Currant Creek Valley (11 page)

Was it any wonder his son wanted to control as much as he could in his life? It was up to Sam to give him the most stable, supportive environment he could when they finally settled into life here in Hope’s Crossing.

He was somber as he followed the GPS directions to the trailhead. As much as he wanted to see Alex again, he almost wished he had never gone to her restaurant earlier—and certainly that he hadn’t pushed so hard for an opportunity to spend more time with her.

He liked her, probably too much. When he was with Alexandra, he could forget about the weight of responsibility dragging at him like that seventy-five-pound pack he’d been thinking about earlier—the constant worry that he wouldn’t be able to give his son what he needed, that he wasn’t enough.

He needed to be focusing on Ethan and creating the best life he could for the two of them, not remembering that moonlit kiss the other night.

He would enjoy his impromptu hike with Alex tonight and spend the time trying to ease things back to a friendly footing, he decided. He didn’t see what other choice he had.

Still, when he drove into the trailhead parking area and his headlights picked up the sight of her waiting on a bench overlooking the town, a brown furry dog at her feet, he was aware of a fierce burst of something warm and bright he hadn’t known in a long time. It felt suspiciously like happiness.

Leo barked a soft greeting when Sam parked and headed toward them. He reached down to pet the dog at the same moment he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek in greeting.

“You smell delicious,” he said, then could have kicked himself for the spontaneous words. That sounded very much like a come-on, after he had just told himself to keep things friendly.

“I probably smell like a kitchen, since I’ve been cooking all day.”

“You know us men and our stomachs.”

She laughed. “Yes, but I also know you can’t possibly be hungry. You just had a divine meal, which I happened to have fixed myself.”

“Men don’t always have to be hungry to want to eat,” he pointed out.

“Are you talking about food or sex?”

So much for casual friendliness. He shrugged. “Either. Both. Does it matter?”

She shook her head but he saw she was fighting a smile. “Come on. Let’s work off some of that...hunger...on the trail.”

She took off, the dog trotting ahead of her on a leash. He didn’t even have time to hand her a flashlight. She didn’t really need one—the moon was huge and full and lit up the terrain with a pale, unearthly glow.

The trail wasn’t steep but the climb was steady. This part of the route was also only wide enough for one across so they didn’t have much chance to talk.

He didn’t mind. It was probably better that way since he couldn’t seem to keep his big mouth shut. Despite all his good intentions, everything he had said to her since he pulled up to the trailhead had been provocative.

After maybe fifteen minutes of hiking, she paused at an area where the trail widened and the trees thinned, presenting a vivid view of the glimmering lights of the valley below. She pulled a water bottle out of the deep pocket of her jacket. Even as she drank, she didn’t release her hold on the dog.

“You’re not letting him off the leash?”

“Not yet. He’s obviously a runner or he wouldn’t have wandered down Main Street the other night. I don’t want to take the chance of him losing his way, not with all the pitfalls up here. Bear, cougars, coyotes. Moose.”

“Moose?”

She flashed him a look. “For your information, a bull moose could take out a Jeep if he had enough mad on.”

“Yet you have no problem hiking up here in the dark.”

“I’m tougher than I look, soldier. Besides, wouldn’t you have been sorry to miss that view?” She gestured below them.

They stood, her shoulder brushing his arm, and admired the lights of the valley spread out below them.

“Beautiful,” he answered. Lame as it seemed, he wasn’t only talking about the vista. In the moonlight, she seemed otherworldly, too, glowing with life.

“I don’t know how anybody could ever want to leave this place.”

She spoke almost reverently and he gave her a careful look. “You haven’t ever wanted to go anywhere?”

“Been there, done that,” she said, settling onto a slab of granite that looked as if it had been carved out of the mountainside.

“Oh?”

She was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the wind moaning in the tops of the pines and rustling the new leaves of aspen trees around them.

“After college, I lived for two years in Europe while I was in cooking school,” she finally said.

Wow. He hadn’t expected that. “What part of Europe?”

“France first and then Italy.”

She spoke with a reluctance, her tone guarded, and he had to wonder what she
wasn’t
saying. “You didn’t enjoy it?”

“Parts of it, I really loved. The architecture, the art, the
food.
I mean, how can you not love all that fabulous food?”

“But you didn’t stay.”

“I planned to, but...I finally decided it wasn’t the life for me.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated. “I missed my family too much.”

Even through his envy at all she had, he sensed that wasn’t the whole story.

“Don’t take them for granted. Your family, I mean,” he said when she didn’t seem willing to add anything else. “If you get along with them, consider yourself lucky.”

“I do. Believe me I do. You mentioned a brother. What about your parents?”

“Don’t have any. It’s just the two of us.”

“You had to have had them once. It’s kind of a biological imperative.”

“Technically, yeah. Our dad, if you want to call him that, took off back to Colombia when Nicky was only a few months old. We never heard from him again.”

“You don’t know what happened to him?”

He shrugged. “I barely remember him, if you want the truth. We didn’t miss him much after he left. I tried to find him years ago when I was stationed in that part of the world. I’m not sure why. Stupid curiosity, maybe. Or maybe just to tell him off for abandoning his kids.”

“You couldn’t find him?”

“Not a trace. The trail went cold.”

Judging by the little he knew of the man, he had probably come to some violent end while trying to screw somebody out of money or drugs, but he decided not to mention that.

“What about your mother?”

She wasn’t going to stop until she heard the whole grim truth, he sensed. He rarely talked about his parents but something about the night and the woman seemed to wrest the words out.

“She wasn’t really much of a mother. She was in the life, you know? Drugs, alcohol. The whole thing. Nicky and I were in and out of foster care from the time I was ten until I turned eighteen. Not always together, though I tried.”

“What happened when you were eighteen?”

He remembered that time, both the determination and the fear. “I found a compassionate judge who gave me custody of him.”

“How old was your brother?”

“Fifteen. The biggest smart-ass you could ever meet when he was a kid, but now he’s a hotshot attorney with a great wife and a couple kids. He just got a job in Belgium working for an international company there.”

He wasn’t sure how, but he and Nick had somehow made it work. He had done odd jobs for two years, until his brother graduated high school at seventeen, when Sam had enlisted. With his army wages, he had managed to live on nothing, saving every penny to help Nicky through school.

“You sound proud of him.”

“I am. It’s amazing that he came out of what we did and became somebody.”

“So did you.”

He shifted, uncomfortable with her words. Before he could find some way to deflect the conversation—and before he quite figured out what she intended—she leaned in and kissed him, her mouth warm and soft against his.

He sensed the kiss was completely spontaneous, that she hadn’t given it much thought ahead of time and probably wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t acted on impulse, but he wasn’t about to argue.

She was here, touching him, kissing him, and that was the only thing he cared about.

After that first delicate brush of her mouth against his, as soft and sweet as butterfly wings, she started to ease away, as if she believed he would be content with that little taste after he had savored so much more than that the other day.

Knowing only that he couldn’t let her go yet, he grasped her hands in his and tugged her closer. Her fingers fluttered in his like that butterfly but after a moment’s hesitation, she opened them and twined them together with his, all while her scent—vanilla and spices and delicious female—made his head spin.

So much for good intentions. He forgot all the reasons this wasn’t wise. With the sparkle of stars overhead, the sprawl of lights from the town below and the cold mountain air that smelled sweetly of spring wrapping around them, the moment was perfect. He didn’t want it to end.

He kissed her, tasted her, until they were both breathing hard, until his body ached, until he wanted nothing so much as to find a soft patch of grass somewhere and explore every warm, curvy inch of her....

She was the first to pull away and he realized she was practically on his lap. He wanted her to stay exactly there.

“You are one fine kisser, Sam Delgado.”

He smiled against her mouth. “I’m good at a lot of things.”

Her body trembled, ever so slightly, but before he could stop her, she slid out of his lap and gave a light jump to the ground, reaching for the leash she had dropped in the midst of their kiss. The dog hadn’t gone far; he was curled up on the ground looking far more comfortable than either of them right now.

“I like you very much, Sam,” she said, “and I would be lying if I didn’t admit I find you incredibly sexy, but I’m not going to sleep with you. I suppose it’s only fair to tell you that up front.”

He managed a rough laugh, dangerously close to falling hard for Alexandra McKnight. “Just because a woman happens to enjoy the way I kiss her doesn’t automatically mean I expect her to fall into bed with me.”

In the pale moonlight, her features looked almost fey. “Then you are truly a man among men. Come on, Leo. We should probably be heading back.”

He stood for just a moment on the mountainside with the cool breeze rippling his hair, then shook his head to clear away the lingering arousal and followed after her, wondering just how the hell his best intentions had gone so wildly off the rails.

* * *

A
LEX
GRIPPED
THE
HANDLE
of Leo’s leash so hard she was quite sure when she finally made it down to the trailhead, she would have an imprint on the skin of her palm that would last for days.

She was completely self-deluded to think she could keep things casual and friendly with Sam.

The only reason she had invited him along on this little walk with Leo was to convince herself she had the strength of will to resist this attraction that simmered between them. Ha. That certainly turned out well, didn’t it? A half hour into it, she was once more in his arms.

She couldn’t seem to help herself. Her brain warned her to keep a safe distance but the rest of her just wanted to grab hold and not let go.

Leo led her down the dark trail, easily dodging the small rocks and weedy growth along the way. He moved fast, probably eager for bed, and she followed right behind him, hoping she didn’t trip and go sprawling. Wouldn’t that be a lovely conclusion to the evening, if she ended up in the emergency room?

She was aware of Sam not far behind her. The beam of his flashlight cut ahead of all three of them, but he was silent, concentrating on the trail.

By the time the trailhead came into view, endorphins pumped through her and she could feel each beat of her heart.

“Why are you running so hard?” Sam asked when they reached their vehicles.

She caught her breath. “That wasn’t a run, soldier. That was just a little stroll down a mountainside. It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.”

“I wasn’t talking about the pace.”

Yeah. She figured that out. She hated feeling like a coward but she had a very powerful feeling it wouldn’t take long for her to fall head over heels for this strong, sexy man who’d raised his younger brother and nursed his dying wife and who made her feel as if she would catch fire in a dry wind. For some crazy reason, she suddenly remembered the phrase Frankie Beltran had said to Claire, telling her Sam was hotter than a two-sided firecracker.

She
was the firecracker, at least where he was concerned. He only needed to look at her out of those big, long-lashed dark eyes and she wanted to explode across the sky in a big flash of heat and color and sparkles.

“I like you, Sam. A lot. But I told you I’m not going to sleep with you and I mean it. I don’t do relationships very well. Casual, flirty and fun I can handle but I’m not interested in more than that.”

“Nothing wrong with casual, flirty and fun. For now.”

She pounced on the last two words. “See, right there. That’s the problem. I only want the
now.
And actually, I don’t even want that in this particular
now.
Nothing personal, but I just don’t have the energy for you.”

He studied her in the moonlight and she felt exposed to the bone, as if he could sift through layers of skin and muscle and sinew to the very heart of her.

Oh, the wonders of self-delusion. She thought she could handle a man like Sam the same way she treated the fun-loving ski bums and river guides she usually dated. It was no coincidence they were usually a few years younger than she was and more than willing to let her set the terms and make up the rules.

Sam was different. With him, she felt extremely out of control, as if she were floating down level-five rapids with no life preserver, no raft, no helmet, no protection but her own wits. Flimsy help, there.

“This is an important time for me, preparing to open the restaurant after months—
years,
really—of planning. I just can’t afford the distraction.”

“Distraction.”