USA TODAY bestselling author Christie Ridgway returns to Blue Arrow Lake with the dazzling story of opposites attracting in the rustic mountains of California.

As live-in tutor to a headstrong teen, Shay Walker has her hands full—and the girl’s absentee father doesn’t help matters, either. All Shay wants is to let loose and indulge in a birthday fling with the hottest stranger who’s ever caught her eye. But her one-night stand turns out to be Jace Jennings, her student’s long-distance dad…and now he’s taking up residence—at his lakeside estate and in Shay’s most secret fantasies.

Jace isn’t exactly a family man, but he’s determined to do his best by his daughter—and the first step is forgetting how hot he is for her teacher. But close proximity and their heated connection keeps Shay at the forefront of his mind—even as it’s obvious she holds her heart in check. So does Jace. Until they both realize that losing control just might mean finding forever.

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Christie Ridgway

“This sexy page-turner [is] a stellar kick-off to Ridgway’s latest humor-drenched series.”

—Library Journal on Take My Breath Away

“Emotional and powerful…everything a romance reader could hope for.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Bungalow Nights

“Kick off your shoes and escape to endless summer. This is romance at its best.”

—Emily March, New York Times bestselling author of Nightingale Way, on Bungalow Nights

“Sexy and addictive—Ridgway will keep you up all night!”

—New York Times bestselling author Susan Andersen on Beach House No. 9

“A great work of smart, escapist reading.”

—Booklist on Beach House No. 9

“Sexy, sassy, funny, and cool, this effervescent sizzler nicely launches Ridgway’s new series and is a perfect pick-me-up for a summer’s day.”

—Library Journal on Crush on You

“Pure romance, delightfully warm and funny.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Crusie

“Christie Ridgway writes with the perfect combination of humor and heart. This funny, sexy story is as fresh and breezy as its southern California setting. An irresistible read!”

—New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs on How to Knit a Wild Bikini

Make Me Lose Control

Christie Ridgway

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of my brother, Matt, the best of family men.

Dear Reader,

It’s time for another visit to Blue Arrow Lake, surrounded by peaks, pines and sunshine! Just a short uphill drive from Los Angeles, the resort area is a popular place for city-dwellers to explore mountain life. The people who make their home there year-round consider themselves the luckiest of souls, even though it means often dealing with the flatlanders who are mere short-timers to the area.

Shay Walker, one of the Walker mountain clan, is content most of the time…except once a year when her birthday rolls around. She has issues on that day, and this time she indulges with a delicious stranger as a way to forget her woes. But when that man shows up on her doorstep—uh, his doorstep, as she’s ensconced in his lakeside estate as a live-in tutor for his estranged teen—she realizes her life has become quite a bit more complicated. Jace Jennings spells difficult d-a-u-g-h-t-e-r, and now he has her sexy tutor to reckon with, as well. He considers himself no kind of family man, but he’s going to discover he has hidden talents!

It takes an open heart to love, as the characters in this story come to learn. They resist, they rebel, they flat-out pretend not to see how wonderful they are for each other, and I enjoyed every minute of writing their journey toward becoming a pair…and then a family. Come on board, sit back and revel in the ride. Destination…romance!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Dedication

Title Page

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

A life without love is like a year without summer.

—Swedish proverb

CHAPTER ONE

SHAY WALKER WATCHED the twentysomething man slap a cardboard coaster on the polished wooden surface in front of her. His long sun-streaked hair hung about his shoulders in the careless style of a guy who snowboarded on the nearby peaks in winter and kayaked on the deep lakes in summer. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“A change in the calendar?” she murmured, looping the strap of her purse over the convenient hook on the underside of the bar. The small leather bag brushed her knees, bared by the new summer dress she wore. Though the late May evenings might still be cool in the Southern California mountains, Shay had opted for the filmy floral garment anyway. It was sleeveless, and the hemline was asymmetrical, nearly mini in the front and then flowing to midcalf in the back. It also revealed a minor amount of cleavage, which even in its relative modesty seemed to be captivating the bartender.

“Um, what?” he asked, his gaze slowly lifting from her chest to her face. “I don’t think I know that drink.”

“I was kidding,” she said. “How about a martini? Vodka. Straight up.” Though chardonnay was more often her order, tonight she needed a stronger beverage.

Birthdays didn’t bring out the best in her.

In no time, the boarder-slash-bartender slid the requested drink onto the coaster then watched as she picked it up and sipped. Tiny slivers of ice melted on her tongue and the alcohol pleasantly heated the back of her throat. Okay, she thought, as she took another swallow. Maybe this celebration wouldn’t turn out so bad, after all.

“You here alone?” the guy on the other side of the bar asked.

“For the moment. I’m meeting a friend.” She glanced at the TV mounted above the glass shelves of liquor bottles, pretending a fascination with the news program playing.

Whether Boarder Dude would have taken the hint or not, she didn’t know. A waitress approached and fired off a long order that claimed his attention, allowing Shay to give up her pseudofascination with the consumer reporter’s fight to get a pothole filled in a city thousands of feet below the mountains.

She glanced around, taking in the adjacent restaurant. Exposed wood, an enormous chandelier made of antlers, warm lighting. People were dressed in peaks-and-pines chic, meaning they wore everything from denim to silk. A meal at the Deerpoint Inn’s grill had been her old friend Melinda’s idea. She’d recently moved to a tiny cabin a couple of miles from it and said she’d heard good things about the food.

Since the place was fifteen miles of winding mountain road from where Shay was currently living, in Blue Arrow Lake, she’d decided to book one of the inn’s six rooms in case the birthday blues triggered some overimbibing. Thinking of the key already tucked away in her purse, she took a hefty swallow of her drink. No reason not to get all warm and fuzzy as soon as possible.

It beat the heck out of what she could have been doing tonight—sitting alone in a massive lakefront mansion. And didn’t that just sound whiny and pitiful? But it wasn’t her massive lakefront mansion—she’d always lived in much humbler abodes—and the house would seem much too empty without the presence of the teenager Shay was charged with looking after until the end of summer. For the previous three months, she’d been a governess of sorts for a girl who colored her hair inky black, who exclusively draped herself in dark shapeless garments and who walked around with the jaded air of a thousand-year-old vampire. It made for interesting times.

But the teen was otherwise occupied for the night. In a show of rare enthusiasm, she’d opted to attend the Hollywood premiere of a much-anticipated animated movie with Shay’s sister, her sister’s young son and her sister’s fiancé. They would spend the night down the mountain, too.

So when Melinda called, suggesting a get-together, Shay had agreed.

The bartender strolled by and glanced at her glass, and she gave him the nod. Yes, sir, I’ll have another. She wanted more warm and fuzzy.

Birthdays were her bane not because her age upped a digit, but because the occasion reminded her of the circumstances of her conception. She wasn’t a Walker, really—not by blood. When strained finances had put a rift in Dell and Lorna Walker’s marriage, Dell had headed for a mining job in South America. Lorna’s subsequent affair with a wealthy visitor to the mountain resort area had ended when she found herself pregnant. But not long after Shay was born, Lorna’s husband returned to the States, reconciled with his wife and accepted another daughter into the family as if Shay were his own. There were adoption papers somewhere to prove it.

Still, she’d always felt a step or two outside the family circle, even though her older brother, Brett, and her big sisters, Mackenzie and Poppy, had never once made her feel like only half their sibling.

She lifted the fresh martini and took a swallow. Maybe her throat was numb now, because the burn there was gone. Instead, the drink sparked a bright idea in her brain. She should locate those adoption papers! Frame and display them as a daily reminder that she was actually one of the Walkers. Legally anyway.

With her parents deceased, however, she didn’t know how to find the documents. Maybe Brett would have a clue where to look, she thought, digging her phone from her purse. When he didn’t answer, she sent him a text, realizing her fingers were a little clumsy on the tiny keyboard.

Another swallow of mostly vodka eliminated her concern over it.

She’d nearly drained the second martini when the phone buzzed in her hand. The display read Mel.

“Where are you?” Shay demanded through the device. “It’s my birthday and I’m all alone.”

“Your birthday’s tomorrow,” Melinda pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.” Shay had been going glum a whole day early. But that was okay, she decided, tilting back her head to shake the last drops of her drink into her mouth, because there was enough glum to spread across the calendar. Not all of her sibs could do cake and ice cream—their usual tradition—tomorrow so that was being postponed to yet another time.

Poor Shay. Poor Shay, who was not really a Walker.

“Uh-oh,” she said to Melinda, signaling the boarding bartender that she needed a refill. “You better speed over here, stat. I’m drinking martinis and getting morose.”

“About that...”

“Noooo.” Shay began to shake her head, then quit, because the movement made her dizzy. When had she eaten last?

“I’m sorry, but—”

“This was your idea, Mel. I need an un-no, a mun-mo... An un-moroser!” She finally spit out the made-up word with a note of triumph.

The bartender replaced her glass with a fresh one. She pointed at him with her free hand. “I bet you really tear it up when you’re shreddin’ the gnar,” she said to express her appreciation of how he’d anticipated her need. “And you never biff, do you?”

“Are you talking to me?” Mel said in her ear.

“Nope.” Probably her friend didn’t understand snowboard lingo any better than Shay, but that didn’t stop her tonight. “That was to BB—Boarder Bartender.”

“Oh, dear.” Mel sighed. “You are drunk. And alone in a bar, where I can’t get to you.”

“Which I’m still waiting to hear what for.” Shay frowned. “How. I mean, why.”

“A wildfire has caused local road closures,” her friend said. “They’re diverting cars from the highway, too.”

Shay blinked, somewhat sobered by the news. Fire was a constant danger in their mountains. “Structures threatened?”

“Not so far. But the closed roads mean I can’t reach the inn...and you can’t get home, either.”

“I booked a room here.” She drew the martini closer, and, thinking of fire, took it up for a hefty swallow. “So’s all’s good.”

“You’re slurring,” Melinda said.

“I’ll order food. What goes with martinis?”

“Olives?” Mel suggested.

“Oh.” Shay inspected her glass. “Mine came with those twisty lemon peels.”

“I was kidding,” the other woman said. “Get something with protein. And order bread. That’s good to absorb the alcohol.”

“But I’m enjoying the alcohol,” Shay protested. Her gaze shifted to the TV screen as the bartender upped the volume. The picture was from a helicopter and showed the dark mountains and a glowing orange snake of flames. A shiver rolled down her back. Fire had taken a lot from the Walkers and she didn’t appreciate the reminder of it.

Again, she brought her glass to her lips, hoping to drown her discomfort.

“Shay?” her friend called.

“Oh.” She’d forgotten about Mel. “I wish you were here.”

“Me, too.” The other woman’s voice went stern. “Now promise me no more martinis.”

“Um...” Shay closed one eye to better inspect the clear liquid left in her glass. The yellow curl of peel was so delicate and pretty. Who needed olives? “No more martinis.” Maybe.

“And try to have some fun tonight,” her friend said. “That’s an order.”

Fun? All alone and with no more martinis? That wasn’t the way to make Melinda’s command come true.

* * *

THE VOLUME OF noise from the patrons of the Deerpoint Inn amplified as more of them became aware of the fire and tuned into the coverage on the TV over the bar. The manager struck a glass with a fork and when the voices around him died down, he announced which roads were blocked. New people trickled in, having been rerouted from the now closed highway. The long-haired bartender got busy filling drink orders as many guests figured out they likely wouldn’t be driving anywhere that night.

Trying to tamp down her nerves, Shay sipped at the last of the third martini, ordered a plate of chicken quesadilla appetizers, then threw caution to the wind and asked for another alcohol concoction.

Mel had told her to have fun, hadn’t she? When the front door of the restaurant opened once again, bringing with it the disconcerting scent of smoke, Shay didn’t hesitate to reach for her new glass.

She needed to block the fire from her mind.

A body slid onto the bar stool beside her. Shay looked over, the glance automatic, but her response was anything but.

As she took in the man on her right, it was as if a cold pail of water had been dumped on top of her head—an icy surprise. Following that, a rush of heat crept up from her toes all the way to the roots of her hair.

He was gorgeous.

And no boy, she thought, with a mental apology to BB, the boarder-bartender who had, after all, been so ably supplying her with vodka and a splash of vermouth. The newcomer was tall, his build rugged, with heavy shoulders and muscled arms, a broad chest, lean waist and strong thighs, all signaling a more than passing familiarity with manual labor. Linking his fingers on the bar, he ordered a beer, and Shay directed her gaze to his hands. They were big, too, and wide-palmed. She could see tiny white scars scattered on the tan skin.

Then, under the cover of her lashes, she took a second look at his face. At the same time, she tilted her head, just a little, as if trying to get a better view of the television and not his fine, fine features.

Wow.

His hair was mink-brown, thick and straight. It was shorn fairly tight, revealing a broad forehead. His cheekbones were high, he had a straight blade of a masculine nose and his lips were full. His strong jaw was edged with just a hint of dark stubble.

She stifled the urge to fan herself, afraid to draw his attention. What would she say to someone like him?

And then, before she could redirect her eyes, his head turned. His gaze cut straight to her face.

Like a lion’s, his irises were golden. Also like a lion’s, they seemed preternaturally aware of the weaker creature—Shay—in the vicinity. The tiny hairs on her body lifted, her senses warning he was supremely aware of her tripping heartbeat and all the delicious warm blood rushing below her skin.

Though her belly fluttered, she remained as she was—frozen, and feeling like an impala just now singled out by the biggest predator on the savannah. One of his dark eyebrows winged up.

And Shay blurted out the first thing that came into her head. “I’m supposed to be celebrating my birthday tonight but my friend couldn’t get here.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as the second eyebrow joined the first. “Okay.”

“This is my third martini.” She gestured toward her current glass, then frowned. “Or my fourth.”

“All right.”

“I’ve had nothing to eat yet.” At that, she ran out of things to say. None of what she’d already shared, she realized, gave any rational explanation for why she’d been staring at him. Damn.

“Is it a four-martini birthday, then?” he inquired conversationally. He murmured thanks as his beer was placed before him. His gaze turned assessing. “I can’t imagine it’s one of the more painful ones.”

“Oh, um, well.” She shifted her attention to her drink and drew it closer. “Maybe it’s the fire.”

“Aren’t we safe?” He sipped from his beer. “The highway patrol seemed to know what they were doing when they shuttled me in this direction. They said I might be stuck here for as little as a few hours, though possibly longer.”

“We’ll be fine.” There was no need to pass along her skittishness. “The fire protection people and the other authorities have a lot of experience.”

Her quesadillas arrived and the smell of them tickled her taste buds. She could feel the man at her side eyeing them with interest. Enough interest that she felt compelled to offer, “Help yourself. There’s too much for me to eat all by myself.”

“Oh, I—”

“Go on,” she said. “We’re fellow refugees of a sort, after all.”

There was another moment’s hesitation, then she saw his hand reach toward the platter. She pushed half the tall stack of paper napkins that had been delivered with the food toward him.

What she didn’t do was look at him again.

Never before had she found a man so attractive, Shay decided. She wasn’t a nun; she’d dated and had been in a couple of longish relationships. But one-night stands were on her Not Ever list.

Living in a small tight-knit community meant that everyone knew everyone’s else’s business. Since Shay was the product of an extramarital affair and the father of her sister Poppy’s son had hightailed it at the words positive pregnancy test, there was more than enough Walker tattle for people to tittle over. Shay had never been tempted to add to it with a casual hookup.

Not that the man on the next stool was in the market for a hookup with her. He could have anyone. Though he didn’t wear a ring, for all she knew he was married to the most beautiful woman on the planet.

“Hey, birthday girl,” the man at her side said. “You really are down in the dumps, aren’t you?”

She risked a look at him. Whoa. Still unbelievably handsome. His golden gaze swept her face, dropped just briefly, then came back up to meet her eyes.

That was good, because her nipples were tingling as they tightened into hard buds just from that quick glance. With masterful effort, she resisted squirming on her seat.

He was still staring at her expectantly and she couldn’t help but notice the faint white lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. Clearly he spent a lot of time outdoors squinting into the sun. They could be laugh lines, she supposed, but he didn’t look like the type who succumbed to hilarity on a habitual basis.

A question, she remembered now, as he continued staring. He’d asked a question. “Um...” Clever or charming was really beyond her at this point, whether it was due to the martinis or his rampant masculinity. “I really don’t like my birthday,” she confessed.

“That’s too bad. No good memories about it whatsoever? Not one?”

Shay’s brow furrowed as she thought back. “I had a pony party when I was eight. We went out on a trail ride and at the end my dad barbecued and my mom served a cake in the shape of a horseshoe.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was.” She smiled a little. “When I was thirteen I had a pajama party. My older sisters treated me and my friends to facials, manicures and cosmetic makeovers. That year, the cake was shaped like a tiara.” Also fun.

“So, when did the day go from tiaras to tragedy?”

The very next year, when she was fourteen. It was the year her father died and at her birthday party one of the guests had whispered loudly to another that Shay was a bastard and her mother a whore. Though that mean girl had been summarily sent home, in that moment Shay had become very self-conscious of who she was and who she wasn’t.

Not that she would tell the stranger all that. So she shrugged instead and turned the tables on him. “What about your birthdays? Pizza and laser tag? Cakes shaped like footballs or Super Mario?”

“We didn’t celebrate birthdays in my house.”

Shay’s eyes rounded. “What?”

“My mom was gone early...I don’t remember her. My father, a former Marine, was a hard man. At my house, the showers were cold, Christmas was just another day and the date of your birth was only something to put on a medical form or a job application.” He said it all matter-of-factly, no shred of self-pity in his tone.

Shay stared at him a moment. Then she swiped up her martini glass and swiveled forward in her seat, unsure how to respond.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, not to mention a trifle embarrassed. “Too much information, right?”

His discomfort eased hers. She threw him a little pretend glare as she took another sip of vodka. The look was ruined by the hiccup that bounced up her throat. As she swallowed it back down, she caught sight of the corner of his mouth kicking up in that small, amused and very attractive smile of his.

She tossed another brief glare in his direction.

“Okay, Birthday Girl, what’s wrong now?”

“What’s wrong, he asks?” she said, shifting to face him while rolling her eyes. “I was into my four-martini, poor-me birthday routine, though still sharing my appetizer, you’ll recall, when you released the air from my gloom balloon by telling me about cold showers, no Christmas and a complete lack of birthday cake.”

“Gloom balloon?” He started laughing, husky and low, showing a wealth of even white teeth. The sound of it rolled over her like honey.

She was so over being intimidated by his good looks, she told herself as she sucked down the rest of the vodka in her glass. You could be gorgeous and built and have the world’s most powerful-looking hands and the warmest surprise of a laugh, but if you’d never had birthday cake...well.

That had to be fixed immediately, she decided with half-drunken logic.

Boarder Bartender—in his own immortal words—was “down with that.” Mere minutes after her whispered aside, a server came from the kitchen bearing a big hunk of chocolate cake topped with a lighted birthday candle. As the room erupted in song, Shay realized she didn’t know his first name.

“Jay,” he said over the loud singing. There was a bemused grin on his face. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

And maybe she was. Or maybe it was the vodka. Whatever the reason, she felt reckless and carefree as they both cozied up to the bar around the piece of multilayered cake. He tried to tell her he didn’t like sweets, which caused her to roll her eyes again, and him to let loose another round of that rough-warm laughter.

They dueled forks for the last bite of cake.

Jay ordered another round of quesadillas, so she had more to eat to counteract the effect of the martinis. The night wore on, the crowd around them drinking freely while Shay switched to sparkling water. From somewhere, the management dredged up a motley collection of games. It didn’t surprise Shay that the king of the jungle snagged the only deck of cards for the two of them.

It was useful to have a predator at her back.

“You would have been good on the Titanic,” she mused.

Lifting those golden eyes from the cards he was shuffling, he glanced around. “Is that what this feels like?”

Shay looked, too. In one corner, some men were playing dominoes with ruthless concentration. In another, a group of middle-aged women, with a bouquet of now empty wine bottles working as the centerpiece for their table, launched into a rendition of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

“Hmm, maybe Rick’s Café from Casablanca?” Shay suggested.

“I guess I’d rather be Bogie than the kid who turns into an ice cube.” Then Jay dropped his hand to her bare knee and gave it a brief squeeze. “So...what should we play?”

Shay stared down. The large palm and long fingers covered her skin like a warm and slightly raspy blanket. The calluses were a workingman’s, just as she’d guessed. Though she supposed she might still register fairly high on the tipsy scale, the alcohol hadn’t desensitized her flesh. It prickled in reaction to his touch, hot chills rushing from the point of contact northward. Involuntarily, her thighs pressed together, prolonging the small thrilling ache she felt between them.

“Birthday Girl?” he called again.

Her gaze moved up to his. His golden eyes studied her face. She felt it like another touch, a fingertip, maybe, following the arch of her eyebrows and the profile of her nose. He looked lower, and her lips started to tingle, her mouth going dry inside.

Her tongue snaked out to her lower lip.

Jay jerked, his attention jumping from her face to the cards. His hand moved from her and he began dealing them out.

The sexual hum in her body did nothing to help her brain. It only muddled her thinking, which meant while she should have been edging away from him or sliding off the stool altogether and making tracks for her room, instead she leaned closer, her shoulder bumping his.

She intended it in a friendly way, but the tap became kind of a rub, and when he glanced at her there was another charged moment of energy passing between them. An exchange.

A sexual exchange.

Wow, she thought again. He was the most beautiful, masculine man she’d ever met. Her sister’s fiancé, Ryan, was classic-cinema-star handsome—when you looked at him you thought you should have some popcorn on hand. Watching him breathe was pure entertainment.

With Jay, it was different. Shay wanted to watch him move. Or better yet, move things. Do things. He was a man made to operate a forklift or lay railroad ties or rig a suspension bridge.

He’d separated the cards into two piles, one of which he slid toward her. When she gathered them closer, their fingers touched. Again, Jay flinched.

The sexual spark stung her, too.

“What are we going to play?” she asked.

He gave her a grim look. “War.”

Shay sighed. She could have told him it wasn’t going to work. It was completely clear to her, even after chocolate cake, quesadillas and martinis.

There was no way to battle this pull between them.

And at this point, she didn’t want to.

With another forbidding glance, he slapped down the first card. A deuce.

Hers was a king.

Several minutes later, when the game was over and all the cards were piled in front of Shay, she began to stack them neatly.

“Round two?” he asked. There was a tense note to his voice.

Likely because he thought they’d have to sit here all night playing cards instead of having another kind of round two...around dawn.

In her room at the inn.

They could do that, though, couldn’t they?

Her heart started beating faster and she could feel her pulse thudding in her throat and at her wrists. She’d never propositioned a man before...but now she wanted to. Really wanted to, and hadn’t she promised Mel she’d have fun? Glancing at the clock on the wall, she noted it was after midnight.

It truly was her birthday now. “You know, there are rooms here...” she began.

His gaze was trained on her face. She had the impression he was counting each and every one of her eyelashes. “I was told there’s no vacancy,” he said.

Shay’s hand crept toward her purse, still hanging on the hook. From it, she pulled out the plastic key card, which she placed on the bar’s surface and then slid toward the man at her right. He was turned toward her on his stool, his elbow on the bar. “I reserved the last one,” she whispered.

Hesitating, she ran her gaze over his rugged shoulders, his wide chest, his powerful thighs. If she scooted closer, she’d be between his legs, surrounded by him. Closer to the clean scent that she’d been aware of for hours.

Shay cleared her throat and reminded herself she was due a present. “The bed’s big enough for two.”

CHAPTER TWO

JACE JENNINGS STARED down at the innocuous rectangle of plastic. Birthday Girl’s fingers touched one edge, the nails short and painted with clear polish. Transparent, the same as her face.

He’d been able to read every expression flitting across it all night long.

At first, she’d been shy. She was younger than he was, by a decade, he supposed, and he’d had no intention of even engaging her in conversation. But then she’d launched into her martinis-and-birthday confession and he’d found himself drawn in...then drawn to her.

When he’d shared that bit about his childhood—and what had prompted him to do so, he couldn’t say—her quasihuffy, amusing response had tickled his funny bone. Not many people managed to do that.

But Birthday Girl and her “gloom balloon”...

Shaking his head, he felt a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth again.

“You’re leaving me hanging here,” she said now.

He glanced up. She was beautiful. That had struck him immediately. Her shoulder-length hair was a mix of red, gold and brown. Her eyes were an arresting shade of pale blue, her skin creamy, with just a faint spray of tiny golden freckles peppering her small nose. As a builder, he had an interest in and appreciation of the bones of things, and those of this woman were both delicate and elegant. Her mouth was lush, though, its unpainted color a pale rose.

“Well?” she demanded.

And he could read her again, the slight truculence a defensive position. “This could be a dangerous habit, Birthday Girl.”

“This?”

“Propositioning total strangers.”

Her mouth dropped, and she yanked the key card back toward her. “I don’t—”

“Wait.” He placed his fingers over hers. “That came out wrong.”

She was staring down at his hand. Jace knew why. The instant they touched, heat snapped like an electrical shock, then ricocheted through his body. He supposed she felt something similar. All night, he’d been half-hard and her flesh beneath his was taking him the rest of the way.

Slowly, as if retreating from a skittish creature, Jace lifted his hand. Her gaze lifted, too, and those blue eyes zeroed in on his face.

“I don’t make a habit of this kind of thing,” she declared.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” And why the hell would he care if she propositioned a new man every night? But for some stupid reason he’d wanted to hear her say she didn’t out loud. He’d wanted to know that this...connection was something unusual for her, too. Different. Special.

Because it felt damn special to him.

Holy hell, she’d bought him birthday cake.

“We don’t know each other,” he heard himself say, though he’d never told anyone else about those daily frigid showers. It was true. His father had believed in cold water as the cornerstone of making a man out of a boy.

“Are you married?” she asked.

“Divorced.” And his ex was dead now, a recent circumstance that had wrought a huge change in his life. Just the thought of that made him toss back the rest of the whiskey that he’d switched to when the cards came out.

“Girlfriend?”

“No.” He paused, then lifted a brow. “Boyfriend?”

“If I had one, wouldn’t he be the one spending my birthday with me?”

Which made Jace think about what he’d been calling her. Birthday Girl. She hadn’t offered up her real name. He hadn’t corrected her when she misheard his as “Jay.”

This beautiful young woman was really offering up no-strings, one-night-only, stranger sex.

God knows he didn’t deserve it, but—

“Okay, then.” Birthday Girl slid off her stool and onto her feet. He was close and turned in her direction, so she landed between his knees, and swayed there a moment. To steady herself, one hand reached out and clutched his thigh.

Uh-oh. Those martinis were still in her system.

That thought didn’t stop another piercing zing of heat from rocketing from her hand to his crotch, just a few inches north. And it wasn’t only her touch that got to him. There was that sweet little dress she wore that showed a whole hell of a lot of bare leg in the front, then flowed lower around the back.

“I’m going,” she said, still looking a bit woozy. “It’s up to you whether you come with me or not.”

Jace sighed. Of course he was going with her. Whether he crossed the threshold of her room, well, first he had to make sure she got to it safely. He hopped off his own stool, feeling a twinge as his newly healed left ankle found the ground. “I’m right behind you, Birthday Girl,” he said.

Actually, he took her hand, as well.

That was weird. He wasn’t a toucher. When he was with a woman he didn’t worry about keeping her close. But this one was tipsy, he reminded himself, and though he’d been raised by a distant and unfeeling man, in this instance he wasn’t going to take after the old bastard.

Drawing her nearer, Jace could smell the sweet scent of her hair. Now he went a bit woozy.

“It’s this way,” she said, tugging him toward a steep staircase off the foyer. Judging by the architecture, the Deerpoint Inn had to be about a hundred years old. On the way inside earlier that night, he’d glanced at the framed magazine article about the place that hung on the entry wall. The building had started life as a boardinghouse for area loggers. Now they’d converted the original fifteen rooms upstairs to just six, each with its own bath.

Birthday Girl would have a comfortable night.

She wobbled on her heels as she mounted the first step, causing him to drop her hand and grasp her hips instead. Birthday Girl would have a comfortable night if she could make it to her door.

Jace, on the other hand, had a very uncomfortable few minutes as he was forced to watch the bunch of muscles in each fine ass cheek as she continued upward. He breathed easier when they made the narrow hallway. It smelled of old wood and roses.

With his fingertips hovering a quarter inch off the small of her back, Jace followed her to a door bearing a brass 6. He took the key card from her hand and inserted it in the slot. The mechanism flashed green and he heard a small snick. He turned the knob and checked out the environs over her shoulder, the room illuminated by lamps at each end of a long table centered beneath a narrow window. Papered walls, dark wood floor covered with a thick area rug with a floral design. A night-light gave him the glimpse of a tiled bathroom through a half-open interior door.

Birthday Girl stepped inside.

Jace realized it was now or never.

Hell, she was beautiful. Alluring. Tempting.

But...

He had a pile of regrets on his plate and using the circumstances—birthday, flames, liquor, lust—to get a quickie shag out of this pretty young thing would be just another black mark on his soul. In the morning, he didn’t want to be something she was sorry for.

There’d been enough of that in his life. From his father, his ex and, most likely, his daughter.

Her head tilted, and the room’s light caught the warm fire in her hair. “Well?”

He couldn’t help but lean toward her. She took a half step, getting closer, and then her eyes closed as she offered up her mouth.

Jace’s cock turned to steel at the anticipation of a kiss written all over her face.

She was more than halfway drunk, he reminded himself.

Too young for him.

Too sweet.

And yet...

She was too appealing not to touch one more time. He pressed the pad of his thumb to her lips—God, so soft and lush—and whispered in her ear. “Many happy returns.”

Then he strode away, cursing himself, the constricting denim of his jeans and his suddenly discovered streak of decency.

Downstairs, the management was trying to make the refugees comfortable in the dining room. Jace opted for his SUV instead, reclining the seat and trying to get comfortable on the stiff leather. By leaving that lovely offer of a night with Birthday Girl on the table, at least his conscience couldn’t nag him, he decided.

Except that it could, of course.

There was still the small matter of his daughter to consider. She was mere miles away, at his house situated on the shores of Blue Arrow Lake. Though he hadn’t seen her in a decade, Jace wasn’t as frustrated as he should have been that their meeting was postponed for another day. Truth to tell, he was grateful for the reprieve.

A lousy night’s sleep seemed a fitting punishment for that.

At first light, when he smelled coffee emanating from the inn, he climbed from his car. His muscles were stiff and he limped inside, his left foot not long out of its soft cast and not yet completely normal. His head ached, too—though not like it had after the debilitating concussion he’d suffered that had made focusing on paper or screen or even spoken words sometimes impossible—and reminded him he’d downed plenty of beer and whiskey the night before.

He wondered how Birthday Girl was faring.

And then he saw her, the back of her anyway, sitting on the same stool she’d occupied yesterday evening. She was dressed in jeans this time, but her auburn hair was unmistakable. Jace paused, uncertain how to proceed. He looked for an open spot at one of the tables in the restaurant, but it wasn’t a big space and some of the patrons were still sleeping, stretched on two chairs.

The only seat free was the one beside her. Why not take it? He’d done the noble thing, hadn’t he? It would have been much more awkward to wake up on the neighboring pillow, after all.

As he approached, his gaze caught that of the bartender’s. He signaled the need for java by miming a mug to his mouth and then he slid into the empty place beside Birthday Girl.

Though she didn’t glance his way, her body stiffened.

Jace hesitated again, his gaze focused on the gleaming wood grain in front of him. Good manners dictated he should at least look at her, not to mention express a friendly “good morning.” But during the course of the night in the SUV, he’d begun to rethink the hours they’d spent sitting together and the unprecedented appeal she’d had for him.

It was just some birthday cake and card games, he’d told himself and the moon, its beam shining through the windshield. Too much booze. In the light of day, she probably wouldn’t be as pretty as he’d thought.

The intense attraction was likely overblown in his mind as well, Jace had decided then. And...

And for some reason right now he didn’t want confirmation of that.

Stop being ridiculous. Just get out a greeting and let reality assert itself. “Good morning,” he finally said, sliding a look at her.

Her face turned toward him. Icy-blue eyes. A faint flush obscuring the tiny freckles on her nose and edging her fabulous cheekbones with a delicate pink. Her rosy lips pursed. “Really?” she said, her voice frosty.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

The booze, the fire and the cake had not caused him to exaggerate anything. She was just as beautiful as he remembered.

Just as sexy.

She made him just as hard.

But the disdainful expression on her face communicated clearly that she was no longer as sweetly dispositioned as she’d been before he’d rejected her generous offer and left her with only the touch of his thumb at the door. He winced. “Birthday Girl—”

She slid from her stool and, with her coffee in hand, stalked off. He stared at the insulted line of her spine and the angry sway of her hips. Oh, yeah. She still made him hard. Very hard.

Jace sighed, shifting on his stool to adjust the fit of his jeans. Damn.

And he’d thought taking her to bed would result in regret. Instead, he’d learned that being a good guy left him feeling no more satisfied than being a bad one.

* * *

HALF HORRIFIED AND half humiliated, Shay escaped toward the stairs that would take her to her room. She glanced back at the bar and saw Jay still in place, his head turned to watch her go.

Another wash of heat rose up her neck and burned her cheeks. In the morning light he wasn’t any less masculine. Still had that charisma in spades, too. She could feel the pull even from here, as if he’d lassoed her waist and was steadily drawing on a rope held between his big capable hands.

The hands she’d wanted on her last night.

But he’d refused her.

Whipping her head around, she stomped up the steps. Until she was free to head back to Blue Arrow, she’d hide out between the four walls of her room at the inn. Inside, she flipped on the television and found the channel offering fire coverage. At the bar, she’d learned the road closures were still in place, but there could be better news at any moment...

Ten hours later, nothing had changed.

Not her confined circumstances, not her humiliation over last night’s rejected overture.

She bounced on the mattress, she punched a pillow, she flung her body across the bed and hung her head over the side. The actions didn’t alter the news on the television—but they did serve to underline her restlessness. If she didn’t get out of this room—soon—she’d go stir-crazy.

But he might still be downstairs. The jerk.

Several times between last night and this afternoon she’d replayed their moments together: her nervous chatter, his birthday cake, the card battle. Too bad the hangover she’d been suffering from hadn’t obliterated her memory. For hours, she’d had a dry mouth and an aching head, as well as instant recall of his amused smile at her half-drunken ramblings, the heat in his gaze as he’d stared down at her before his “many happy returns,” his calloused touch against her upturned mouth.

Without thinking, she pressed her fingertips there. It was as if a brand still pulsed on her lips.

Damn man. He’d walked away from a tipsy stranger and likely considered himself the hero in the scenario.

Jerk.

Her conscience tried to reason with her ire—in truth, wasn’t it actually a decent-guy move?—but she shut down that part of her brain. It was her birthday and a girl should get a pass on logic for at least one twenty-four-hour period a year.

Still, she had to get some fresh air. In her jeans, a simple T-shirt and a pair of sneakers, she crept down the stairs, a bottle of water in hand. The bar and dining room held a scatter of refugees, but no Jay. On a sigh of relief, she pushed open the front door and set out along the quiet streets of the tiny hamlet surrounding the Deerpoint Inn. While she’d never been to the town, which was little more than a crossroads, she’d seen enough of the fire coverage to have gained a general sense of direction. She took every turn uphill and hiked along the narrow roads while committing her route to memory.

Though she didn’t actually venture far, she was moving steadily upward, surprising chipmunks and squirrels who skittered across the asphalt to ascend the trunks of the towering conifers lining the road. Black ravens sailed among the top limbs while blue jays flitted at the lower levels. If she wasn’t used to elevations that were over five thousand feet, she might be laboring for air. As it was, she appreciated the cool breeze on her sweat-dampened skin and welcomed the chance to pause when she came to a break in the trees that offered a glorious view.

From here, there was no sign of fire. The wind must be carrying the scent of it away, too. And spread out before her were miles of craggy pine-covered peaks and a slice of blue that signaled one of the many local lakes in the distance. She breathed in double lungfuls of the air that was just starting to come down from its afternoon high temperature. It had probably been seventy-five at some point today.

Already she felt calmer, she thought, as she took in more fresh oxygen. She might not have true Walker blood in her veins, but the mountains were still her place. The foundation beneath her feet.

A twig snapped, the sound loud enough to make her whirl and her heart jump to her throat. She put her hand there as she stared at the man who last night and this morning had been seated on the neighboring stool. “You,” she managed to choke out. “Did you follow me?”

Jay held up both hands. “Not exactly. I wanted to stretch my legs. I thought by trailing you I could have a guide of sorts.”

“Unwilling guide,” Shay muttered under her breath.

“Yeah. Sorry.” He paused to suck in air, then half turned. “I’ll go.”

“Wait.” Narrowing her eyes, Shay took a closer look at him. His breath was more ragged than it should be for such a fit man. Altitude, she thought. Clearly, it was getting to him. Stifling a sigh, she held out her unopened bottle of water. “You need a drink.”

He inhaled sharply again. “I think that’s where one or both of us went wrong yesterday.”

Ignoring that comment, she stepped closer. “Seriously,” she told him. “You need water. You’re feeling the effects of the elevation.”

He took the proffered bottle but his expression was dubious. “It wasn’t that long a walk.”

“We’re near seven thousand feet here. Where you came from...?”

“Sea level.”

She nodded. Beach. His tan already announced it. Glancing around, she saw a fallen log a few feet away and gestured to it. “Sit down. Drink. Rest a little.”

He didn’t look happy as he followed her direction.

Shay shook her head, reading his mood. “Don’t worry. Your macho will bounce right back once you descend a few hundred feet.”

“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Last night I lost at War. Now this.”

His disgruntled tone made her almost smile. “I’m lousy at gin rummy,” she said. “If we played that it would shore up your ego in an instant.”

He glanced over as he settled on the log and stretched out his long legs. “You’re offering another round of cards? Thought you were mad at me.”

Shay shoved her hands in her pockets. She was mad at him—except when her conscience reminded her that he’d done the more honorable thing by refusing her. She’d been under the influence of birthday and booze.

Now that she thought about it, she and her half-tipsy offer had probably been less than flattering—and she had maybe been not all that alluring. Great. The pulsing sexual energy she’d sensed was likely a one-sided figment of her own inebriated imagination. “Can we forget about that?”

His eyes on her, he took a long swallow of the bottle, then lowered the plastic. “I probably can’t forget a moment of it,” he admitted.

Heat crawled up Shay’s neck and she looked down. Okay, so not one-sided? “Um...”

“And I also can’t help thinking it would have been damn good,” the man continued.

The words had her gaze leaping back to him. She stared at his face and into his golden eyes as the sexual attraction spun between them again, the line of it thrumming with energy. She could feel the heated effect of it in her chest, in her belly. Lower.

With a wrench, she cut the connection and turned away, to once again take in the view. Say something, she thought. Something inconsequential. Something to cool this down. She was sober now, and this wasn’t a safe or sane sensation.

“So...” Shay swallowed. “What is it you do at sea level?”

“Construction, mostly.”

Of course. Just as she’d figured. He was a man made to wear low-slung carpenter bags.

“Yourself?” he asked.

“This and that. I’m mountain-born and-bred. Lots of us have to do a variety of jobs in order to meet the alpine-resort prices.” This was all true. The schools in the area were small and though she had a credential, a teaching job had yet to open up. So she kept herself busy—and paid her bills—by tutoring and running some college test prep boot camps. Sometimes she helped out with her sister Mac’s maid service. The temporary live-in tutor job she’d scored until summer’s end was kind of a combination of all three.

Redirecting her gaze to the northeast, she thought about her sister Poppy’s pet project. “And my family has a tract of land and some cabins we’re refurbishing there. We’re hoping to create a quiet and very exclusive retreat for people who want to get away from it all.”

It wasn’t clear whether the idea would come to fruition, though. Her brother and Mac were still unconvinced, claiming to hold on to the outlandish idea that the property was cursed. Shay was on Poppy’s side, but as the non-Walker Walker, she kept quiet about her wishes on the subject. Because that outside-the-circle feeling was impossible to leave behind. The whispers she’d first heard on her fourteenth birthday had rooted deep in her heart and it didn’t help when to this day she caught old-timers going over the old gossip.

Behind her, she sensed Jay rising. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll head back.”

She swung around, risking another glance his way. “Are you going to be—”

“I’m better now. Fine.”

Looking him over, she decided on a small suppressed sigh that yeah, he was fine. Very fine. Tall, broad, all heavy muscles and long bones that came together in one package that just...just hit her someplace deep. Someplace...private. “Goodbye,” she said softly as he moved onto the road.

One stride away from her. Two.

Suddenly, he turned back. “Let me buy you dinner.”

Her heart jerked at the command in his voice. “I—”

“You owe me that game of gin rummy, remember? My macho needs shoring up. You said it yourself.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. He was at least six feet four inches of hot-blooded male, elevation effects or no. “I don’t think—”

“It’s still your birthday. We’ll have more cake.”

Oh, there was that pull again. Her mouth was curving upward and inside she felt a dangerous fever jacking up her temperature and overriding her good sense. “And fewer martinis?”

“Whatever you want.”

Shay sucked in a breath, remembering what she’d wanted last night. What she’d offered, and how he’d rejected her. How low that had brought her.

Now, though, with him looking at her with those warm golden eyes, she felt light, free, like a kite that could soar over the mountaintops and float through the blue, blue sky.

Then the expression in his eyes became more intent as his gaze roamed her face. She was no kite, now, but a woman, sexy and beautiful.

Rubbing her damp palms against the side of her jeans, she moved toward him, unable to do anything but. “All right,” she said. “Dinner.”

Upon their return, they made arrangements to meet in the grill in an hour. Though he still didn’t have a room, the inn had opened up an employee area where the refugees could wash up. Shay took a quick shower then appraised her outfit choices. It was a replay of the jeans or a repeat of last night’s dress. And while she knew it would be wiser to stay casual—and more fully covered—she put on the filmy garment anyway.

When she took the stairs to the restaurant and turned the corner to see him waiting at a secluded corner table, she was glad she’d changed. He was in slacks and a dress shirt, an expensive watch strapped around one strong wrist. He looked confident and successful and when he lifted his gaze to her, once again she felt lit up inside.

While still trembling, just a little, on the outside.

He stood as she approached, his mouth curved in an assuring smile that nonetheless delivered a jolt of nervous anticipation. Surely she’d never felt this dichotomy around a man before. There was a familiarity about him—as if he were someone she recognized—that was at odds with her wary response to the immense attraction he held for her. He pulled out her chair and touched the small of her back to direct her into the seat. It sent a flurry of chills up her spine that tumbled down the front of her in a hot wave.

For a full five seconds, she couldn’t breathe.

There were no martinis. Nor birthday cake or gin rummy. Instead they shared a bottle of wine with an appetizer platter that was a delicious mélange of carmelized Brussels sprouts topped with shavings of a tangy, salty parmesan cheese. Then it was two dinners of seared halibut, rice pilaf and crunchy steamed vegetables.

They didn’t talk of anything consequential, including themselves. At one point he said he was on the verge of asking her name—but that “Birthday Girl” had kind of grown on him. So she didn’t say a word about it. Instead, they made up stories about their fellow refugees. That man in the opposite corner was an antler chandelier salesman, Jay proposed: he sold them off the rack.

The grandmotherly woman at the bar was a Mafia boss’s wife on the lam for offering counterfeit knitting patterns on the internet. Shay added, she’d bought herself a skein of trouble.

Finally it was getting late and the tables were cleared and those patrons without rooms were collecting blankets and arranging themselves for the night. When someone took the extra chairs at their table in order to create a makeshift bed, Jay cleared his throat. “I guess it’s time to turn in.”

During dinner, he’d told Shay he’d spent the night before in his car. She cleared her throat, too. “You know...”

“I know what?”

Her fingertip made an aimless pattern on the tablecloth. She pretended it fascinated her. “The bed upstairs is king-size.”

Silence welled between them when she didn’t say any more.

Then Jay broke the quiet. “Birthday Girl,” he said, his voice low. “Can you look at me?”

Of course she could. It was easy, because he still really didn’t know her—not even her name. But it took a couple of seconds before she managed to comply. His golden eyes studied her, but she couldn’t read the expression in them.

Her face heated as she forced herself to continue meeting his gaze. “I’m saying we could just share it...you know, sleep,” she clarified. “Nothing more than that.”

He reached over and captured her wandering finger, then took her whole hand in his. His thumb, that work-roughened thumb that had pressed against her mouth the night before, rasped over her knuckles, back and forth, making the journey down the shallow valleys and up the low hills slow and hypnotic.

Shay felt the touch everywhere. Feathering along the groove of her spine, ghosting over her tight, tingling nipples, teasing the tender insides of her thighs. Her body was melting, and if something didn’t happen soon he’d have to scoop her out of the chair with a spoon. “Jay,” she whispered. It almost sounded like a whimper.

“We could try sleeping, I suppose,” he mused. “But we should probably be realistic about our chances of ‘nothing more.’”

Who wanted to be realistic? Who wanted to calculate odds? Not Shay. She only wanted him and this time, this time out of her normal world, her usual ordered, good-girl, scandal-averse existence.

Rising to her feet, she turned her hand to clasp his. To tug him up, too. “Let’s go to my room.”

It was near dark inside the space that seemed dominated by the bed. The only illumination came from the glow of the night-light in the attached bathroom. They halted just inside the entry door and Jay cupped her face in his warm hand before lowering his head.

At the touch of his mouth, she jerked, her body moving into his of its own accord. His other arm curled about her hips, keeping her against him and the hardness that pressed into her belly.

She shivered, and he murmured something soothing as his lips feathered over her cheek, down her neck, before returning to her mouth. This time, the kiss went from gentle to greedy. Shay made a low sound in her throat and stood on tiptoe to get closer to him.

He made an approving noise and then swung her into his arms and strode with her to the bed.

What happened next was hot and sweet. He was a tender lover, and gentle, despite the size of his hands and the strength of his body. She supposed he was holding back—a man like him would have ravenous appetites, yes?—but that was all right with Shay, because she was holding back, too.

It felt as if they were encased in a fantasy and she didn’t want to pop its soap-bubble exterior by holding too tight or crying out too loud. With slow, patient touches, he rolled her up and over the orgasm, and when he followed, he buried his face in her neck, his big body shaking against hers.

They drifted to sleep without words.

In the gray light of early morning, they came awake to the sound of car engines revving. Shay gathered the covers close around her shoulders as his eyes opened and he looked at her from the other pillow. “Sounds like the roads have reopened,” she said, her voice quiet.

He ran a hand through his hair, and she remembered the cool, thick softness of it as she’d held his head to her breast the night before. Her nipples sprang to life against the cotton sheet and her face heated, but she didn’t make a move and hoped he didn’t sense her kindling desire.

Their time out of time was over.

He sat up, the sheet pooling at his hips. Through the screen of her lashes, she ran her gaze over the ripples of his chest and abs and stifled a sigh. She’d had her night with all that muscle and skin. It was time to let it go.

Let him go.

He took a shower and while he was occupied she rose from bed and wrapped herself in her robe. When he emerged fully dressed from the bathroom, she was standing at the window, staring into the street and the cars that were cruising by.

The world moving again. Moving on.

He stood close behind her, not touching. “Well,” he said. “Thanks for sharing your evening with me.”

“You’re welcome.” Shay refused to let herself look at his handsome face.

“And your bed,” Jay went on. “I think I owe you for sharing that with me, too.”

Melancholy tried tugging at her, but Shay refused to give in to its grasp. “Maybe someday I’ll demand payment,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Have you lift a hammer or something at our family cabins.”

“Sure,” he said, then he swept her hair off the back of her neck and pressed his lips there in an obvious farewell. “You name the time, Birthday Girl.”

The nickname, of course, just underscored how that would never happen. They didn’t have any way to make further contact. He had no idea who she really was. She considered changing that. One side of her wanted to grab a pen and write her name and number on that wide, calloused palm of his. The other side of her, the wary side that didn’t trust easily, hesitated. And while she was arguing with herself, he left the room.

Like that, it was decided. By him, who hadn’t pushed to know any more about her.

She made her own decision as she heard the quiet click of the door swinging back after he exited. Not regretting a moment of what they’d shared. Her neck still tingled where he’d placed that goodbye kiss. The memories of their singular attraction and single night together would last a long, long time.

It might have been her best birthday gift ever.

CHAPTER THREE

SHAY TOOK THE highway turnoff that led to the family land and traveled the four miles of private road, all the while pushing the Deerpoint Inn adventure into the far recesses of her mind. It was time to go back to normal, become the unruffled, circumspect woman who mostly kept to herself—and who held her fears and dreams close to the chest, too. A precocious and sometimes impossible fifteen-year-old was under her care and Shay needed a calm temperament to do her best for the girl.

Maybe she’d done something out-of-character on her birthday, something self-indulgent and possibly a little reckless, but it was over now. In the very short period of their acquaintance, Jay couldn’t have made any permanent change to her.

Pressing her foot to the accelerator, her car climbed the steep drive that led to the cabins. Her sister Poppy had exchanged her battered SUV for another in decent shape—at the insistence of her fiancé, Ryan—and it was parked near a cluster of five cabins. Shay braked beside it.

Climbing from her vehicle, she took in the view. The last time she’d been out here had been weeks ago, just as winter was giving way to spring, when the snow was melting on the ground around the dwellings, but still abundant on the tree-free slopes rising above them. It was the last of the property held by the Walkers that had been secured one hundred and fifty years before, when the pioneering men and women came to the area in search of timber to harvest. In recent times, before the fire that took out the chairs, lifts and lodge, the family had run a small but popular ski resort.

While the snow was completely gone now, the cabins didn’t look much different than in March. They were run-down, with dirty windows and sagging porches. Shay assumed the seven she couldn’t see, those nestled in the surrounding woods, weren’t in any better shape. Still, she smiled as her sister emerged from the closest bungalow. Poppy and her five-year-old son, Mason, had lived there until a torrential rainstorm had destroyed part of its roof and sent her into the arms of the man she was now promised to marry.

“Hey,” Poppy said, the smile that, of late, seemed to reside permanently on her face brightening a few more degrees as she caught sight of Shay. Her honey-and-brown hair hung around her shoulders and she slipped dark glasses over her gray eyes as she stepped into the sun. “You made it.”

Shay nodded. “Once the roads reopened I left as quick as I could.”

“Did you get my Happy Birthday text?” her sister asked as she came closer. Then she hesitated, tipping up her shades to send Shay a sharp look. “What’s happened?”

“Happened?” She hoped guilt—and why should she feel guilty about a single night of commitment-free passion?—wouldn’t show on her face like a blush. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You look different,” her sister said, now nearly toe-to-toe with her.

Shay shuffled back. “How was the premiere?”

“We talked to you on the phone about that,” her sister reminded her.

“Yes, but I only heard about it from Mason’s little-dude, naturally hyperbolic point of view. How’s London?”

Poppy propped her glasses on top of her head, an appraising light in her eyes. “Let’s see. She was Memphis the first day, Raleigh the next. Today she’s Omaha.”

Meaning she was much the same. The teen had taken a keen dislike to her first name and Shay had indulged her request to try out different city names as alternatives, telling herself it was good geography practice. Not to mention she would be heeding the old adage about choosing one’s battles. “Where is...Omaha, did you say?”

“She and Mason are exploring the woods.”

Shay looked over her shoulder to peer in the direction of the close-growing trees. Pines and oaks and dogwoods covered the landscape surrounding the cabins. As a girl, she’d loved to hike among them herself. Until the fire thirteen years before. A shiver rolled down her spine and she rubbed her hands over her suddenly cold arms. She still had ugly dreams about that day.

“Shay, what’s wrong?” Poppy demanded.

“Not a thing,” she lied. “What’s been going on around here?”

With a grimace, Poppy glanced about the clearing. “Maybe now that we have decent weather, I can make some real progress.”

“That’s got to be a little tough, what with you being busy with your fancy Hollywood fiancé.”

“Ryan realizes how important this is to me.”

“And Ryan loves you so much he’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“I know.” Poppy smiled, clearly delighted that Shay had noticed. “But I want to do what makes him happy, too, which means a lot of shuffling between here and LA, so I can’t work on the cabins as much as I might like.”

“You’re not the only Walker able to wield tools.”

Poppy’s mouth turned down. “The three of you aren’t enthusiastic tool-wielders when it comes to this place.”

“I...” Shay hesitated. Poppy had good reason to believe that. When Mac and Brett had put down their sister’s idea to tackle the decrepit cabins and make them into something good, Shay had stayed on the sidelines, aware it wasn’t a legacy that came to her through DNA.

Poppy’s eyes narrowed again. “You...?”

For some reason, the truth spilled out. “I do like it here. Love it. I always have.” But she’d always felt the destruction of the resort was partly her fault. “Seeing it come alive again...if your father was still here it would make him so happy.”

“Our father,” Poppy corrected. “But are you serious? You’d stand with me in the face of Brett and Mac’s opposition?”

“They’re persuadable, I think,” Shay said.

A small smile curved Poppy’s lips. “So if you explained to them it’s as important to you as it is to me—is it really?”

Even though she knew the land wasn’t her birthright, Shay couldn’t refuse her sister again. She nodded. “Really.”

Poppy swooped in for a fierce hug. “Thank you. Thank you!” She pushed Shay away, her fingers still curled around her biceps. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Telling the truth. Saying what you want.”

Shay couldn’t resist returning her sister’s sunny smile. “I guess not.”

Poppy’s grip tightened. “All right, then. Spill the rest.”

“Spill?”

“You have another secret. What happened on your birthday? What happened to you at that inn? Something did. I can see it.”

Another guilty flush heated Shay’s skin. “Noth—”

Her denial was interrupted by a young boy’s shout. Mason came rushing out of the woods and into the clearing, his hair disheveled and his hands clutching a ragged collection of weeds. “Flowers!” he said, shoving them at his mother. “I brought you flowers, just like Duke.”

“Duke” was his name for Poppy’s groom-to-be. London, aka Omaha, sidled up behind him. “Mace,” she said, “I told you not to squeeze them so tight.”

Shay looked over at her charge. She wore her usual black jeans, a black T-shirt and black high-top sneakers. Her hair was dyed black and she wore such thick black liner and mascara that just looking at her could make Shay’s own eyes itch. There didn’t seem to be one soft thing about the girl...except for the gentle way she treated Poppy’s son.

If only for that, she would have been endeared to Shay forever. But London/Omaha had other qualities, too. Her parents had divorced when she was small and she’d lived with her mother in Europe. From what Shay had gleaned, the woman had put little time into parenting, and the teen had largely raised herself with the aid of household help.

Now her mother was dead and her father absent from the scene. Yet the fifteen-year-old was keeping it together, despite the dark wardrobe. Shay had to imagine London felt alone. But Shay understood loners because of her own outsider feelings, and so tried to give the girl space, as well as boundaries. Companionship when the teen would tolerate it.

The girl tousled Mason’s hair, the smallest of smiles tipping up the corners of her lips. Yes, London was a survivor, and Shay had to admire that, too.

“Did you have a good time?” she asked her now.

Her mask of boredom resettled firmly in place. “Sure.”

“Are you ready to go home?”

“Whatever.” But the world-weary facade again slipped a little as they said their goodbyes. Mason was impossible to ignore when he gifted her with a ferocious little-boy hug, and she again ruffled his hair while expressing polite thanks to Poppy.

The four drifted toward Shay’s car. As London stowed her belongings and then climbed into the passenger seat, Poppy stayed by the driver’s side. “We need to have lunch,” she said through Shay’s window.

“To discuss the cabins?”

Poppy shook her head. “To discuss you. Something’s different about you.”

Buckling her seat belt gave her an excuse to avoid her sister’s comment, and soon she had the car turned in the direction of Blue Arrow Lake. Her sigh of relief was lost in the hum of the car engine and for the first time she actually appreciated her teen charge’s usual dour silence.

So she was completely gobsmacked when the girl shifted in her seat and willingly addressed Shay for maybe the first time ever. “Yeah,” she said. “What happened to you? Something’s changed.”

* * *

SHAY AVOIDED THE teen’s question by employing a trick she’d learned from her mother: she pretended she didn’t hear it. Lorna Walker had used that ploy often and it was easy to understand why. What with four children, a spouse who’d wandered away and then wandered back, and a daughter conceived in scandal, Shay’s mom had likely been often plagued with uncomfortable—or just plain nosy—queries.

Luckily, London didn’t seem interested in bestirring herself to insist on an answer, so the ride home continued in silence. It gave Shay time to think over their upcoming schedule. After a couple of eventful days that had relaxed their usual routine, it was time to get back to normal.

Soon they were passing through the small town of Blue Arrow Lake, with its European village atmosphere that drew tourists up the hill from the big Southern California cities in the valleys and the beaches below. Small shops, boutiques and bistros catered to a crowd with money to burn on fine cheeses, fancy wines and casual, yet chic, designer apparel. The businesses appeared to be busy, even midweek, though on Saturday and Sunday they would be packed when the owners of the mansions surrounding the lake visited their vacation homes at the end of the workweek.

Blue Arrow Lake was a private body of water, and only those who owned the exorbitantly priced frontage properties were allowed docks. As they left the town behind and turned into the estate-lined narrow streets, she caught glimpses of deep blue water and the occasional powerboat or sailboat cutting across the surface. No one walked the streets. They didn’t encounter another car.

Still, Shay couldn’t help her recurring fancy from popping up, the one that revolved around London’s absent father. She’d never spoken with the man. After the death of his ex-wife, he’d apparently turned over his daughter’s care—temporarily, she was told, while he finished up some business in the faraway country of Qatar—to a factotum in his company. The aforesaid factotum, one dry and gray Leonard Case, had interviewed Shay via Skype. Then, he’d brought the stoic teen and her plethora of belongings to the cavernous mansion where Shay had met the two in person.

Leonard Case had lasted forty minutes before he returned to wherever he’d come from.

Ever since that day, she’d imagined herself running into her employer, Jace Jennings, accidentally. Not that she’d ever admit it to anyone, but she’d drummed up this idea that it would happen like governess Jane Eyre coming across her as-yet-unknown Mr. Rochester when he and his horse fell on an icy causeway almost at her feet. Of course, now wasn’t the time of year for frosty conditions, and the entire idea was beyond ridiculous, but still Shay couldn’t help herself from keeping a lookout for a frowning, rough-looking traveler.

There was no sign of anyone, of course.

And the house they now approached was no Gothic Thornfield Hall.

Instead it was a massive modern two-story, all steel and glass, with two walls made entirely of windows and a sleek deck that wrapped the entire structure. The prow of it jutted toward the lake, giving the impression of a ship preparing to set sail on the water.

It was butt ugly.

There wasn’t a homey touch about the place.

As they came to a stop in the drive, London sighed, as if she were thinking the same thing. They both pulled their belongings from the backseat. As the teen hitched the strap of her laptop bag over her shoulder, Shay felt another ping of guilt. Not over her brief fling this time, but because she’d left her own computer behind at the house while on her birthday adventure. Not once had she thought about finding a way to check her email. What if Jace Jennings had responded to one of her reports about his daughter at last?

Though that seemed highly unlikely.

Since taking over London’s care, she’d delivered weekly missives to the email address provided by his factotum. At first they’d been news-filled and professional—the topics they’d covered during school hours, his daughter’s excellent progress on catching up to grade-level standards—but at his continued silence she’d begun writing more and more outrageous things in order to provoke a response.

I’ve decided to replace our trigonometry lessons with tango instruction.

Yesterday, we studied literature by reading Celeb! magazine from cover to cover.

Our chemistry field trip was a trek to the local chocolate factory.

So far, no reply.

Inside the house, together they mounted the stairs to their separate bedrooms. “It’s your turn to dust,” Shay reminded the girl, noting the sparkling motes dancing in the sunshine streaming through the windows.

London paused and turned her head, her black-lined eyes narrowing. “I dusted last time.”

“Nope,” Shay said, her voice cheery. “That was me. Of course, if you’d prefer to vacuum—”

“God, no,” London said, and stomped off, each heavy footstep communicating her mood.

Shay let it roll off her back. “Before dinner, all right?”

There was a mumbled answer.

When they’d first moved in, the factotum had said he’d arranged for a weekly housekeeping service. She’d told him not to bother. Cleaning up after oneself was its own lesson, and she’d guessed correctly that it was a lesson the teen had yet to learn. So they split the chores and Shay was unmoved by the eye rolling, the grumbles and the can’t-I-do-it-tomorrow? pleading. Lately, she’d even caught a small smile of satisfaction on London’s face at a well-swept floor or a lemon-wax-polished table.

Inside her bedroom, she caught a whiff of that pleasant scent. It was a large room, with views that overlooked the lake. The four-poster bed was modern in design, but its stark lines were softened by a white lace-edged duvet she’d brought from home. On the cube table beside the bed sat a photo of the Walkers, from when both her mother and Dell Walker had been alive. Shay paused to scrutinize it now. She often did, looking for similarities between her and her siblings, and her and her mother. Shay’s hair color was different from everyone else’s in the family, and she’d always assumed she’d gotten it from the man who’d made her mother pregnant.

The one who’d never bothered to reach out to Shay.

She’d never reached out to him, either. Not even with an innocuous email, let alone an outrageous one.

I’ve decided to replace our trigonometry lessons with tango instruction.

Remembering that, Shay glanced toward her laptop. Out of obligation more than expectation, she turned it on and clicked to her email program. New posts popped up and she ran her gaze down the listing. Something from a high school friend. Another sent to her by an acquaintance she’d made on the homeschool message board she visited. And then her eyes caught on a brand-new sender: JJennings.

Her finger jerked on the mousepad; she blinked, then she clicked to open the email. Oh. My. God.

Shay dashed from the room. “London,” she yelled, forgetting the name of the day. “We have an emergency.”

The girl took her sweet time to saunter to her doorway. “What? Is this about my paper on Romeo and Juliet? I know it was a little trite to compare and contrast the play with that Taylor Swift song—”

“Your father is due to arrive here today.”

London’s insouciance shattered like a glass hitting the floor. Her jaw fell, too. “What?”

“Anytime now. Well, he didn’t give a time, so who knows when?” Shay forked her fingers through her hair. “Or maybe he came by already and we missed him. Do you think he came by when we weren’t here?”

She was aware she was babbling and that the teen was staring, but Shay couldn’t help her jangling nerves and the acute, uncomfortable awareness of those emails she’d been sending.

I’ve decided to replace our trigonometry lessons with tango instruction.

Yesterday, we studied literature by reading Celeb! magazine from cover to cover.

Our chemistry field trip was a trek to the local chocolate factory.

Crap. What had she been thinking?

And a little voice answered: you were thinking about how your own biological dad ignored you and how you don’t want that for London.

Erasing the thought from her head, she sprang into action. “Dust, okay?” she said on the way to the closet where the vacuum accessories were stored.

Then she went to work. It took a few minutes to notice that London wasn’t actually doing her share, but was instead watching Shay flit about. She turned to the girl. “Hop to it. Please.”

“Give me a good reason I should try to impress him.”

Shay could see her point, she really could, since the man had been out of London’s life for years. “Because the care of the house is a reflection on me,” she said. “Your father signs my check so I want to make a good impression.”

The appeal seemed to work. The human-sized crow pushed away from the wall she was leaning upon and did the cleaning without further complaint. Finally, they were both done with their half of the chores and both looked disheveled, with mussed hair and pink cheeks. Shay caught sight of their dual reflections in the hall mirror. Their eyes met in the glass.

“Showers,” they said together.

But before they could repair to separate bathrooms, the doorbell rang.

Really, Shay thought, as her stomach and her heart jumped, I shouldn’t have made that crack about the tango. Her inner organs seemed to be doing the dance themselves.

London stared at an unmoving Shay, the panic in her eyes warring with the blank expression she was trying to keep on her face. “Aren’t you going to answer the door?” she whispered.

“Of course.” Shay smoothed her palms over her hair, then over the sides of her jeans. As she stepped toward the entry, she licked her dry lips. “It might not even be him,” she reminded the girl.

As a precautionary measure, she peeped through one of the porthole-styled windows that flanked the front door. Her whole body froze.

“Well?” London said.

Shay couldn’t make a sound. How had he found her? Why was he here?

It was Jay on the front step, his attention focused on the door.

Gladness, as bright as sunlight and as buoyant as a pop song, poured through her. He’d come after her! The happy feeling was accompanied by the same kind of relief one felt upon waking from a bad dream to discover the test hadn’t been failed or the tumble from the steps had been averted.

She wasn’t the only one who wanted more time together.

Could that be true? Did she really want to see him again? It didn’t seem right to yearn for someone after a mere handful of hours and a one-night stand.

But she remembered his guiding touch as he directed her into her chair at the restaurant table, a gentleman’s move that had nearly brought her to her knees. Then there was the way his calloused hands had brushed her naked shoulders as he’d removed her dress in the dark bedroom. She remembered his golden eyes laughing at her in the candlelight and the tickle of his thick lashes as they fluttered against her skin while he kissed her throat when they lay together on the bed.

“Aren’t you going to let him in?” London demanded.

She already had, Shay thought, her mind whirling. She’d let him into her body precisely because she’d never expected to set eyes on him again—and yet she was thrilled to find him here.

London muttered something, then brushed past Shay to open the door herself. She flung it wide, and Shay’s heart jolted again, every instinct wanting to shout out: go slow! Be careful! Protect yourself!

Then there was no barrier between the three of them. Shay was still formulating the right question to ask the man who was staring at both her and the teen. Which came first? Was it Why did you track me down? or What do you want from me?

Then, as his gaze shifted between her and her charge, once, twice, a horrible, dreadful thought struck.

No. No, it couldn’t be.

It was London who spoke Shay’s fear. “Well, well, well,” she said, her flat voice expressing neither happiness nor hostility. “You must be dear old dad.”

CHAPTER FOUR

FOR A MOMENT, Jace thought he’d fallen, as he had weeks before in Qatar, and taken another blow to the head. The last time he’d been knocked out, but though he was surely still conscious, his world was rocked all the same. That...that inky-haired, more than half-grown human being was his daughter?

The last time he’d seen her she’d been a chubby-cheeked, irrepressible child, who wore pigtails and shirts with cartoon characters on them. In the intervening years he’d pictured the same, ribbons and Roadrunner, only taller. Never had he expected to find a teen wearing...wearing whatever you’d call that dark garb.

And just as unbelievable...

Birthday Girl.

Birthday Girl! She was standing behind the teenager, looking stunned. She reached out a hand and placed it on the girl’s shoulder. To steady which one of them?

“You’re...” the woman began.

“Jason Jennings. Jace.” He cut his gaze to the teen. “Her father.”

There must have been some question in his voice, because Birthday Girl nodded. “Yes. Right. And this is Om—”

“London,” the youngster interrupted. The black around her eyes and the heavy coating of the same color on her lashes was startling.

“I know your name,” he said. His ex-wife’s selection, of course, chosen after the city she’d run to upon leaving him when she was four months pregnant. Jace, tied financially and morally to the sick old man who’d given him a leg up and his very first job, had remained in the States, frustrated and confused and just beginning to realize that the woman he’d married might have never expected them to grow old together.

He looked at the auburn-haired female behind his daughter and felt his head spin again. It really was the woman from last night. Shit. From the first, he’d known regret would be the outcome of their encounter. Still, he had to carry on. “May I come in?” he asked, wincing at the sharp edge to his voice.

The two females stepped back.

“Of course,” Birthday Girl said—no, he recalled her real name now. Shay Walker. Or S. Walker, as she’d signed the succession of emails he’d finally managed to read last week when his head issues had cleared up at last.

At first he’d thought her talk of tango lessons and celebrity magazines was something his mind was misinterpreting. A few emails later, he’d realized she was either putting him on or was a terrible mentor for his kid.

It had been only one more reason to seethe at the delays—caused by injury, crappy means of communication and his isolated location—that had postponed his return. But he was here now, he told himself, and it was time to implement the simple plan he’d conceived when he’d learned of his daughter’s situation: a summer of getting to know her before school started in September.

He crossed over the threshold, then glanced around the massive foyer, with its thirty-foot ceiling. “Good God,” he said, staring up at the walls of unrelieved concrete. The staircase was more gray cement, with a tubular metal banister painted a janitorial blue. “Is this place butt ugly, or what?”

Both London and Birthday Girl stared at him like he’d sprouted another head. He lifted an eyebrow. “Problem?”

Birth— Shay met the eyes of his daughter then looked back at him. “Um, this is your house.”

“Yeah, but I never saw it before in my life. I needed something in So-Cal, somewhere quiet, I thought, and my man Leonard Case found it. I got it for a song.”

“Which must have been ‘Anchors Aweigh,’” Shay muttered, and his daughter snickered behind her hand.

The sound sliced at Jace’s conscience. She didn’t look like she laughed often. When he’d been told the fifteen-year-old had lost her mother, he’d felt sorrow for her loss and a deep uncertainty about what it would mean for him. Of course he was going to step up and do his duty, but he’d expected to find... He didn’t know.

Not this dark-clad teenager whose expression was near deadpan.

Quashing a rising sense of suffocating panic, he reminded himself he had a plan.

“Why don’t you show me around?” he asked London. “After I see my room, I’ll collect my luggage from the car.”

She glanced over at Shay, who nodded. “We’ll both show you,” the woman said. “Come this way.”

Foiled already, he thought, as he followed their lead. He’d hoped to get his daughter alone and determine exactly how things were with the tutor. Though, hell, didn’t he already know Shay—

No, he did not know Shay. The woman with whom he’d spent the night at the inn was someone else altogether. He’d left that person behind in the room, including his memories of her lithe body, her delicate fragrance and the softness of her skin beneath his lips. If he were going to follow through with his idea of taking this time with London, becoming acquainted with her even as she continued her studies, then he had to forget all about last night and see the tutor in a completely businesslike light.

He could do that. He’d always been a businessman first, after all.

They showed him around the downstairs area, which had an open floor plan containing some midcentury modern furniture that looked to be all angles and uncomfortable cushions. The kitchen was large enough to feed the navy and the best thing you could say about it beyond that was it was clean.

The view of the lake was stupendous, but even the sun streaming in the windows didn’t warm the atmosphere of the place.

Without much optimism, he mounted the stairs. The top landing opened into a large gallery that contained a long center table. Textbooks sat in neat stacks on it, as well as a desktop and a laptop computer. “This is where London studies,” Shay said.

The girl was already at a computer, drawn to it like a magnet, and as the screen powered on, its pale light washed onto her face, making the darkness surrounding her eyes even more stark. Jace shoved a hand through his hair, keenly aware of being out of his element. Panic tried digging its claws in him again.

Feeling a gaze on him, he glanced over at Shay. She was staring, and when she noticed he noticed, her face colored and she looked away. “What do you know about website building?” she asked, then hurried toward the table without waiting for his answer. “London, why don’t you show your dad what you’re working on?”

The girl’s frozen expression didn’t animate, but she obligingly moved her fingers on the keyboard. Color splashed onto the screen, brilliant-colored flowers and the words Build a Bouquet.

“It’s a multidisciplinary project,” Shay explained. “She’s developing a website for a pretend florist business. Visitors to the site are able to select flowers and greenery to custom-design a floral arrangement. She’s setting it up for three disparate locations throughout the country, so she’s had to research local flora and seasonal availability along with the computer programming aspect.”

Shay reached around the teen to hit a key. The screen switched from bright photography to rows of incomprehensible—to Jace anyway—letters, numbers and symbols. “This is the language for creating web pages,” she explained, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“Impressive,” he murmured. “But a lot to accomplish between tango lessons, isn’t it?”

Shay’s face flushed again. “Um...”

“Tango?” London asked, looking between the two of them while still managing to convey that their conversation didn’t interest her in the slightest.

“Never mind,” her tutor said. “Why don’t we show your father around upstairs?”

Again the girl obliged in a long-suffering manner. Ennui oozed out of her as she slowly moved from the computer and then led their small party down the hallway. Jace glanced into her bedroom and several empty ones, then another that appeared occupied. The bed linens were pure white and it smelled of Shay’s scent, causing him to stride past quickly in an attempt not to remember how that particular fragrance had risen from his own skin in the steam of the shower just a few hours before.

They had a business relationship now, remember?

London guided him along the catwalk that was open to the foyer and living room below. At the other side of the house, she gestured to double doors standing open.

Shay spoke up. “The master suite.”

He stepped inside, winced again. More gunmetal-gray walls accented with industrial lighting. Though the bed was huge, the mattress was perched on a wooden platform that hung from the ceiling using thick iron chains. A sitting room wasn’t any more hospitable. The attached bath, while spacious, was as welcoming as an operating room.

Maybe the inhospitable environs would serve a good purpose, he decided. Under the circumstances, he’d be better off thinking like a monk, not a man.

Ignoring the headache beginning to throb at the base of his skull, Jace exited the room and addressed the hovering females. “I’m going to bring in my things,” he said.

Shay appeared uneasy at the news. His daughter appeared unaffected. He might have said his hair was on fire or there was a snake in the shower and he’d bet she’d wear the same nonexpression expression.

It didn’t help that he had no one to blame for that but himself. Fifteen years was a long time to go without having a relationship with your father.

When he’d learned of London’s mother’s death, he’d been in Qatar’s capital city of Doha. Though he’d instantly called, she’d been mostly nonresponsive to his assurances that they’d both be back in the States soon. That then they’d sort out the future.

Not once had he considered bringing her to him. His work in the Arab country sent him to remote, primitive locations that made her presence impractical. To underscore that point, not a short while later he’d been in an earthmover accident, miles from the nearest village. One of the workers with medical training had tended to his injuries, but when his wits had finally unscrambled, he’d lost weeks of time and further opportunities to connect with his daughter.

It took him a few trips to haul all his gear from the car. He refused Shay’s help and London drifted back to her computer. As he passed her, he noted she was modifying those lines of gibberish on the screen.

The truth couldn’t have hit him harder. They were two people, he thought, who didn’t know the same language.

Dumping his bags on the floor of his room, he battled the urge to punch something—the wall, himself for his own ineffectiveness as a parent, the memory of his effing unfeeling martinet of a father who hadn’t given Jace a clue as how to proceed.

Each moment that passed only made it clearer that he’d never have a chance with London.

Or that maybe he didn’t deserve one, because a lone wolf couldn’t change its ways.

A soft footstep sounded behind him. The air suddenly charged and his next breath brought with it a faint note of sweetness. The nape of his neck itched. Shay.

His daughter’s tutor. His employee.

“Dinner’s at six thirty,” she said to his back. “Can I get you anything before then?”

He turned, and at the sight of her warm beauty, memories of the night before slammed into his chest. Blood rushed to his groin as he recalled her fingers wrapped around him, the taste of her pale nipples as they hardened beneath his tongue, the quiet, low sound she’d made when he’d entered her. Jace’s breath felt trapped in his lungs.

Hell. Damn. Shit.

Anger rose from the depths of his belly. How could this have happened?

How could one woman and one night so tangle his simple plan? But she had. It did.

Everything was turning into knots and snarls.

Not only was he certain he was fighting an uphill battle in forging some kind of understanding—if not a relationship—with his kid, but his notion of retaining a businesslike attitude also already felt as if it were failing.

His daughter was an enigma.

Having the hots for her teacher was no help at all.

* * *

LONDON JENNINGS KNEW she was a freak.

After a day like today, the knowledge weighed heavy as she slipped out of the house and into the lake-scented darkness. Though Shay usually insisted on having help with the dinner dishes, tonight she’d shooed London from the kitchen. Due to pity, probably.

Not every teenager had a dead mother.

Not every teenager had a father who’d arrived years too late.

Hunching her shoulders, she tried shrugging off thoughts of Elsa as she headed toward the water. In their first week at Blue Arrow Lake, Shay had assigned her to read The Great Gatsby. In Daisy Buchanan, London had seen her mother. Beautiful, careless, childish. Elsa had been effusive some days and distant others. She’d followed boyfriends to foreign cities for weeks at a time, leaving London behind with their housekeeper, Opal, who was near a million years old and hailed from Boise, Idaho.

When Opal had needed to return to the States to take care of her sick sister, Elsa had been forced to cut short her latest trip. Between Budapest and their flat in Kensington, a train accident had taken her life.

And brought Jason Jennings into London’s.

She hunched her shoulders once more as she followed the shoreline, leaving behind their dock and the bobbing powerboat that Shay sometimes piloted. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the silty sand. It was midweek, and most of the houses along the lake were dark except for security lights. There wasn’t another person in sight.

Still, London had a more private destination in mind.

Three estates away, a dilapidated boathouse sat beside an equally run-down dock. Brand-new structures were located fifty feet from them, and on a morning walk, Shay had speculated that the old ones would be cleared away soon.

Before that happened, London wanted to spend more time inside the damp-smelling walls of the small, square building. Though her tutor likely wouldn’t approve, London had been hanging there for an hour or so almost every day. The padlock was broken and there were signs that she wasn’t the only visitor to the place.

It was those signs that fascinated her most.

The evidence of other teenagers, she was sure of it.

With a push of her hand, London swung open the door and peered into the dark interior. Before, she’d only visited during the day. In the gloom she could barely make out the usual litter: empty cans of Red Bull, Snickers candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a few moldy copies of GamerNews and People magazine. Seating choices consisted of various mismatched cushions that leaked stuffing and had been tossed onto the ragged indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Merely being around the debris of American kids made her feel closer to them. It was as if breathing in air they’d also shared could gain her entry into their world.

Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on.

On a breathless squeak, London jolted back, nearly falling. Regaining her balance, she saw the yellow circle of light jump along the walls as the figure wielding the instrument clambered to its feet.

His feet.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” a male voice said. Then the beam shifted, illuminating a face.

Everything inside London went still: her heart, her breath, the coursing of the blood beneath her skin. She knew that face. That tall, lean body. It was a boy she’d seen around town, always with a pack of other kids, always in a casual pose, comfortable with himself.

Who wouldn’t be comfortable with his tanned skin and his shock of dirty blond hair and with those very white teeth that seemed to be glowing like neon even in the darkness?

London swallowed. “I’m not scared,” she said.

She saw his head tilt, like a curious animal trying to figure out something new. “You have an accent.”

Not hardly! At least, she didn’t want to have one. The British kids she’d run into once in a blue moon said she didn’t sound like them. When she’d gone to school—and it was true that Elsa had not always been consistent on getting her to class—she’d attended an all-girl American school with American teachers.

Since she was twelve, she’d exclusively watched American television, determined to become what she considered the epitome of confidence and cool—the typical American teen.

“Cat got your tongue, England?” the boy asked.

“It’s London,” she was forced to admit. “It’s my name...and also where I’ve been living.” Since coming to Blue Arrow she’d been trying out different city names—US city names—to replace her own, as if selecting a new one would obliterate her otherness. But the minute Shay had started to explain that to her father today, it had seemed foolish. Babyish. Like believing in Santa or expecting visits from the Tooth Fairy.

Elsa had cleared up those misconceptions right away, despite Opal’s protests.

“Huh,” the handsome guy said now. “London...I like it.”

Emboldened by the compliment—giddy!—she voiced a question of her own. “And you are...?”

“Colton. Colton Halliday.”

Colton Halliday. London repeated the name in her head. It sounded like the name of a cowboy or a Wild West gunslinger. Very American and maybe even a tiny bit dangerous.

Though she didn’t feel afraid around him, she’d been truthful about that. Just warm and excited and like she was poised to begin the life she’d been waiting for. Until this moment, she’d been the victim of everyone else’s whims—her mother taking her to Europe, her father sending her to Blue Arrow Lake, Shay insisting on Gatsby and Shakespeare and that boring history book about Western civilization.

Colton slid down the wall so he was seated again. He set the flashlight beside him so its beam washed up the dingy wall and cast half his face in light, half in shadow. “What are you doing out here?”

She took one small step inside. “I live back that way.” She made a vague gesture. “You?”

“Promise you won’t tell?” he asked, though he didn’t sound too worried either way.

“Sure.”

“We local kids, you know, full-timers on the mountain, we have a few places, hideouts I’d guess you’d call them, where we go to chill. This is one of them.”

Hideouts. London nodded, pretending a teen-only retreat wasn’t completely beyond her previous sheltered—okay, freak—existence. “Just you tonight?”

“I had to get away from the parental units for a little while. They can be a pain in the ass, right?”

“Right.” London dug her toe into the worn carpeting. “My mother’s dead.” Her hand clapped over her mouth. What was wrong with her?

“God.” He twitched, then was silent a moment. “God, I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. I...” Miserably embarrassed, she stepped back again.

“Don’t go,” Colton said. “I shouldn’t have...”

His discomfort only made her feel worse. “It’s okay.”

“Come back in, I don’t bite. You probably need a little downtime, too.”

Dueling desires warred within her. To go, to stay, to allow him to bite her. Goose bumps burst in hot prickles all over her skin at the thought. Biting! She’d never even been kissed. Yeah, at fifteen, she was unkissed.

Total freak.

“So, you go to school down the hill or something?”

Down the hill encompassed every place that wasn’t the surrounding mountains. London had learned that from Shay. “No,” she said, coming inside so she could make her own slide along the wall. They were propped on opposite sides of the small structure, London situated closest to the still-open door. “I’m sort of being homeschooled at the moment. I have a live-in tutor.”

Colton released a low whistle as he drew up his knees and draped his wrists over them. In the low illumination from the flashlight, she stared at his hands. They were long-fingered and bony-looking. Not like a skeleton, just...bony like a boy’s hands. Like a boy’s hands should be.

“How’s that?” he asked. “A live-in tutor? No dozing off during class, I suppose.”

“No.” If pressed, she’d probably admit she liked Shay. Yes, there was the dusting and the vacuuming and the Western civ book, but the woman had also been tolerant of her name experiments—which seemed even stupider now that Colton Halliday said he liked London.

Shay paid attention, too. She was the only one to ever notice that when it came to bubbling test answers, London had a peculiar technique. The first time she’d turned in a score sheet, Shay had taken one look at the paper then tossed it back. “Love the long-stemmed rose,” she’d said drily, noting the pattern London had made with her No. 2. “Now put your efforts into answers, not illustrations.”

“Finals are coming up at the high school,” Colton said. “That’s what my parents are on my case about. Studying. Hell, I can’t wait for summer.”

“What will you do then?”

“Hang with friends, swim, hike. I have a part-time job scooping ice cream, too. Gotta save for college...only a year away.”

Meaning he was going to be a senior next year. That seemed way older than her.

“What about you, England?”

“I’m—” She stopped herself from blurting out fifteen.

“Hey, I thought you liked London?”

His grin glowed again, seeming to light up the whole room. “I like ‘England,’ too, since I came up with it. My special name for you.”

Another riot of goose bumps bloomed over her body. “That’s all right, I guess.” It was better than all right!

“So...are you going to be around this summer?”

She shrugged, trying to play it casual. “Sure.”

“Then maybe we’ll see each other again.” Colton rose to his feet. “I gotta go now. Chemistry homework due tomorrow.”

London stood, too, pressing her shoulder blades against the wall to hold herself up because her knees felt wobbly as he drew near. “See you around, then,” she said as he passed through the doorway.

“Yeah, see you.” He turned, walking backward as he looked at her, the moonlight silvering his hair. “How old are you, England?”

“Seventeen,” she replied, without a single betraying quaver in her voice. It didn’t matter that it was a lie; it was her next foray into the life she’d been waiting to begin.

Fifteen-year-old London, who’d lost her mother and only just met her father, was an outcast, that freak she’d always felt like. But London, nicknamed “England” by a handsome, soon-to-be high school senior, was the master of her fate and the captain of her soul.

And surely, surely seventeen.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHAY BUSIED HERSELF at the sink, swishing the dishcloth in the soapy water contained by one of the mixing bowls she’d used in preparing the evening meal. The chicken enchilada dinner had gone okay, she supposed, and she was relieved that she and Jace—his real name—seemed to be of the same mind.

The mind in which the Deerpoint Inn didn’t exist.

Or, at least, of the mind that they weren’t the same two people who had spent a night there together.

If the three of them were going to share the house for the summer, Shay’s relationship with London’s father needed to be polite, professional and impersonal. Surely she could manage that.

Then, even with her hand buried in the warm water on a warm night, a cold fingertip trailed down her spine. She froze, her prey-sense kicking in. Someone was behind her.

Lifting her gaze to the window over the sink, she saw a man reflected in the glass. His height, his breadth, the very masculine mass of him seemed to press the air from the room. Her heart skipped as he strode inside on silent feet until only the expanse of the stainless-steel-topped island separated them.

Calm down, Shay admonished herself. He’s no predator. He’s nothing to you, not even that attractive man at the bar who was so charming at dinner and so blissful in bed.

As a matter of fact, he was the kind of man she wouldn’t find appealing at all. Upon learning of his ex’s death, he’d made exactly one phone call to his daughter and then left her in others’ care—without another word for weeks. Sure, Shay was self-aware enough to know she had a chip on her shoulder when it came to paternal issues, but anyone would agree that Jace should have maintained tighter contact since becoming London’s sole guardian.

“Where’s the kid?” he asked now, his voice low.

The sound of it—damn—reminded her of the night before. His voice, both rough and soft in the darkness as he murmured against the skin of her throat, as he whispered in the hot shell of her ear. Your breasts fit perfectly in my hands. Open your mouth for my tongue. Spread your thighs. Let me feel your wet heat.

“Shay?”

She jumped, and shook herself free of the memories. That man was not this one. The lover had been attentive and generous. This...stranger was neither of those things. “London is in her room, I believe.”

“Look at me, will you?” he said. “We need to talk.”

No, they didn’t. And looking at him, looking into those lion-gold eyes, wasn’t going to put them on that all-important professional footing. Maybe tomorrow, with more time and distance since they’d shared kisses, breath, a bed, she would have her armor intact and her memories safely locked away.

Maybe she could fully face him then.

The harsh screech of the bar-stool legs against the polished concrete floor scraped her nerves. He was sitting instead of going away, she thought with a grimace.

But there was an odd heaviness to the sound of his body dropping into the chair. Without thinking, Shay swung around, only to see Jace sprawled in the seat, his elbows on the island, his head in his hands.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed.

“I’ll be all right in a minute.”

“Is it the elevation again?” She hurried to get him a glass of cold water. “Drink this down.”

He didn’t move. “No.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “If you’re afraid I’ll think less of you if your machismo takes another hit, forget about it. I—”

“Already don’t think much of me?” he finished for her, lifting his head.

He looked terrible. There were lines of pain around his eyes and he squinted as if the light were torture.

“Why would you say that?” she asked, ignoring her guilty flush.

His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I caught the hint from those emails you sent.”

Shay swallowed. Not only had she written all that stuff about dancing lessons and field trips to chocolate factories, but she also recalled subtly—or maybe not so subtly—expressing her opinion on absentee parenting. “You read them?”

“Finally. After I recovered.”

Her eyes rounded. “Um...recovered? Recovered from what?”

“I need to get some pain relievers.” He stood abruptly, the uncharacteristically clumsy movement knocking over the stool. At the loud clatter, he put both hands to his head as if to hold it together.

“Jace.” Shay rushed around the island to right the seat. Then she urged him back into it, tugging gently on one elbow. “I can get it. Something special? A prescription?”

“No. Just a couple of the regular kind.”

He took the tablets with the water and without argument. For a few moments he sat, eyes closed, just breathing. Shay gripped the metal edge of the island, watching him with concern.

When his lashes lifted, she could see some of the discomfort had left him. “Better?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

He shrugged. “Construction accident. I ended up with a badly sprained ankle and a concussion. For a time I found it difficult to think, read, communicate clearly. I still get headaches, obviously—tension brings them on.”

Remorse flooded Shay. While she’d been sending snarky emails and thinking uncharitable thoughts, he’d been laid up thousands of miles away with serious injuries. Still... “There wasn’t someone who could send an email for you? Make a call?”

“This was a lay-of-the land mission, four of us in the middle of nowhere. My interpreter-slash-fixer understood a limited amount of English and my Arabic is sketchy. Beyond blueprints, we had a difficult time making ourselves known to each other. So I concentrated on getting here as soon as I could.”

Frowning a little, she drew closer, continuing to watch him with assessing eyes. Definitely better, but—

“Christ, I don’t need a nurse. Stop hovering.”

Affronted, Shay spun around.

“Wait.” Jace reached out, but her arm slipped through his fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to...”

Hot showers, Shay thought, with sudden understanding. Birthday celebrations. Depending upon someone else, if only for a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. “It’s all right,” she said, insult evaporating. “I’m going to make coffee. Would you like some?”

“Sure,” he said. “Thanks.”

Her back was to him as she ground the beans and fiddled with the settings on the coffeemaker. Silence grew between them as she pulled mugs from the cabinet and readied the cream and sugar.

Before she sensed a single footstep, heavy male hands closed over her shoulders. Shay jerked once, then stilled. When he wasn’t hurting from a headache, she thought, the big man moved with such smooth grace. Unnerved by it, Shay placed her palms flat on the countertop and tried to calm her thudding heart.

“Shay,” Jace said, bending his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “I’m sorry. Really.”

She closed her eyes, willing herself not to lean into his warmth. A ripple of desire rolled over her skin, slid down her arms, over her breasts, her belly, her hips. God, she’d never felt like this, so aware of a man, so greedy for his touch.

She’d expected only one night with him, but now, now there was another possibility. There could be a summer of such moments, she thought, aching to feel his heat surrounding her, his weight on top of her, his thick column of flesh inside her again. Her eyes closed. There could be such a sweet, sweet summer. Yes, the fact that he was her boss was a complication, but if they could sort that out—

“Really sorry,” he continued, “but your employment will be terminated early. Though I’ll pay out for the full contract, of course, I’m giving you four weeks’ notice.”

“What?” Lust and longing had muddled her brain. She felt drugged with it and shook her head to focus her thoughts. “What did you say?”

“Four weeks’ notice,” he repeated.

The words splashed over her like icy water. Wrenching from his hold, she scurried to the other side of the island. “I don’t understand.”

“You do,” he said, his gaze on her face. “After what happened between us...”

But that hadn’t happened! Didn’t he understand their unspoken agreement that Shay and Jace were different people than Birthday Girl and Jay? Except...except a moment ago she’d been a breath away from begging for his touch, his heat, his—

Embarrassment kindled her temper. “Wait. Let me get this straight. Are you firing me because of our night at the Deerpoint Inn? I don’t think that’s legal!”

He grimaced. “Well—”

“You’re letting me go because of a...of a personal choice I made on my own time?” She was aware of the outrage in her voice. “Because I went to bed with you?”

“Jesus, Shay.” He glanced behind him. “Can you keep it down?”

“No, I can’t keep it down,” she said, though she lowered her voice to an incensed whisper. “How dare you judge me?”

“I’m not judging. I’m—”

“What about you? You’re a single dad but that didn’t stop you from indulging in a one-night stand, seducing a vulnerable—”

“Vulnerable, my ass.” Jace strode around the island and had hold of her shoulders again. “Seduce, your ass.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, trying to pull out of his grasp.

“Explaining to you the problem we have,” he said from between his teeth. “No, showing you the problem we have.” Then he bent his head and kissed her, his mouth hard and punishing and...

Beautiful. Masterful. Irresistible.

Shay’s lips surrendered to the pressure of his and then his tongue was inside, plunging to rub against her own, pulling back to toy with her, then sweeping back in again. Her body melted against the hard wall of his chest and she pressed her breasts to it and her belly to the heavy rise of his erection.

She tumbled into another bubble, still in Jace’s clasp. It pulsed around them like a heartbeat. It was a refuge. A private shelter. Their very own place. To anchor herself there, she tucked her fingers into the waistband at the back of his jeans. He grunted, low in his throat, and fed more deeply from her mouth.

Then, in an abrupt, desperate move, he pushed her away. Shay felt the counter at the small of her back, and she leaned there, panting. His golden eyes were molten and she felt his gaze like a touch as it moved from her mouth to her heaving breasts to the heated juncture of her thighs. Her muscles clenched there, and he groaned, as if he sensed that sweet spasm.

“You’ve got to see...” He sucked in a quick breath. “This is a problem.”

She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her taut nipples and trembling hands. “Just...just stop kissing me.”

He gave her a wry look. “’Cause that’ll work.”

“Jace—”

“No, I’ve made up my mind.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “I’m moving up the timetable.”

“Timetable?”

“I had a boarding school picked out for London come September. I know I was supposed to spend the next three months here, with her, with you, but obviously...” He shook his head. “I made a call. She can go to the summer session that starts in four weeks.”

Shay gaped at him. “You can’t do that.”

“Won’t she be ready? From those emails, I thought you said she was making great progress. Maybe I can get her another tutor at the school—”

“Jace, she needs time with you.”

His face settled into stubborn lines. “Look, I don’t know anything about her. I know even less about being a father and it’s obvious it’s too late for me to learn. Now that I’ve seen her, it’s clear she’s not interested in that kind of relationship with me anyway.”

“You can’t know what might happen over time—”

“A summer won’t help.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”

“No.” He forked his hand through his hair. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame her in the least, but...but no.”

Shay wanted to scream, to cry, to throw something at him. Maybe if she quit now, walked out on the stupid man, he’d be forced to rethink his decision.

Or he’d retreat for four weeks and not engage with the girl altogether until it was time to pack her off to boarding school.

Still, perhaps it would be better that she go, especially as Jace had made it clear he wasn’t interested in being around her, despite that scorching, seeking kiss. Shay could return tonight to her own place. Wasn’t she accustomed to being alone?

A furtive movement over Jace’s shoulder caught her eye. London, dressed in her usual dreary black, her presence moving along the hall like a shadow.

The girl didn’t need to be ignored and left adrift, she thought, her heart aching. London needed an anchor. Something Shay had been providing the past months.

Four more weeks wouldn’t be so bad, she decided. She’d take that time to do what she could for the teen...while taking care to save herself from any unreciprocated wishes or impossible dreams.

* * *

JACE AWOKE AT DAWN. Jet lag was a bitch, and so was the cold, cavernous master suite. He yanked on jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of running shoes and let himself out the back door that opened onto the wide deck that wrapped around the house.

The air was still, the sky a pale, pale gray. The green of the fir trees along the shore was almost black against the nearly colorless canvas. Mist rose from the lake, obscuring its surface. Resembling flying ghosts, the vapor skimmed across the water then shifted, driven by a slight breeze to return like second thoughts.

Jace jogged down the steps to the sloping lawn that led to the narrow beach and the dock there. The wooden structure was painted a deep blue with matching canvas awnings, and consisted of a short rock staircase rising to a platform that loomed over the water. From it, a gangplank angled down to the wide berth that contained the sleek powerboat he’d bought with the house. It was neatly tied to metal cleats and bobbed gently.

Where were the keys? he wondered as an urge came over him to take the thing for a spin. He could already feel the power of it in his hands and beneath his feet, a convenient vehicle for whisking him away from the tangled complications in his life.

But hell, this was a lake, wasn’t it? A finite body of water that meant he was caught forever within its boundaries. Any trip would only bring him back to his starting place.

To London.

To Shay.

To those misgivings that continued to emerge from the troubled pool of his thoughts.

But no, damn it, he assured himself. He’d made a decision to cut this sojourn short. The right decision.

All he needed was a little caffeine to cement that certainty.

So he turned back to the house, only to find someone else was up, as well. In the kitchen Shay was at the counter. Once more she was occupied with the coffee machine, her back to him.

The overhead light picked out gold threads in her auburn hair. The color warmed the stainless-steel-and-cement kitchen, a flame that seemed to give the place some much-needed life. A simple white T-shirt hung from her slender shoulders to brush the waist of the soft, beltless pair of denim jeans she wore. They were cuffed at the ankle to reveal her small bare feet, her toenails painted a translucent pink. Through the windows, the same shade was washing the sky as the sun began to rise over the mountains.

Jace stared at the woman, the same feeling every time he saw her rising like those vapor ghosts on the lake. It went beyond wanting her—and he wanted her very much. Maybe because she’d made him smile and laugh and, most important, take himself a little less seriously.

Just as her presence enlivened the house, for those two nights at the inn, she’d made him feel a bit more human.

Shay suddenly broke the silence. “When are you going to tell London?” she asked, her back still turned.

He blinked. She’d been aware he was standing there...admiring? Clearing his throat, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Tell her what?”

“About the change of plans.” She turned and carried a full mug of steaming coffee in his direction. His hands automatically reached for it when she held it his way. “About the upcoming summer session at the boarding school.”

“Uh...” For someone with such bright hair, her blue eyes could be so damn cool, he thought. They stabbed at him now like icy shards. “I’m not sure.”

She returned to retrieve her own thick white mug, where bold red letters proclaimed Size Matters. Jace glanced at the side of his own. Biker Chick. Huh.

“If you’re uncertain about that,” she said, gazing at him over the rim of her coffee, “perhaps it isn’t the right thing to do.”

He took a swallow of the hot dark brew. “It’s the right thing to do.” Because he was the wrong kind of man and it was certainly the wrong time—as in, too late—to try to forge a real relationship with the teen.

Shay shrugged one shoulder. The wide neck of her T-shirt slipped, revealing the lacy edge of a pale pink bra strap. Jace’s belly, and then his groin, tightened. Hell. It took just that small glimpse of intimate apparel and semiprivate flesh to get his full sexual attention.

Tightening his hold on his mug, he glanced away, trying to distract himself and the instinct that was clamoring at him. Snatch her up, it said. Throw her over your shoulder.

In his bedroom, he’d toss her to the mattress, strip her bare, then fist his hands in her hair as he insinuated himself between her thighs. She’d be wet for him, and hot, and he’d lose himself in her and all the problems plaguing—

“What’s everybody doing up so early?” a new voice asked.

Jace jolted, then glanced over his shoulder to see London shuffling into the room, the hem of a plaid flannel robe flapping around her ankles, her starkly dark hair hanging in her face. Even half-asleep there didn’t seem to be any child left in her.

What did you expect? he asked himself. Teddy bears and Barbie dolls?

“What can I get you?” Shay asked now. “OJ?”

The girl tipped up her chin so her gaze could meet the tutor’s from behind her swathe of hair. “Espresso?”

“I don’t think so,” Shay said, shaking her head. “Green tea? Or I can make you a fruit smoothie.”

London spun around and it was then Jace noticed she was wearing slippers shaped like strawberries. Was there some little girl left inside her, after all? “I’m going back to bed,” she said around a huge yawn.

“Classwork starts at eight,” Shay called after her.

Her mumbled reply sounded sleepy.

“Why the hell do you suppose she bothered to get up?” he asked, bewildered.

Glacial blue eyes shifted once more to his face. “My guess?” Shay said. “To make sure you’re still here.”

Shit. Jace didn’t know how to reply to that.

“It’s why you should explain what’s going on right away,” the tutor continued. “Tell her about the school, the new timetable.”

He stared into his coffee. “Maybe it would be better if it came from you.”

She made a sound that was half laugh, half snort. “You’re not paying me enough for that, big guy.”

Double shit. He wasn’t. “I could—”

“Save your breath. This is all on you.”

“All right. Fine.” And he knew she was right. What he didn’t know was exactly how to explain it to London. Still, after a quick breakfast and a detour to his room, his determination got him to the upstairs study area in a timely fashion.

Or not so timely, he realized, when he saw London in front of a computer, already perusing what looked to be some complicated math problems on the desktop’s monitor. It was 8:05 a.m.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as the girl and her tutor looked up. “At it already?”

Shay had an essay in front of her, a red pen poised over it. “London loves her quadratic equations.”

The teen rolled her eyes—once again circled with that black somewhat disturbing makeup. “I don’t love anything.”

Jace had no adequate response. But he couldn’t just walk away, either. “Do you mind if I hang out awhile?” His gaze went to Shay. “I’ll keep quiet.”

“Or not,” she murmured, sending him a significant look.

Ignoring it, he pulled out a chair on the same side of the table as his daughter. While she continued to work, he drew a science textbook toward him and began turning pages.

At the scratch of pencil on paper, he looked over. London was intent on the numbers she’d transferred there. The computer monitor had changed to screensaver mode. Photographs popped onto the screen like rabbits from a hat before being sucked down again and another moved into view. Jace stared at image after image of his ex-wife.

After a couple of minutes, he became aware of London. Her head was up and she was as focused on him as he’d been on the screen. He floundered for something to say.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Those are good. Very good likenesses of your mother. Did you take them?”

The girl nodded.

“She was a beautiful woman,” he said. Though she looked more mature in the photographs than he remembered, of course, there was still that knockout figure, the beautiful flow of light brown hair hanging down her back and her vivacious smile.

“Is that why you married her?” London asked. “Because she was beautiful?”

His grin felt rueful. “It certainly didn’t hurt. I was twenty-one.”

“She was older, right?” the teen said. “Like, a cougar.”

“No.” He laughed and he glanced across the table to gauge Shay’s reaction. She didn’t appear to be listening, her focus still on the essay, the red pen moving along. “Your mother was only five years older than me. I met her when I was doing some moonlighting at her house—where she lived with her father.”

London tilted her head. “‘Moonlighting’?”

“A second job.” He closed the science textbook and shifted his chair to more fully face the teen. “I had a day position, but I also made extra money by doing some building on the side...weekends and evenings.” Hal Olson, the construction firm owner he worked for Monday through Friday, had promised if Jace could get some cash together he’d let him buy into a slice of one of the company’s new projects. Canny as all get-out, but already feeling the ill effects of the disease that would finally take his life, the old man had tapped into Jace’s ambition and unflagging drive.

For a long time he’d thought those same qualities had doomed his marriage. Later, he’d understood that Elsa’s agenda had been part of the problem, too.

But when he was twenty-one... “I remember the first time I saw her. I was up on the roof of the garage, and she sped into the circular drive in her white convertible, her hair waving in the wind like a flag. She looked up at me, gave a jaunty wave and...”

“And?” London’s prompt was oh-so-casual.

“And we ended up getting married.” Though in his mind there’d been no hurry to get rings. He would have been content to date Elsa—yes, and bed her. Six months later, however, she’d come to him with the news of her pregnancy and the suggestion of a quick trip to Las Vegas. Jace had considered marrying the mother of his child the right thing to do, despite her father’s fury.

“But then my mom went to London.”

“Then your mom went to London. There were some issues with her family she wanted to get away from. And I...I had financial responsibilities in LA that meant I couldn’t leave with her.” By then, Hal Olson was clearly losing his fight with cancer and wanted Jace to take over the company, giving him a big piece of it so that he would keep Olson Construction in business. That way, Hal had ensured a future income for his young grandchildren.

“But I did come visit you,” Jace said. “Do you remember that?”

London was looking down now, her pencil in hand as she drew idly on her paper. What did girls doodle? He was a swords-and-stacks-of-boxes kind of guy. These looked like tiny circles or maybe a bed of flowers.

“I think I’ve seen some photos of us together,” she said, frowning a little. “Or maybe they’re memories. I’m not sure.”

“Every couple of months I came to see you, until you were about five.” Things had gotten sticky with Elsa after that. She’d filed for divorce and then he’d taken the company international, which meant long periods of time in India, Vietnam, China. He cleared his throat again, wondering how much to say. “I should have kept up my visits. Your mom...”

“You don’t have to say it.” London glanced over, her voice lowering. “I knew my mom pretty well.”

Shit. A kid shouldn’t have to sound like that, like she’d been the adult in the relationship. He wanted to punch his own face again. At the time, he’d done what he’d thought was best, sending money, sending—

“Really, it’s all right,” the teen said. “She could be lots of fun. Exciting to be around, you know? In a drama-rama kind of way.”

Yeah, he knew. But he also knew that at this moment the kid sounded like she was a fifty instead of fifteen.

London had scribbled a field of flowers now. “And you know what? She was really good at picking books.”

Everything inside Jace froze. If he moved, he thought he might crack in two. “Oh?” he managed.

“Mmm-hmm. Every month or so she’d give me two or three—some just out, others that were old but I’d never read before.”

There was pain in his chest and pain at the base of his skull. They both throbbed in time to the dirge of his heartbeat. “That’s...that’s great. A nice memory. A very nice memory.”

The computer screen had gone black now and Jace was grateful his ex’s image was gone. He put his hand to the back of his neck and tried to massage away the discomfort.

“Jace?”

Masking a wince, he shifted toward Shay, who was staring at him from the other side of the table.

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