“I know.” Charlie had to stay at the Mountain View. It was a term of her aunt’s will. “It’s okay.” Even if it hurt to be back, she’d keep her goal firmly in mind.
When she paid him, he said, “You’re the niece? The one who used to live here, who inherited?” His eyes were bright with curiosity.
What rumors had he heard? It seemed that at its core Whistler was still a small, gossipy town, underneath the gloss of tourists and seasonal workers. “I am.”
Before he could say anything else, she slid out of the cab, tugging her bag behind her. She hoisted it on her back and stared at the B&B. The basic structure, a homey wooden chalet, was appealing, but the paint was faded, and a couple of shutters hung crookedly. Surprising. Her aunt, a pretentious snob, used to keep the place in tip-top shape.
Charlie stared at the front walk. Roughly shoveled, it had been immaculate the day she’d left town.
When her parents died, Patty, who’d shunned the family, had been forced to take her niece in. After the funeral, she told Charlie, “I’ll do my duty and let you live with us until you finish grade twelve. But there will be rules. You will not embarrass me.”
Yeah, right. “You don’t want me,” Charlie’d said, “and I don’t fucking want to be here.”
Her aunt had ordered her not to swear, but hadn’t denied the truth of her words.
In that moment, Charlie’s last hope had died. Why should Patty want her, love her, when her own parents hadn’t? Five minutes later, she’d been out the door with everything she owned—the art supplies she’d been carrying the day of the fire—in that crappy old pack she’d got from the community services thrift shop.
Memories sucked.
She took a deep breath. Then, as the scent filled her nostrils, another. Mmm. Pine and snow. She’d forgotten the smell, so fresh and pure. It made her think of days spent hiking in the wilderness and sketching deer, snowshoe hares, the pattern of ice on a semifrozen river. The few happy times she’d enjoyed here.
As she strode resolutely up the walk, she noted the two trucks in the driveway: a battered old one and a newer 4x4 with BANFIELD RENOVATIONS on the side. Good, the work was under way.
The lawyer, Jeff Mattingly, had said her aunt had been giving the place a face-lift, but the renos had been put on hold when she died. It was a condition of the will that in order to inherit, Charlie had to live at the B&B and ensure the job was completed.
She stood outside the closed door. Should she knock? The screech of a saw suggested no one was likely to hear. Mattingly had couriered keys to her, along with the legal papers she’d needed to sign, so she dug them out, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
“Holy shit!” Whole walls were missing, and a ceiling. This wasn’t renovation, it was demolition.
Stunned, she set down her pack, stripped off her heavy jacket, and shook back her long, near-black hair. More comfortable now, in jeans, a turquoise tank, and a zippered top in a rich plum shade, she made for the source of the noise. Competing with the saw was a radio playing the Black Eyed Peas. Loud. She liked the Black Eyed Peas. The saw, not so much.
A muscular guy around her age, clad in jeans, a faded gray tee, and a tool belt, stepped through a doorway.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded.
Surprise crossed his face, and what a face it was: broad planes, strong angles, and sexy stubble all dusted with gold—or, more likely, sawdust. The same dust that clung to coal-black hair tousled by the goggles he’d shoved atop his head.
A white smile flashed. “You’re Charlie Coltrane. Jeff Mattingly said you’d be arriving.”
The saw stopped, and a short, wiry guy, several years younger, hurried through the door behind him. “Hey, LJ, d’you want me to—Oh, sorry, boss, didn’t mean to interrupt.” His curious gaze scanned Charlie. “Bet you’re Ms. Coltrane. My mom had you in her math class at Whistler Secondary. Ms. Anderson?”
She winced. “Not my biggest fan.” Not that she’d had fans in Whistler.
He grinned. “Heard about the graffiti on the gym wall. Sweet!”
Her lips quirked. “I thought so.” She’d done caricatures of the teachers, including his mom. And received her second—no, third—suspension.
“Joey,” LJ said, “what did you want?”
“Oh yeah, right.”
The two men launched into a carpentry discussion that made no sense to Charlie, and she leaned back against a huge freestanding stone fireplace. Despite her angst over why these guys were destroying a perfectly good B&B, she could take a moment to enjoy the view.
Namely, LJ. Hunky guys in tool belts were a rarity to her, but she could get addicted. The old tee and jeans showcased rippling muscles, and when he gestured to Joey, his movements were strong and confident.
He was noticing her, too, casting appreciative glances that heated her skin. She unzipped her top, leaving it open to reveal her tank and the snout of her dragon tattoo.
When the men finished talking, Joey left, and LJ came over. “Sorry. He’s an apprentice, and scared to do anything without asking directions—which is mostly a good thing.” He grinned, lips full and sexy, blue-gray eyes glinting out of that gold-dusted face.
A shiver darted across her skin. There was something familiar about those eyes.
Only ten minutes ago she’d had a flood of Christmas flashbacks, including the high school dance. Her townie date had turned out to be a jerk, then attacked her in his car. Then that science-geek kid rescued her, only to reject and humiliate her.
What had that kid’s name been? Something appropriate like Chester. Hadn’t his eyes been rather like LJ’s, behind thick lenses? She found herself asking, “Do you have a brother?”
The saw started up again, a room or two away.
Raising his voice, he said, “No, a kid sister. Why?”
She shook her head. Loads of guys had blue-gray eyes. She had to stop letting bad memories distract her. “So, LJ, what’s going on? Mr. Mattingly said the place was getting a face-lift. I expected cleanup and basic repairs, but you’re knocking out walls.”
He took a step closer, eyes crinkling appealingly. “Patty said the older a woman gets, the more heavy lifting is required.”
Reluctantly, she grinned. When it came to heavy lifting, he was one man you’d want around. She could smell the fresh, woodsy scent of sawdust, and her fingers itched to brush it off his strong cheekbones, to let her fingers drift over his warm skin.
“She signed off on the plans in October,” he said. “She paid for the work and we got under way, then she died. Just got started again after Mattingly said you’d given the okay.”
Maybe her aunt had decided on major renos just to keep LJ around. The idea was tempting. Or would be, if it was anywhere other than Whistler. Even tool-belt guy couldn’t make the town appealing.
She planted her hands on her hips. “I didn’t okay all this.”
His gaze followed her hands and lingered on the curve of her hips.
Trying to ignore the sexual awareness that prickled her skin, she said, “Rework the plans to do just the essentials, and be finished in a week. You can pay back the balance.”
He raised his gaze to linger on her chest—on her dragon’s snout, hissing fire across her cleavage. That had been her first tattoo, the dragon that protected her heart. Too bad he couldn’t keep her nipples from tightening.
LJ focused on her face. “I’ve already paid for a lot of the supplies.”
Frustrated and confused, she shook her head. “Why didn’t she do this for the Olympics?”
“I told her she should. But since her husband died seven, eight years ago and she moved into the suite upstairs, she only did minimal maintenance. Said she didn’t like change.”
Charlie gestured around. “This is a lot of change.”
“Yeah. It was like she had a new lease on life.”
“I wonder why?” To Charlie’s astonishment, after more than nine years with no communication between her and her a
unt, Patty had tracked her down and phoned in the summer. In her brusque way, she’d told Charlie it was time to come back to Whistler. Charlie’d given a bitter laugh, said, “When Blackcomb Glacier melts,” and hung up.
“She said the past can chain you until you figure out how to free yourself.” The saw had stopped, and LJ’s words fell into the silence.
Charlie mulled that over. Obviously, Patty hadn’t meant guilt over the way she’d treated Charlie or she’d have apologized. Phoned back. “Talking about her husband’s death? Maybe the renos were her way of moving on.”
“I guess.” He frowned. “She was wearing herself out, though. Or maybe she was sick and didn’t realize it.”
They exchanged glances. Patty had died suddenly, in her sleep, of heart failure.
“Sorry,” he said. “Should have said I’m sorry for your loss.”
She shook her head. “Maybe I should mourn her, but I barely knew her.” That was Patty’s fault, not hers. Screw him if he was going to judge her for that.
2
LJ—Lester Jacoby—saw the defiant tilt to her jaw. It was one thing about her that hadn’t changed. Charlie Coltrane didn’t apologize to anyone for anything.
“Makes sense to me,” he said. Patty had been a bitch to Charlie and her parents. Married to an older guy, a successful businessman, she’d been a social climber. She ran the B&B and played gracious hostess, but avoided the messy reality of her sister’s family.
Despite the hostess thing, Patty’d struck him as a private woman, one with a deep core of sadness, maybe regret. Over the years he’d worked for her, whenever he mentioned Charlie, she’d shut him down. More chains, he figured, and her will was an attempt to right past wrongs.
“Well, Aunt Patty’s gone, and now this project is mine.” Charlie pushed off the fireplace and wandered across the room.
Ever since he’d heard Charlie was coming back, he’d been antsy with curiosity. Now, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She didn’t recognize him—well, maybe his eyes—and he wasn’t about to remind her of the geeky kid he’d been, but he’d have known her anywhere.
She was still the sexiest female he’d ever seen.
The saw was silent, and a Carrie Underwood song accompanied Charlie as she strolled around, frowning and shaking her head. He should’ve brought out a copy of the plans and explained things, but instead he leaned against the fireplace, cocked a hip, and watched.
He’d first noticed Charlie the day he started grade ten. A scrawny math and science geek whose mother chose his clothes, skipping a grade hadn’t helped his confidence. Then he’d seen one familiar thing: his old backpack, which his mom had donated to charity. The girl who wore it slung off one shoulder was in his grade, and she was the most fascinating human being—outside Dana Scully on The X-Files and Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1—he’d ever seen.
She’d had that badass attitude, which was pretty hot, but so was the softer, vulnerable side, the side she hid from the world. He only saw it because, let’s face it, he’d pretty much stalked her.
As she gazed out a window into the front yard, he remembered how she’d looked: short hair streaked with fluorescent colors, Goth makeup, outrageous clothes in weird colors and styles. In grade twelve, the tattooed outline of a dragon had appeared on her shoulder, draping over her chest and down her upper arm.
Now, her style was natural: glossy, near-black sheets of hair rippling past her shoulders, olive-toned skin, dark lashes and brows accenting hazel eyes. No jewelry but for a few hoops and studs in her ears. She still loved color, though. The figure-hugging top was purple and the tank bright turquoise. The tattoo had been completed, the bold dragon sexy against the soft upper curve of her breast.
Then, she’d been skinny, like she didn’t get enough to eat. Now, she was slim, but definitely curvy. A beautiful, sexy woman who moved with lithe grace around the opened-up rooms.
Ten years, and his body’s response was still almost impossible to control. He felt like an insecure teen again. The geek who was the butt of jokes, not the object of any girl’s interest.
He remembered driving Charlie home after that dickhead attacked her. Though he’d been only sixteen, not licensed to drive alone at night, he’d taken the family car while his dad was inside chaperoning the dance. She’d given him a thank-you kiss and it had been the sweetest moment of his life. Then she’d shocked the hell out of him by offering him a blow job. He’d shocked the hell out of himself by saying no. She’d been hurting, putting on that badass act to hide her vulnerability. He couldn’t take advantage. It wasn’t as if she’d actually seen him. Wanted him.
Things had changed, he reminded himself. He’d filled out, had laser eye surgery. Women found him attractive, and Charlie’d been checking him out.
Hell, if she made that same offer again—he wouldn’t say no. His cock throbbed, imagining the sweet, wet inside of her mouth. His gaze followed her as she walked across the room, and he imagined stripping off those vivid clothes and kissing every inch of her soft flesh.
In truth, he was still kind of a geek—how many men read science texts as a hobby and attended sci-fi cons?—but when it came to physical stuff, he was confident. He could build a solid, beautiful house and he could bring a woman sexual ecstasy.
Charlie settled against the fireplace beside him, and sighed. “This is overwhelming.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Why don’t you get unpacked and settled?”
“I guess,” she said unenthusiastically. “The will says I have to live here.”
He moved over to stand in front of her, and she tilted her head up, nostrils widening as if she was inhaling. He mustn’t smell too sweaty, because a smile touched the corners of her mouth.
He inhaled, too. Her spicy, exotic scent mixed just right with the odor of sawdust, intoxicating him. “Your aunt’s suite is on the third floor. It has a great view of the mountains.”
After the cleaning service sent by the lawyer had finished, LJ’d taken a look at the bland rooms. Remembering how Charlie had loved vibrant colors, he’d added bright sheets and towels. Now he imagined Charlie, fresh from the shower, wrapped in that big red towel, and his groin tightened. Slowly, seductively, he added, “And a big, comfy bed.”
Sexual awareness flared golden in her hazel eyes. “Comfy though it may be,” she drawled, “I don’t intend to be here long. I want you to finish up as quickly as possible.”
“Do you?” The lawyer’d said she was in a rush to sell, but LJ wanted enough time to get to know her. He’d done his fair share of dating, but no girl had ever sparked his libido or fascinated him the way Charlie had. “I thought women appreciated a man who knew how to take his time and do things…thoroughly.” At the thought of long, slow, very thorough lovemaking with her, his mouth went dry.
Her lips twitched. “Sometimes a girl’s more interested in results.”
“Satisfaction guaranteed,” he said softly.
She tossed her head and tilted it back against the fireplace, gazing up at him. The gesture sent her dark hair rippling back so he glimpsed another tattoo starting behind her ear, then losing itself in the cascading hair.
Catching him looking, she raised both hands to scoop up her hair and lift it out of the way, then turned so he could see a chain of stylized feathers and flowers decorating her nape and upper back. Unconventional and striking, as he’d have expected. She’d been a skilled artist, even when she painted sides of buildings.
“Nice tat.” It emphasized the delicate shell of her ear, the slender line of her neck, the soft down along her hairline. He wanted to trace it with his tongue.
His cock was uncomfortably hard, pressing against his fly.
“Thanks.” She let her hair fall in a shining wave. “I designed it.”
He’d figured.
“I’m a tattoo artist,” she said, challenge glinting in her eyes.
“Seriously?” Over the years, he’d guessed everything from biker chick to running an art galle
ry. “Cool.”
“I think so.” Challenge turned to teasing. “Let me guess, Mr. Tool-belt Guy. You don’t have a single tattoo.”
He rested his hand on the wall above her head, caging her in on one side. The gesture brought his body within inches of hers. “Want to look for yourself?”
“That just might be the best offer I’ve had all day.”
“Just might be? I’m insulted.”
“The guy beside me on the plane did suggest I tattoo his willy, as he phrased it.”
LJ winced.
She chuckled. “Wimp.”
He managed not to wince again. The old insult stung, but he knew she was only teasing. “I can think of better things you could do with my—” He broke off. Yeah, he wanted sex with Charlie, but he also wanted to get to know her. “Have dinner with me.”
“Um…” Her brows pulled together slightly. “If there’s a double entendre in that, I’m missing it. Or did you mean, have you for dinner?”
He suppressed a moan. “Thought it might be nice to get to know each other over dinner. Whistler has some great restaurants.”
The light left her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
What had he said wrong? “You’ve had a long day and must be tired, but you need food. We’ll go wherever you want. Splitz has great burgers, The Bearfoot Bistro’s one of my favorites, and you still can’t beat the old RimRock Café. Feel like seafood by the fire?”
She turned her head and, without touching him, slipped out from between him and the wall and stepped away. “No, thanks. How about you revisit the reno plans tonight? I want to be out of here in a week.”
“A week? Impossible.”
She walked over to collect her backpack and jacket, then turned and stared at him. “Make it possible.” For the first time he saw a resemblance to her aunt. Not in her features, but in the sense of sadness, perhaps regret.
When she headed for the stairs, he gaped after her, too stunned to grab her bag or even point her toward the elevator.
She’d been into him. He knew it. And then she’d blown him off, just as if he was the old nerdy Lester. What the hell was that all about?
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