by Lisa Hughey
A year ago he’d have dived in with questions without a thought for the consequences. Because a year ago, he’d been impulsive and a little bit immature.
So instead of getting pissed about the sir comment—because seriously? They’d been naked together—RJ watched her silently. She recognized him, even if she wasn’t acknowledging that fact at this moment.
She ducked her head and focused on the sheets as if they held the cure for freaking cancer. With efficient, sharp movements she tucked the corners, snapped the quilt over the top, and fluffed the pillows before smoothing the quilt over the newly made bed. Her movements were concise and filled with a silent condemnation.
But he had no idea why she’d be pissed at him.
“What are you doing here?”
She stiffened her shoulders and back, gathered up the supplies piled together in the middle of the floor, and did one final glance about the cabin. The one thing she didn’t do was speak or answer his question.
“I’ll just get out of your way.” She tilted her chin up, the only defiant move in her subservient attitude. But she avoided his gaze and headed for the door, her bucket with cleaning supplies gripped in one clenched fist.
“Hey.” He grabbed her wrist to stop her from leaving. He really wanted an answer. The woman he’d met last summer couldn’t stand the outdoors in general or the Berkshires and camp in specific. She’d been a city girl through and through. The last place he’d ever expect to see her would be back at this camp and—his gaze narrowed in on the camp logo over her left breast—working at Camp Firefly Falls.
She dropped the bucket, and yanked her wrist from his light hold. “Don’t touch me.”
“Whoa, whoa.” RJ lifted his palms forward in the classic sign of surrender. “I meant no harm.”
“You don’t touch without permission.” Her expression was fierce, intense. And those soft blue eyes that used to only hold self-involvement and mischief were dark, shadowed.
RJ backed up a step. “Jesus. I’m…sorry.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“No, of course not.” RJ was shook. The carefree, slightly morally challenged, ready-for-a-good-time woman with a quick laugh and sly humor was gone.
“I was just trying to get an answer,” he said quietly.
She bit her lip, clearly holding in words. A strange energy burned in her eyes. But what came out of her mouth was even and clear and no answer. “I was making your bed.” Calm, resolute, and taking no shit.
“That’s not what I was asking, and you know it. This—” impatient, he waved at the rustic cabin interior “—isn’t really your jam.”
“You know nothing about me,” she shot back.
That wasn’t true. He knew that she loved having her nipples sucked with a little bit of bite, that she was immensely ticklish behind her knees, and that she was a loud, enthusiastic lover. But based on how she reacted when he touched her a second ago, he wasn’t about to bring that up.
And great, his boner was back.
But he still couldn’t quite let it go.
“I knew plenty last year,” he taunted, just to see if that got a rise out of her. So maybe he wasn’t as mature as he’d thought, because he wanted her uninhibited reaction. Wanted to know what the hell had happened to her.
She flinched. Just slightly enough that if he hadn’t been watching, he’d have missed it. But she still didn’t respond to his goads.
“You work here?” He didn’t want to let this go.
“Temporarily.”
He crinkled his brow, trying to figure out what was really going on. “Why? You hate the outdoors.”
She barked a laugh. “As if you don’t know.”
He had no fucking idea what she was talking about.
She tipped up her chin again with that little jut of defiance. “I’m done for the day, unless you need something else, sir.”
RJ just stared at her. Couldn’t wrap his mind around her animosity or the fact that she worked here.
“Call me RJ,” he said roughly, wishing he had some way to keep her here. But didn’t that make him as bad as Jeffrey London?
“Did you need anything else, sir?”
He lifted his brow.
“RJ,” she said huskily.
That was better.
He tilted his head, racking his brain to come up with something, anything. But the truth was he didn’t have any right to hold her here against her will. “I’m good. Thank you.”
As soon as he dismissed her, she was gone.
He should settle down and get some work done. Instead he fired up his browser and started searching.
She’d said, As if you don’t know.
Know what?
He should be working on his presentation to the management team for tomorrow. But the puzzle of Sherry and her presence here at Camp Firefly Falls wouldn’t let him go.
And he hated that the defiant tilt in her chin hadn’t been enough to mask the quick vulnerable shadow in her eyes. Last year she’d been hot, sexy, a little bit naughty, and somewhat full of herself, so today’s glimpse of vulnerability had thrown him.
Because vulnerable wasn’t something he associated with Sherry.
He wanted to do something to help her. Weirdly. Because he wasn’t the altruistic type. Especially not after the past twelve months. People, former friends, were always looking for something from him. A handout, a leg up, a good word here, a hundred bucks there.
Strangers wanted other things. A job, a donation, corporate secrets.
He sighed. And still he couldn’t let it go.
What the hell had happened to her?
Chapter 3
Lovely.
Her life was a train wreck. Nothing like having your hook up from last summer, live and in person, witness your humiliation.
Not to mention he looked freaking awesome.
Bastard.
He looked the same: charming smile, hazel eyes with dark brows, skin the perfect mix of his Puerto Rican father and white mother. His had a lean build with sleek muscles and under that formal suit was a body that had brought her an amazing hour of forbidden pleasure.
Sherry trudged toward the office. When Heather Tully had told her there was a corporate retreat this weekend, she hadn’t even thought to ask what company. Mistake. Big freaking mistake.
Never in her wildest dreams did it occur to her that the Ramos family and their company would come back to Camp Firefly Falls for another retreat. Last year had been an outright disaster.
Sherry sighed.
All the aches and pains that she’d managed to forget when she’d been consumed with maintaining her composure in front of RJ returned with a vengeance. And the yearning, which she’d suppressed in that moment of stunned surprise, raged to the surface again.
Doing the right thing really sucked. Finding morality and a conscience hadn’t really been all that good for her overall life experience. But she had a hard-earned lightness in her soul, and no way was she going backwards.
She was older. Potentially wiser. And on the path to finding herself.
She was almost done with her court-ordered stint here. This final weekend of work for the camp was to pay off the debt she owed to the Tullys. Then she’d head back to Boston, to the shambles of her life, and figure out what she was going to do next. All summer she’d been weighing her options, trying to figure everything out.
She knocked on the door to the Tully’s cottage and waited for Heather to answer.
Zinnia Ramos burst out of the cottage and ran straight into her.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” She had grabbed Sherry’s elbows to stabilize them both. And then gasped when she saw Sherry’s face. “You!”
“Nice to see you too, Zinnia.” Sherry went for polite, trying to show no emotion.
Zinnia looked at her. Looked beyond her. Then looked back at her. “What are you doing here?”
Sherry wasn’t required to explain to her. And her newfound zen disappeared when she thought about
the reason she was here.
Clearly, Zinnia hadn’t suffered any ill consequences from the incorrectly executed contract. That little bit of resentment she hadn’t even realized she was nurturing flared to life. “None of your business.”
Zinnia eyed her like a stink bug she’d found in her cabin. “I thought you hated nature,” Zin said suspiciously.
Sherry laughed. “I did. You and your brother are certainly obsessed with my outdoor preferences.”
“Stay away from him,” Zinnia said sharply.
And great, the Ramos family certainly had an overinflated view of her charms. “I don’t think that will be a problem.” Wryly.
“I’d prefer if you weren’t here for the weekend.”
Sherry laughed again.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
Her snide tone just made Sherry laugh harder. “That makes two of us. But you’re stuck with me.”
Zinnia was one of those women who was stunning without even trying. She had subtle makeup on, but she looked natural. Most guys would assume she had no makeup on at all. But Sherry’s assessing eye spotted the moisturizer, understated eyeliner, and dusting of shimmery blush on her cheeks.
Her long hair tumbled down her back in a cascade of curls that Sherry was pretty sure she’d achieved merely with the toss of her arrogant head. The curls weren’t artfully arranged but more a casual mess. An effect it would have easily taken Sherry an hour to achieve.
Zinnia narrowed her gaze and looked Sherry up and down.
Sherry knew she looked fine. She might have given up a good portion of her old life, but she still had her pride. And she still wore her makeup like armor. Her mother always cautioned her, Never go out without your face on. Sherry figured a decent amount of her makeup had worn away after cleaning cabins all day, so maybe she wasn’t quite as shiny and polished as she used to be, but still.
She tried to brush past her nemesis. “If you’ll excuse me.” She seemed to be saying that a lot to the Ramos siblings.
Zinnia grabbed her arm. “What happened to you?”
An awakening. And perhaps her redemption had come in a weird opportunity, but she certainly wasn’t going to turn it down. “Maybe you should ask your attorney.”
Zinnia frowned at her. “I fail to see what our attorney has to do with it. You work here?”
“That’s what the shirt says.” Both Ramoses couldn’t be this clueless, could they? After all, Zinnia had signed that contract without her company’s name on it, and yet she wasn’t having to work off a debt at a place she hated.
At least, Sherry had started out hating this camp. She could admit now that being out in the woods was changing her. The time in the forest, the peace of the water lapping at the shore, even the sounds of animals and amphibians had become soothing instead of slightly foreign and scary. She was trying to stop being angry with events and situations beyond her control. The resident camp yogi and psychotherapist, Birk, had taught her to focus on herself and on the things she could control.
Slowly, slowly, she was getting closer to achieving a sense of peace.
Zinnia said, “I have better things to do than keep up with the likes of you.”
Really?
“Not all of us could win the genetic lottery. You should find gratitude,” Sherry snapped.
Apparently she hadn’t achieved the zen she thought she had. Telling someone else what they needed never worked. Everyone had to figure out their own truth.
“Whatever.” But Zinnia looked taken aback as she flounced away.
Winning friends and influencing the Ramos family. She was 0 for 2. Sherry shrugged and went in search of Heather Tully so she could find out what her boss needed done next.
Sherry was thankful that the camp owners had agreed to take the rest of the money in trade. She had cleaned out her savings account but that hadn’t covered the entire debt. Her few months of hard work would compensate them for the balance of the contract she’d foolishly signed last year. Heather and Michael had apologized once they realized that London Automotive wasn’t going to honor their debt. It had been too late to cancel the lawsuit and they were perfectly within their rights to extract payment from Sherry—she didn’t blame them—but they still felt bad about it.
She’d have thought the Ramos family would have had some idea of the outcome of the lawsuit the Tullys had filed against both companies, even if their half had been dismissed once they proved they’d paid their portion of the bill.
The Ramos family continued to haunt her thoughts.
If they wanted to hate her, she’d be fine. She’d had plenty of experience hating herself. She was just getting used to waking up in the morning and liking herself and that was all that mattered. So, they could go pound if they didn’t like her. She didn’t need the Ramos’s family blessings to become the woman she wanted to be. Although she wouldn’t deny that their disdain hurt, and their understanding sure would be nice.
But she’d been looking out for herself for her entire life.
And she didn’t see that changing any time soon.
Peace.
Sherry sat on the dock and listened to the chirp of the crickets and the croak of the frogs. Fireflies sparked and flitted in the air. The sights and sounds, which last year would have had her running for the nearest indoor space, created a soothing background chorus to her thoughts.
She sipped the locally-brewed cider and tilted her head back to look at the stars. The sky was so vast. She was just a speck in the crazy, giant universe. She’d always known she was nobody. A no one.
Her mother had made that perfectly clear.
In the city, she got caught up in the hustle and chaos, and it was easy to ignore her own insignificance. But not out here.
Out here that big gaping world was on elegant display. If she just took the time to stop and look up.
She leaned against the pier post and dropped one leg over the edge; she swung her calf lazily back and forth and let the aches and pains, not just physical, wash over her and feed her melancholy.
She’d had one good memory from her time at Camp Firefly Falls. That stolen afternoon in RJ’s cabin, his deep teasing voice and sure hands shaping and stroking her skin. Heated sighs and whispered lies as they’d gotten lost in each other.
When life was kicking her in the ass, she’d pull out that memory and roll through the afternoon in a sort of slow-motion replay of the sex and the fake intimacy. But it was tainted now.
“What are you doing out here?”
She sighed. And with that slightly accusatory tone, he pounded the final nail in the coffin of that memory.
She lifted her cider, not looking at him. Not wanting to see his still-off-the-charts-even- though-he-was-kinda-being-an-asshole attractive features limned by moonlight.
“I thought you hated nature?”
She’d run from the idea of amphibians last year.
“You and your sister are awfully concerned with my former aversion to nature.”
“Zin?” He eased to the dock next to her.
“You have any other sisters I don’t know about?” she asked.
His heat radiated along her side, his sexual pull like a magnet and she was the damn metal. She fought the urge to lean against all that smooth erotic power and let him overwhelm her. She’d sworn off men. Especially powerful men with the resources to make her life hell. She’d learned that lesson, mostly.
Once they got what they wanted, she ceased to matter. Nowadays she was concentrating on herself. Concentrating on being the woman she wanted to be.
Had he leaned closer or was it just her imagination?
There was a pause, a certain hesitation in the air that she didn’t expect. Last summer, he’d been a smooth, experienced guy who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. But right this moment, she sensed an uncertainty that was so unexpected, she turned to study him. And he was staring right back. “What?”
“I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Me?” she snorted. “I’m an open book.”
She was done blaming others for her own mistakes. Besides, last year, the lawsuit and the reason for her employment at camp, was old news and she definitely didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
RJ continued to study Sherry. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind all evening. “I seriously doubt that.” He had moved closer. “Why are you working here? Even if you were done with London Automotive, this is a long way from the corporate suite and urban setting.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Except he could tell that it did. And there was some barely hidden animosity simmering beneath her attempt to pretend that it didn’t matter.
“I think it does.”
She opened her mouth to explain but then closed it. “Never mind.”
“But—”
“What are you doing here early?” she blurted out. “I thought the retreat didn’t start until tomorrow.”
The tension between them strung taut. Reluctant desire simmered as she skimmed her gaze over his board shorts and tank top, and RJ responded to the subtle checkout.
That off-the-charts attraction came roaring back, lust punching him in the gut.
Their physical connection couldn’t be denied.
“I wanted to come up early and confirm that everything is ready for our weekend retreat.” And now he couldn’t help but think this was a golden opportunity. He knew her motives, how she operated. He had a prior connection with her, so he might be able to spend the night with her and release some of this tension. There’d be no expectations of more. On either side.
“You’re still working for Diego?”
Really, she wanted to know about his cousin? He was going to shut that down, quick. RJ adored Penny, Diego’s live-in girlfriend, and she was really good for his cousin. “He’s living with someone.”
She stiffened. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just in case you were thinking—”
“Of trying to get my claws into him?” She laughed bitterly, the harsh sound so at odds with her delicate appearance that he was surprised. “I’m pretty much done with CEOs. Tired of being fucked over.”