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His heartbeat evening out, he stared at Poppy as she twisted the dead bolt, her focus still telegraphing emergency. Then she hurry-hobbled to the window, where she drew the curtains. The cabin’s rear door led directly into the bedroom and now she slid to the floor so her back was against the mattress. “Get down over here,” she directed. “You, too, Grimm.”
The dog complied and Ryan did, too, though he couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. Maybe the landlady had been hiding her tinfoil hat. “Uh, Poppy?”
“Shh.” She glanced around.
Ryan did, too. There wasn’t much to see, the bed he’d made that morning, the stack of books on the dresser, through the open door a slice of the short hall that led to the living area. “Who are we hiding from?” he whispered, since that point was now obvious. “The U.S. marshal? Escaped convicts?”
“A combination of the two,” she murmured. “My sisters.”
Now Ryan could hear a car pulling up—a sound she must have detected as they neared the clearing. Doors opened, shut. In the distance, knuckles rapped on Poppy’s cabin door. Then silence. When the car didn’t start up again, he assumed the visitors were awaiting her return. “Will they go away soon?”
She shrugged. “Hard to say.”
Bemused, Ryan settled himself more comfortably on the braided rug, his legs crossed at the ankle. A dozen questions presented themselves, but he reminded himself he was intent on booting her out of his head. No point in learning any more about her.
Time ticked by. Grimm flopped onto his side with a groan and promptly fell asleep. Ryan considered doing the same, but he found himself too attuned to Poppy to find such relaxation. From a foot away, he could feel her nerves humming like plucked guitar strings.
He saw his hand reach out to apply a soothing stroke to her shoulder, then he commanded it to drop. When it landed on the floor with a muffled thunk, she looked over at him.
God. There was just something so damn...sweet about her looks. The wide forehead, the big fringed eyes, that valentine of a mouth. It was a rosy pink that matched the sweater that clung to her small, high breasts. His gaze ran down her slender, jean-encased legs, then back to her lips. She’d taste like cotton candy, he decided, and...
And he shouldn’t be contemplating her taste.
“You must think I’m crazy,” Poppy said.
“No.” That would be him, getting hung up on his landlady when he was here to be a hermit.
“Go ahead, admit it.” Her little smile revealed the fascinating dimple in her left cheek.
Looking away from her, he shrugged. “I’ve got a brother who is often annoying. I’ve been known to duck him when I can.”
“Yes, well...” She sighed. “Here’s the deal. They’re not entirely on board with renting out the cabins. I don’t want to get into yet another discussion with them about it.”
“They’re against making money?”
She laughed a little. “Walkers are never against making money. We’re just not too good at keeping hold of it. This land... The family legend is it’s cursed. Can you believe such a thing?”
March was cursed. In his darker moments Ryan thought he might be, as well. He shrugged again. “Is there a good reason?”
“Any number. Because it was Native-American land stolen for the timber it provided. Because in the early years one Walker logger killed another logger over a woman—who then promised retribution through the ages. Simpler version—my father was a piss-poor financial manager.”
She said it with a wry affection.
“Was he?” Ryan asked.
“My siblings, everybody around consider him a foolish ne’er-do-well who should have sold out long ago...but then he made a deal with the devil that essentially means we can’t.” A little sigh caused a strand of golden-brown hair curved against her cheek to tremble. “I’d like to prove that there’s still something good here at our mountain.” She paused, her gaze dropping to her lap. “Not to mention that I could really use the cash.”
“Well—”
Her fingers gripped his forearm as her head shot up. “Shh! I think they’re coming over here.”
Ryan’s eyebrows rose. Was her sibling radar that fine-tuned? But sure enough, now he could detect footsteps on the wooden porch and the bam-bam-bam of a fist knocking.
“Insistent, aren’t they?” he asked, his voice hushed.
Her mouth moved, the words soundless, and he had to focus carefully to read her lips. “You’ve got that right.” When the rap on the door sounded again, her fingers curled tighter around his arm.
His gaze stayed glued to her face, taking in her glowing skin, small scoop of a nose, the slightly square chin. She didn’t have a loud kind of beauty, but the loveliness of her was arresting, anyway. He wanted to rub his thumb along her bottom lip; he could imagine her tongue darting out to taste his skin.
He could see himself bending his head and kissing the thin, tender flesh of her throat.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Poppy’s eyes flared wide and there was a new kind of alarm to her expression. But she still gripped his arm and now he shifted toward her, running his free hand from her wrist to her shoulder to calm her uneasiness.
But she quivered under his touch, and her big eyes went even more round. Her pupils dilated and he heard her breath catch as her cheeks turned pink.
To hell with hermit, Ryan thought. He was going to kiss her. And she had to know it was coming, because she had gone as still as a winter bunny with a hawk on the hunt. Yet she didn’t attempt escape.
As he bent closer, another annoying rat-a-tat-tat sounded. He flicked a glance toward the front door. “Maybe you should talk to them,” he whispered. “Make them go away.”
And leave the two of us alone.
A deeper flush broke across her creamy skin. Still reading his mind, Ryan decided.
Her tongue peeked out to moisten that adorable, kissable bottom lip. “They’ll insist on meeting you first,” she whispered.
“Sure,” he murmured, cupping her hot cheek in his palm. “Whatever—”
They’ll insist on meeting you.
The words sank in. Shit, he thought, dropping his hand and scooting out of Poppy’s range. Shit! He couldn’t meet them. What were the odds that all three Walker sisters would never have glanced at a gossip rag or never watched an entertainment show?
He’d have to make some sort of excuse. “Poppy...”
She was already rising to her feet, the flush now only two flags of bright red high on her cheekbones. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“What?” He read the embarrassment on her face. “No, wait, it isn’t like that—”
“It’s exactly how I want it,” Poppy replied, her stubborn chin leading toward the front entry as he jumped to his feet and trailed after her.
“Poppy...”
Standing beside one of the narrow front windows, she dared a peek. “Anyway, they’re making tracks, so I can, too.”
He realized she was right. That humming he heard wasn’t a leftover sexual buzz but a vehicle as it drove away from the cabins. “Come on, Grimm,” Poppy called, and the dog knocked into Ryan, making him stumble, and letting the woman and her pet get away before he could...
Do what? he demanded of himself.
It was fucking March and everything he touched during that month turned to disaster. So he had to keep his hands off the landlady. Stay hermit.
Even if that meant he now had even more on his mind—like a kiss that hadn’t happened.
* * *
MISERABLE AND MISERABLY wet, Poppy climbed the steps to Ryan’s cabin, a suitcase in each hand and a drenched Grimm pressed close to her knees. The short walk through the icy hail of the predicted March storm—which had arrived, predictably, days later than the meteorologists originally indicated—had frozen her blood in her veins. The low temperature had also petrified her fingers around the bag handles, so she merely lifted her foot to bang on his door with the toe of her boot.
There was no immediate response.
Shivering, she glanced at the adjacent driveway, ensuring that his SUV was, indeed, parked there. Though the weather had rendered the late afternoon twilight-dark, she could still see the vehicle’s hulking shape. She didn’t bother looking back at her own vehicle, because the memory of it was depressing enough. The heavy oak limb that had crushed a portion of her mudroom roof had also crumpled its front end.
Using her toe, Poppy knocked again with insistent thumps.
Ryan was her only hope for transportation back to town.
Grimm whined, looked up at her, then at her renter’s front door. “I know, boy,” she said, “I’m going to get us out of this abysmal weather.”
Maybe. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the man was ignoring her summons. Two days ago, they’d almost kissed. She’d tried convincing herself otherwise, but there was no getting around it. The intent had been on his face and the expectation had been running riot through her body.
Then he’d backed away, which was terribly embarrassing...since she should have been the one to retreat first. Hadn’t she learned anything? Didn’t she know better than to get mixed up with a wealthy flatlander?
He probably thought it prudent to avoid the sex-starved single woman next door. Not that she was sex-starved in the least, she reassured herself, with another kick at the wooden surface. She was a mother, with other priorities besides—
The door swung open, revealing Ryan, backlit by the cheerful light coming from the living room lamps and the crackling fire. Poppy squeezed the suitcase handles and sucked in her bottom lip to keep her jaw from dropping to her knees.
He was naked except for a skimpy towel wrapped around his hips.
Number one note to self: purchase better quality linens for the cabins.
Number two note to self: maybe she was a little hungry, after all.
The heat from inside his place reached outward to the porch and Grimm, apparently taking it as an invitation, rushed inside. Poppy hesitated, trying to keep her gaze on anything but Ryan’s damp hair, his newly shaven handsome features, the oh-God-how-amazing chiseled pecs, rippling abs and that pair of etched lines that angled from the man’s lean waistline toward the bulge that was barely hidden by thin terry cloth.
The wall clock over his left shoulder—which was heavy with muscle and still dotted with water—was fascinating.
“Poppy?” He reached for her and she couldn’t help but step back. “Jesus, what are you doing out there? You’re all wet.”
“Uh-huh,” she said faintly.
“Come in.”
Because she was warmer now, just from looking at him, she still hesitated. “Could I beg a ride to town?”
“Get inside.” Taking hold of the sleeve of her soaked jacket, he pulled her over the threshold then shut the door. “Before we do anything, we need to get you dried off.” He glanced down at the towel wrapped around him.
“For goodness sake, don’t take that off!” she ordered, the shrill note to her voice not disguised by the raucous drumming of the continuing hail on the roof.
Ryan smiled.
It was the first of his she’d ever seen. Poppy almost gaped again, but she sucked in her bottom lip once more as her blood jacked up another ten degrees. He should smile all the time, she thought, dazzled by its whiteness and the way it drew up the outer corners of his piercing eyes. He had a face made for happy.
His smile could almost make her happy, even under these gloomy circumstances.
“Just a second,” he said, then hustled toward the bedroom, only to return a few moments later wearing a pair of jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt, and carrying a couple of dry towels in his hand. He draped one on Grimm, who then trotted, wearing it like a horse blanket, toward the fire. Ryan started rubbing the other towel over Poppy’s saturated hair.
Still gripping the suitcases, she stood dumbly under the brisk attention. Not only did it feel dangerously good to have someone tend to her, but there was also his naked, great-smelling chest a mere few inches from her nose. It had been a long time since she’d been around a man’s unclothed muscles and she found the experience...bemusing.
Yeah, that was it.
And, oh, she really, really needed to get out of here.
Dropping the bags to the floor, she sidestepped from Ryan and snatched the towel away to blot her hair herself. “I have this,” she said.
He stepped up to her again, his fingers going to the zipper of her coat. At the fumbling near her breasts, her voice went shrill again. “What are you doing?” She batted at his hands.
“Poppy, you’re dripping all over the floor,” he said, his tone patient and reasonable. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Try to help by collecting your car keys, okay?” she grumbled, unfastening the jacket herself, though they should make their move to town right away. “It would be best to get on the road before it’s full dark.”
Instead of doing her bidding, he stood his ground. “What’s the reason behind the great escape?”
She crossed to the kitchen, where she folded the towel and placed it on the counter. Then she drew off her outer garment and looked around for a place to set the sodden fabric. Ryan snatched it from her hand and draped it over the back of a chair he drew near the fire.
“We don’t have time for it to dry,” Poppy said, a little panic rising again as Ryan turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. Really, it was important she get away from the distraction of his male flesh as soon as possible, especially when she was in this vulnerable state.
“Poppy.”
Wrenching her gaze away from him, she focused on her pet, who was settled by the hearth, his head now on the towel he was using as a pillow. “Don’t get too comfy, Grimm. We’ve got to go back into the storm.” Then she risked a glance at Ryan. “You probably couldn’t hear it over the hail, but a branch came down at my place.”
Once again, bearing out the Walker curse. Because she doubted her pocketbook could handle another hit, panic rose again. And not due to Ryan this time, but because she might have just witnessed the end of her dream. “It took out part of the roof,” she continued, her voice as miserable as she felt, “and the front end of my car.”
In a blink he was before her, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Are you all right?” His gaze ran over her body, causing a shiver. Apparently taking that as a sign of chill, he pulled her nearer the fire, then held her there, her back to his front.
“I’m fine,” she said, wiggling out of his grip and away from the heat. Her jeans were clammy against her shins, but that only served to remind her she needed to get someplace safe to change. “I can’t stay at my cabin, though. Hence the need for the ride to Blue Arrow Lake. Will you take me?”
“All right,” he said, his gaze seeming to assess her condition again. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I will be.” The optimist inside her declared... With some dry clothes and time to think, perhaps she could find her way through this latest obstacle. “Can we go now?”
It took only a few moments for him to collect his coat and hat while she struggled back into her wet outerwear. Grimm looked reluctant to brave the storm again, and got up from his place by the fire with a great sigh. By the time Ryan was in his protective gear, she had the bags and was standing by the front door.
He grabbed the cases from her, and shoved one under his arm so he had a free hand to grasp the knob. Without turning it, he slanted her a glance. “You have everything you need?”
She needed to get away from his attractive presence, she knew. Even with all that was on her mind, his half-naked image was burned into her brain. What if she’d leaned forward while he was drying her hair and placed a kiss on the center of his chest? If her tongue had slipped out for a small lick, who could blame her?
“Poppy?” Ryan’s brows drew together. “Do you have everything?”
“Sure, sure,” she said, giving herself a sharp mental pinch. “Everything.” One bag held some of her clothes and belongings. The other was filled with her son’s things, including his favorite pillow, just in case she still found herself in other quarters by the time Mason was due back in a couple of days.
Ryan’s hand lifted, and he touched her chin with the back of two fingers, angling her face toward his. Her breath caught at the touch, then caught again at the intensity of his gaze. “Why the sad face?”
