Can't Fight This Feeling (Cabin Fever)

by Christie Ridgway

  Then he was right outside it. In the minuscule glow of the penlight she had in her hand, he could make out parts of her as she moved about the den. The dark pools of her eyes. The elegant line of her small nose. The dip above her bowed upper lip. Without a hesitation, he rapped on the glass.

  Jumping, she shrieked. He could see the sharp sound of surprise on her startled face, which jerked his way, feel the vibration of it in his fingers, which were pressed flat on the pane.

  She trained the light on him. He smiled at her. Toothily, he supposed, because she came toward the window at a wary pace until there was only a couple of inches between them.

  And yet they were still worlds apart.

  “Hey, baby,” he said. “Why don’t you let me in?”

  * * *

  ANGELICA RODRIGUEZ STARED through the glass into the early evening darkness and cursed fate.

  She’d been doing a lot of that lately, as the very foundation of her life had cracked and then fallen away in the past few days. Some cheery—and at times annoying—inner voice kept reminding her to see this situation as an opportunity, but it sure didn’t feel that way when the man who had disliked her at first sight was now staring her down.

  The man who, from first sight, she’d liked entirely too much.

  “Let me in,” he said again.

  Um, no. It didn’t seem wise to be too close to him when all her defenses were in this rocky state. So she smiled and waved both hands in a gesture that was supposed to communicate that she didn’t need him around or that she couldn’t exactly hear him or perhaps she was just too busy for a chat...anything that would get him moving along so she could sneak out of the house where she wasn’t supposed to be in the first place.

  She turned away from the window to scoop up the papers she’d left on the desk and he rapped again.

  Like a demand.

  Holding on to her cool, she glanced over her shoulder. There he was, thirtyish, muscled and a bit threatening-looking, even though in the darkness she could only see his bulk and not those very fascinating scars on his face. One slashed through his brow to his hairline. Another crossed the bridge of his nose.

  Angelica had never found the courage to ask him about them.

  He jerked his thumb in the direction of the back door that led to the lake-view terrace. “Open up.”

  The sounds of the words were not hampered by the glass, but she sure as heck wasn’t going to obey! Past June she would have opened up to him. She’d wanted to, and she’d been rebuffed enough times that it embarrassed her to count them. It had been amazing to her, how drawn she’d been to him then. For a woman who had a lousy history with the opposite sex—lousy enough that she was relatively inexperienced when it came to them—she was surprised to find Brett Walker brought out a different side of her.

  The idea of kissing him had consumed her instead of making her cringe. The sensation of his arms around her was something she’d wanted, not wanted to run away from.

  Now she didn’t have time for fantasy. She had a real life she needed to build for herself.

  His mouth moved again, four syllables that she thought he might never have said aloud before. “Angelica—”

  Twisting away from the sound, from him, she moved forward at the same time...and tripped over a trash can beside the desk. That sick sense of falling lasted only milliseconds. Then her palms slammed to the hardwood, preserving her nose from a flattening. The penlight she’d held rolled away, dashing light on the floor and baseboards.

  Adrenaline was still shooting through her system when she heard him knocking on the window again. Ignoring it, she got to her knees and breathed, trying to slow her heartbeat. She shook out her hands.

  Cursed fate. Her own clumsiness.

  The knobs on the back door rattled. She glanced through the den’s open doorway, past the kitchen to the terrace. He was standing out there now, looking even bigger than before. More menacing. Impatient.

  His fist pounded on the glass and it sounded so loud she worried the noise of it might carry across the lake and alert the sheriff’s department or the private security force. On a sigh, she clambered to her feet and approached the French doors.

  She turned the lock and inched one open, prepared to tell him to go away.

  He pushed, forcing himself inside.

  In retreat, her feet tripped again, and she thought she might go down once more. Brett Walker grabbed her by the elbow to steady her. “Are you all right?”

  She wrenched her arm away. “I’m fine.” Deciding offense was the best defense, she scowled at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw your flashlight moving around and decided to investigate. Power out?”

  “No—” she started, but it was too late. He’d flipped on the closest switch. She squinted as the overhead lighting blazed on. “Please turn that off. The glare gives me a headache,” she lied.

  He instantly turned it off, surprising her. “Sorry,” he said, his voice going softer. “Do you get migraines? My mother did. I know it’s hell.”

  Guilt stabbed. “Um...well.” She couldn’t think of what else to say as her brain became occupied with the notion that handsome, sexy, manly man Brett Walker had a mother. It seemed as if he should have been carved from a giant redwood. Hewn from a granite mountain outcropping. Fallen from the sky like a meteor to dazzle humanity.

  Of course, she’d met his sister Shay—beautiful—but to think of Brett with a parent meant he’d once been a boy. It boggled the mind.

  Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness again and she saw one corner of his full mouth hitch in a sort-of semblance of a smile. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “I’m having a hard time picturing you as someone’s little kid.”

  “I was a typical one. Too loud, hated taking baths, relished teasing my younger sisters.”

  It was the most conversation he’d ever had with her. She resisted the urge to hold the words close to her chest. The time for being thrilled over a tête-à-tête with Brett Walker was gone. More important matters should be occupying her mind.

  The next thing she knew, he had hold of one of her forearms. “What?” she said, instinct causing her to try tugging free.

  His clasp was gentle but firm. “Checking for damage. You went down hard. Not uncommon to sprain a finger that way. Break your wrist.”

  He was running a warm, callous hand over her, from fingertips to wrist in a calming gesture. Inside she was quivering. On the outside, she kept still as he moved each finger individually, then rotated her wrist. “Hurt anywhere?”

  She shook her head. He let that arm go, only to take up the other one. His thumb stroked the tender inside of her wrist, where the veins seemed to be scrambling like every clear thought in her head. She was pure sensation: hot skin, thrumming pulse, a heartbeat loud in her ears.

  The edge of his thumb traced the outside of hers, then probed the triangle of flesh between it and her forefinger. “Tender?”

  She shook her head. That was him, his ministrations so gentle they made her ache.

  “Sensitive?”

  This time she nodded, because his touch made her so aware of the difference between the two of them. He was hard male; she was soft female. He could be the port she needed in the current storm that was her life. One move would put her against him, and she could cling to all that muscled strength. Lean on him to hold her up.

  But men had only disappointed her before, and remembering that, she snapped back to reality and stepped away.

  Brett’s eyes narrowed, which reminded her again that he didn’t even like her. “You could have a snuffbox injury—scaphoid fracture—if you’re in pain there.”

  “I’m fine,” she said again. “Really.”

  He studied her face. “What’s going on?”

  My father has been arrested for fraud. Our family properties have been confiscated and all his accounts have been frozen. Before being taken into custody, my dad siphoned off all my personal monies saved fro
m my time modeling and from my trust, and he put them who knows where or used them for who knows what. I have no place to live, no money to live on, and I broke into my former home so I could collect some things beyond the clothes on my back.

  “My father’s putting this place up for sale,” she said, lying again.

  Brett’s gaze ran around the gourmet kitchen, where copper pans hung from a rack and spices were lined up on a shelf. He looked at the couches and chairs in the adjacent family room. “With all this stuff inside?”

  “Uh-huh. Will add to the value as a very famous interior designer picked out everything from the paint colors to the window coverings to the custom furnishings.”

  His mouth curled. “I just bet.”

  It wasn’t as if she’d expected him to be impressed. “Anyway, there was a mix-up and I didn’t get a chance to pack my suitcases or retrieve my passport from the safe in the den.”

  “That is a headache,” he said, though she wasn’t sure he accepted that as a logical explanation for why she was skulking around.

  She smiled anyway. “So...I’m just going to make a quick trip upstairs and dump a few things in a bag. The rest I’ll get another day.” Without taking her eyes off him, she moved backward, heading in the direction of the stairs. “See you around.”

  He prowled toward her. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No!” She swallowed, modulating her voice. “No, no. You don’t need to do that.” While months ago she might have swooned at the idea of having him in her bedroom, now wasn’t the time to have him in there, distracting her.

  “I’ve seen women’s underwear before,” he said.

  Of course he had. “Not my underwear.” Curses! That had come out a little...throaty. Flirtatious even.

  One of his brows winged up. “I’ll close my eyes when you go through that particular drawer.”

  She’d reached the bottom of the staircase and put one hand on the newel. “This is completely unnecessary—”

  “It’s completely necessary. There have been burglaries in the area. I don’t feel right leaving you here alone.”

  “You didn’t worry about me being alone all summer,” she retorted, then felt her cheeks go hot. That sounded like a complaint from a silly woman with an even sillier crush. “Never mind,” she muttered, and turned to stomp up the stairs. Arguing would only prolong this whole embarrassing encounter.

  Still trying to do her business without attracting the attention of anyone who knew she shouldn’t be in the house, she only allowed herself to turn on the closet light. If Brett wondered about that and why she pulled the curtains across her windows first, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he just stood in the middle of her rug, hands in his pockets, while she hurriedly packed two suitcases and gathered up her toiletries from the bathroom and put them in a smaller bag.

  The only noise he made was when she tried to stack all three pieces of luggage in preparation for wheeling them out the door. “You can’t take them down the stairs that way,” he said. One went under his arm, the other he gripped in his right hand, the third he took up in his left. “This all?”

  “Yes.” She gritted her teeth and tried sounding gracious. “Thanks.” For months she’d wanted a bit of his attention and now it was coming at the lowest point of her life when she couldn’t even enjoy it.

  Maybe because he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.

  Great.

  They made it outside and she locked up after setting the alarm. The key went into her pocket instead of its hiding place behind the mailbox. She’d return it later.

  Brett didn’t comment as he followed her to her car, which she’d parked down the road. If he asked why she’d avoided the driveway...

  She hadn’t a clue. Trying to think up some excuse only gave her the beginnings of that headache she’d laid claim to earlier.

  He must have seen it. Because after placing her things in the trunk of her car, he studied her face with a new intensity. “Cool compress on your forehead. Pain relievers,” he said. “Rest.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have someone to take care of you?”

  No. I realize now I never have. “Sure.”

  “Okay.” Still, he hesitated. “You’re certain everything’s okay? There’s nothing I should know about?”

  He’d never wanted to know anything about her. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He touched one fingertip to her cheek. “Because if I find out differently, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  AT BLUE ARROW LAKE’S Hallett Hardware, Angelica stood at the rear, stocking lightbulbs, her tension unwinding with every minute she arranged the cardboard boxes on the shelves. Working at her part-time job was one of the few things that made her feel at peace these days. She’d taken the job before the financial disaster as a lark to help out her friend Glory Hallett when the other woman had lost an employee.

  There was something soothing about unpacking cartons. The task was defined. It had purpose. A customer would come in, needing a 40-watt candelabra bulb, and she’d know exactly where to direct them. Better, she could convince them that the more expensive energy-efficient halogen bulb would be the best choice. Yes, more expensive in the short-term, but in the long run a smarter selection for both economic and environmental reasons.

  She supposed some people would laugh themselves sick at the idea of Angelica Rodriguez—she of fancy boarding schools and an expensive women’s college—enjoying work at a hardware store, but it was the first time she’d ever actually earned a paycheck.

  Well, there was the modeling she’d done as a youngster, which had paid ridiculously well, but those gigs had been arranged by her mother, and she’d been so self-conscious as she grew older that when she turned twelve the photographer’s assistant had started giving her mojitos before a shoot. The hangovers had been hell, so she’d started packing on the pounds until she’d lost her shot at a modeling career.

  Turned out she never grew tall enough anyway.

  The smell of rum and doughnuts still made her nauseous, though.

  “What’s that face for?”

  Angelica swung around to see Glory coming down the aisle.

  “What did that indoor floodlight ever do to you?”

  Angelica smiled at her friend. They were opposites in practically everything. While she was tallish—though not tall enough for worldwide fame and European runways—Glory was petite. Angelica’s long, brunette hair and dark eyes were nothing like Glory’s short blond feathers and big blues. Until now, Angelica had led a fairly useless life, while Glory had been working at the family hardware store since she was old enough to push a broom and weigh a brown paper bag of nails. They’d struck up a conversation when she’d come browsing at the store one rainy spring weekend and just...clicked. Upon her return for her summer stay, she’d revisited the store and over one coffee and then a lunch, a friendship had fully formed. “The bulb is innocent. I was just mulling over my life.”

  Glory frowned. “What’s happened now?”

  “Nothing new.”

  “Did you get your clothes?”

  Angelica nodded. “Last night.” She decided against mentioning her run-in with Brett Walker. Glory didn’t know about that silly crush she’d suffered, and there was no reason to tell her now. Away from the house where he landscaped on a weekly basis—she had no idea whether the authorities would have him continue the service—she’d likely never see him again.

  Because if I find out differently, there’ll be hell to pay.

  It had been a macho-man parting shot, that’s all. He wouldn’t care enough to find out any more about her or her situation. His complete disinterest all summer had made that abundantly clear.

  “I wish you’d come live with me,” Glory said.

  “No, no. You have that adorable one-bedroom cottage that is perfect for you...but not you and me. I’ve got that room at the Bluebird. They have reasonable weekly rental rates.”

  If you had more money comi
ng in.

  She didn’t say that, but perhaps Glory could read minds. “I wish I could offer you more hours,” she said.

  “Please.” Angelica touched her friend’s arm. “I’m grateful for what I have. I’m here in the mountains, far from the limelight of the financial press.”

  “They’ll be looking for you, you think?”

  “Probably. Yes. I was warned about it by the lawyers, anyway.” There was precedent for the families of fraudsters being hounded. Daddy, how could you? she thought now. Reporters—and those he’d swindled—would want to know the answer to that question, too, and she didn’t have one. At his insistence, after college she’d gone back to their home in LA, where she’d been a hostess for his business soirees for a couple of years. But as time went on, he’d become increasingly reclusive.

  He’d never shared the why of that or the what for. The man had never made it a secret that he’d wanted a boy and that her gender was a great disappointment to him. Though she’d excused it as a cultural and generational thing, they’d never been close.

  He’d been her dad, though. And she’d been dutiful, always seeking his approval, she saw now, instead of her own brand of happiness.

  Glory picked out another package from the carton and stared down at it. “No word from your mom, either?”

  “Not one. Likely traveling around Europe or Asia with Hubby Number Four.” Angelica watched her friend frown, knowing that she’d find this baffling, too. While Glory was an only child like Angelica, her parents were still married to each other and lived in relative contentment in their beloved mountains.

  Which were becoming beloved to Angelica, as well. “I’m happy to be here,” she told Glory again. “It’s going to be okay for me.” As soon as she managed to build a new life.

  “I—” But what her friend was about to say was interrupted by the sound of the bell on the door. “We’ll talk later,” she said, and headed toward the front of the store.

  Angelica hoped not. Hashing and rehashing the particulars of her sucky current situation would only pierce the bubble of peace she’d found in Hallett’s. During her shift, she wanted the most difficult thing she tackled to be the box of misplaced goods that required reshelving.