Taking a Chance

by Maggie McGinnis

  Emma stepped into the café, inhaling deeply. The scent of Jasper’s café was just one more thing she wished she could bottle and bring back to Florida with her. Coffee beans and old wood flooring and a heady overtone of Jasper’s aftershave. No matter what happened tonight, opening a genie’s bottle of that scent—she knew already—would bring her back to this moment.

  Her stomach twittered with nerves, which was more than a little embarrassing, considering that she’d practically begged the poor man to take her home with him.

  He hadn’t argued.

  “You want some coffee? Or a hot cocoa?”

  He stepped behind the coffee bar and flicked on a machine. Had he sensed her sudden second thoughts? Was he purposely giving her time?

  Or was he having second thoughts? Maybe he was calling up his most convenient delay tactics, now that they were back to his place. Maybe he wished he’d brought her back to the hotel. Heck, at this point, maybe he wished he’d never met her.

  It was amazing the directions her brain could go in with a few uncomfortable moments of silence.

  “I can hear you thinking, Emma.” He smiled softly as he scooped cocoa out of a glass container and into two mugs.

  “Oh?”

  “You’d be insane not to be thinking, in my opinion.” He shrugged. “I mean, here you are, a couple thousand miles from home, and you meet a guy, and you’re not the kind of girl who just falls into bed with a guy after two weeks, no matter how much you like him. Or how much he looks like Superman.”

  She laughed, rolling her eyes.

  “But here you are, and you really, really want to—but you also think you’re being impossibly stupid doing so. Because how could you not? You’re here for ten more weeks—maybe—and he’s here forever, because there’s no way he’s leaving. And what kind of intelligent woman signs up for that kind of thing?”

  She wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “So I’m going to make us some cocoa, and then I’m going to let you pick us a movie, and if all we do tonight is sit on the couch and watch a movie, then I’m good. If you’re freaking out right now and would rather I take you back to the hotel, that’s fine, too.”

  She raised her eyes to his. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, despite the fact that you were tormenting me terribly at the campfire, and despite the fact that you smell good enough to eat, and despite the fact that the best thing I can possibly think of is to wake up with you tomorrow morning, I’m perfectly happy with the day we’ve already had.” He stirred hot milk into the mugs. “And if you’re good with it, I hope we have more of them.”

  Emma watched him stir, watched the tension in his shoulders as he waited for her response, watched the way his forearm muscles contracted, watched his fingers…and imagined them on her skin.

  “Hey, Jasper?”

  “Yeah?” He looked up.

  “I don’t think I want to watch a movie.”

  “No?”

  She swallowed, shaking her head as she took off her sweater. “No. I don’t think I want any hot cocoa, either.”

  He put down the spoon but didn’t move. “What do you want, Emma?”

  “You.”

  His eyes met hers, and they both froze for a long moment, suspended in possibilities. Then, in a move that made it look like he’d teleported around the counter, he was in front of her, pulling her to him, and his lips found hers in a kiss so searing, so absolute, so damn hot that she couldn’t breathe.

  She didn’t even want to.

  Her knees turned to mush, and he tightened his arm around her back, pulling her against his body. His lips were gentle but demanding, and when his tongue found hers, she sighed and slid her hands up his chest.

  He was so warm, so solid, so gloriously, perfectly man, which felt ridiculous to think, but God, it had been so damn long. She’d been so scared for so, so, so long to let herself feel this way. So scared to let anyone close enough, scared to wake up with regrets, scared to learn far too late that it was a terrible, awful idea in the first place.

  But as much as those thoughts had always crowded her head and sent her running long before there was any danger of a repeat event, she couldn’t even summon up a glimmer of one right now to help her back away.

  She’d never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this right now.

  She’d never wanted anyone as badly as she wanted Jasper right now.

  “Stop thinking,” he growled in her ear. “Just be. Be here. Be with me. Now. Here.”

  “I am. I swear, I’ve never been more here in my entire life.”

  “Good.” He held her close, brushing hair back from her face as he looked into her eyes. And then he lifted her up like she weighed nothing at all, and he carried her through the door into the back room, where he paused as they passed the couches.

  “Last chance—want to watch a movie?”

  She laughed. “Definitely. Please don’t take me upstairs and make me never want to come down again.”

  “Sweetheart, I guarantee if I take you upstairs right now, I’m the one who’s never going to want to come back down.”

  “Okay.” She smiled, tilting her chin up to kiss him. “I’m good with that.”

  When they reached the top of the stairs, she slid down from his arms, her mouth wide open at the sight of his living quarters. Exposed brick walls led to high ceilings with thick wooden beams, but it was the windows that made her jaw drop.

  Toward the front of the apartment was the kitchen, with a breakfast nook overlooking the town square. It was modern but classic at the same time, with painted-wood cupboards and a huge granite island. But when she turned toward the living area that stretched to the rear of the house, she had a hard time snapping her jaw back into place.

  “Oh, my God.”

  She walked slowly toward arched panes of glass that practically covered the back wall of the living area. Even though it seemed late, the last tendrils of sunset hung onto the mountains in the distance, bathing the room in a soft, golden light.

  Like downstairs, there was a television mounted to the wall, and two big couches framed a soft, thick area rug. Two chaise-type chairs were angled toward the windows at the end of the room, and Emma had a feeling that on the rare occasions when Jasper took a minute to sit down, those chairs were where he did so.

  “This is the prettiest place I’ve ever seen, Jasper.”

  He made a face. “Not exactly what a bachelor wants to hear about his pad.”

  “You can’t walk in here and see that view and not think of that adjective. Not if you’re a human with functioning eyes.”

  “Fine.” He rolled his. “The view’s all right.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  He smiled. “Hell, no. This view’s what sold me on the idea of even taking on the café downstairs. I saw this window and I was done for. Figured I could learn how to make coffee.”

  “Was it all like this when you bought it? Or did you remodel?”

  “I did some projects, but the former owner had gone right through it a couple of years before I came along, so it was in pretty amazing shape already.” He motioned her toward an archway in the wall to her right. “Want to see the rest?”

  “Only if you were serious about never letting me leave, because I’m pretty sure I could be happy here.” She stopped, closing her eyes. “I mean—I just meant, because it’s so nice, not because—oy.”

  She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She was going to scare the man into thinking she was ready to move in, for God’s sake, and he barely knew her.

  Jasper smiled gently. “I think I might have to get you out on at least one more trail ride before I ask you to move in. I’m an old-fashioned guy, after all.”

  “Very funny. You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “I know. And I love that you love my place.” He took her hand. “Come see the best part.”

  When she walked into his bedroom, she was pretty sure she’d entered some version of Montana
heaven. It was huge, with a window that mirrored the one in the living room, and the way the king-sized bed was positioned meant the first thing he’d see every morning was that mountain view.

  “How exactly do you get out of bed in the morning?” She crossed the plush carpet to the floor-to-ceiling window, draped with sheer panels. “I would seriously want to lie here all day long, every day, just looking out this window.”

  He walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her and resting his chin on her head. “It’s a tough life. I know it.”

  “It’s gorgeous, Jasper. I feel like I’m in some sort of resort hotel.”

  “Wait till you see the bathroom.” He chuckled. “And before you do see it, it’s the room I haven’t had time to touch yet.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  He slid his hands down her arms, then led her toward yet another arched doorway. When she stepped inside, her eyes went wide as she scanned the enormous, marble-tiled room. It had to be ten feet wide by twenty feet long, with an enormous sunken tub and a walk-in shower with what looked like twenty jets.

  “Um,” she muttered, unsure of what to say. “This is some bathroom.”

  He laughed. “I swear, they spent more money remodeling this than they spent on the entire café downstairs.”

  “If you just installed a fridge in that corner, you could pretty much live in here.”

  “Right? It’s twice the size of my college apartment.”

  Emma spun slowly in the middle of the room, then looked up. “There’s a chandelier.”

  “This is what I’m talking about.”

  She laughed. The place was so ostentatious, so ridiculous, that she could picture a woman in full gown and heels getting ready for a night at the Oscars right here at the triple sink.

  “Who puts in a triple sink?”

  “I have no idea.” He shook his head. “But eventually I’ll make it look like someone other than a Hollywood starlet lives here, because if anyone saw this bathroom, my rep would be shredded.”

  Emma looked at him, standing lounged against the doorframe in his perfectly worn jeans, a white T-shirt and open flannel one over it—the same kind of outfit she’d seen him in every time she’d run into him since she’d been here—and she laughed. She couldn’t help it.

  “It’s not that funny.”

  “Oh, it’s funny. There you are, all just-a-normal-coffee-guy, ma’am, pouring your brew and making small talk downstairs. And upstairs lurks a princess bathroom complete with pink marble. It’s most definitely funny.”

  “Well, here’s the thing, Miss Winthrop.” He pushed away from the doorframe and walked toward her, framing her hips with his hands when he got to her. “You can laugh now, but maybe later we’ll try that shower. Or maybe the tub. Did you see how many jets there are in that tub?”

  She shook her head slowly, feeling heat careen through her veins. “No,” she whispered.

  He brought one of her hands to his lips, then kissed each finger gently, one after the other, with delicate, deliberate, torturous precision.

  “There are a lot of them. And there are a lot of buttons to control them. We can spend all night figuring out what you like best.”

  “Oh.” She gulped as he took her index finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it as he sucked gently.

  “Come on, sweetheart.” He undid the top button of her shirt, kissing her eyelids. “It appears that you have way too many clothes on.”

  Chapter 21

  The next morning, as Jasper unlocked the café door, Liam was the first one to lumber in, even though he had a perfectly good coffeemaker at his own place.

  “Mornin’,” he said, smiling. “Little late with the door, aren’t we?”

  Jasper looked at his wrist, then shook his head. His watch must still be upstairs. “Slept through the alarm.”

  “Uh-huh.” Liam slid onto one of the barstools while Jasper tried to double-time getting the percolators going. The pre-church crowd would be here any minute, and he had exactly zero coffee to serve any of them. “Any special reason we’re suddenly sleeping through alarms, when this door has been opened at the crack of five-thirty every day for four years now?”

  Jasper turned away from him, scooping beans and measuring water. “Just tired.”

  Yeah, tired. That’s what it was.

  And he would be, later. But right now, after a night with Emma, all he felt was a ridiculous, heady mix of lust and satisfaction and…fun. After so long, it should have felt uneasy, or nerve-wracking, or just—hell—maybe a relief, but when they’d finally fallen asleep around four o’clock, he’d done so with a smile on his face and a stomach that actually ached from laughter.

  It was so…easy with Emma. So sweet and tender and holy-shit hot, but she had a lightness about her that had made it all seem…right.

  “Hey, Romeo?” Liam’s voice jolted him. “You gonna put those beans in the grinder? Or you gonna sniff them till you wake up?”

  Jasper shook his head and dumped the beans, pressing the button to effectively drown out anything further Liam might say. Then he stopped the grinder.

  “What’d you just call me?”

  Liam raised his eyebrows. “Dumbass, I think.”

  “Yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “That.”

  “Well, I mean, there I am last night doing my rounds at the store, making sure everything’s locked up tight, and I look across to this place and see somebody’s rental car out front, and I say, ‘Huh. Must be the trail ride went pretty well, if they’re still out at Whisper Creek at nine o’clock at night.’ And then, I get up an hour ago and head out for a run, and what do you know? Same car. Still here.” He shrugged. “So, I mean, questions occur.”

  “Maybe I dropped her back at the hotel.”

  “Maybe.” Liam nodded like he was weighing the possibility against others. “But maybe you’ve got a stupid smile on your face that you can’t tamp down even though you’re trying. So maybe you’ve been up all frigging night with Emma, and maybe you’re pretty happy about that turn of events, and maybe you just want to come out and say so.”

  “Nah.”

  “Fine. Give me some coffee and I’ll be on my way, then.”

  “Good.” Jasper rolled his eyes as he slid a mug across the counter. “And who hired you to be neighborhood watch, anyway?”

  “I volunteered.” Liam sipped his coffee, then made a face. “Shit, this is terrible. What’d you do?”

  Jasper pulled down a mug of his own and tasted it, then practically spit it out. What had he done?

  Liam laughed as he slid the mug across the bar. “Might want to call in your teenagers to work this morning. You’re gonna kill someone with that tar.”

  “Shut up.”

  Jasper moved as fast as he could, dumping the carafes he’d already brewed, then opening the beans to start over.

  “Hey, Jasper?”

  Jasper looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “You need the money you’ll take in this morning?”

  “Huh?”

  Liam walked to the door and winked as he flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, then pulled open the door and locked it before he stepped out.

  “There. You’re closed. Go back to bed, man.”

  —

  Late that afternoon, Emma turned down the long, curving driveway that led to Whisper Creek, crickets doing gymnastics in her stomach. Jasper had previously offered to help Cole out with some sort of overnight-trail-ride thing, so she’d headed back to her hotel after a long, long morning in bed. But the longer she’d sat there in the industrial chair, looking at the industrial bed and industrial bureau, the more she’d itched to get out of there.

  Before she knew it, she’d been headed right back to Whisper Creek, a tingly ask-forgiveness-later plan forming in her gut. She couldn’t spend ten more weeks in that hotel room, not when there was a place like this just five miles away.

  She parked out in front of the main lodge, and before she’d even gotten out, Kyla
came hopping down the steps.

  “Wow! Nice car! That can’t be one of Smitty’s rentals.”

  Emma smiled, practically petting the powder-blue car. “No. My rental conked out in front of Jasper’s this morn—last night. He had this one in his garage, so he said I could use it.”

  “Re-eally.” Kyla nodded, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “It kind of looks more like a you-car than a Jasper-car, don’t you think?”

  “Yes!” Emma laughed. “I was just thinking that!”

  It was a gorgeous car, with its gleaming paint job and cute round headlights. It was a convertible, even, so it’d probably be useless in snow, but it sure was fun to drive on a sunny, 75-degree day.

  “So are you here for another ride? Because I’m sure we could get somebody saddled up for you.”

  “Actually,” Emma took a deep breath, “I was wondering if maybe, possibly, you might have any guest rooms free? I know you’re probably booked solid, and this is totally out of the blue, but I just can’t help asking.”

  “Better views here than your hotel room?” Kyla winked.

  “By views, you mean—”

  “The mountains, obviously.” She smiled, motioning Emma toward the lodge. “Come on in. Let me see what we can do.”

  Emma felt her stomach go jittery at the possibility of actually living here, on this glorious property, for the next little while. Kyla hadn’t said no, so maybe, maybe Emma could call one of those sweet little cabins home for the next couple of months?

  “Ma, look who’s here!” Kyla called as they walked into the kitchen. “Emma’s wondering if we might be able to put her up here for the rest of her stay.”

  Ma turned from the sink, her hands soapy and her cheeks pink. “Really, now? You willing to put up with this crew for that long?”

  Emma laughed. “Absolutely.”

  “Because if I give you a deal on a cabin—which I’ll do because Bette’s one of my best friends—I’ll expect some labor in return.”

  “Oh. Okay?” Emma nodded carefully. When in the world would she have time to work here, as well as at the nursing home? “What kind of labor?”