Jake's Biggest Risk (Those Hollister Boys) (15 page)

Telling himself he shouldn’t—that he
really
shouldn’t—he traced the shape of her breasts and teased her nipples, even as he deepened the kiss. Tasting, searching, the demands of his body outweighing the cool logic in his brain.

All at once Hannah’s hands were no longer under his shirt. They were pressed against his shoulders.

Reluctantly, with his senses demanding he continue what they’d started, he lifted his head.

“I need to get back to Danny,” she said, her voice sounding almost normal. “I don’t want him to wake up and be alone.”

Danny. Her kid. Right.

“No problem.”

Jake eased away, hoping she wouldn’t look down. The sweatpants he was wearing would do nothing to hide his arousal, and while he wasn’t ashamed of it, they
were
planning several overnight trips around the state. From what he’d seen, Hannah had excellent survival skills. If she thought she’d have to fend off unwelcome advances, she’d probably tell him to find someone else to take him around the Cascades.

But he didn’t
want
someone else to do it—he wanted Hannah. The way she talked about the mountains of her childhood...he still didn’t know if looking through her eyes was the answer to his lack of artistic inspiration, but it was a damn sight better than not trying anything at all.

Hannah left quickly and Jake let out a heavy breath, coming to an unsurprising conclusion—however much fun it was to tease Hannah, kissing her was much more fun.

* * *

H
ANNAH
SPENT
A
sleepless night. What had possessed her to kiss Jake? And she couldn’t fool herself; she’d initiated the kiss...one that had become far hotter than anything she’d shared with Brendan.

Obviously, she hadn’t resolved her weakness for restless men with intimacy and commitment issues.

The sun was rising as Hannah went out on the porch and tried to concentrate on yoga, wishing she had her mother’s focus. Then she might be able to get the opposite sex out of her mind altogether.

The poignant cry of a loon rippled across the water, and it was still so rare to hear one, Hannah stopped chanting and listened. Loons had almost vanished from Mahala Lake after speedboats were allowed, but several nesting pairs had returned after strict rules were introduced regarding where and when the boats could be used. Now all was peaceful again.

Except for Jake Hollister.

Hannah tried to focus, but after a half hour she gave up and sat gazing at the lake. It was a typical mountain summer morning, cold enough to make a jacket welcome, yet already showing signs of a warm day ahead.

She glanced at Huckleberry Lodge. Simple kisses shouldn’t warrant sleepless night or major soul-searching. She wasn’t sixteen any longer and trying to figure out who she was and where she fit in the world. Yet here she was, still thinking about it.

She’d slipped because of the expression on Jake’s face, Hannah decided—that melancholy, lonely expression that suggested he was more than just a pompous genius with a camera. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like growing up without a stable home, wandering from country to country, never really being part of anything...just observing it. What she should remember was that Jake had chosen to maintain that life after becoming an adult, so he couldn’t have found it that difficult.

Gritting her teeth, Hannah got up and went inside.

She refused to let her heart get broken by another man who wasn’t going to stay put. Even more important, she couldn’t let Danny get hurt. It was rough enough having a father who didn’t care. He didn’t need Jake Hollister breezing in and out of his life like a kamikaze moth. Besides, if Jake did have a death wish, he would be the
last
role model she wanted for her son.

In the kitchen she saw the clock click over to seven o’clock, and almost at the same instant, her cell phone rang.

“Hello, Wendy,” she answered, resigned.

“I know it’s early, Hannah, but have you talked to your father about the repairs? I thought we could go over to assess the damage together.”

“I meant to call last night, but something came up. The repairs are done and Dad said there wasn’t much water, so there’s no damage to assess. We’re all set for Saturday.”

“Oh.”

“Gotta go,” Hannah said brightly. “Remember, Gwen will be back this afternoon.
Bye
.”

She sagged against the counter as Badger padded around the corner, his tail waving gently.

“Hi, boy.”

Danny appeared next, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “Mommy, I like going to Grandma’s, but can’t I go with you and Jake today?” He sat on a chair in the breakfast nook, yawning.

“We aren’t going after all. I may need to do some work for the pancake supper.”

“I looove pancakes for breakfast, too.” Danny looked at her hopefully.

“Me, too. But why don’t we have French toast this morning since we’re eating pancakes on Saturday?”

“Yummy.”

Hannah grinned. French toast was their special Sunday breakfast, so getting it during the week was a treat. She got out the ingredients while Danny put a coat over his pj’s and took Badger outside to play fetch.

Twenty minutes later she was getting ready to call him back inside when the door opened.

“Mommy, Jake says he never ate French toast before.”

Hannah spun around and saw Jake standing ten feet away, still wearing his old sweatpants and Huskies T-shirt.

“I’m
sure
you’ve eaten French toast,” she said firmly.

“No, never. I’ve had toast in France, of course, but Danny tells me it isn’t the same thing.” There was a hint of laughter in his face and she glared. Clearly everything was back to normal as far as
he
was concerned.

Danny took off his jacket and dragged Jake to the breakfast nook table. “He can have some of mine.”

Yeah, right. Hannah piled the golden slices of French toast on plates and put them in front of Jake and her son.

“You put butter all over and stick your fork in a bunch of places so it gets in the holes. That’s maple syrup, and that’s huckleberry,” Danny explained, pointing to the two steaming pitchers she’d put on the table. “Mommy made it, but
I
helped pick the berries.” He busily began jabbing his toast with his fork.

“I’ve never had huckleberry syrup, either.” Jake poured a small amount over a forkful of French toast and popped it into his mouth. “Wow.”

“Some people think huckleberries are the best berries in the world,” Hannah said. She poured another glass of orange juice and put it on the table, along with a cup of coffee.

“You’ll have to show them to me. Photos of indigenous food sources might be interesting for the book.”

She smiled tightly. Things were getting complicated. On one hand, Jake was paying her to show him the Cascades, and she really wanted to convince him how wonderful they were. On the other hand, she’d kissed him and she couldn’t pretend it was a platonic thank-you kiss like the one he’d planted on
her
cheek.

“I can show you huckleberries,” Danny offered. “Wanna go after breakfast?”

“Sure, and I’ll tell you about the grizzly bears I photographed in Canada. They like berries, though they’re meat eaters, too. I’ve seen claw marks on trees that were twice as high as my head. Their claws are
huge—
longer than your fingers and really powerful.” Jake spread his fingers and made a slashing motion through the air.

“Whoa.” Danny’s eyes were as round as saucers and he seemed barely aware of the French toast he was shoving in his mouth.

“We’ll
all
go to see a huckleberry patch,” Hannah said hastily, reminded for the umpteenth time that Jake’s stories weren’t the kind of tales she wanted her son hearing. She
especially
didn’t like him hearing them when she wasn’t around to put brakes on the gory details. And it wouldn’t do any good to tell Danny that his father wasn’t having those kinds of adventures, or that if he was, it was probably at someone else’s expense.

Jake cocked his head at her. “I thought you couldn’t go anywhere.”

“I just need to be available
in case
something happens, so I can’t go far. The vice president of the fire department auxiliary is very...” She shot a look at Danny, knowing anything she said about Wendy could be innocently repeated. “Um, she’s very concerned because we had a broken pipe last night at the church where the pancake supper is being held on Saturday.”

Hannah cracked more eggs into a bowl and whisked in sugar and cream before dropping several slices of bread into the frothy mixture.

“Why isn’t it the vice president’s problem?”

“That’s the way things work in Mahalaton Lake. My dad is a contractor and he got called to do the repairs. I’m acting as liaison because Wendy is...excitable.”

“Oh. I get it.”

“Grandpa builds stuff,” Danny said. “I have a fort and a tree house with real water over at Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

“Real water?”

“He means
running
water,” Hannah clarified. She forked eight slices of egg-drenched bread onto the griddle to cook. “Dad installed a small faucet and drain in both the tree house and fort, which also has a fireplace, electricity and half bath.”

“Really roughing it, huh?”

“It’s useful for Cub Scouts meetings. You only saw the front of my parents’ house when we dropped Danny off yesterday, but they have a good piece of land in the back. The south lake trail ends at their place—by road it’s four miles, but only two on foot.”

“Mommy can walk there, but my legs aren’t long enough,” Danny added. “Do you wanna go to the pancake supper with us, Jake? The firemen make pancakes as big as my head.”

Hannah flipped the French toast on the griddle, fairly confident Jake would turn down the invitation. It was unsettling having him in her kitchen, looking so sleepy and gorgeous, but she was trying to act normal.

“As big as your head? Uh, sure, that sounds like fun.”

She gripped the handle of her spatula and turned around, trying not to show her disbelief.
Fun?
Jake had come to the ice cream social, and then spent the entire time with a camera up to his eyes. That wasn’t fun—that was someone who needed a barrier between himself and the rest of the world.

Jake grinned as if reading her mind. “It’ll be a cultural experience—not that I really need one. I presume it’s another fund-raiser.”

“The volunteer firemen do a supper every month—spaghetti, chicken pot pie, chili, that sort of stuff.” Hannah dropped several more slices of French toast on his plate and another on Danny’s, then sat down with a couple for herself. “Some of them are also on the rescue squad.”

“Is that staffed by volunteers, too?”

“Yes. We have a handful of professional firefighters, but no budget for a specially trained rescue squad. Our head of emergency services is an expert climber, though, and a helicopter pilot. I’m not sure how, but Randy talked the ski lodge into donating a helicopter to the town a few years ago.”

“Altruism?”

“Possibly. Or motivated self-interest. Their promotional materials talk about Mahalaton Lake’s ‘superior emergency services.’”

“Sounds as if you’ve had something to do with them being superior,” Jake commented.

Hannah shrugged and swallowed some coffee, hoping the caffeine would kick-start her brain. If she’d been thinking clearly, she might have been able to head off Danny’s invitation to the pancake supper. Now Jake would tell him about grizzly bears with scimitar claws and the ability to leap over tall pine trees in a single bound...at least that was how Danny would probably hear it.

She wasn’t sure what to think. Since meeting Jake, Danny was having some bad dreams and wanted to sleep with the lights on, which was no surprise considering the excitement level of their neighbor’s stories. But it wasn’t unusual for children to have a little trouble adjusting to something new. It didn’t mean they shouldn’t experience new things. She was protective, but not
that
protective.

Jake Hollister was an opportunity for Danny to hear firsthand about places and things he’d probably never see for himself. It didn’t necessarily mean Danny would take after his father.

* * *

J
AKE
CAREFULLY
MOPPED
up the remaining syrup on his plate with the last of his French toast. He hadn’t been able to resist Danny’s description of the breakfast his mom was preparing. And the huckleberry syrup was every bit as delicious as the kid had said.

He was even more impressed when Hannah and Danny led him to a huckleberry patch an hour later. The berries, mostly located on the underside of the branches, were tiny. Unless they grew to five times their current size, they’d be a major pain to pick.

“How much bigger do they get?” he asked.

“A few get to the size of small blueberries, but mostly they’re smaller than a pea. And since they ripen over a long period of time, green berries will be mixed with ripe ones. There should be a few early ones ripe now.” Hannah bent and searched and after a minute held out her hand—five small, purple berries rested on her palm. “Try them.”

Jake popped the berries in his mouth and a sweet tangy flavor spread across his tongue. “I’ve tasted wild berries all over the world, and those have to be the best.”

“And there are blossoms on the same bush where I found the ripe berries.”

He bent and peered at the branches. A delicate, pale pink lantern-like blossom was hanging in a cluster of the green berries. “How many does it take to make a bottle of syrup?”

“A fair amount. I make jam and syrup when I pick them, but also keep bags of berries in the freezer for homemade ice cream and baking.”

Jake searched among the bushes, then lay down on the ground and focused his camera up into the branches. Photographing flowers and berries was hardly his forte, but at the moment he couldn’t trek into the wilder parts of the Cascades. He needed to take advantage of the images he
could
capture.

With an effort, he shut his mind to everything except the delicate blossoms, hanging together with both green and purple berries. And the taste of them, rich and bursting with flavor...and the promise of becoming syrup poured over French toast.