“What were you looking for?”
“Nothing important.”
Nothing important, his ass. She wasn’t the type of woman to climb a tree just for the hell of it. But if he knew anything about her, it was that he couldn’t push for answers. He needed a diversion for now, then he’d work his way back to the subject at hand. “How’s Riley?” He’d heard back from Sawyer that the teen wasn’t a missing person, or even a person of interest, so there’d been no legal reason to interfere in her life again. But he wanted to know that she was okay.
“I haven’t seen her after the sleepover,” Amy said. “I know you were worried about her, and also about me taking care of her, but she’s gone. I’m sorry.”
Unable to stop himself, Matt stroked a strand of hair out of her pretty eyes. “I was never worried about you taking care of her.”
“Maybe you should have been.”
“Why?” he asked, confused.
“Well, it’s not like you know me, not really. I could be a horrible person, who’s done horrible things.”
“I know enough,” he said firmly.
“But—”
He put a finger on her lips. She stared at him for a long beat, as if taking measure of his honesty. Or maybe she was deciding on a way to kick his ass for shushing her. Then her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he hoped she was remembering how good it felt on hers.
Because that’s what he was remembering. Ducking a little, he cupped her jaw and eyed her newest injury—the scratch. It could use some antiseptic. He ran his other hand down her arm to her wrapped wrist. “How is this doing?”
“Better.”
He shifted his hand to her leg, his fingers brushing bare skin thanks to the shorts, before landing on the bandage there. “And your thigh?”
She didn’t answer as quickly, and when she did, her breathing wasn’t as even as before. “Better.”
“And your…” His hand slid around now and cupped her very sweet ass.
She choked out some reply and gave him a shove to the chest that made him grin. Turning, he scooped up her sketch pad for her. Before he could open it, she snatched it from him and shoved it into her backpack. “Thanks,” she said.
He watched her fiddle with her stuff a moment. She was clearly waiting him out, assuming he’d move on.
She was wrong. “So are you going to tell me what you’re doing out here?” he asked. “Or maybe you were hoping to find me.”
She laughed. “Nice ego. But no. Not hoping to find you.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re crushed.” She zipped her backpack. “My grandma came here one summer, a long time ago. She used to tell me stories about the places she hiked to and the things she’d seen.”
“It’s a pretty unforgettable place,” he said.
“Her stories were my fairy tales growing up. Her trip out here was important to her. It changed her life.”
“Are you looking to change your life?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged. “Maybe. A little.”
“Why now?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Your grandma died when you were twelve, right?”
“Yes,” she said, looking surprised that he remembered. “And then I went to live with my mom and her new husband. Until I was sixteen.”
He waited but she didn’t go on. “What happened when you were sixteen?”
Some of the light went out of her eyes, but then she turned her head from him pretty quickly. She looked out at the water.
Okay, so this wasn’t up for discussion. He stood at her side and looked out at the first lake as well. There were wet prints on the rocky shore. She’d gone swimming. He’d have liked to see that. “So… where did you go at sixteen? Is that when you traveled around?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with yourself?”
“I grew up,” she said flatly. “That took a while. And then, finally, I ended up out here in Lucky Harbor.”
“To recreate your grandma’s journey. To change your life.”
“Yes.” She paused, clearly weighing her words. “She wrote in her journal that out here she found… things.”
“Things.”
“Hope. Peace.” She paused, grimacing as if she was embarrassed. “Her own heart. Whatever that means.”
“In a tree?”
She gave a little laugh and told him about the initials at Sierra Meadows, about Jonathon, his illness, and how Rose had found hope there at the base of the diamond rocks.
“And what about you?” he asked. “Did you find hope?
She looked into his eyes, and the air seemed to crackle between them. “I found something,” she said softly. She held his gaze for another beat and then turned back to the water. There was a light breeze now, rippling the surface of the lake, raising whitecaps.
“What did Rose find here at Four Lakes? Peace?”
“Apparently. Her initials are on the tree trunk, up about twenty feet. I think she saw Jonathon swimming and feeling stronger, and she realized that they could fight the illness. And before you ask, I don’t know where she found her heart. The journal entries aren’t as clear when it comes to the last leg of her trek, something about going around in a circle.” She was quiet a moment. “Out here, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. No buildings, no people. People always say the city is a scary place, but to me, this is scary. It’s big.”
He nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. In the city, there was always something right in front of you. A car, a building, people. Out here there was nothing but space, wide open space. “It’s just different from what you’re used to.”
“Very,” she agreed on a low, throaty laugh. “And it takes my breath the way the mountains cut into the cliffs and valleys. Everything’s so tough and rugged.”
“Like the people who roam here.” He got a smile out of her for that one. He wanted to ask her more about her past but knew she wasn’t ready to tell him. And he didn’t need to know, he reminded himself. This wasn’t a relationship.
She picked up a smooth, round rock and tried to skim it across the water, but it plopped instead. “When you saw me on the trail that first time,” she said, “I was having trouble locating Sierra Meadows and the wall of rocks there.”
He picked up a rock, flatter than the one she’d used. “You could have told me.” He skimmed the rock across the surface of the lake six times.
“Show-off,” she said. “And I didn’t want help. But then I fell down that ravine and found the meadows by accident. Four Lakes was much easier to find. The tree though…” She sent it a look. “Not so much.”
He eyed the entire stand of trees around them, at least ten. “How many did you have to climb before you found the right one?”
She rubbed at the scratch on her jaw. “Five. Not bad odds for a city rat.”
“Did you find peace?”“No. I found sap, and the will to never climb another tree again.”
He smiled. “I bet.”
“But I enjoyed the day,” she said with some surprise. “It made me want to have more days like this one.”
He met her gaze. “Maybe that’s peace.”
“I don’t know.” Her expression was more open than he’d ever seen it, and he felt a surge of something swell in his chest.
Not good.
Not good at all.
She rubbed at her scratch again, and he brushed her hand away, then bent and kissed her jaw just above it.
She sucked in a breath and went still. Then she turned her head so that their mouths were lined up, a fraction of an inch apart. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing your owie and making it better. Consider it just another of the services I provide.”
“Maybe I should see a list of these services,” she said.
“For you, anything goes.”
Her smile faded, and her eyes went very serious, though she didn’t step back from him. Her warm breath commingled with his. It was an incredibly erotic feeling, alone on a mountaintop, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of wild land, standing toe to toe.
Mouth to mouth.
Sharing air.
“Matt?”
“Yeah?”
A sigh escaped her lips. “I really want to sleep with you, but…”
“Damn,” he said. “That was a great sentence right up to the ‘but.’ ”
“But,” she repeated firmly, then hesitated and blew out a breath, “I have… qualms.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay. The thing is, I think the sex would be good—”
“Good? Try off the charts.”
She acknowledged that with a nod. “Yeah, probably.”
Definitely.
“But…”
He sighed. The “but” again.
“But,” she repeated, “if you want anything more than that, I’m not interested.”
Wait—What? Had he heard her correctly, or just projected the words he’d want to hear?
She was waiting for a reaction, and it was just so unbelievable, and unbelievably perfect, that he laughed out loud.
Chapter 10
Flowers and champagne might set the stage, but it’s chocolate that steals the show.
Amy stared at Matt as he started laughing and felt her eyes narrow. “I’m sorry, but how exactly is the idea of us ha**g s*x funny?”
He laughed some more, looking quite gone with amusement, and it pissed her off. He made a clear effort to control himself, but it was too late. She was over it, and over him. And embarrassed to boot. “You think because I’m a woman I’d automatically want more than just sex? Well guess what Ranger Hot Buns—” She took a beat to enjoy his wince. “Women want just-sex as much as any guy.” Some more than others. Some had suppressed their urges for far too long and were fire rockets just waiting to go off. “So welcome to the twenty-first century,” she said. “Where women like just-sex.”
For some reason, this set him off again, and she pushed him. He didn’t budge, though, so she pushed him again, or at least she meant to. But her brain scrambled the signal, and her hands fisted in his shirt. “I ought to shut you up.”
This got his attention. “Yeah,” he said, hands sliding to her hips, “shut me up.”
“Fine.” She shut him up with one hell of a kiss. By the time it ended, she was plastered up against his hard body, her own humming. The force of his personality came through every touch of his rough, callused hands, exuding heat and the promise of unbelievable ecstasy. “Not laughing now, are you?” she said.
“Hell, no.” He came at her this time, and she found herself melting into him like suddenly there was no invisible line in the sand between them, nothing but this incredible pleasure, pleasure she couldn’t remember ever getting out of a simple kiss before.
Problem was, nothing about Matt was simple. Not for her. His arms held her close, and the scent of clean, warm male was making her heart pound. Her head was overrun with wicked thoughts involving her tongue and every inch of his body. Unable to help herself, she nipped at his throat.
“Amy.” His voice was thrillingly quiet and gruff as he ran his lips along her jaw. “Don’t promise what you don’t want to deliver.”
Turning her head, she cupped his face and pulled it closer. He let out a sound and sucked hungrily on her bottom lip. And while his mouth and tongue were very busy, so were his hands, gripping her hips.
“I rarely make promises,” she told him. “But when I do, I deliver.” She nibbled at his ear next, then, when he groaned, did it again.
A phone vibrated, Matt’s, but he ignored it. Whoever it was called back again immediately. Swearing quite creatively, Matt yanked the phone off his service belt. “Busy,” he said and shoved it into his pocket.
“When do you get off?” Amy asked.
“If we’re not careful, in less than ten seconds.”
She looked down at the hard-on threatening the zipper of his uniform trousers. “I meant off work.”
He once again pulled his cell phone and looked at the time. “Twenty minutes.”
She bit her lip and looked around them. There was the lake and a lovely area of wild grass, but it might be full of the creepy crawlies he’d mentioned the other night.
Reading her mind, he smiled but shook his head. “Not here. Not the first time.”
“There’s only going to be one time.” That was all she needed to take the edge off. The fact was, it’d been so long. Too long. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the feel of a man’s body against hers, how much she needed an orgasm that wasn’t a self-serve. And she wanted that without the pomp and circumstance, without planning, without anticipation. She wanted it now, wanted the sweet oblivion, the little bang, and then she’d go back to her day. “You’ve never done it in the great outdoors?”
“That’s not where we’re doing it,” he said firmly.
“Hmm.” She ran her finger down his chest, hoping to infuse some of her urgency to him.
He caught her wandering hand in his. “Hmm what?”
“Didn’t peg you for a prude.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously at the implied insult to his manhood, and he tightened his grip on her. “You’re going to take that back in a little bit.”
She had no idea what it said about her that this ridiculous display of alpha-ness brought her a delicious shiver of anticipation. “Yeah?”