by Jill Shalvis
occasional wild animal. I’m prepared. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Not alone it isn’t.”
“So I’ll scratch you off my short list of supporters.”
He caught her wrist as she surged to her feet. “Harley—”
“I want this Colorado job,” she said quietly, giving nothing away in her expression. “And…”
And she needed the money from it. That was plain as day. He no longer lived hand to mouth but he’d been there, and it sucked. “We’re hiring,” he said. “I wasn’t bullshitting about that.” Wilder Adventures was overwhelmed and overloaded, and they’d been trying to hire for weeks. It wasn’t easy to find qualified people. “You’d be perfect for the guided hikes we offer, and with your photography skills and education, we could even tailor some of them toward wildlife education, stuff like that.”
“If I finish this research project, I’ll have a job.”
“In Colorado.”
“Yeah.”
“You really want to leave here?”
She pulled her wrist from his grip and went to the sink, looking out the window. TJ knew her dad had lost his store, that her mom had a hard time keeping a job, that her sister hadn’t gotten a scholarship, and as the only one working, they needed her, depended on her. Standing, he came up behind her.
Out the window in front of them, for as far as the eye could see, lay the glorious Sierra mountain peaks, blanketed in vibrant fall colors. The lack of concrete was soothing. No sidewalks, no other buildings, no traffic. Nothing but nature. It’d rained earlier, leaving everything fresh and clean and sharp.
“I never get tired of the view,” she murmured, reading his mind.
“Me either. Annie framed that shot you took of Granite Flats. She’s hanging it in the lodge reception room. It’s an amazing shot, Harley.”
“Thanks.”
Taking her hand, accepting the little frisson of awareness that zinged through his body, he tugged her back to the table. “Show me your route.”
“So you know where to find my body?”
He shot her a level look, and she flashed him a smile. He loved her smile, it was wide and warm and rare, and he found himself smiling back helplessly. “Take someone with you.”
“Who? You?”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you have another big trip coming up?”
“I do. A four-week trip across the Canadian Divide in about ten days. But I have time for this. All you have to do is ask.”
She was silent, either too proud to ask, or hell, maybe she really didn’t want his help. He ran his thumb over the pulse point at the base of her wrist and felt it leap. “I’ve spent a lot of time being baffled by your prickliness with me, but not, I don’t think, enough to wonder why. Until now.” He met her gaze. “Why, Harley?”
“I’m prickly with everyone.”
Maybe. But beneath his fingers her pulse had picked up speed. Behind that irritation she wore like a coat, he did affect her, maybe every bit as much as she affected him.
“I’ll ask someone,” she said quietly.
“But not me. You don’t want it to be me.”
“No.”
His lips curved. “Another lie,” he murmured. “You’re racking them up. Your nose is going to start growing.”
She pushed free of him and paced the length of the kitchen, which meant she got about five feet before turning around and smacking right into the hard wall of TJ’s chest. He stood there, filling the kitchen with his larger-than-life presence, making the room seem even smaller than it was.
“Want me to tell you what I think?” he asked.
“Are you going to agree with me about the trip?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
He smiled, laugh lines fanning out from his sharp green eyes. “Still stubborn.”
“And you’re still…” She couldn’t think of an insult. With an annoyed huff, she moved toward the front door and opened it for him. “Thanks for coming. We’ll have to do it again sometime. Buh-bye now.”
TJ smiled, reached over her head, and shut the door. “Let’s do it again now.”
She thunked her head against the wood. She felt him lightly run his fingers down her spine, which caused a sensuous shiver, but when he spoke, the amusement was gone from his voice, replaced by a gut-wrenching gentleness. “Harley, why didn’t you tell me you needed money?”
Oh, God. “I—”
The phone rang, saving her pride, and she leapt for it, then hesitated, standing there in front of the answering machine.
At the third ring, TJ raised a brow. “You going to get that?”
“I’m trying to decide.”
The machine clicked on and Harley’s voice invited the caller to do their thing at the beep, and then her landlord’s voice filled the small apartment.
“Harley Stephens, you’re avoiding me.”
Crap. Harley hit the volume button, but not in time to avoid her landlord’s next line.
“You are ten days late on rent, missy. I need—”
Harley smacked the volume again and again, until the voice could no longer be heard.
Gaping silence.
Her back was still to TJ, so she closed her eyes and wished for a nice big hole to vanish into. “Don’t say it.” Without meeting his gaze, she tried to move around him, but once again his hands came up to hold her in place. She could snap at him or shove him, but the truth was, she liked his touch.
Too much.
Which told her just how bad off she was. She really needed some one-on-one naked time with a guy. Preferably someone who didn’t make her think too much, didn’t have the potential to obliterate her heart, and who wouldn’t expect anything from her.
Nolan.
“Harley,” TJ said softly, interrupting her thoughts, something more in his voice than she wanted to hear.
“Look, as fun as this has been—”
“Harley.” He paused, and she heard him take a deep breath before continuing. “If you couldn’t tell me, then why not Annie, or Stone, or Cam? You know how much they care about you.”
Her throat felt tight, far too tight to talk. “It’s temporary.”
He pulled out his wallet and emptied all of his cash onto the counter. “Not temporary.”
“I don’t need—”
“Consider it an advance. We need an assist on upcoming trips. There’s three this weekend. Take your pick; a biking trip, a kayaking trip, or guiding a group of hikers up Eagle Falls to jig for halibut and cast for salmon. Your choice. Hell, for that matter, get your feet wet on one of those, and then come with me on my next long trek.”
“Those treks take you at least a month.” A month of thirty long nights. Given her entirely inappropriate and extremely annoying habit of yearning and burning for him, God only knew what would happen.
Reading her mind, he let out a wicked smile that made her nipples harden. Firmly, she put one finger on the money and pushed it back across the counter at him.
“You don’t think you can control yourself,” he said, sounding amused again.
She gritted her teeth. “I have enough jobs.”
“Yes, but this one pays good.” His gaze touched hers, oddly tender and gentle, and it just about did her in.
“I’ll think about it.” Then, because she couldn’t seem to forget her manners, she added a soft but genuine “thank you.” She busied herself flipping through the maps. “Hey, where’s the top of the northeast region, just beyond Sioux Hill?”
“It’s there.”
“No, it’s not.”
TJ reached around her to fan out the maps himself. “Shit, I must have left it on Stone’s desk. Sorry.” He took her hand in his. “Let’s go get it now.”
“I can get it later.”
“Sure. But if there’s a God, Annie’s lasagna will be done by the time we get there.”
Besides being his aunt, Annie was the chef at Wilder Adventures. Her lasagna was legendary,
the best lasagna in the history of all lasagna. Just thinking about it had Harley’s mouth watering.
“Five-cheese,” TJ murmured as if recounting a long-lost lover, “and three-meat lasagna. A restaurant-sized tray of it.”
Oh, God. She let out a small involuntary moan.
His eyes dilated. “There’ll be homemade bread, too. French loaf. Crusty on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said weakly.
Her stomach made a liar of her by rumbling loudly.
TJ’s lips twitched, but he was wise enough to hold the smile back. “If you don’t come with me, I’ll inhale the entire loaf myself.” He rubbed his flat belly. “And possibly all the lasagna, too.”
She thought about the questionable cottage cheese in her refrigerator. “Well, if you need saving from yourself…I guess I wouldn’t want you to get any more…you know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Extra around the middle.”
He arched a brow. “Extra around the middle?”
She poked his rock-solid abs. “Don’t worry. It happens to everyone.”
He lifted his shirt and bent his head to look at himself.
His jeans were low riding, revealing lean hips and a set of abs etched in sinewy ridges. Heat slashed through her and she began to sweat in places she hadn’t even realized had sweat glands.
Not good.
She tried to picture Nolan in her head. Sweet, kind, adorable Nolan. She couldn’t do it. She told herself not to panic. It was only because she hadn’t seen Nolan without a shirt.
“You’re right.” TJ let his shirt fall back into place. “You should definitely come with me and save me from myself.” He walked into her kitchen and made sure her back door was locked. He flipped off the kitchen light, then turned and faced her, stopping when he found her staring at him.
“We don’t even like each other,” she said, confused.
“I like you just fine. Sure, you’re as difficult and grumpy as Chuck, but no one’s perfect.”
She choked out a laugh. Chuck was the Wilder mascot, a disheveled stray that they’d hardly recognized as a cat at first sight. He’d shown up last winter, scrawny and half a heartbeat from starvation. He’d been neglected and terrified.
Annie and Katie had taken him under their wings, fattening him up, loving him so thoroughly that he’d had no choice but to learn to accept them as his family.
And then Emma had determined that not only was Chuck missing a penis, but that he was pregnant. Now they had three kittens running amok in the lodge, three wild, lovable little miscreants with none of their mama’s innate mistrust and all of her penchant for trouble.
But what was it he’d just said? That he liked her just fine? What was that? Just when she thought she’d gotten used to the odd push/pull of their prickly relationship, he was changing the rules and hadn’t given her a copy. “What’s going on here, TJ? Usually, you never talk to me without a frown on your face.”
“Don’t you have that backwards?”
She stared up at him, having to concede that he might have a point. She usually was on edge with him, but it was because they had a past, one that was significant to her.
One that he didn’t even remember.
There were other reasons, too. Like the fact that no matter how dirty and grubby he got on his job, he still looked hot, while she wore her grease like a poorly chosen accessory. “I have to get out of these coveralls.”
“You know you can go like you are.”
“I know.” She’d known Cam and Stone and Annie forever. Annie’s husband Nick, too. They were warm and accepting and cared about her as much as she cared about them. She could show up in a sack and it wouldn’t matter. Changing was for her. “It’ll only take a second.” Now that she’d agreed to lasagna, she was nearly shaking with hunger. She unzipped her filthy coveralls and began to shove them down, but at the low, rough sound from TJ, she glanced over. “I’m dressed under here, you know.” She kicked free of the grimy coveralls. Beneath she wore a stretchy black tank and micro bike shorts.
“See? Full coverage.”
Her jeans were on the back of a chair. She grabbed them and slid them on, hopping up and down a little until they reached her hips.
TJ made another sound deep in his throat as she buttoned them up, and she sent him a questioning look and found his gaze so scorching hot she nearly caught fire.
Holy smokes.
“Is it really, really hot in here?” he asked ironically, voice silky, green eyes holding hers prisoner.
She was completely and utterly startled. “I’m dirty.”
“So?”
“Sweaty, too.”
“I repeat. So?”
Oh boy. “I have a boyfriend,” she whispered.
He just smiled one of the big, bad wolf smiles, took her hand and led her outside, locking her front door, walking her to his Jeep.
“I’ll drive myself,” she said.
“You’d rather drive yourself all the way out to the lodge than be in the same car as me?”
“Well, those awkward silences are so much fun.”
“We’re never silent. We’re usually arguing.”
“Hence the separate rides.”
He let out a breath. “I’m trying to save you the gas and the trouble, Harley.”
“I don’t want you to have to drive me all the way back.”
“I don’t mind.”
“But—”
“Jesus.” He swiped a hand down his face. “Just get in the damn Jeep.”
She looked into his eyes. He was looking a little irritated and also a little amused—at the both of them.
And still smoking hot.
It was a problem. He was a problem. “I’m not sure I trust you.”
Or me.
He let out a small smile. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m not your boyfriend.”
CHAPTER 3
They drove in silence, which suited TJ just fine. It seemed to suit Harley, too. She wasn’t giving much away as they drove through town. Wishful had been around since the 1800s, once upon a time making a name for itself as the wildest corner of the wild, wild west. It’d survived the gold rush, the lumber boom, and now, thanks to sitting at 6,000 feet altitude, was an outdoor enthusiasts’ tourist stop on the way to Lake Tahoe—something TJ and his brothers had made full use of with Wilder Adventures.
At the end of town, he turned onto the highway, and then onto the narrow, private three-mile road that led to the Wilder lodge. Harley continued to stare out the window away from him, doing her best imitation of someone who didn’t give a damn—which TJ knew was yet another big, fat lie. He affected her, and he had no idea what to do with that. “You’re really good with moving to Colorado?” he