He could stay here and pretend none of it was happening, leave Aimee to clean up her own mess, as he felt she should.
Or…
He could go after Juice…and maybe Krista…himself.
“HOW ABOUT THAT DRINK?”
Lucy nearly dropped the file she was about to put away. “Oh. Josh. Hi.”
She made herself look nonchalantly into his dark eyes and told her heart to calm the hell down. New toy. Shiny toy. Not better than what she had at home, just different.
“Did you forget?”
She made herself laugh, mind racing. Forget the possibility of going out with him? Uh, no. But she couldn’t do this. Could she? Was she going to do this? Krista would say she had to.
“No, I didn’t forget.”
He sat on the edge of her desk and tipped his head, watching her. His eyes were so, so dark. “And…do you want to go?”
Yes. God, yes. With a sudden force that shocked the hell out of her, she wanted to.
“My boyfriend. Link. I don’t think he’d…” She gestured stupidly back and forth between herself and Josh.
“This isn’t about Link.”
She flashed him a warning glance and he put up both hands in surrender. He had nice hands, narrower than Link’s and with longer fingers. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m a nice guy. I’m not out to make you do anything you don’t want to. And I’m not trying to bust anything up, especially if he makes you happy.”
Her head started spinning. She took her time tucking the holiday party file back in its place in her desk drawer, wishing he hadn’t phrased it quite that way. Especially if he makes you happy. “Thank you.”
“But unless I’m wrong here, and you can feel free to tell me if I am…”
His silence made her look up again. Her stomach-flipping reaction to his obvious concern made her wish she hadn’t. “Yes?”
“You don’t strike me as happy.”
She bent her head, closed the drawer. “Things are…tough right now.”
Oh, good one, Lucy. Open the door and invite a man you’re madly attracted to right into your vulnerability and confusion. Call her the queen of earnestly blundering into stupid situations. Too much honesty was not a good thing. Especially around someone she had no real relationship with.
“I’m a good listener.” He smiled. Even his teeth were perfect. He looked like a movie star, like a rougher, more masculine version of Orlando Bloom but with that same slender, dark-curled, dreamy perfection. “And I’m good at meaningless chatter if you don’t feel like talking about anything intense.”
“Why do you want to go out with me?”
He gave a little shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d ask such a question. “Because I like you. I don’t get to talk to you much at work. You’re always so serious and I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than this. A lot more.”
Whoa. His voice had dropped to a husky, seductive murmur on the last three words. She could barely breathe from the excitement of a man so intrigued by her. This was getting very, very dangerous.
Link. She loved Link. This guy was cotton-candy fluff and Link was the salt of her earth.
“Link and I are—”
“This has nothing to do with you and Link. I’m after friendship.” He looked pained for a second, then slid off her desk and crossed to the empty couch where people sat waiting to see her boss, Alexis. “Okay, maybe that’s bullshit. Maybe I just want it to be true because it would be easier. But if friendship is all you have to offer me, I’ll take it, Lucy.”
Her name came off his tongue, traveled across the room and sounded like the best thing she’d ever heard.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He turned and met her eyes, grinned, slow and lazy and sexier than was good for her sanity. “That’s better than no.”
She cleared her throat. Link was home waiting for her. There was no way she could do this to him. “I’m afraid no is all I can say right now.”
“Right now?” He crossed the room back to her and she dropped her eyes, unable to take the hope in his.
She should say or ever. She needed to say it. She had to say it. Or she’d open up such a Pandora’s box she’d never be safe again. Never again feel the world belonged only to Link and her. If she let this man in…
God, she wanted to.
“Maybe…a drink would be okay. Sometime.”
“Not today?”
“No. I can’t. I have to—” She looked at her watch, trying to think of something besides get home to Link and cook his dinner, because that made her sound so dull and slavish. “Go. Somewhere.”
Yeah, quick thinking, Lucy. She was no good at lying. She’d be no good at cheating.
“Okay.” He smiled and touched her shoulder the way a friend might, just a gentle tap. Only it didn’t affect her the way a friend’s touch would. “I’m really looking forward to ‘sometime.’”
She watched him walk away, his smooth, graceful stride so different from Link’s powerful, lumbering step, and sank back into her chair, cheeks on fire. What had she done?
And what was she going to do with the terrible fear that he wasn’t looking forward to “sometime” even half as much as she was?
KRISTA PEERED THROUGH her snow-shrunk windshield, wipers clearing the white fluff away as fast as it could fall. And it was falling fast. Good thing she’d gotten restless and left earlier than she’d planned this afternoon. She was a few miles from the inn and the snow had only been falling for an hour or so, but the radio report indicated travel conditions were going to get worse as the evening wore on.
At least the drive had been lovely. She’d been to Maine quite a few times but never stopped being amazed at the change from the New Hampshire border, across the Piscataqua River, into the peace and green of the appropriately nicknamed Pine Tree State. This time she’d traveled farther north than the usual coastal hotels and shopping meccas. She’d left 95 at Route 201, the Old Canada Road National Scenic Byway, and headed northwest to Skowhegan. Then past. Then after forever, she’d turned onto what was a fairly unpromising-looking little track, which Betty Robinson, the Pine Tree Inn owner, had cheerfully assured her was not going to seem right but was.
If she said so.
Certainly no problems with traffic. Maine was not jammed this time of year as it could be in summer. Ideal for what Krista was after. Off-the-beaten-track romantic holiday getaways.
So far she could see how this could be very romantic. Closer to Skowhegan there had been
