any work done. He’d never been so distracted in his life. He sat for a good ten minutes staring at the same piece of paper and then realized he hadn’t yet read a word of it.
He kept thinking about Melanie. And it wasn’t just about the enormous disturbance she was going to create in his admittedly clutter-filled life over the next few weeks.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a brilliant copper-eyed gaze, red curls and a freckled nose. Even the cute little quirk of her right eyebrow came to mind, and he didn’t know why.
Melanie Frazer was going to be nothing but trouble.
Worse yet, Nate had offered her a room at the lodge so she wouldn’t have to commute from Boulder. With Vince’s luck, she’d be tailing him everywhere, at all hours of the day. At the very least, he knew she was foaming at the mouth to get started organizing him. His shoulders tensed just thinking about it. He was a private person. His stuff was his stuff.
Scowling, he reached for the next stack of papers and stared unseeingly at the one on top. The bell over the front door rang, and he pulled in a breath and held it as he looked up, knowing it was going to be Melanie. Both a smile and a frown wrestled in his expression.
“I thought you might be hiding,” she teased as she brushed curls from her eyes with the palm of her hand. At least she had dressed more sensibly today, in khaki pants and a chocolate-brown sweater that complemented her eyes.
More to the point, she was wearing a pair of hiking boots—new ones, he judged thoughtfully. They’d probably give her a blister or two as she broke them in, but they were still better than high heels by a mile.
“What would be the point?” Vince’s smile was winning the war against the frown, despite his annoyance at Nate for getting him into this situation in the first place.
“Mmm,” she agreed, cocking her head to one side as she studied him. “Sensible man.”
Vince cringed inwardly, although he was careful not to let it show on his face. She was teasing him, of course, but the words hit home nonetheless.
A sensible man. He’d been called that before. It was practically his call sign. If he were charming and witty like his brother, he’d know how to handle a woman like Melanie, instead of tripping over his tongue—and his thoughts, for that matter—all the time.
Hogwash.
He didn’t want to be like Nate. He had enough to think about just being himself. He had a job to do, as did Melanie. And her job, the way he understood it, was to make a nuisance of herself. The sooner she realized he wasn’t the type of man to change things around on a whim, the better off they all would be.
It was as simple as that. Or not.
He reached for his crutches and hobbled to the door separating the front office from the main room. Melanie scrambled forward to help him hold the door, and then hovered near his elbow as he awkwardly hopped toward the furniture surrounding the central fireplace.
He didn’t know what she expected to be able to do if he lost his balance. A tiny little thing like her couldn’t possibly catch him from falling.
“The doctor says I have to keep this cast on for six weeks,” he said, trying for a conversational tone as he dropped to a seat on the sofa.
“It’s bright red,” she remarked, staring at his fluorescent cast.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a chuckle, thinking more of the color of her hair than of his cast. “They have all kinds of nifty colors to choose from these days.”
“Does it hurt?” She took a seat next to him on the couch and crossed her feet at the ankles.
“It itches. I’ll live. Six weeks, if I’m on good behavior.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The cast. I’ll get it off in six weeks.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding relieved. “For a moment there I thought you were talking about me.”
Vince shook his head. He was thinking about her, but he wasn’t talking about her.
“Good, because you’re not getting rid of me.”
She was almost as blunt and straight-to-the-point as he was, and it took him aback. He stared at her for a long moment, wondering if there was anything he could say to dissuade her from her purpose.
From the look on her face, not much. Unless, of course, he could convince her she was wasting her time.
Which shouldn’t be that hard to do, all things being equal. His daily life was anything but glamorous; and really, having a cast on his leg wasn’t any huge hindrance to the mountains of paperwork on his desk that he had to tackle this afternoon. How exciting was that? She’d soon find that there was little she could do to remove the mind-numbing pace of running the lodge, and his business system, while not as up-to-date as she’d no doubt like to see it, worked for him.
More or less.
Maybe she would see he was hopeless and just leave him alone. His work—his life—could be summed up in three words: boring, tedious and dull. Okay, and maybe unsystematic, but certainly not chaotic.
For the tiniest moment he wished he had something exciting going on in his life, something that would spark the interest of a beautiful, successful woman like Melanie.
Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen. Besides, it was the lodge she was interested in—not him personally. He scoffed internally at his own foolish musings.
Better she learned the truth up front. And better he keep his mind where it belonged—on the lodge.
And not on a certain redhead.
Chapter Three
It was hard for Melanie to concentrate with Vince’s clear, blue-eyed gaze on hers. He was probably wondering what kind of valid help she could possibly be to him.
If he knew the truth, he’d be bolting out the door without looking back.
She was about to rock his life—or the business part of it, anyway. The thought made her smile inwardly, although she kept her expression carefully neutral as Vince sized her up as if she were some kind of competition to him, like players on the opposing sides of a field.
He really didn’t get that they were supposed to be teammates here. She was working for him, not against him, but she sensed it would take her a while to get that piece of information through his thick skull. He had been perfectly polite, of course, but she knew he didn’t want her there. No doubt he was thinking of the quickest and most efficient way to get rid of her.
Which wasn’t going to happen.
Nevertheless, she was relieved when he finally looked away. It disconcerted her to have him staring at her so intently, especially when he cocked his head and flashed her a secretive smile.
“So…” he began, and then let his sentence dangle uncomfortably.
“So?” she challenged. She tipped her chin up and met his reflective
