“Your guests are going to love it here,” Ryder said. “I’m surprised no one tried to turn the place into an inn before now.”
“No one wanted to go up against Todd Ellis and Heart Springs Eternal Spa and Resort. In fact, I’ve heard that when anyone tried to open their own B&B or inn that he highly discouraged them.”
Ryder stiffened. “Has he done that to you?”
“Not yet. Other than, I believe it was him who talked to Milo Greer about not giving me the loan. I don’t have any proof of it, but Colette told me she overheard them talking at Pulse Café and my name came up in conversation the day of my appointment. Seems suspicious enough to me.” Colette had worked for Wild Log Homes with Ryder’s dad for decades now and had been a good friend of her mother’s since Gabi could remember.
“That bastard. If you have any problems, and I mean anything suspicious, you contact me and I’ll take care of Ellis.”
She almost asked who should she call, Dare or Ryder? “I can take care of my own problems.”
“Gabriella,” Ryder said her name in a warning tone that caused her body to shiver not unpleasantly.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big girl.”
“Believe me, I’ve noticed,” Ryder said under his breath.
“You have, have you?” She pushed the picnic basket out of the way, where Ryder had placed it between them, and leaned closer. “Prove it.”
His green eyes went turbulent. She shouldn’t push him, shouldn’t put him in this position, but then he shouldn’t have pretended to be Dare.
He regarded her warily. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Based on that earlier kiss, I think it’s a great idea.” She leaned in closer until her lips were a breath away from his. “Kiss me, Ryder.”
Chapter 3
Ryder groaned, unable to resist Gabriella. His shields were at critical, spending the evening with her, exchanging ideas, her brushing up against him, her sweet, fruity scent of plumeria weaving a spell over him.
Just one more kiss.
Didn’t he deserve to treat himself for the restraint he’d shown so far? Dare had put him in this situation to begin with. It served him right if Ryder had another taste of Gabriella.
Her lips were right there under his, it would take nothing to—
Screw it.
He snaked his hand into her hair and captured her mouth, groaning at the connection that set his body on fire. He could become addicted to her. Hell, he was already on his way.
She opened like a hot house flower, her tongue entering his mouth and dancing a tango with his. Before he knew it, he had her prone on the deck, his body pressing into the sweet softness of hers, and his hand inching up the fabric of her dress, stroking those gorgeous legs he’d only gotten a peek of as the fabric flirted around her as she moved.
Her skin felt like silk, and he wanted to strip her naked and have her right here, right now.
“Yes,” she whispered against his lips as though answering his unspoken thought. Then she pushed at his shoulders, and rolled him over, straddling his hips, giving him easy access to all that delicious skin under her loose-fitted sundress.
“God, Gabriella,” he growled against her mouth, his hands cupping her backside, his finger sliding under the elastic of her panties.
“Yes, Ryder, touch me.”
Ryder.
She called him Ryder, not once, but twice now.
Holy shit.
He froze, the fog blanketing his ability to think straight clearing as though a frigid wind blew across his thoughts.
How long had she known?
He realized where his hands were, what filled his palms, his fingers so close to the land of honey all he had to do was dip.
What the hell was he doing? This was his brother’s girl. His twin’s.
Grabbing her hips, he picked her up and set her on the dock, scrambled to his feet, and strode a few feet away, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to goddamn think.
Thinking around Gabriella was something he never did with any measure of success. She muddied the waters. Hell, she did more than that, she’d turned him into a mindless drone with only one goal in mind.
A goal he could never attain.
“How long?” he asked, his voice strangled like he’d sandpapered his vocal cords.
“How long?” she asked, blinking up at him with those bewitching blue eyes of hers.
“How long have you known it was me and not Dare?”
Her sexy, slumberous expression dissipated, and she took her time getting to her feet, smoothing her dress down over her legs, legs he knew would haunt him tonight when he attempted to sleep. If he could sleep at all.
“I’ve known it was you from the minute you said my name,” she admitted. “No one says my name like you do.”
“All this time, and you didn’t let on?”
“I gave you plenty of openings to come clean.”
Had she? When had she?
He tried to think back to their previous conversation. All he could remember was her, how she moved, the lyrical sound of her voice, her enticing smell, and the way she tasted. Christ, the feel of her under him, her lips welcoming him home. His hands itched to touch her again. He quickly stuffed them into the pockets of his jeans to keep from doing just that.
“How far?” he asked. “How far would you have let me go?”
“Do you really want the answer to that?” She cocked a hip.
“Yes. No. Goddamn.” He looked up to the sky hoping to find some sort of divine intervention. The darkening clouds overhead seemed to mock him instead. “Was this all a joke to you?”
“I could ask you the same question. Why did you pretend to be Dare? Do you two get off on switching places, trying to pull the wool over my eyes? Twice now you’ve done this to me. Do you two make a habit of doing this with all the women you date, or just me?”
He swore under his breath. “Believe me, I didn’t want to switch places. And no, we haven’t done this with anyone else.” Well, not another woman one of them were interested in. School teachers, friends and family members, that was another story.
“Then why did you? What makes me so special that you continue to pull this on me?”
“Dare couldn’t make it back from Chatanika in time for your date, and he knew if he canceled on you again that you probably wouldn’t go out with him again.”
“He’s right about that. His chances at another date are slim to none.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she’d consider going out with him instead, but he bit it back in time. He couldn’t poach on Dare’s girl. But then hadn’t he been doing a fair amount of poaching with his hands under her dress? His mouth devouring hers?
Shit, he was in trouble. He’d have to come clean to Dare, and somehow, he needed to make it right with Gabriella. He knew he shouldn’t have agreed to this stunt.
“I’m sorry, Gabriella. Sorry for pretending to be Dare, for my part in this charade. For kissing—”
“You’re seriously going to apologize for kissing me?”
“Yes, I shouldn’t have—”
“Would you shut up? I kissed you first, remember?”
How could he forget?
He narrowed his eyes. “Why did you if you knew I wasn’t Dare?” And did she kiss Dare like she had him? That thought had the dinner they’d just eaten churning in his stomach.
She glanced to the side and took a few seconds seeming to compose her response. “Curiosity, I guess.”
“The twin thing?” He’d had many women wondering what it would be like to be with both him and his brother, even at the same time. Being with Gabriella was the closest he’d ever come.
“No, not the twin thing. I’m not one of those women. Remember the last time you did this, and you kissed me at the end of our date?”
Like he’d ever be able to erase that from his memory.
He nodded, not able to speak.
“We
ll, that kiss blew my mind. I was curious, I guess, if you still could blow my mind.”
Blow her mind? “And?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?”
“Let me put it this way. If you had kissed me as yourself, we’d probably be naked right now.”
Hot damn. His knees went weak. “You shouldn’t tell me that.”
“Why?” She advanced a step toward him. “Does it drive you crazy?”
“Yes,” he growled out.
“Good, because all you’ve ever done is drive me crazy.”
“Me?” What was she talking about?
“Yes, you. Why haven’t you ever asked me out?”
“A bro doesn’t ask out his bro’s girl.”
“You know Dare isn’t serious about me. We’re good friends who have dated. It’s not like we’re engaged.”
“Be careful with that word. A lot of people are getting engaged in this town lately.” Most of them members of his family thanks to his dad’s meddling. Currently four sisters down. If Jack Wilde caught onto Dare and Gabriella dating, he’d be trying his hand at matchmaking them. Ryder didn’t know if he could survive it if Gabriella became his sister-in-law.
“Dare sure latched onto you the minute he saw you at Zoe’s wedding,” Ryder said.
“And you tucked tail and ran.”
He didn’t like that analogy, but that’s exactly what he’d done.
“In fact, that’s what you always do when you’re around me. Did you ever think that maybe I would prefer to go out with you over Dare?”
“Do you?” Did she?
“I went out with Dare to begin with because he asked me. He doesn’t stand back in the shadows glowering me. That’s right, I’ve seen you. In high school, you would always stay far away from me, but your eyes never left me. And then that night when you kissed me, well, it rocked my world, and then you never talked to me again. You’re a tease, Ryder Wilde.”
“A tease? The hell I am.” He took a few steps toward her before realizing what he was doing and stopped. “What about you? You smell like you do, look like you do, and taste—Christ—you kissed me back.” As arguments went, his sucked.
“Tell you what. I’ll let you off the hook. When you find your backbone and want to follow up the kissing, you know where to find me.” She patted his chest as she walked past him, leaving him standing on the dock feeling like the earth had stopped on its axis and was now spinning counterclockwise.
Chapter 4
Ryder slammed into the converted barn. Dare’s truck was parked out front, which further agitated him since he’d hoped to have more time to compose himself before seeing his absentee brother.
The bottom half of the barn had been turned into a shop where Dare made his custom dog sleds. He’d garnered quite the reputation with his streamlined designs and light-weight materials, his sleds being shipped as far as Lapland in Finland.
Ryder glanced around the workshop. No sign of Dare. He climbed the stairs to the apartment and opened the door into the large, open-concept room that housed a kitchen neither of them really used. The dining table was piled with his blueprints and Dare’s designs since both preferred to eat in front of the feature of the room, the wall-mounted, big-screen TV with the mammoth sectional in the main living space. On opposite ends of the apartment, they each had their own bedroom and private bath.
Dare lay splayed on the couch in front of the blaring tube, a beer in one hand, a bag of salt and vinegar chips opened on his lap, and his faithful husky, Eska, sleeping at his feet.
“How’d it go?” Dare asked, grabbing the remote and turning down the volume of a rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Didn’t matter how many times they’d watched the series—any of the Star Trek series—they never got old.
“She saw right through me.”
Dare sat up, setting the bag of chips to the side and waking Eska, who voiced her displeasure with a low rumble growl. “You’re shitting me?”
“Nope. But she played along until the end of the date.” God, he felt like a fool.
“Is she mad?”
Mad? He wasn’t exactly sure. With Gabriella, he wasn’t sure of anything. “Let’s just say she’s not happy with either of us.”
“Should I head over there and smooth things over?” He rose from the couch to do exactly that.
“Not unless you want your balls delivered to you in a paper bag.”
Dare sat back down, using the bag of chips to shield his groin. “Yeah, I’d prefer that not happen. What did you say to her?”
Say? He’d more than said things to her. “I apologized, but I don’t think it went over that well. Are you serious about her? Or is she just another conquest?”
“Hey, I take offense to that. The women I date are not conquests.”
“Then what the hell are they? Your track record stands for itself.” Out of the two of them, Dare was definitely more of the player. “So, what is it with Gabriella? You toying with her?”
“We just enjoy each other’s company. What’s with the third degree? You didn’t kiss her again, did you?” He sat up straighter. “Damn it to hell, Ryder.”
I more than kissed her, he almost said and then something stopped him. He’d had his hands all over her, and God help him, he wanted them all over her again. Part of him urged himself to come clean, but not wanting to get into a fist fight tonight had him keeping quiet. “She kissed me, thinking I was you.”
Wait, that wasn’t true. She said she’d known it was him when she’d kissed him. Some feeling he couldn’t name filled his chest at the realization.
“Yeah?” Dare cocked a smile. “Damn, I wish I’d been there for that. She’s got a damn pretty mouth.”
Ryder was suddenly glad Dare hadn’t been there to receive Gabriella’s kiss. In fact, he didn’t want Dare anywhere near Gabriella. “I don’t think you should see her anymore.”
“Why? Is she really that upset?”
He wanted to say yes but knew Dare would hightail it over to her place if he did. One thing about Dare, he didn’t procrastinate or stand down from a challenge. He faced life head on, regardless of the danger or consequences. Their dad had nicknamed him Wild Streak, and Dare was exactly that. You never knew what he’d do. Even Ryder—with their twin connection—usually had a good idea what Dare was thinking, but when he got into his streaky mood, all bets were off.
“It might be a good idea to give her some time to cool off. I doubt she wants to see either of us any time soon.” And he needed some time to figure out his next move. Because God help him, he wanted to be with her again. Even if it was only to help fix up her inn. He owed her that at least for his part in the charade. But could he help her out and keep his hands off her?
He very much doubted it.
Chapter 5
Gabriella wiped the sweat from her brow. She’d been deep cleaning the cabin since early that morning. Every muscle in her body ached. She considered herself in fairly good shape. She loved to swim, surf, and hike, preferring to spend her time outdoors every chance she got. Who knew housekeeping would kick her butt more than a five-mile run?
Luckily, she wasn’t alone to clean the whole place herself. Her sister Morgan and her brother Derek were helping her out. Morgan had taken the upstairs, Derek the great room and dining room, and she had the seventies’ kitchen. Music blared from the boom box Derek had brought over, refusing to work without tunes. And she agreed.
She was the oldest of five and preferred having noise around her. It felt spooky if things were too quiet. Plus, her dad was loud, along with her sisters who loved to talk over each other. Her mother had to scream most of the time to be heard above the ruckus. Derek had surprisingly been the quietest of the Waterman bunch. Though he’d made a loud splash when he’d come out of the closet recently and informed everyone that he was not only gay, and planned to design women’s clothes, but also relocate to New York in the fall.
/> There had been some adjustment with the announcements, tears from her mother, yelling from her father, but she and her sister Morgan had taken the news in stride, having suspicions about Derek’s sexuality all along. Her two younger sisters Bailey and Harper, ages twelve and fourteen, were too much into their own pre-teen life to pay much attention when it didn’t affect them directly. She’d sure be glad when they grew out of that phase. She could only tolerate being around them and their drama in short spurts. She much preferred hanging with Morgan and Derek with their middle-child-willing-to-please attitudes.
Currently she was on her knees scrubbing the oven, wondering why she bothered when she’d hopefully be demoing the kitchen soon. But then if the bids came in too high, she might have to make do with the old kitchen.
She’d moved herself into the master bedroom that morning. It had been impossible staying at her parents’ house. Her dad treated her like a little kid again, and her mom wanted her to chauffeur Bailey and Harper everywhere. She’d lived on her own for five years. No way was she going back to curfews and chores and parents butting into her life every few minutes.
She had a business to get up and running. It made sense to move in so that she could devote all her time to it. Her dad wasn’t happy about the situation, preferring to have all his chicks under one roof. The only ones who seemed happy were Bailey and Harper. They were ecstatic because with her out of the house, they didn’t have to share a room.
“Gabi, you have company!” Derek hollered over Imagine Dragons belting out Radioactive.
Company? She wasn’t in the mood to see anyone. She was busy, damn it. Getting to her feet and stripping off the rubber gloves she wore to protect her hands from the harsh cleansers, she entered the great room to find Dare with a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Derek turned down the boom box and then pretended to get back to work, while he covertly watched their exchange.
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