Here Comes Trouble (5 page)

“Nothing.”

“Something,” he countered. “Why the look?”

She tried a “who me?” expression, then shook her head and said, “I’m just trying to reconcile the soft-spoken kitty whisperer with the leather clad biker dude who rolled into my driveway earlier today. I’m betting your biker buddies would have a few things to say about your new sidekick there.”

“Possibly. If I had any biker buddies.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “No?”

He just shook his head.

He noticed her gaze shift to his hands for a moment. Then she seemed to look at the rest of him all at once before turning back to the mess on the porch. He wanted to ask what she’d been thinking just then, but she spoke first.

“I guess we have to build a better kitty trap if we want to eat while it’s still warm.”

He could have told her that as long as they were in the same room together, he doubted anything would ever get cold, but it seemed a bit premature for that. He was still working out her apparent conflicted impression of him…and, admittedly, he was feeling a bit the same about her. A shoot-from-the-hip, straight talker in a ballerina body. But then, maybe he did know a little about not living up to the packaging. She couldn’t help her looks any more than he could his.

He moved in front of her and carefully handed her the kitten. She instinctively balked, and he couldn’t exactly blame her given the fact that her wounds had probably not even scabbed over yet. But to her credit, she carefully took the little heartbreaker and did her best to croon something to it while he went about fortifying the kitty corral. He glanced back at her a time or two, then smiled privately to himself. She didn’t hesitate to climb a towering oak to rescue a stranded baby animal, but he wouldn’t exactly call her naturally maternal. And yet, she was an innkeeper, a caretaker by profession, presumably by choice. Interesting.

“I’ll be right back.” Before she could ask, he headed through the house and up the stacked flights of steps, taking them two at a time. He was back a minute later.

“You don’t have to donate the sweater to the cause,” she started to say.

He shook it out to show the destruction. “I already have. And don’t worry about it.” He knelt again and finished setting up shop, smiling.

“What?” she said, noticing the smile apparently, when he finally stood and brushed off his knees.

“Nothing.”

“Something,” she echoed back at him. “You seemed…amused by my kitty-whispering skills. Or lack thereof.”

“No, no, you did fine.” He took the now yawning little ball of fluff and nestled her into his sweater, where she instantly curled up and went to sleep. He straightened and stood next to Kirby. “They look so innocent when they’re sleeping, don’t they?”

He glanced over just in time to catch her rolling her eyes, which, perversely, made him grin all the more widely.

“We’d better eat while the little devil—I mean darling—naps,” she said.

He laughed as he held the door open for her, then paused to check out the damage to the screen before stepping in behind her.

She looked back and sighed. “I’ll have to tackle that tomorrow.”

“If you have some extra screen laying around, I’ll be happy to replace it for you.”

She smiled now, but it was a wry one. He wouldn’t have thought it would suit her aquiline features, but it did somehow. Or maybe he was finally adjusting his expectations. He wasn’t sure which. But he knew he wanted to figure it out. Figure her out.

“I’m not in the habit of asking paying guests to do repair work on their guest quarters. And this was hardly your fault. I put her out there and constructed the failed playpen.”

“I wasn’t asking to be billed for the damage or offering because I felt guilty. I can do the job and thought it might help. I was just being…friendly.” He smiled in the face of her dubious expression. “Are you always in the habit of not giving your guests the benefit of the doubt?”

“No, of course not.” She immediately smoothed her expression and he almost felt bad for making her feel self-conscious. “I’m sorry. And thank you for the kind offer. But I can—”

“Handle it. Why is it,” he said, as he gestured for her to proceed him into the dining room, “that I think you say that a lot?”

“I don’t know that I say it, but it is true. I’m a pretty capable person, despite the damsel in distress act earlier.”

“I don’t doubt that. And accidents can happen to anyone. That you climbed up there at all either spoke of great confidence or—”

“—gasping idiocy.”

He smiled as he took the seat across from her and spread the linen napkin on his plate across his lap. “I hardly think that would ever describe you.”

“You’d be wrong, but I appreciate the gentlemanly response. Especially given you have actual proof to the contrary.”

“Like I keep saying, accidents happen.”

She took the lid off the serving dish. “Chicken and mushroom over rice. Salad, too. The dressing is there,” she said, motioning to the small tureen. “It’s Italian. I hope that’s okay. Biscuits in the basket there.”

“More than okay. Smells incredible.”

“Sorry about the pot roast.”

“I can’t tell you the last time I had home-cooked anything. I’m more than grateful.”

Her smile was a bit self-deprecating as she served herself salad. “Well, I did use the stove, but it’s hardly cooking. Pour a can of mushroom soup over a few breasts of chicken. Make instant rice. Crack open a tube of biscuits. Not exactly going to give Rachel Ray a run anytime soon.”

He smiled as he filled his plate. “Don’t knock yourself. My specialty is ordering room service or takeout. Left on my own, I’d be surviving on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Captain Crunch. This is five-star for me.”

Kirby lifted a quizzical brow and looked like she wanted to ask some questions, but continued to munch her salad instead. He’d have answered anything she asked him, but he had to admit he kind of liked that she had absolutely no idea who he was, and therefore was willing to take him strictly at face value. Her curiosity would get the better of her eventually, and then things would go in whatever direction they did. Probably not all that differently here in Vermont than back in Vegas. Money and fame tended to affect people the same no matter where they hailed from, he’d discovered.

It didn’t occur to him until he was on his second serving of chicken that he’d naturally assumed he’d be sticking around long enough for her to find out anything at all.

“So,” he said as he cracked open another biscuit. His third. “Is this the first place you’ve owned?”

“That obvious?” she said on a laugh. She was working on another biscuit herself.

He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to eat in front of a man. Not that this was a date, or that she was remotely concerned about his opinion of her eating habits…but he’d spent most of his life surrounded by women for whom eating was an elaborate science of carb totals and protein gram calculations that would give even the most anal retentive scientist a migraine, all while making sure nothing that contained actual fat ever crossed their lips. He swallowed a smile as he watched her slather on the butter, thinking how hated she would be in his hometown if she regularly ate chicken and biscuits and still looked like she did.

“No, it’s not obvious,” he said. “You have a really nice place here. All of it, inside and out. I just…when I was signing in. I noticed…” he trailed off, not wanting to insult her or make her feel bad. Quite rude given he was enjoying a meal prepared by her. “I’m sorry, none of my business.”

“That’s okay; it’s a fair question. This is my first and only establishment. A culmination of a lot of hard work, a long ago dream…and quite possibly a large portion of that gasping idiocy I mentioned earlier.”

“I’d call it flying in the face of fear.”

“Terror, yes. Lots of that.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement. You’re only afraid because it matters if you fail. And so that’s a good thing.”

She paused for a second, as if considering that. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said, and polished off the rest of her biscuit. “I wouldn’t mind if the fear took a break. At least on alternate weeks.”

He gave a short laugh. Then he reached over to dab a bit of errant butter from the corner of her mouth before he thought better of such a personal action. Her gray eyes widened a bit, but she didn’t jerk from his touch. “Sorry, I just…” He smiled…and licked his finger.

She cleared her throat then and shifted back in her seat. “No problem.” He saw the color steal into the smooth cream of her cheeks and figured he should feel badly about that. But…not so much, as it turned out.

“Would you care for another helping? More salad? I don’t know who I thought I was feeding. Enough here for an army. Biscuit?”

He liked the nervous chatter. A lot. “I’m hungry enough to eat at least a platoon’s worth.”

“Please then,” she said, all but shoving the serving dish at him. “Help yourself.”

He did…but he was thinking how what he really wanted to help himself to wasn’t on the table, but sitting at it. Although having her on the table wasn’t exactly a bad idea, either.

Now he was stifling a smile at his own expense. Big talk for a guy who hadn’t put moves on a woman in…well, it was too embarrassing to actually factor out. But, safe to say, a long while. Hard to put moves on women who were already draping themselves all over you. Then, with the string of bad stuff happening over the month or so after he’d left the casino world, that hadn’t exactly been uppermost in his mind.

Unlike now. When it seemed to be all he could think about. Thank God he knew his poker face was unshakable. Because if she could read even a fraction of the thoughts running through his mind at that moment, a whole lot more than her cheeks would be turning pink. And he doubted he’d be a guest at her dinner table again anytime soon.

He’d read the stuff that had come tucked in the well-worn leather folder on the dresser in his room. Or some of it, anyway. Pennydash Inn provided a gratis breakfast and evening après ski wine, cheese, and hot toddy hour…and box lunch service to order if placed the night before. Nowhere on there was any mention of dinner. Just a list of places in town, and at the resort, along with carryout menus for the local deli and pizza shop.

Dinner with Kirby definitely didn’t come with the room.

Which meant he owed her. This was a debt he wouldn’t mind settling. He wondered if she’d let him reciprocate by taking her out to dinner. She looked up just then, caught him staring, so he said the first thing that popped into his head. “What made you decide to open up your own place? Where did the long-ago dream begin?”

She was splitting open her third biscuit and paused, then tore it the rest of the way open and put it on her plate uneaten.

“That’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” he said, realizing he might have stumbled into a sensitive area. “Just making conversation.”

She flashed a quick smile, but it was polite, nothing more, then reached for the butter, keeping her hands busy. “No, that’s okay. I basically grew up in a ski resort out west, in Colorado. Eventually got a degree in resort management, but thought I’d rather do something on a more intimate level.”

It was clearly the polite, rehearsed answer, but for obvious reasons he didn’t press. “Why Vermont and not Colorado?”

“Couldn’t afford the property out there. And it’s all pretty much developed at this point. I heard about the resort coming in here from some connections I had out west and thought it was the perfect opportunity to make the dream finally come true. So, I did my research, found this place, and the rest is history. Or would be, if it would just start to snow.” She smiled, shrugged a little, then bit into her biscuit. Subject closed.

There was more to it. He could easily read from her face, to her body posture. But it wasn’t his place to dig any deeper. And that right there should have been the moment where he pulled back, regrouped, and shifted his focus back to where it should belong. It was nice of her to cook him a meal, but he was here to catch his breath, do some thinking, and make some very important decisions. Kirby was nothing more than a distraction, an excuse to put off doing the hard thinking that needed to be done.

He caught her looking at him from the corner of his eye as he polished off another chicken breast. And he had to admit that, as distractions went, she was a pretty damn good one. He wanted to know the story of Kirby. Clearly there was one. Everyone had one. The more he knew about the guys sitting around the table with him, the better he was able to read them. Of course, he wasn’t trying to take Kirby’s money. Or play her, for that matter.

Play
with
her; now, that might be a different story.

In fact, after all the emotional angst and worry of the past few months, maybe that’s exactly what he needed. To just drop out, check out, take a break. Hadn’t Dan been telling him that very thing? Well, when he wasn’t telling him to get his ass back to Vegas, anyway. Take a vacation. Something he’d never done. Hell, he lived in vacation land, right? Of course Dan had mentioned beaches, blue water, and available, scantily clad foreign women…but Brett didn’t see where that was all that entirely different from home. Plenty of women looking for a good time there, too.

Brett wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but the idea of chasing after someone who was baiting the trap to be caught right from the get go, didn’t really appeal.

He purposely caught Kirby’s gaze as she reached for biscuit number four. He smiled. She flushed a little. His smile grew. No, what was appealing was a quirky, single, middle-aged innkeeper in the wilds of Vermont, who had no idea who he was or what to do with him. But she was thinking about it.

And so was he.

K
irby was up early the next morning. Not because there was all that much that needed to be done. Which was unfortunate enough. But because she was tired of tossing and turning in her bed. Thinking about her only guest.

Dinner the night before had been a kind of excruciating gauntlet of arousal and denial, with her alternately thinking that there was no way she was imagining the sexual tension between them…and kicking herself for buying into the fantasy she was clearly so desperate to believe.

She’d refused Brett’s offer to help with the dishes after they’d finished eating, knowing there was no way she was going to make it through being that deep in his personal space without making a complete fool of herself.

So, he’d collected his sleepy kitten in a ball of cashmere, like it was something he did every night, and headed up to bed. And she’d spent the next hour scraping dishes and kicking herself for not being more of a risk taker. Because…what if she’d been right about the sizzling undercurrent?

She stared at her computer screen, which was open to her banking file…then sent a baleful glance at the stack of unpaid bills and smirked at herself. Oh, she was a risk taker, all right. She’d sunk everything she owned, along with everything the bank would give her, into her new business, her new life…and look where that was taking her. Maybe it was just as well she hadn’t jumped from frying pan to fire again.

She worked on believing that, which lasted for about…five seconds. Which was when she asked herself how she’d feel if Brett Hennessey checked out today. Would she be disappointed that she hadn’t taken at least a shot at finding out exactly what might be going on between them? Embarrassing or not? Because the “or not” option was pretty damn likely to end with a very worthwhile memory.

Pride dictated that she at least make a go at pretending that a one-night stand with anyone, even a white knight in black leather like Brett, would have been an unfulfilling waste of her time, that she valued herself more than that, required more than that. But who was she kidding? Hadn’t she come to Vermont, quite clear about what she wanted? Her own life, played by her own rules. And that didn’t include a long-term relationship where someone else would have any say in how she ran her life. Which was what overly tanned ski instructors and randy touring Italian and French ski racers were for.

And, okay, so she hadn’t exactly had the chance to take advantage of that last part. Not many European racing professionals dropping by to stare at ski runs covered in grass rather than snow. She could bide her time. After all, she’d been a little busy.

And so, here was her chance to make good on her promise to herself. Dropped, literally, right in her lap. She didn’t even have to figure out the part about how she was actually going to get the hot Swede in the tight racing suit to lust after her forty-year-old ass.

But, as it turned out, the reality of jumping into a hot, sweaty, deeply satisfying, purely sexual, short-term relationship wasn’t quite as casual, carefree, and easily entered into as her imagination had made it seem it would be.

That same imagination took a short detour from her banking crisis, as a series of images played through her mind. Vivid, highly detailed, quite erotic images. Nothing wrong with a little fantasizing. No risk there. Kirby had become quite fabulous at fantasizing about what she’d do if she could actually make herself do it. In fact, she was downright easy in her fantasies. And it sure beat the hell out of staring at a bank balance that wasn’t going to change no matter how long she scowled at it. Deciding which part of her rapidly mounting debt to toss Brett’s hundred-dollar bills at stood even less of a chance at distracting her. She could only spread them around so far, after all.

A far more entertaining use of her time would be imagining what it would be like to spread something else entirely. She lifted her coffee mug to her lips, deciding to extend her daydream for just a few more delicious moments, when there was a loud thwap, followed by a quick yowl and some serious swearing originating from somewhere in the back of the house.

She set the mug down as she shoved her chair back. “Now what?” She didn’t even give the bright sunshine a passing scowl as she scooted through the foyer.

Another string of swear words colored the warm morning air blue as she moved through the sitting room to the dining room. “Hello?” she called out.

“In here.”

“Brett?” She stopped on the threshold to the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

Her guest looked up from where he was crouched on the other side of the now screenless door leading to the porch. He was stretching mesh across the frame, or trying to. “I came down to see if I could grab a bottle of water, then saw the extra mesh rolled up on the porch—”

“I got it out this morning; I was going to work on that after I—” She broke off. He didn’t want to hear about her chore list. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he said, his expression tight. “Just trying to help out. You fed me dinner after all.”

She stepped into the kitchen. “I was listening for you to come down so I could offer you breakfast. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you on the stairs.” She resolutely forced herself not to blush as she was reminded where her head had likely been during that time. “There’s fresh coffee on, and I’ll be happy to make you some eggs, toast, I—” She stepped closer. “Are you okay?”

He shifted in his still-crouched position so she could see his back. And the kitten that was lodged there. “Fine. Until Vlad the Impaler here decided to launch herself from the plant stand to…well…” He very gingerly turned a bit more. “Would you mind—I’m afraid if I try to stand up, she’ll just dig in deeper.”

Kirby sprang into action. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were—I thought you banged your thumb with a hammer or something.”

He lifted the staple gun. “No hammer. But I’m thinking of using this on something other than the screen here.”

“Right, right. I got it. I’ll get her. Just…” She ran her gaze around the back porch to find something to put around the kitten so it wouldn’t transfer claws from Brett to her. Her stomach was stinging in sympathy just looking at how fiercely the kitten was digging in. She knew just how fierce a digger the kitten was.

“No apologies needed. I was the one who turned my back on the little vampire. I should know better. She was sleeping mere seconds earlier, I swear.”

Kirby slipped between the crouched pair and through to the back porch, where she grabbed the now completely gnarled and mangled cashmere sweater from the kitty fort and carefully worked the little mangler free from Brett’s T-shirt. And his skin. “Got her.”

Brett straightened, which kind of trapped her between the screenless door and…well, him. “Thanks.”

“Why don’t you let me get something to clean those scratches up? I know from experience they’re going to sting.” She inched out from the space between his chest and the door behind her, and went over to the kitty fort. “Did she escape from this?”

He shook his head. “No, I figured as long as I was right at the door, I’d give her some room to play a little.” He lifted his hand. “I know, you don’t have to say it.”

Kirby deposited the kitten back in its safe room, putting her down, sweater and all, before turning back to him. “I wasn’t going to say a word.”

He gave her an amused “sure you weren’t” look, which made her bat her eyelashes all innocently. He shook his head, she smiled…and suddenly there was all that tension again. Just like that. The silence stretched and then expanded some more. And she was pretty damn sure she wasn’t imagining anything. Then he took a step toward her, and she was instantly rooted to the spot. Here it was. Her chance. No regrets this time. He was totally focused, intent…on her. The most tantalizing sort of awareness hummed over her skin and she prayed she didn’t do anything stupid to ruin the moment.

It had been longer than she cared to think about since she’d last been kissed. Not that it would have mattered. Despite all of her personal mission statements where men were concerned…she’d never seduced, much less been seduced, by anyone like Brett. Casually or not.

He moved closer, and she tried to look…what, casual? Ready? Turned on? Needy? She was afraid she was all of those, except that first one. Could he tell? Did it matter? She fervently hoped not. There wasn’t much she seemed to be able to do about it. As he closed the final bit of distance between them, she thought her heart might thump its way right out of her chest.

Her lips parted on a soft sigh as her gaze dipped to his mouth and lingered there. That perfectly sculpted mouth, which was attached to a perfectly sculpted body. And it was going to be touching hers, tasting hers, in just a matter of seconds. She had to curl her fingers in to keep from grabbing him. Had to lock her knees to keep her thighs from shaking. Wanted, desperately, to press her hand over her stomach, to make sure she wasn’t going to be sick from the anticipation of it all. Because nothing says seduce me like puking on a guy’s feet. That would be sexy, huh?

She really wished she could be a whole lot more
The Graduate
about this. But she was clearly no Mrs. Robinson, the experienced older woman, ready to school the younger man in the fine arts of seduction. But then, there was nothing remotely Dustin Hoffman–ish about Brett, either.

He leaned his head down, she tipped up her chin, and at some point her eyes drifted shut. But the next thing she felt wasn’t his warm, oh so perfect mouth on hers…no, her lips were brushed with something that felt like—

She blinked her eyes open as he finished pulling his T-shirt over his head, then swiveled his back to her. “How bad is it?”

She blinked a few more times, then squeezed her eyes shut in abject mortification.
Please
, she silently prayed, if there is a God, let him be the kind of benevolent deity that uses his wise powers to keep her gorgeous guest completely oblivious to the, clearly, very wrong conclusion she had drawn regarding his sudden interest in her. That, or allow the earth to open up and swallow her whole. Or both. Before she did something else stupid.

It damn well wouldn’t hurt if he’d stop disrobing every other second, too.

“You’ll live,” she choked out, feeling every bit as ridiculously foolish as she’d suspected she would last night.

No regrets. Right.

“I—I have some antiseptic spray in the kitchen that might be a good idea. We should clean up the deeper gouges.” She winced as she leaned in to examine the scratches and punctures a bit more closely. “I think there’s a little T-shirt fiber stuck in a few.”

I also think I don’t need to be spending any more time inspecting any part of your perfectly perfect naked skin, she thought as her gaze began to wander beyond the immediately affected areas. Which, in turn, had immediate effects on her. She abruptly straightened and did her best, which was to say made any effort at all, at sounding calmly efficient and otherwise entirely unaffected by him and his godlike body. Which, seriously, she was both breathing and female, so that was already over-reaching where both goals were concerned. Still, she was proud that she actually spoke in complete, nondithering sentences. Something to build on, anyway. “Head inside and we’ll take care of it.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks. Then I’ll get the screen done.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary, “you don’t have to—”

“I know, but I can, so it’s the least I can do.” He headed toward the kitchen door, and Kirby followed behind. “You always have such a hard time accepting a little help?”

“No,” she said, knowing that was only partly true. “It’s just, you’re a guest. You’re here to relax, and…do whatever it is you want to do. You’re not paying to stay here so you can help with chores. Much less rescue your hostess or be attacked by the local psycho kitten.” She scooted around him as soon as they were both in the kitchen and went immediately to the cupboard below the sink where the first aid kit was stashed.

“I’m pretty sure feeding me dinner wasn’t part of my room and board, either. I was simply returning the favor.”

“I fed you because you saved my life. I owed you, not the other way around. We’re even. Well, if you can consider chicken and mushroom casserole an even trade for a life.” Knowing she was babbling, but seemingly unable to stop, she braced herself and stood up only to clutch the kit to her chest when she realized he was standing right beside her. She winced a little when the kit rubbed at her scratched stomach.

He took the kit from her and then did that quick, half-smile thing she was coming to realize he did when he was amused but trying to be polite.

If only he knew just how impolite she’d been with her thoughts of him.

“What?” she said as he placed the kit on the counter. She reached out to help him unclasp the safety latch on the front of the kit.

“I was just thinking that, in the end, all we were both trying to do was help the poor, defenseless little kitty cat, and look at the both of us.” His tone took on a wry note. “I’m thinking maybe she’d have been better off left to her own defenses.”

Her own lips twitched. “You might have a point.” She went to draw her hand away, but his fingers brushed over hers as he went to lift the lid off the kit, then more deliberately when she didn’t move them away. She looked at his fingertips as they lightly stroked over the backs of her fingers, as if she was having some sort of out-of-body experience. Except her body was experiencing all kinds of things at the moment and she felt every electrifying one of them. She didn’t lift her gaze to his, not fully prepared for what she might find in those green eyes of his. Was she making this up, too?

“Kirby.”

She took another millisecond to decide, so he lifted his fingers from hers, to her chin. One little glimpse of his eyes, that intensity, that focus, so close up, so…intimate. And she knew right then, if he asked her to clean his wounds, or…or something else that had absolutely nothing to do with kissing her senseless, well, she would not be held responsible for her actions.