for that picnic as planned. He could tell her then. And after he told her, he could ride back to the ranch with her and share the news with the rest of them.
In the meantime, he needed to prove to himself that what had happened the day before was not going to happen again. He needed to be sure that yesterday was just…some kind of fluke. A strange, over-the-top reaction to seeing Steph naked down by the creek, an offshoot of the sudden realization that she wasn’t a kid anymore.
Now that he had some distance from the situation, he knew there was really nothing to worry about. Steph might be all grown-up, but she was still like a sister to him. A sister. Nothing more.
And there were a whole lot of pretty women in the world. A nice romantic evening with a fun, friendly gorgeous female would do the trick, put things firmly back into perspective for him.
As luck would have it, just such a woman called while he was in the first of his afternoon meetings. She left him a message in voice mail. She lived in San Diego and had come for the skiing in January when they’d hooked up. He’d enjoyed every moment he’d spent with her.
“I had such a great time last winter,” her recorded voice teased, “I decided to try my luck over the Fourth. I’m up in the Thunder Ridge condos with a girlfriend. Give me a buzz when you get in. I can’t wait to see you. All of you…”
He returned her call and set up a date for that night. His receptionist beeped him just as he was saying goodbye.
He hung up and punched the other line. “What?”
“Eva Post’s on two.”
Eva was his realtor. “Eva. Hey.”
“Grant. I’ve got the offer. It’s exactly as promised. The acceptance deadline is tomorrow at five, so we need to get together. We’ll go over all the points in detail, as a matter of course, before you sign. But I guarantee you’re going to be very happy. They’re giving you everything you asked for.”
“What about the closing date?”
“September first. The buyer was hoping we could make it sooner, but I explained that you needed time to shut your operation down.”
“September first…” It was a reasonable date and he knew it. But still, it seemed like no time at all.
“No worries, I promise,” Eva coaxed. “It’s in the contract that you can take whatever time you need over the next six months to sell off the stock and equipment. As long as the main house, the bunkhouse and the foreman’s cottage are ready for the buyer to move in by nine-one, she’s happy.”
She was Melanie McFarlane, an Easterner who’d shown up in town a few weeks ago and was staying in the main lodge at the resort. Melanie came from money. She had a degree in hotel management and she was buying Clifton’s Pride as an “investment,” she said. She planned to make the place into a guest ranch.
Grant’s father would never have allowed such a thing. But John Clifton was dead. The price was more than right and Melanie’s financing was rock-solid.
The only problem: Grant’s concern for his people. Damn it, he should have carried through yesterday as planned, not let himself get side-tracked by the new, grown-up Steph. It was plain wrong for him to sell Clifton’s Pride out from under them before he’d even told them he was doing it. And as things stood now, he wouldn’t be telling them until tomorrow afternoon.
Eva asked, “How about four o’clock? You can come out to my office, or I can come to you.”
“Four o’clock…today?”
“Not working for you?”
“How about tomorrow? Late afternoon. Say, four-thirty?”
“That’s cutting it right down to the wire,” the realtor warned. He said nothing. After a moment, she let it go. “My office?” she suggested.
“No. Mine.”
The realtor agreed and said goodbye.
It would work out fine, Grant promised himself. He’d tell Steph and the others the news tomorrow—and return to the office to sign the papers afterward.
Grant’s date sent him a sultry look from under her thick black lashes. They stood at the door to her friend’s condo. From her expression, he had a pretty good idea what was coming next.
And it was.
“My roommate’s away for the night,” she said. “Come in for a drink? Just so happens I’ve got a magnum of Cristal chilling.” He saw her expectations in her dark eyes. They’d had one fine time last January. Lots of laughs and some good, hot sex. She had every reason to assume it would be the same tonight.
He’d planned for it to be the same tonight.
But since yesterday, nothing seemed to be going as he planned.
Through drinks in the resort’s lounge and dinner in the Gallatin Room, he kept wondering what the hell he was doing there. Wondering made him distracted and that caused long, awkward lags in the conversation. She’d asked him three or four times if he was all right.
He’d sworn he was fine, but they both knew the night was one big loser. Surprising, now he thought about it, that she’d even bothered to invite him in. He wished she hadn’t—not now that he realized he just couldn’t give her what she wanted from him.
So much for putting things back in perspective with the help of a fun, friendly, gorgeous gal.
“Thanks,” he said. “But I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow.”
She blinked. But she recovered quickly. He knew what she was thinking: If he was fool enough to turn her down, it was his loss. She moved close and he got a whiff of her perfume. Musky. Exotic. A scent he’d found damn sexy last winter.
Hell. He still found it sexy. Just…not for him.
She touched his cheek, her hand smooth and cool. He thought of Steph’s hand—sun-warmed, rough with calluses—and it hit him like a mule kick to the gut.
All his denials meant exactly nothing.
He wanted Steph so bad, it was causing him to do the strangest things—like forgetting to tell her he was selling the ranch she loved so damn much. Like turning down a hot night with a fine, sexy woman, an experienced woman who knew a lot of really impressive, inventive ways to please a man…
He was in big trouble and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“’Night, then,” his date said, and went in.
He returned to his offices in the resort’s corporate headquarters down the hill from main lodge. There was always plenty of work to catch up on and he didn’t feel a whole lot like sleeping anyway.
By the next morning, Grant had himself convinced all over again that he really had no problem when it came to Stephanie. No problem at all.
He would meet her at noon, as agreed. He’d feel what he’d always felt toward her before Sunday: fondness and
