Holiday Heat: The Men of Starlight Bend

by Ashley Jennifer

  Tenderly brushing the fat drops from her face, he said, “I was on a call about Ruby. It was important. But yes, I am happy my son is safe and sound. And I have you to thank for that.”

  Her long, damp lashes fluttered. “Did he know to come to me?”

  “No. I’ve never mentioned you to him. I’ve never talked to Jake about Starlight Bend.”

  Her gaze narrowed, her forehead crinkling in dismay. “Big-city neurosurgeon is ashamed of his roots?”

  Nick chuckled. He’d riled her again.

  He’d always loved how she challenged him at each turn. Anna was a champion of every underdog on the planet. And for some blessed reason, the biggest fan of one billionaire bad boy who’d been dumped in his grandmother’s lap in a tiny Montana town so neither of his parents had to provide full-time responsibility for him when they’d divorced.

  He said, “It’s just something personal I hold close, sweetheart. Now, I can share some of it with Jake. Be angry with me for not coming in to collect him, but don’t think for a second it had anything to do with not wanting to see you or owning up to the fact that Starlight Bend is my hometown.”

  “Fine.” She softened. “How’s Ruby?”

  Nick’s gut twisted at the recent crisis he’d had with his grandmother. “She had a brain tumor.”

  “Nick!” Anna’s gloved hands flew to her mouth and more tears spilled.

  “She’s okay,” he was quick to say as he clasped her hands and dragged them away. “I caught it at an early stage and a colleague operated. Just took some recovery time for her recently. Then she was ready to come back home.”

  Anna stared up at him with imploring eyes that made his heart hurt. “Nick, swear to me she’s okay.”

  “I swear,” he insisted. “I wouldn’t let Ruby fly or bring her here if I wasn’t one-hundred percent certain she was in the best possible shape to make the trip. You know this about me. She’s my grandmother, Anna. She raised me. And I also know how important she is to you.”

  Anna threw her arms around him. Nick held her tight.

  It’d been forever since she’d been in his embrace. Too fucking long. And it felt incredible to have her in his arms, her luscious body pressed to his, the lavender scent of her hair filling his nose and her soft skin gliding over his.

  “I’m sorry I was testy,” she whispered. “I didn’t know about Ruby’s condition.”

  “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. She didn’t want her friends to worry. Especially you.”

  “Damn it,” Anna ground out. “I’m not five, you know?”

  He laughed a bit heartier this time, though still felt the ache in his chest. Deep in his soul, really. “Yeah, I know. So does she. But you’ve been a favorite of Ruby’s since your birth…even before I came along and she got stuck with me.”

  Anna pulled slightly away. She gazed into his eyes again and said, “She would never in a million years feel as though she’d been stuck with you, Nick. Ruby Alexander loves you to pieces. She’d walk barefoot on coals for you—and you’d do the same for her. You’re her absolute favorite person.” She gave him her sweet smile. The one that always did Nick in, because it held a mix of sassiness and flirtation. “With the exception of me, of course.”

  “Hmm.” He released her before he got hellaciously carried away and kissed her right then and there. With his son likely watching from inside the Escalade. “Still a saucy one, I see.”

  “Maybe just a little bit.”

  “Right.” He grinned once more. Then asked, “Will you give me a second shot at this homecoming? It was the new live-in nurse on the line when you came out. She had just gotten Ruby settled and wanted to give me a progress report and take instructions. I consulted Ruby’s primary care physician earlier—that was the meeting I was in when Jake wandered off. Scared the hell out of me until the sheriff called.”

  “Luckily, Starlight Bend is a very safe community.”

  He nodded. “I had to remind myself you and I walked up to the ranch from town all the time—that kept my blood pressure down. I’m not angry with Jake,” Nick said. “I get it. He’s a kid who has to hang out in doctors’ offices and hospital waiting rooms on too many occasions. But it was unavoidable today.”

  She studied him a moment before tentatively querying, “It’s none of my business, but does he normally disappear on you?”

  “No,” Nick vehemently said. “This was a first. We’ve been traveling more than usual lately, and it’s taking a toll on us both.”

  “Nick—”

  He pressed a fingertip to those satiny lips he was dying to claim. Nick knew she tasted like heaven. Knew their kiss would be a scorcher—and that it’d light him up like a Fourth of July night sky.

  Not exactly convenient at the moment…

  He said, “I don’t blame Jake for being restless. And I’m sure you have a dozen questions, if not more. Right now, however, I need to get to Ruby’s to make certain everything’s in place for her. She’s been through rehab, but I don’t want her overdoing anything. You know how that is.”

  She swept his hand away. “Of course. I’ve performed enough surgeries myself to know most patients are antsy to get back to their regular routine, regardless of species.”

  “Without doubt, Ruby’s chomping at the bit.” Nick’s gaze eased over Anna again. She was like a mirage—he still couldn’t believe she was standing before him. And that his son had unwittingly found her. “You seriously are a sight for sore eyes, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.”

  “Ditto.”

  He needed to get moving, but his feet remained rooted and he still couldn’t breathe properly. She was the only one who could steal his breath and leave him spellbound.

  Infinite moments slid by, until she gently prompted, “Ruby…remember?”

  “Yeah. Ruby.” He reluctantly turned away and sauntered over to the SUV.

  Anna quietly called after him, “Hey, hotshot?” Her nickname for him since junior high when he’d emerged the town’s most promising quarterback to lead Starlight Bend to state championships. “You sticking around a day or two?”

  Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Little more than that.” His brow lifted. “You want to see me again, angel?”

  She gave a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe.”

  Nick smirked. Turned back and retraced his steps to her.

  “I’m a busy girl,” she added. “Got my own schedule to juggle.”

  “I figured as much. Though…perhaps you can free up tomorrow night for dinner.”

  With a coy smile, she said, “I suppose I could.”

  “So gracious of you,” he mockingly chided. “Is The Pinnacle still open?”

  “With stunning views of the peaks year-round to rival mine.”

  “We are talking about the mountains, right?” He winked.

  “Ha, ha.” She swatted at his arm.

  “Either way, you do have a spectacular setup.” His gaze flitted to her enticing chest. This more mature version of Anna Voss elicited dark desires and carnal cravings.

  Not that he hadn’t always craved her. But they weren’t teenagers who’d been exploring their sexuality with each other. Nick had intimate knowledge of this woman, yes. Yet there were at least a half-dozen ways he wanted to pleasure her that immediately popped into his mind—things he’d never had the chance to experience with her but which he’d fantasized endlessly about.

  Though again…bad timing to be so insanely aroused by her. Especially as the touch of pink on her skin deepened. She was as affected by him as he was her. No mistaking it. Even after all this time, they were still hot for each other. Maybe more so, since they were no longer seventeen, Nick dragging her behind the stables to make out with her or Anna sneaking into his bedroom through the window.

  Back to the topic at hand, Nick told her, “I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”

  “Invite Ruby and Jake along. I’d love to see her—I’ve missed her so much since she went to New York years ago. And I’
d like to get to know Jake better. The pups really took to him today.”

  “The kid’s got a heart of gold.”

  “And wants a pet.”

  Nick snickered. “You’re going to double team me and try to wear me down?”

  “Dogs travel perfectly well on airplanes. Fish…not so much. But Jake only mentioned the latter in jest.”

  Nick shook his head. “The two of you bonded, huh?”

  Why should he even be surprised? They were both old souls.

  “Seems like a smart little boy,” Anna said. “Special. Though…not exactly the apple I would have expected to fall from the tree.” She eyed him curiously.

  “You never miss a thing.”

  Anna inched closer and rested a hand on his pecs. Staring up at him with her glimmering eyes, she asked, “Is he really yours, Nick?”

  “Yes.” His head dipped and his lips grazed hers. He couldn’t resist the sweet temptation a second longer. He murmured, “To the very depths of my heart.”

  Then he returned to the Escalade, difficult though it was to leave her. As always.

  The driver had been standing discreetly off to the side and opened the door. Nick climbed in next to Jake, who was, indeed, watching him intently.

  When the chauffeur was settled behind the wheel, Nick instructed him to take them to Ruby’s house. Then lightly scolded Jake again.

  “I just wanted to visit the horses,” Jake told him.

  “You could have gotten lost or someone could have picked you up and—”

  “I know. And I’m really sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Nick said on a sigh. “And I promise that’s the last meeting I’ll take you to this year.”

  “Cool.” As they left the circular drive, Jake asked, “Do you know Anna?”

  “That’s Dr. Voss to you,” Nick said and ruffled his son’s hair.

  “She gave me permission to call her Anna. So how do you know her, Dad?”

  “We went to school together.”

  “Was she your girlfriend?” Jake gave him a playful grin.

  “Yes, she was my girlfriend. A very long time ago.”

  “Couldn’t have been that long ago. There was a lot of hugging going on.”

  Nick peered over his shoulder at the ranch fading into the distance. He’d spent countless afternoons and evenings there. And Anna had shared equal amounts at his grandmother’s house, though Ruby didn’t have horses and snowmobiles. Rolling hills for ice-blocking or tobogganing and ponds for fishing in or skating on, depending upon the season.

  Anna’s parents divorced before Nick had even come to Starlight Bend, and her mother remarried. A standup guy name Travis Montgomery, who owned a bar outside of town limits. When Nick and Anna were in junior high, Mrs. Montgomery was in a fatal car accident on an icy road. Anna had been devastated. Nick hadn’t left her side. And Travis had more than willingly served as her legal guardian so that Anna could stay in the home she loved—the only home she’d ever known—rather than be shipped off to California where her relatives lived.

  Nick had been hugely relieved. For a few agonizing days, her fate had hung in the balance and he’d prayed every night she’d stay close by. He knew one day they’d be separated, but had been nowhere near prepared for it at that point.

  Travis had only needed to get past his initial grieving to jump into the fray and lay down the law that if Anna wanted to stay at the ranch, no one had the right to take her away.

  And then after she’d graduated college, Travis had deeded the property to her so she could turn it into the animal hospital it was today. Nick had learned that last part from his grandmother, because he’d been in med school at Harvard by then.

  The miles between him and Anna had tormented Nick, he’d never lie about that. Would never be able to forget it. The suffering had never diminished. But he’d always had a different path to follow. One paved by his father and his father before him.

  The Nicholas Hoffmans of New York were all renowned surgeons. Nick’s destiny had been pre-determined before he’d even been born. And though his father would have preferred to stick Nick in prestigious Trinity Prep or an international boarding school in his high school years, he’d arranged for Nick to continue staying on with his maternal grandmother. Because Harvard would demand ample community service, extracurricular activities, entrepreneurial efforts and civic involvement on one’s application, in addition to honors-level grades.

  So the prep/boarding school idea had been tossed out the window, since it would have primarily been an immersion in studies. Whereas in Starlight Bend, Nick had all of Montana to help him become a socially, economically and politically conscious individual. Not to mention environmentally minded.

  That, however, had not been sufficient enough by his father’s reasoning and ambitions for his son and he’d sent the Lear jet for Nick several times a month so that they could attend fundraising galas for charitable organizations together and Nick could be introduced around to high society.

  He’d missed just about every school dance with Anna as a result. A lot of the trips to the drive-in on a Saturday night or campouts at the lake over the weekend with their friends.

  In the end, he’d fulfilled his role as the next generation of hailed Hoffmans in the medical profession.

  Because that was what was expected of him.

  Returning his attention to Jake, he said, “Anna told me you did a great job with her puppies.”

  “She’s not keeping them, but yes. I enjoyed helping out.”

  “You’re a good kid, Jake.”

  His son gazed up at him and asked, “Then can I have a dog, Dad?”

  Chapter Three

  “You’ve been staring at the clock on the wall for nearly two full minutes,” Darla Winston said the next day. “Though something tells me you already know that. Trying to make it tick faster?”

  “Slower,” Anna told her.

  “Interesting,” Darla drew the word out. “That’s not one I’ve heard before.”

  Anna tore her gaze away and it fell on Darla. She was Dr. Everett Winston’s wife. The couple rented the guest house set farther north in the wooded area of the property that had been in the Voss family for generations. Ev served as the second resident vet at Anna’s clinic and Darla was a tech who kept operations running smoothly.

  “I have a date,” Anna reticently informed her friend.

  One of Darla’s dark brows crooked. “That’s a first. I mean, you don’t really…you know…date. As a rule.”

  “Not much point to it,” Anna said. “As a rule.”

  She’d given it a shot once, years after Nick had left town. It’d been a fleeting, six-month relationship that had ended horrifically. She hadn’t made a second attempt.

  Where was the sense in trying to find a soul mate when she already had one? Sure, Nick Hoffman was a total absentee soul mate, but Anna believed you only got one, and Nick had claimed every single piece of her eons ago.

  Therefore, the whole dating thing seemed futile.

  “So what’s changed your mind?” Darla asked, breaking into Anna’s thoughts.

  “My own personal episode of the Twilight Zone. Old flame and hometown hero has materialized out of thin air. Only temporarily, though, so don’t get too excited—I know that look on your face. He’s a big deal at Mount Sinai and he’s basically just dropping off his grandmother before he disappears again.”

  “And who is this mystery man?”

  “Nick Hoffman. He was already in his neurosurgery residency program when you and Ev came to Starlight Bend. And Ruby, his grandmother, had relocated to New York, though she kept her house here in Montana.”

  Anna was struggling with the reality of both Nick and Ruby returning to town—along with Jake. She’d tossed and turned in bed last night, wondering who Jake’s mother was, what had happened to her—and what she’d meant to Nick.

  Anna knew better than to get wrapped around the axle where Nick
and Jake were concerned. She couldn’t afford to get tangled up in whatever their scenario might be. She had enough drama around the ranch to play on her emotions.

  She’d contended all along that her philanthropic efforts were about writing checks to charity, offering vet services to the less fortunate and buying toys at Christmas for some child who might not otherwise have a single gift under the tree to open. She didn’t get involved. She didn’t get…mired.

  In addition to losing her mother at a young age, Anna’s private tragedy a decade ago was enough to last a lifetime and she really didn’t think she could take more heartache.

  So perhaps she ought to cancel her date with Nick, even though it was just a pseudo-date, since Ruby and Jake would be having dinner with them.

  Still… Anna was pretty much dragging her feet, anyway. Staring at the clock, willing it to turn back an hour or three so she had more of a chance to mentally prepare herself for an outing with Nick and his family.

  Just the nearness of Nick—or even the thought of the nearness of him—brought myriad recollections to mind that were best left in the past.

  Particularly the image she couldn’t escape of the two of them together that last morning after he’d graduated. The one Nick had mentioned yesterday when he’d stood in her drive, his fingertips blazing a trail along her cheek, his gorgeous green eyes boring into her so that she was rooted to the memory of him. Of them.

  His high school graduation had come a year before hers. They were the same age; he was just that smart. Accelerated studies hadn’t been his idea, though. It’d been an expectation of his father.

  The ceremony had been bittersweet, of course. With the constant reminder of what lay beyond taunting both her and Nick. The after-party had been thrown by Dr. Hoffman at The Pinnacle—where the foursome would be dining this evening, if Anna went through with their plans.

  When Nick’s father hosted a swank soiree, it was pretty much the event to end all events. Even when it was held in Starlight Bend.

  He’d rented out the entire establishment, including the ski lodge-styled deck that faced the breathtaking mountain range. Decorations had been imported from New York and Paris, along with the hors d’oeuvres, because Dr. Hoffman was not a fan of Montana fare. Granted, he’d allowed for the Bison and cedar plank salmon, though he’d had his personal Michelin-starred chefs prepare the live lobsters, delivered earlier in the day from Maine, and the fresh filet mignons that had been topped with a rich crab-béarnaise sauce.