Christie Ridgway

by Zane

  This time, she arrived with Wyatt Chandler, who watched Bella drop down onto the blanket with her book, then strolled over to where Zane was standing off to the side.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said, bracing against the library’s back wall, in the same pose as Zane.

  “Hey, back. You’re on Bella patrol?”

  “Yeah. Her mom’s not doing well and Noah’s back in DC. He asked if I could help out. Happy to.”

  But the other man, a former SEAL used to action and adventure, didn’t look all that excited to be assigned childcare duties. “I know a guy who runs a team of bike couriers in LA. Swears the survival rush at the end of each day is unbeatable. I’ve even got an old Schwinn Stingray—I think it was my dad’s—you could have for a song.”

  “Shut up, Zane.”

  “Or then there’s…” His words trailed off as Harper hurried by again. Before, he’d only registered her slightly harried expression and the heavy burden she carried. Now, unencumbered, he saw that she wore dark, tight jeans with high-heeled boots. A cherry-red, short-sleeved sweater hugged her in all the right places and he thought she must have snuck away to reapply her lipstick, because her bow-shaped mouth now matched the color of her top.

  His blood began to chug, slow and deliberate, as his gaze drank her in.

  The poor woman’s probably wondering if there’s something wrong with her. If you don’t find her truly desirable.

  Without thinking, he started for her, determined to clear up any of her misapprehensions. Wyatt’s snigger stopped him.

  Zane’s head turned toward his old friend. “What?” he demanded.

  All of a sudden, the other man was looking infinitely more cheerful.

  “What?” Zane said again.

  “Mighty. Fallen,” Wyatt said, sounding both smug and amused.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Zane forced his shoulder blades back to the wall. Patience. He couldn’t just accost the woman while she was at work and convince her of his undying lust.

  “You’ve got it bad.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The librarian. You,” Wyatt said. “You’re in love with her.”

  Lust, damn it. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Wyatt’s eyes were lit with an unholy glee. “Let’s talk about a bet.”

  Zane glanced over at his friend. There was just something about a bet—making one or taking one—that he couldn’t resist. Blame his DNA. Blame his asthmatic childhood that necessitated he learn to amuse himself in myriad ways. “What are you wanting to wager?” he asked slowly.

  “I trust you, Zane. You’re as honest as the day is long.”

  “Thanks…I think.” There was a trap in there somewhere.

  “I’ll give you…ten days. If by the end of that time you tell me truly you aren’t a goner for the librarian, I’ll buy that bike off you. But if you admit to what I know is true, then you have to…well, I’ll figure out just the right thing later.”

  What the hell? It was reckless, since Wyatt wasn’t specifying his side of the wager, but that didn’t matter. Zane was safe. He jonesed after Harper, in an earthy, physical way, and it didn’t go any deeper than that. It would never be any deeper. That wouldn’t change in ten days or in ten years.

  “You’re on.” They shook on it.

  It might have been a decade, though, before the kids and dogs program came to a conclusion. Sweet Bella thanked both him and Gambler for the experience and then went off with Wyatt, who sent Zane a farewell smirk.

  He responded with a subtle middle finger sliding up the side of his face. Then he trailed Harper around the patio as she gathered books, folded blankets, and was completely engrossed in conversations with grateful parents and chatty little kids.

  Finally, he figured out that the librarian wasn’t going to manage a minute for him during her time at the library. And maybe it wasn’t the proper setting to discuss how much he wanted to get her into a bed and how quickly they could find one anyway.

  Your place or mine didn’t seem an appropriate question for a Saturday in the library stacks at Eagle’s Ridge.

  So, knowing Gambler only had a short time limit before causing something calamitous, he snagged Harper’s elbow. Her big gray eyes lifted to his.

  Hell. So pretty.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “No,” he muttered.

  Her lashes fluttered. “Um…”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Um…”

  “You have a break coming up?”

  She swallowed, pink color blossoming on her cheeks. He must look as horny as he felt. “I’m off for the day at 1:00,” she said.

  He’d feed her first. They’d need their energy so he could show her exactly how much he wanted her. “Meet me at No Man’s Land, yeah?”

  Her eyes flared wider. “Yeah.”

  Halfway to satisfied, he took off for the diner to wait. After he led his dog to his comfortable bed and bowl of water in the storeroom, he spied Ryder at a table, a glass of iced tea and the remains of a burger and fries in front of him. He flung himself into a chair beside the other man, the action rocking the table.

  Ryder glanced over and then his brows rose. “What’s up? You look like a coiled spring.”

  “Waiting on a woman.”

  “Ah,” Ryder said, and picked up a fry, dipped it in a puddle of ketchup. “The librarian.”

  “We’re going to get a few simple things straight as soon as she arrives,” he said.

  “Good luck with that,” Ryder replied. “In my experience, getting things straight with a woman isn’t ever very simple.”

  But when Harper arrived not long later, Zane saw it all with sudden, crystal clarity. Enough of this handholding and worrying about moving too fast or moving at all, he decided. Sex would definitely straighten out the tangles and knots that had been plaguing him for days.

  Her eyes shifted to him and he rose from his chair.

  As their eyes met, he could swear the chemical reaction between the two of them caused the molecules in the room to rub against each other like lovers in heat. The electricity generated by the anticipation of them coming together once more, without any clothes or second thoughts between them, could run all the neon beer signs at Baldie’s.

  Harper began to slowly move toward him as lust pounded in his bloodstream and his heart knocked against his chest. The diner door behind her opened again. His gaze didn’t leave her face, however, until he heard her name in another man’s voice.

  “Harper?” the stranger said.

  She glanced back.

  “Harper,” the man said again, holding out his arms. “It’s me.”

  Now she half-turned, her expression stunned. “Geoffrey?”

  Geoffrey?

  “Who the hell is Geoffrey?” Ryder muttered.

  “The guy who jilted her,” Zane said through clenched teeth as he swiftly made for his woman.

  Not swiftly enough that he didn’t catch Ryder’s next muttered comment. “What the hell? When did No Man’s Land become a bad-ex magnet?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Geoffrey said to Harper.

  It was then that many things occurred to her all at once. Geoffrey Giffin was shorter than she remembered. His hair thinner. His skin paler.

  And dressed in a cashmere sweater, black slacks, and well-polished black loafers, he looked completely out of place among the jeans, tees, and flannels of the other diners in No Man’s Land.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you even know where to find me?”

  “The woman at the desk in the library told me she thought you’d gone to the restaurant on the bridge.”

  She pressed two fingers to the sudden throb in her right temple. “I mean, how did you know to find me in Eagle’s Ridge, Washington?” They’d not had another conversation after she’d handed back his ring and that same day she’d blocked his phone number.

>   “Your mother told me,” Geoffrey said.

  Maybe her parent’s strange call a couple of nights before made more sense. “So Mom contacted you?”

  “I contacted her. I was…surprised and disappointed to discover you’d left San Francisco.” Her ex’s gaze suddenly shifted from her face to someone over her shoulder.

  Harper didn’t have to turn around to know that someone was Zane, who had come up behind her. She could feel the heat and size of him at her back and she wished Geoffrey away with all her might.

  We need to talk, Zane had said in the library. That had sounded so promising!

  What wasn’t promising, was the stubborn set to Geoffrey’s mouth and the words he’d just uttered. Surprised and disappointed.

  “Really,” she said, frowning at him. “I can’t imagine why anything I would do would cause you surprise or disappointment. We’re no longer connected in any way.”

  “I made a mistake about that.” Geoffrey glanced around at the crowded tables. “Maybe we could go somewhere more private to talk?”

  A low growl sounded behind her and Zane inched closer.

  Geoffrey’s gaze flew to the other man, but then returned to hers. “We have things to discuss,” he said, in that decisive tone he could take.

  Harper shook her head. “No. We’re not going anywhere and we have nothing to discuss.”

  “Your mother would like to see our engagement back on,” Geoffrey said quickly. “I would like to see our engagement back on.”

  He expected her to make more promises to him? “No,” Harper said again. “My mother would like to see me happy, and that won’t happen when I’m with you.”

  Geoffrey’s brows drew together. “You belong in San Francisco. Where our families are, where I am, where we go to the museums on Sundays and take in the theater whenever we can.”

  Take in the theater. How had she not seen how pompous he could be? “I’m not only a museums and theater kind of woman anymore, Geoffrey. I’m different now.”

  “Nonsense,” he said.

  “I’ve kayaked. And paddle boarded. I hope to try whitewater rafting soon,” she told him. “I run almost every day.”

  “You sweat?” he asked, incredulous. “You hate to sweat.”

  “I used to hate to sweat. Now I like to be active and—”

  “She gets dirty,” Zane put in, his deep voice low but perfectly clear. “She gets dirty with me.”

  Dirty. A secret shiver trickled down her spine at the innuendo and her head turned to get a glimpse of the big man’s face. It looked carved from granite and more than a little bit angry.

  “Dirty?” Geoffrey scowled. “For God’s sake.”

  “Dirty,” Zane repeated.

  “Can you back off, sir?” Geoffrey said, addressing Zane, his eyes narrowed. “This is a conversation for two.”

  “This is a wholly unnecessary conversation,” Harper insisted.

  “She’s right,” Zane said, and his hand came to her shoulder, heavy and hot. “Because we’re together now.”

  Geoffrey’s brows shot toward his receding hairline. “What? Harper, you’re with this…this Neanderthal?”

  The whole diner went silent at that. Eagles’s Ridge clearly didn’t like a stranger insulting one of their native born sons. Ryder Westbrook, Bailey’s boyfriend, shot to his feet and came striding over. “Is there some reason we don’t kick this jerk’s ass, Z?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to think of one,” Zane said, conversationally. “Harper doesn’t want him here. I sure as hell don’t want him here. And he’s not taking the hint very well.”

  Geoffrey ignored the other two men and looked to Harper. “You’re the quiet, decorous, always polite woman I’ve known for the last five years. Nothing’s different. You only need to come back home to see that. To be that again. To have my ring on your finger once more.”

  “At your request, she gave you back your damn ring,” Zane said and his other hand clapped onto her other shoulder. “And now—I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so listen carefully—Harper is with me.”

  Happiness burst like confetti bombs inside her. She glanced up at him again, not bothering to hide a bright smile.

  Though Zane didn’t take his gaze of Geoffrey’s face, his fingers squeezed, letting her know he’d noticed it. And appreciated it.

  “I can’t believe this,” Geoffrey said, shaking his head. “You’d really hook up with this…this barbarian? You’re too delicate, too refined. He won’t handle you with enough care—”

  “He handles me just fine,” she said hotly. “I’m not delicate or decorous, or at least not only those things that you make sound more like an insult than a compliment.”

  Her ex continued to shake his head. “I don’t buy any of this, Harper, you should—”

  “No.” Her temper spiked and she was suddenly wagging one finger in front of his face. “It doesn’t matter what you buy or what you accept or what you think I ‘should.’ Nothing about you matters, including you not seeing me as who I am and who I’m becoming, because he does.” She whirled out of Zane’s hold in order to face him.

  “And I don’t need a ring or promises from him,” she continued, not looking away from Zane. “Just that one simple thing.”

  His hard expression softened. “Sweets,” he said, reaching for her.

  She moved into him at the same time as the diner door swung open again and a cacophony of buzzing sound entered. Both she and Zane looked toward the entrance, where a knot of little kids marched in, blowing enthusiastically on kazoos.

  “Uh-oh,” Zane said, then put her away from him. “I’ve got to—”

  But what he was going to say was drowned out by a loud, frightening, other-worldly howl. Then came the noise of claws scrabbling on wood and Gambler shot from somewhere at the rear of the diner, entering the main room. Empty chairs were knocked sideways and glasses shattered to the floor as the dog zigged and zagged about the place, around customers and under tables.

  Ryder and Zane attempted to corral the agitated dog, but he continued to dodge and weave until finally he made his way to the door. An obliging child opened it despite the shouted “No!” from Ryder and Zane. The canine took off like a shot.

  Then Gambler’s owner sped after him.

  Harper looked at Geoffrey, who’d taken refuge behind a rack that held real estate and tourist activities brochures. Then she glanced at Ryder who was looking back at her, a bemused smile on his handsome face. He nodded at her, a clear go ahead.

  Giving him a grin in return, she went in pursuit of her guy.

  Later, Harper and Zane were in his A-frame, Gambler snoring on his bed in the corner. The two humans were snuggled under Zane’s comforter on his own bed, skin-to-skin. Her head rested on his shoulder and he toyed with her hair as their heartbeats slowed.

  “That wasn’t Stella with me this time,” Zane said, wrapping a lock around his finger and tugging it a little. “It was all Harper Grace and Harper Grace alone.”

  A little smile tugged at the corners of her lips. He was right. She’d just been herself and it had been a smashing success. Once they’d managed to contain Gambler—they’d found him in Sentinel Park, barking at a squirrel up a tree—they’d loaded him and themselves into Zane’s truck and gone straight to his place. Without a word, he’d led her to the loft and then taken her into his arms for a succession of drugging kisses. From there, it had moved from a slow mutual undressing to a tender exploration of each other’s bodies followed up by explosive climaxes.

  “Though I think we might classify that as make-up sex,” he said.

  “Make-up sex?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him, a slight frown bringing her brows together. “Were we in a fight?”

  “Not exactly, though I’m a little pissed at you for spending any time at all with that jerk, let alone two years.”

  Harper sighed and put her cheek back to his chest. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake like that…by misreading cues, or maki
ng up feelings someone has that aren’t really there?”

  “All the guys in high school detention made up fantasies about our teacher Miss Woods, aka Miss Woody. Do you mean like that?”

  She lifted her head again to stare at him. “Diana? You fantasized about her as teenagers?”

  His lips twitched. “Oh, yeah. Elaborate, graphic fantasies. That’s how she came by the nickname Miss Woody. Get it?”

  Harper’s eyes rounded. “Boys are very bad,” she said primly.

  “Men are even worse,” he said, his eyes alight with mischief as he ran a callused hand suggestively over her hip. “Give me a few minutes to recover and I’ll show you just how much worse we can be.”

  At that, she couldn’t help smiling at him, happiness bursting like more confetti bombs inside and all around her.

  He smiled back. Then he sobered. “I did make a real mistake like you’re describing once, though. Years ago, when I was young and dumb.”

  “Oh?” Harper remembered Jane telling her Zane had been hurt by a girl. She sat up, half on her hip, and held the sheet to her chest.

  “She was a pretty thing, a real Southern belle, and I wanted to give her everything I had and more. I even fancied that she was as infatuated with me as I was with her.”

  “You weren’t in love with her, just infatuated?” Somehow she liked the thought of that better.

  “Young and dumb, remember? It was definitely infatuation. I was away from home for the first time and very susceptible to stupid.”

  “How did it end?”

  “I’d like to claim I smartened up, but what really happened was she told me I was too rough and too tough for the expensive furniture in her parents’ home not to mention I was no match for her fragile femininity, and then she broke up with me.”

  “Poor Zane.” Harper ran the back of her fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “Though rough and tough doesn’t sound like much of a slur.”

  “Not to me anymore either. Not when a beautiful woman stood in a crowded diner and claimed I handled her delicate and decorous self just fine.”