reason?”
“Any number. Because it was Native-American land stolen for the timber it provided. Because in the early years one Walker logger killed another logger over a woman—who then promised retribution through the ages. Simpler version—my father was a piss-poor financial manager.”
She said it with a wry affection.
“Was he?” Ryan asked.
“My siblings, everybody around consider him a foolish ne’er-do-well who should have sold out long ago...but then he made a deal with the devil that essentially means we can’t.” A little sigh caused a strand of golden-brown hair curved against her cheek to tremble. “I’d like to prove that there’s still something good here at our mountain.” She paused, her gaze dropping to her lap. “Not to mention that I could really use the cash.”
“Well—”
Her fingers gripped his forearm as her head shot up. “Shh! I think they’re coming over here.”
Ryan’s eyebrows rose. Was her sibling radar that fine-tuned? But sure enough, now he could detect footsteps on the wooden porch and the bam-bam-bam of a fist knocking.
“Insistent, aren’t they?” he asked, his voice hushed.
Her mouth moved, the words soundless, and he had to focus carefully to read her lips. “You’ve got that right.” When the rap on the door sounded again, her fingers curled tighter around his arm.
His gaze stayed glued to her face, taking in her glowing skin, small scoop of a nose, the slightly square chin. She didn’t have a loud kind of beauty, but the loveliness of her was arresting, anyway. He wanted to rub his thumb along her bottom lip; he could imagine her tongue darting out to taste his skin.
He could see himself bending his head and kissing the thin, tender flesh of her throat.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Poppy’s eyes flared wide and there was a new kind of alarm to her expression. But she still gripped his arm and now he shifted toward her, running his free hand from her wrist to her shoulder to calm her uneasiness.
But she quivered under his touch, and her big eyes went even more round. Her pupils dilated and he heard her breath catch as her cheeks turned pink.
To hell with hermit, Ryan thought. He was going to kiss her. And she had to know it was coming, because she had gone as still as a winter bunny with a hawk on the hunt. Yet she didn’t attempt escape.
As he bent closer, another annoying rat-a-tat-tat sounded. He flicked a glance toward the front door. “Maybe you should talk to them,” he whispered. “Make them go away.”
And leave the two of us alone.
A deeper flush broke across her creamy skin. Still reading his mind, Ryan decided.
Her tongue peeked out to moisten that adorable, kissable bottom lip. “They’ll insist on meeting you first,” she whispered.
“Sure,” he murmured, cupping her hot cheek in his palm. “Whatever—”
They’ll insist on meeting you.
The words sank in. Shit, he thought, dropping his hand and scooting out of Poppy’s range. Shit! He couldn’t meet them. What were the odds that all three Walker sisters would never have glanced at a gossip rag or never watched an entertainment show?
He’d have to make some sort of excuse. “Poppy...”
She was already rising to her feet, the flush now only two flags of bright red high on her cheekbones. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“What?” He read the embarrassment on her face. “No, wait, it isn’t like that—”
“It’s exactly how I want it,” Poppy replied, her stubborn chin leading toward the front entry as he jumped to his feet and trailed after her.
“Poppy...”
Standing beside one of the narrow front windows, she dared a peek. “Anyway, they’re making tracks, so I can, too.”
He realized she was right. That humming he heard wasn’t a leftover sexual buzz but a vehicle as it drove away from the cabins. “Come on, Grimm,” Poppy called, and the dog knocked into Ryan, making him stumble, and letting the woman and her pet get away before he could...
Do what? he demanded of himself.
It was fucking March and everything he touched during that month turned to disaster. So he had to keep his hands off the landlady. Stay hermit.
Even if that meant he now had even more on his mind—like a kiss that hadn’t happened.
* * *
MISERABLE AND MISERABLY wet, Poppy climbed the steps to Ryan’s cabin, a suitcase in each hand and a drenched Grimm pressed close to her knees. The short walk through the icy hail of the predicted March storm—which had arrived, predictably, days later than the meteorologists originally indicated—had frozen her blood in her veins. The low temperature had also petrified her fingers around the bag handles, so she merely lifted her foot to bang on his door with the toe of her boot.
There was no immediate response.
Shivering, she glanced at the adjacent driveway, ensuring that his SUV was, indeed, parked there. Though the weather had rendered the late afternoon twilight-dark, she could still see the vehicle’s hulking shape. She didn’t bother looking back at her own vehicle, because the memory of it was depressing enough. The heavy oak limb that had crushed a portion of her mudroom roof had also crumpled its front end.
Using her toe, Poppy knocked again with insistent thumps.
Ryan was her only hope for transportation back to town.
Grimm whined, looked up at her, then at her renter’s front door. “I know, boy,” she said, “I’m going to get us out of this abysmal weather.”
Maybe. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the man was ignoring her summons. Two days ago, they’d almost kissed. She’d tried convincing herself otherwise, but there was no getting around it. The intent had been on his face and the expectation had been running riot through her body.
Then he’d backed away, which was terribly embarrassing...since she should have been the one to retreat first. Hadn’t she learned anything? Didn’t she know better than to get mixed up with a wealthy flatlander?
He probably thought it prudent to avoid the sex-starved single woman next door. Not that she was sex-starved in the least, she reassured herself, with another kick at the wooden surface. She was a mother, with other priorities besides—
The door swung open, revealing Ryan, backlit by the cheerful light coming from the living room lamps and the crackling fire. Poppy squeezed the suitcase handles and sucked in her bottom lip to keep her jaw from dropping to her knees.
He was naked except for a skimpy towel wrapped around his hips.
Number one note to self: purchase better quality linens for the cabins.
Number two note to self: maybe she
