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“You smell better than Grimm,” she said against Ryan’s mouth.
He drew back a little. “What?”
She discovered her tears had dried up and she was on the verge of more giggles. How much wine did she have floating around in her system? “You smell good,” she said, nuzzling beneath his chin.
“You’re suddenly friendly,” he murmured as she pressed tiny kisses along the edge of his elegant jaw.
“I’m curious,” she corrected, drawing her lips over his chin.
“Me, too,” he whispered, then tilted his head to take another kiss.
Oh. Oh, God.
His tongue plunged into the cavern of her mouth. It was no longer a subtle exploration, but a sexual onslaught, masculine, deliberate, hot.
Delicious.
Poppy clutched at the hand that held hers and pressed close to his hard chest as her head fell back and he took what he wanted from her. This wasn’t a French kiss, this wasn’t anything cosmopolitan or civilized in the least. This was a Neanderthal kind of kiss, one that might involve caves and the pulling of hair and the ripping of fur robes—if only she had the guts to beg for such things.
Just as she ran out of air, he lifted his head and they both sucked in ragged breaths, staring at each other. Poppy’s head swam a little, from lack of oxygen or perhaps from a surplus of libido. She wondered about trying to work up some regret or concern about the kisses, but her heart was pounding too hard for clear thinking. A little muddy logic was good, she decided. It kept her mind off unpleasant things, such as why she was at Ryan’s cabin in the first place.
For that alone, she owed him. “Definitely better than Grimm,” she said.
Still holding her close, Ryan’s expression turned bemused. Then he glanced toward the snoozing dog. “I’m starting to worry, Poppy. Do you mean to tell me you let your dog kiss you? Am I going to catch something with you being the conduit between me and getting a sloppy from your pooch?”
Such a silly conversation, she thought. She didn’t get kisses from Grimm. But the silliness made it perfect for the giddy, dizzy mood Ryan’s thorough kisses had left her in. “Absolutely not,” she said, stroking the placket of his flannel shirt with her fingers. Poppy Walker, touching beautiful Ryan Harris’s flannel!
“You’re not going to make me believe a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s,” he said. “That’s an urban myth.”
“But you’re in the mountains now,” she pointed out, smiling a little as she teased him.
He shook his head. “God, you’re cute,” he said, then pressed a kiss to her nose. “But let’s be real. Out in the woods I’ve seen your dog sniffing some extremely suspicious substances.”
Thank goodness he appeared to want to avoid serious or second thoughts as much as she. Poppy wiggled on the cushions and found a comfortable place against Ryan’s side. His hand stroked idly over her hair, and the atmosphere turned almost companionable, though the smoke from those powerful kisses lingered like a haze in the air. She stretched her legs, displacing some puzzle pieces as she propped her heels on the coffee table. “The bacteria in a dog’s mouth is species-specific,” she informed him. “Which means you’re much less likely to catch something serious from a dog than another human.”
He glanced down at her, the amused light in his eyes making her heart jerk, once. “Where did you come across this bit of knowledge?”
It was the kind of thing the mother of a young son knew, especially the mother of a young son who adored his furry pet. But she didn’t want to tell Ryan about Mason. Her little boy and her status as a mother were secured in another compartment for the moment. Mason’s mommy didn’t cozy up to handsome men by crackling fires. Mason’s mommy didn’t want to share some more of those potent kisses.
But Poppy did.
Because she was tipsy, or tipsy on Ryan’s taste or maybe because she needed further diversion from recalling the damage the storm had wrought on her life. Her mind began to flash on the crack of sound as that heavy limb—
No.
She twisted toward Ryan, grabbed the front of his shirt in a fist and yanked his mouth down to hers. He lurched toward her, catching himself with one hand on the back of the couch before they bashed noses. Their lips met instead and she reveled in this next kiss: the sure thrust of his tongue, the heat of his body, the flame that set fire to her blood. Her fingers curled into his shirt just as she thought about taking off hers, because she was hot, so hot, and—
An icy trail of moisture hit the back of her head, ran down her neck.
Startled, Poppy jolted, then jerked her head upward, only to receive an eyeful of freezing water. “Wha—?”
More trickled into her mouth and both she and Ryan came off the couch in a rush. He shoved the furniture away from the narrow stream that now seeped steadily from the seam between an exposed beam and the ceiling plaster. She ran to the kitchen for a pot to catch the leak.
Another sprang before she returned.
Poppy’s mood plummeted as she watched Ryan bend to slide one of the glasses they’d been drinking from beneath the new drip. He looked disheveled and aggravated and absolutely gorgeous.
And completely the wrong man with whom to be satisfying her curiosity after five-plus years of celibacy.
“What is wrong with me?” she said aloud. Her dwelling was damaged, her vehicle was damaged and she’d been playing kissy face with some rich, great-looking stranger who from the beginning had put up her back. Yet she’d almost been on her back! “How did this happen?” she demanded.
Ryan spared her a glance and she could see he was as displeased by the situation as she. “It’s March,” he said with a grimace. “Fucking March.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FROM YOU SEND ME, a screenplay by Linus Hamilton:
FADE IN:
EXT. STREET—DAY
A luxury convertible pulls into a parking space in front of the log cabin-style post office in a tiny, isolated Southern California mountain town. Twenty-nine-year-old LINUS HAMILTON’s head turns from side to side, taking in the flanking businesses: a minuscule grocery and an even smaller real estate office. A summer breeze plays with LINUS’s wealth of dirty-blond hair.
A woman in shorts and hiking boots exits the post office, catching his attention. She shades her eyes with her hand, as LINUS, in slacks and T-shirt, steps from the vehicle.
WOMAN
Are you lost?
LINUS
Nope.
He grins, an easy smile that is boyish and charming.
LINUS
Just exploring the area. Do you happen to know how many post offices there are in these mountains?
Bemused, the woman shakes her head.
LINUS
Only slightly fewer than the number of rodent-size dogs you can spy on a stroll down Rodeo Drive. In other words, a lot. I’ve made it my goal to mail my brother a postcard from each and every one.
He ambles past the woman, who turns to watch him as he reaches for the door handle.
INT. POST OFFICE—DAY
Inside the narrow space, a short wooden counter is directly ahead. The left and right walls are covered with old-fashioned post office boxes, their glass faces painted with gold numbers edged in black that look Western in design. Behind the counter is twenty-four-year-old CHARLOTTE “CHARLIE” WALKER, her head with its pixie-cut of flaxen hair lowered as she organizes something on the shelf below. When the door opens, she looks up with a smile. It fades as LINUS crosses the threshold.
CHARLIE
Are you lost?
Staring at CHARLIE, LINUS’s hand creeps up to his chest. Then he shakes himself a little, pulls in a breath and beams out another trademark grin.
LINUS
I think I just found exactly what this summer’s been lacking.
* * *
THE COLD BROOK, California, post office provided counter service for its small community from 3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. Charlotte Walker passed a book of stamps over the scarred wooden surface and flashed a farewell smile for her friend Janelle, who clerked in the deli/grocery next door. It was Monday, which meant Charlie hoped to be seeing the other woman again a couple of evenings from now in Blue Arrow Lake. The two of them and some other girlfriends had a standing date in the bigger town twelve winding miles down the highway—weather permitting. A fierce March storm had been raging on and off but if it let up, then Charlie was going to have a relaxing couple of glasses of wine with her friends later this week.
A girl, even a born-and-bred mountain girl, had to get out and see a little more of the world sometimes.
Charlie took a peek at the wall clock. Fifteen more minutes then she’d slide and lock the metal grille that secured the counter area and back room. She expected one or two of Cold Brook’s eight hundred residents would rush through at 4:58 p.m. with the urgent need to get a package weighed or a letter sent off, so she occupied herself by tidying the carousel of postcards that sat next to her station. Hardly anyone ever gave them a glance, so it was a bit anal of her to double-check they were properly organized, but she was studying online for a degree in accounting and details mattered to Charlie.
The customary squeak of the front door came at 4:57 p.m. A bit early, she thought, glancing up to see Walt Eustace bustle through, a box of pamphlets in his arms. Brochure-mailing day, she guessed. It was the time of year when he sent out reminders to previous renters of Cold Brook properties in anticipation of the summer season. We wish you were here!
Walt’s big belly had yet to make it halfway to her when the door swung open again and twelve-year-old Erin Frye walked through, a letter clutched in her hand. She had a pen pal across the country, someone she’d linked up with through Scouting, and Erin enjoyed perusing the binder of stamp choices to pick just the right one to paste in the right-hand corner of the envelope intended for her buddy in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Charlie stifled a little sigh. Stamp-shopping could take the middle-schooler past closing time.
Oh, well. Given that Erin’s pen pal was a Boy Scout, Charlie got a little kick out of imagining an innocent romance was blooming in the mailbags that crossed the country. It spiced up the mundane routine of her days as the winter doldrums had yet to be replaced by spring fancies.
She was reaching for Walt’s carton of glossy leaflets when the door squeaked a third time, bringing with it another cool draft of moist air. The small hairs on Charlie’s exposed nape stood up, an instant before her gaze lifted to take in the newcomer.
Her palms went damp.
Charlie’s rite of passage had returned.
In haste, she refocused on the pamphlets and pasted on a smile for Walt. “Hey, you just made it in under the wire,” she said, raising her voice. “Don’t know that I’ll be able to take care of all the customers before closing time.”
Behind Walt, Erin let out a little bleat of distress. Feeling guilty, Charlie looked around Walt’s rotund form to meet the girl’s eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “Your letter will go out today.”
The man still loitering by the entrance didn’t get any of her attention. Why, oh, why, was Linus here? She’d never expected to see him again; had made it clear that theirs had been a short-term summer romance. No way was she onboard with a replay.
Walt was his usual jovial self. She would have chatted him up longer, hoping that Linus might get bored and leave, but Erin was shuffling her feet and appearing anxious. So Charlie finished business with her current customer, then dragged out the fat binder of loose stamps as Erin stepped up to the counter. From the periphery of her vision, she saw Linus hold open the door and say “Good day” to Walt.
Why couldn’t he follow the other man out?
Her gaze returned to the plastic sleeves that displayed the available offerings. The young girl studied them with deep concentration. “Can I choose more than one—as many as I like as long as it adds up to first class postage?”
“No problem,” Charlie assured the girl. “I’ll hand-cancel them myself.”
Erin turned the page to inspect the next sleeve’s contents. Her fingernails were painted a glittery purple and she had a unicorn-embossed elastic bandage wound around one knuckle—both accessories seemed at odds with her almost-grown-up demeanor.
Had she been so serious at twelve? Charlie wondered. Maybe it took a love interest from far away to turn a girl solemn. Though Charlie’s out-of-towner hadn’t shown up for over a decade, the instant the tall, charming flatlander had strolled into her post office last August she’d recognized the momentous occasion.
Many young mountain women went through the ritual event of a summer fling with one of the area’s wealthy visitors. Opposite attraction was clearly a potent force. By the age of nineteen or twenty, females who grew up in the small, insular communities surrounded by peaks and pines had usually dated all the local guys they found attractive. Working as waitresses or shop clerks, in the high tourist season they often came in contact with So-Cal men who came from a higher social strata. Dates were made, fun was had.
Sometimes hearts were irrevocably lost.
But she’d been clear with him, with herself, that hers wouldn’t be one of them.
“These,” Erin said, stabbing at two different stamps. Her coins clacked on the countertop.
Aware of Linus leaning against a row of post office boxes six feet away, Charlie slowly completed the transaction. With Erin just turning from the counter, Charlie reached high and grabbed the grilled security screen. As Linus stepped up, she slammed it into place.
His head jerked back at the loud clang. Through the metal bars he peered at her. “Uh, Charlie?”
Last summer, he’d often called her “Sal,” in a tone of casual affection. Sure, the Peanuts characters Linus and Charlie Brown had been buds, he’d told her early on, but it was Charlie’s little sister, Sally, who’d carried a torch for her brother’s striped-shirted best friend. When she’d inquired where was his blanket and why wasn’t he sucking a thumb, Linus had grabbed her hand and—
“Charlie?”
His voice broke through her reverie. Stepping back, she crossed her arms over her crisp blue uniform shirt and tried quelling the sense of panic that was squeezing her lungs. “Sorry, we’re closed for the day.”
Linus frowned at her. The expression didn’t mar the absolute even perfection of his features. So, her imagination hadn’t exaggerated how great-looking he was in those dreams she’d had the past six months. They were what she’d had to rely on, because she’d made herself delete from her phone every picture she’d snapped of him during their brief interlude as a couple.
“I’m not here to buy stamps,” he said now, moving closer to curl his fingers over the metal rails separating them.
She stared at his hands, remembering them stroking flesh that was heated by mountain sun—and her body’s fiery reaction to that touch, this man. Just a fingertip tracing the vein in her throat could make her mad with desire. Her lungs squeezed again and she dropped her gaze to her black Oxfords. They were unsexy but comfortable, all that she’d felt about her life since Linus had gone back to L.A.
Missing him, wanting him once more by her side, hadn’t been an option since it was she who had laid out the rules of their short-lived affair. Coming from such different places, she’d known the magic between them couldn’t last.
Her head came up and she forced herself to meet his eyes. “Why are you here?” she asked, trying to keep her tone civil. “Why have you come back?”
He shrugged one shoulder in that elegant way of his. “You know my brother has the house at Blue Arrow Lake—”
“Why are you here, Linus?” She lifted her arms to indicate the post office.
“Let me tell you about that,” he began, leaning against the counter and beaming that sunny, seductive smile of his.
“I don’t have time for the tale,” Charlie responded, her voice firm. “I have to lock the front door, finish my duties.”
“Then dinner—”
“Absolutely not.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“I can’t do this twice, Linus. Go away.” She kept her gaze steady on his face. “Please go away.”
“Charlie—”
“I can’t do this to...” She couldn’t catch her breath.
Linus’s expression hardened and his brown eyes turned to polished stone. “To who?” he demanded.
