiting for a while.”

“Your brother?” she asked.

“Chayton.” He nodded to the dark one, the bartender, the one they’d met last night as her uncle’s friend.

“Oh.” She stifled a giggle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I suspected you might be brothers, but you never said. Naomi bet you were gay.”

His laugh boomed through her, a staccato rhythm that perfectly matched the pounding of a bed against a wall during hot sex. With that thought, she glanced away from him, down the bar. She didn’t remember what hot sex was these days, but fantasizing with this man gave her body a thrill.

“No way,” Garret said. “How could she?”

“Looks like I win a hundred bucks,” Reagan sang, her toes tingling when Garret laughed again.

So maybe she
was
interesting.

“Can I get you anything else to drink?” Chayton interrupted.

“No shots. Something to sip on. Preferably something with mint. A mojito?” That sounded like a good beach drink. Something familiar. Something to mask the unsettling in her stomach.

“You like mint?” Chayton asked, his brows arching. Reagan nodded. “If you want to try something different, I have a glacier mint drink you’ll kill for.”

“That good?” Well, she’d just had the most stressful few weeks of her life. Why not splurge a little? “I’ll give it a try,” she said.

Chayton laughed, a sound like rich chocolate pouring from his throat and cheering up the room. Or it could be because her whole head swam in a muddy pool of confusion and excitement. He was friendlier than he had been last night, but Garret had her heart pounding so loudly she could barely function.

What was it they said about chemistry? Uncontrollable. Undeniable. Absolutely terrifying.

So why did she remain sitting here?

As Chayton walked behind the bar to prepare the drink, Reagan glanced at Garret. The green shirt he wore intensified his eyes to somewhere between sea green and olive until he shifted, and the color changed again. His hair looked as if he’d pulled off his beanie and tried to straighten it with his fingers. Shorter and lighter than Chayton’s surfer-style shag, a palette of golden brown in a casual but spiky style looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

A glimmer of facial hair jutted from his cheekbones and above his mouth, roughing his smooth neck in a sexy subtleness that begged to be noticed. She wondered how he’d react if she reached out and touched his stubble. Naomi would do it without a thought. Reagan cursed herself for not being so brazen, even after a few drinks.

“The snow’s great, the skiing is great. When are you going out to ski?” Garret asked.

Reagan fumbled with the button on her sweater. When Chayton set her drink on the bar, she tightened her hands around the glass to curb her jitters.

“I hate to admit it, but I don’t ski.”

“You don’t ski?”

“I mean, I never have.”

“You have to be tempted, right?”

“Uh, not really.”

This was where he’d leave. He would think she was crazy, boring, uninteresting, and he’d find someone more fitting to talk to. Only, he didn’t. He smiled, his eyes twinkling with interest. At least, she thought it was interest. It could have been pity, or mockery, or …

No. She cupped a hand over her cheek, as if that would soothe her insecurities. The cold condensation from the glass she’d held sent a chill between her shoulder blades.

“How long are you staying?”

“A month, at least.”

“Do you want to learn to ski? Because I’m a pretty good teacher. And Tanyon is a great place to learn. It’s busy, but not as busy as some of the bigger resort towns.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Yes. You have to try it at least once. You’ll love it. Chayton can hook you up with gear.”

“Well, I’ve always had a secret desire to plunge down a twelve-thousand-foot drop.”

Garret’s eyes sparkled, like sunbeams skipping across the ocean and landing under her skin. But even sunbeams on a clear summer afternoon wouldn’t affect her like this.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. “We’ll start on the bunny slopes. Then, if you fall it’ll only be half that.”

“I’ve seen the size of these mountains and there’s not a bunny slope in three-hundred miles.”

“Sure there is.”

Reagan clamped her mouth over the straw and slurped the cocktail. It tasted divine, the sugary, minty flavor inciting sweet thoughts of Garret’s lips.