Finding Chris Evans: The Royal Edition (4 page)

She used a key from her ring to enter the cottage, and Cristopoulis held the door as she stepped inside. The cozy little home was clearly built for two, with windows that opened wide onto the pond and the edge of the ridge beyond, where Lake Haralson lay below. She moved quickly through the cottage, checking the cabinets and refrigerator, the single bathroom, the bedroom and main living area.

“It looks solid,” she said, glancing around the tiny space. “We should check out back too.”

He guessed that was the real reason for her thorough review of the cottage. “There are swans there now?” he asked, and she flashed him a smile that was more grateful than it should be. Were life’s pleasures so rare to LeeAnn Werth that she had to apologize for them? Perhaps that’s why she usually made this trip up the ridge alone, so as not to excuse her wanting to spend time in a place that made her happy.

“I think so,” she said, an edge of hope in her tone. “Want to see?”

“Of course,” he murmured. In the space of those moments, LeeAnn’s entire face had transformed from practical, cheerful innkeeper to one of a woman suffused with unaffected love. “These swans are important to you?” he hazarded.

“Sorry,” the blush flared on her cheeks, and he cursed himself for the clumsy question. “It’s—well, they’re so pretty, and for a long time they didn’t nest in Minnesota. They’d been hunted almost to extinction. So that they’re back now is wonderful and that they’re mating again it’s…well, you’ll see.”

She moved through a set of French doors onto the deck, then trotted down a few steps to take the raked dirt path to the pond. “Oh!” she said, and Cristopoulis looked beyond her.

A pair of swans glided quietly together on the still water, which extended further to either side than he’d anticipated. “These are parent swans?” he asked.

“I don’t think so—they still won’t leave their little ones, not even for time alone. But one of the other pairs, certainly.” LeeAnn smiled, her face once again transfixed. “I don’t know why I’m so taken with them.”

“They live here year round?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “They get to fly away.”

When he blinked at her she flushed again. “Sorry—I mean they fly away. They migrate south every year, soon actually. Then they spend the winter in more temperate climates, returning north to mate and start the cycle all over again.” She paused, gazing at the swans. “But I’m so lucky they decided to come to my little corner of the world, when they could have gone anywhere.”

Cristopoulis wasn’t watching the birds, however. He was looking at LeeAnn. There, with the afternoon sun on her face and her manner finally at ease, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and her soft eyes content, she quite possibly was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Lucky is a good way of putting it,” he murmured.

Chapter Three

It took Cris three tries to start the motorcycle, but LeeAnn didn’t mind. She also didn’t mind the short ride back down the mountain to Werth Inn. With her arms around Cris’s waist, she could imagine herself as some other girl, in some other town, riding around on the back of her boyfriend’s bike without a care in the world.

It was only for fifteen or so minutes, after all.

When they pulled up to the front of the carriage house, though, Cristopoulis’s body tensed. She swiveled to see what he was staring at.

“What in the world?” She swung her leg over the bike and hurried up the stairs to her front porch. A small, tarp-covered mound lay in front of her door, along with a note—in English, thankfully:
From the Barn
.

“They didn’t text,” Cris said, his tone equally mystified as he came up the stairs behind her.

“I wonder what—oh!” LeeAnn pulled the tarp free, and a silver-toned sculpture emerged, newly polished to a high sheen. Two separate swans with their necks arched together, their beaks almost touching. “I’d no idea my grandfather had these.”

“Here, let’s get them inside,” Cris said, and he leaned down, grunting in surprise as he picked up the statuettes. “They’re heavier than they look.”

His voice galvanized LeeAnn to action. “Sorry, let me open the door.” She keyed the lock and pushed the door wide, letting Cris in beside her.

Belatedly, she realized that he was seeing her home for the first time. Though she was fairly tidy, she typically let no one in but the cleaning lady once a week. Now she took in the main room with a sweeping glance, seeing it through another person’s eyes—and wondered what it said about her. “I’m afraid wasn’t expecting guests.”

“It’s rude for me to intrude, but—?” He lifted the swan sculpture and she pointed to the kitchen table.

“There. I never eat here, so it seems that’s a good a place as any.”

He set the sculpture down on the table, stepping back to survey it critically. “It is a good piece,” he pronounced. “Not silver, I think, but nice.”

“That makes sense. My grandfather didn’t have a lot of money for collectibles.”

Cris quirked a glance at her. “Your grandfather had an MV Augusta sitting under a tarp. Those cost money.”

“He had that from before I was born. He maybe got it from my great grandfather, now that I think of it. That’s where the money came from to open Werth Inn—the cottages anyway. They came first, then the lodge was made possible through a long-term lease-to-buy option back when those were a good idea.” She swung her gaze out to the lake, visible through the large windows. “It was a pretty location, and no one was building up here at that point. The North Woods Resort came later, but Werth Inn has kept its charm, I think.”

“It’s a beautiful inn,” Cris said, and his voice had changed enough that LeeAnn found herself fighting down another blush. People complimented the old girl all the time—yet everything that came out of this man’s mouth she seemed to take personally, as if it were a direct reflection on her.

“It is,” she nodded. “Not as fancy though. You and your men you could have had far more palatial accommodations at North Woods.”

“So you told us when we checked in, and many times thereafter.” He gestured to the deck. “Is there a door that leads out there? It’s a fine day.”

“Of course.” LeeAnn moved automatically to the French doors tucked into the corner of the room, hidden by a drape. They stepped onto the wide deck, and the soft cover of branches overhead dappled the sunlight. A breeze lifted off the lake, and Cris was correct. It was the finest day in a string of them in the high country.

“Ah! I thought so.” He pointed out onto the water. “Your swan parents, yes?”

LeeAnn looked over, and didn’t bother moderating her delighted smile. “Yes! You see—their cygnets are so young, still, but they’re growing fast.”

“I see.” Together they moved to the wide railing that skirted the deck, and LeeAnn braced her hands on the worn timbers. Cris stepped beside her, close enough their arms were touching. It took her a few moments to remember to breathe, but she thought she covered it well.

“How long have the swans been coming to the inn?” he asked.

“They’ve been here since before my dad passed—so more than five years. I’m not sure how long before, though. He didn’t track them the way I do.”

“No?”

She waved her hand to take in the property, though from this point on the deck, they were all but hidden from view of everywhere but the lake itself. “Always more to do, running an inn. Something you should keep in mind if you’re truly serious about buying property.”

“You make it seem so easy.”

“Well, I—” she turned her head toward him, prepared to make some wry comment, but the look in Cris’s eyes stopped her. “Thank you, I mean,” she finished lamely. “That’s kind of you to say.”

He shrugged, the movement somehow managing to position him yet nearer. “You’ll find the men from my country, we are not known for our kindness, merely our honesty,” he said.

“Ah,” she said, and her voice had dropped too. Cris was so close, his intense eyes almost golden in the shadows, his stare never wavering.

LeeAnn’s nerves flared with panic, and some tiny corner of her brain urged her to step away, to be sensible, to remember she was the innkeeper here and not some starry-eyed tourist, caught up with an exotic visitor to the north woods. But this exotic visitor was leaving in just a few days, flying on to whatever new adventure awaited him. And he was here, now, on her deck, a memory she could preserve during the long harsh winter to come. She could remain here a little longer, she thought. Hold this moment in her hands.

“Greece, right?” she managed. “You’re from Greece. It sounds very far away.”

“Not so far as that, I think.” Cristopoulis leaned forward, his lips almost touching hers, and LeeAnn couldn’t stop the hitch in her breath. Her heart was pounding furiously, and her hands clenched on the deck railing, but she couldn’t seem to move from the spot. “And I’m from Garronia, a kingdom next door to Greece. Still, you’re right, we definitely have some work to do to improve our inter-country relations.”

He edged the last few inches closer as he spoke, and his lips brushed over hers. A thrill of pure pleasure shot through LeeAnn from her mouth to her toes, warming parts of her body she’d not realized had gone cold. Her breath caught once more, and she swayed, but before she could steady herself against the rail Cris had moved his hands to her arms, turning her more fully to him.

“It’s a good beginning,” he said. Lifting a finger to her cheek, he traced a light trail down the side of her face, and LeeAnn couldn’t stop from shivering at the touch. It’d been so long since anyone had touched her, longer still since she’d been kissed—and this wasn’t really a kiss, either. It was the merest brush of lips together, almost friendly. Maybe something Europeans did as a matter of course, a gesture that meant nothing in Paris or Rome or Athens.

As if he could read her thoughts, Cris’s face creased into a smile. His lips tightened and LeeAnn couldn’t look away from them—even as her body warmed further and her knees got a little loose.

“I think, however, it’s not enough,” he murmured. “There is so much more work to be done.”

Then Cris’s arms went around her, pulling her tight, and his mouth was on hers again, the kiss deepening with a sudden, fervent passion that riveted LeeAnn in place.

Cristopoulis felt as if his brain was about to explode—his brain and all his extremities, particularly any part of him that was currently pressed up against LeeAnn’s soft curves. What had started as a playful kiss had now, quite suddenly, become an impossible need that he could no more deny than he could stop breathing.

LeeAnn seemed to transform in his arms to a creature of light and water, at once bright and fluid like the Aegean Sea at dawn. He blinked his eyes open, surprised that he’d closed them, and met her sky-blue gaze. Reluctantly, he drew back, both of them breathing heavily now, as if they’d run a race—though neither of them had moved.

“I think I’ve done a very poor job of managing my time here at your beautiful inn, Ms. Werth,” he said.

LeeAnn laughed haltingly, visibly trying to recover herself, though she made no move to step away from him.

Instead her nervous smile gave way to a grin. “Well, we do pride ourselves on our hospitality,” she said. “But I should tell you that most serious innkeepers would not get their heads so turned around that they would kiss an esteemed guest.”

“Then I shall have to work harder at not being esteemed,” he said. “It seems like a very bad thing to be.” And because he couldn’t help himself, Cristopoulis tipped forward again, his lips not seeking out LeeAnn’s mouth this time but a curl of her hair as it lay gently against her temple. He traced the curve of it around to the half-circle of her ear, need spiking in him again as she went nearly still in his arms, motionless but for a tremor of excitement. Or was it fear? No—not that, he thought. Everything about her was warm and alive, not cold, not frightened.

He drifted his lips over the edge of her ear and spoke again, not missing the way her breath hissed between her teeth. “But you’re quite right in your concern. I’ll be very careful to hire innkeepers who are not so beautiful as you, or who fit so perfectly against me, or taste so good.”

“Oh,” was all that LeeAnn could manage. He continued down her ear to the hollow of her neck, the collar of her cotton shirt giving way as he pressed his lips over her jumping pulse. When his teeth gently grazed her skin she squeaked, then she did push away from him, her hands going to her face but doing nothing to block the bright blush that stained her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, I—I’m sorry.”

Cristopoulis instantly knew he’d gone too far, too fast.

“Not at all, the fault is completely mine,” he said, straightening, smiling to ease the edge in his voice. Fortunately, LeeAnn had already turned away and couldn’t see the effect she’d had on his body.

At that moment, his phone buzzed in his pocket, and LeeAnn jumped. “I can go inside,” she said hurriedly.

“No, I will,” he said, as eager as she was to create some space between them, if only to preserve the fragile connection they’d barely begun to form. “The swans are happy to see you here.”

He stepped to her side, and, unable to help himself, dropped a kiss on her shoulder. Before she could protest he was past her, pressing the phone to his ear.