by Cassie Hayes
“They didn’t own anything in Arizona. My dad paid for school costs but said I needed to get a job if I wanted any money for extracurricular activities. Said it would build character.”
“Did it?”
“You tell me.” He grinned and winked at her, sending a thrill all the way to the tips of her toes.
Was Spike Robertson actually flirting with her? With her? She blushed at the thought, giddy and a little horrified at the same time. She was pretty sure he didn’t know all the sordid details of her past, or he wouldn’t be flirting. Maybe that was okay. Maybe she deserved to have one of the cutest guys in Silver Springs show her a little positive attention for once.
“You turned out okay,” she conceded.
He raised an eyebrow, and leaned in close to her. “Just okay?”
A hint of his natural scent surrounded her like a warm blanket she could snuggle in all day. It reminded her of vanilla with a touch of cinnamon. Like something she’d smelled before, but couldn’t quite…
Amy snorted a laugh, her hand flying to her mouth, totally mortified. “I’m sorry, I just thought… Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
He grinned as if he didn’t have a care in the world. And why would he? He was Spike Roberts.
“It’s just… Good grief, this is stupid. Please don’t make me say it!”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll drag you back up the wall.”
“Not that!” she mock-screamed and waved her hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. You smell like…eggnog.”
She loved the depth of his laugh, as if it rumbled up from the center of the earth. The skin around his eyes crinkled and his perfect white teeth gleamed in the small office’s stark fluorescent light. Her heart thudded like thunder and she wondered if he could hear it. If only Spike had asked her out instead of Dick—
Uh oh. That kind of thinking could only lead to heartache. Spike Roberts had been a world-class player since high school, and so had all of his buddies. Guys like them didn’t settle down, at least not with girls like her. She’d learned that from painful experience. Whatever was going on here needed to be nipped in the bud. She had more important things to consider than her battered ego. Ethan deserved a father figure who would stick around and not give in to his own childish desires to play.
Leaping to her feet, she moved quickly to the door before he — or his toffee-colored gaze — could change her mind.
“Thanks for helping me today, Spike, but I’d better get home,” she said, her voice quavering even more now than it did after she came down from the wall. “Bye!” Spike barely had time to look up in surprise before she was out the door, and headed for her car.
Once inside the old beater, with the heater actually working for once, she sighed in relief.
“That was close,” she muttered, her breath fogging in the chilly March air.
Not nearly close enough, a little voice in her head disagreed.
2
The vivid blue of the morning sky nearly seared Spike’s retinas. The air was so clear at this altitude smog couldn’t touch it, not that there was much of it being produced on the less-populated Western Slope of the Rockies anyway. Patches of old snow were scattered on shady areas of lawn, but the roads were dry.
Every single person who walked down the street tossed him a little wave, and he returned each one, happy to live in such a wonderful place. He’d been born and raised in Silver Springs, and though he loved to travel, he’d always consider this home.
Trundling down Main Street, he passed Bob Roberts Realty, his father’s real estate office. On a whim, he whipped his beautifully battered Jeep Wrangler into a diagonal parking space right out front and sat there for a moment. His dad was on the phone but spotted him. He pointed at his watch, then made a gesture with his hand to call him later.
So much for asking about his cleaning lady.
Not that he was going to. Was he? He hadn’t even planned on stopping, but he hadn’t been able to get Amy out of his head. The way her eyes reminded him of the sky when a summer storm was approaching, and the exhaustion that lingered behind them, which shouldn’t be surprising. After all, she was a single mom with two jobs.
A mom.
Shaking his head, he glanced down the street at Books ’N Beans. His cousin Emma made a mean cup of coffee, but he was eager to get to the office he shared with his partner, Zach, who should be back from the ski trip, and Spike wanted to hear all about it. Besides, they had a coffee maker there, not that he could come close to replicating Emma’s brew. Someday he’d sweet-talk her into telling him her secret, despite her claim she’d take it to her grave.
Two minutes later, he blew into the small storefront which housed Rocky Mountain Adventures. Zach had his head down in an old banana box, searching through the papers that were stored in it. Spike made a beeline for the coffeemaker before even saying hello.
“Morning,” he finally said after pressing the start button.
“Morning to you, Mr. Hero.” Zach shot him an amused look. “Heard you rescued a damsel in distress yesterday. How many does that make now?”
Spike rolled his eyes, though the reminder of Amy made his skin tingle. “You and Trent would have done the same thing.”
“Maybe so, but that kind of thing always seems to happen when you just happen to be there to save the day.”
“Whatever. How’d the trip go?” he asked, desperate to steer the conversation away from his baffling reputation as a hero.
Zach looked up and smiled. “It was great. Trent destroyed that run, but the best part was Jillian.”
“Jillian? I don’t remember booking anyone named Jillian.”
Spike never had trouble attracting the attention of lovely ladies, but Zach rarely approached women when he was working. He was an attractive guy, according to Spike’s many female friends. He was slightly taller than Spike, had short black hair with eyes to match, and was every bit as fit as Spike. He was also quieter and a little more reserved. Not to mention more picky. Spike had no idea what his business partner was looking for in a woman, but he rarely seemed to find it. He could count on one hand the number of girls he’d seen Zach date.
“That’s because you didn’t. She was an instructor I shared a lift with.” He whistled his admiration. “Actually, she reminded me a little of Mike.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Spike laughed as he poured piping hot sludge into his favorite mug.
‘Mike’ was Spike’s twin sister, Michaela, who he suspected Zach had been crushing on her since they were kids, but he always denied it. Not that it mattered. Mike hardly ever came home, except for holidays. As a professional skier, she was either competing somewhere in the world, training to compete, or pursuing sponsorships that would allow her to do the other two.
“Whatever,” Zach mumbled with a huff as he turned back to the stack of papers in the banana box. “Do you remember what you did with the waivers for this trip?”
“They’re around here somewhere,” Spike said, waving an arm around the cluttered space. He slumped into his 1960s-era office chair and moaned at the first sip of sludge. “Aaaah!”
“How can you drink that stuff? It could strip paint.”
“That’s why I like it.”
“You’re always raving about Emma’s coffee, but then you make that toxic waste for yourself.”
Spike shrugged and kicked his feet up on his desk, shoving papers and magazines aside with his foot. Several fell to the floor, but he couldn’t be bothered to pick them up. They were in good company with all the other junk scattered about. A delaminated snowboard was propped in one corner, climbing gear hung from randomly placed nails in the wall, and the whole place smelled a little like…dude. When it didn’t smell like freshly brewed toxic sludge, of course.
“Why do you need the waivers?”
“One of the guys jacked up his knee a little — nothing some ice and rest won’t cure — but just to be sure, I dropped by your uncle’s office this morning
. He said to make sure we didn’t lose the guy’s liability waiver, but I have no idea where to start looking.”
Spike shuffled through the papers that remained on his desk. “Not here.”
Zach glared over at him. “Spike, this is ridiculous. We need to clean this place up. No one does business like this!”
“What? It’s just a little messy.”
“A little! We can’t even find paperwork the clients filled out three days ago. That’s insane.”
“So what do you want to do? Cancel the next two expeditions to organize the office?”
They had an ice climbing trip booked for the next day, and a ten-person ski trip in a few days. That was a lot of scratch to throw away.
“We can’t do that, but we could get someone to help us out.”
That had never occurred to Spike. “Huh… Well, we must know a hundred guys who’d be willing to lend a hand.” He hadn’t even finished speaking before Zach was already shaking his head.
“No, we need someone who won’t bail at the first snowfall or quit to go to Burning Man. Maybe it’s time to actually hire someone.”
“Wait, I thought you liked being— What did you call it? Oh, yeah. Boutique. I thought you liked being a boutique business.”
“I do,” Zach said, then looked around the office again. “But I really think we’re holding ourselves back. It’s been three years, and it’s still just the two of us. We could be so much more. I think we’re doing well enough now that we could bring someone in part-time.”
“I dunno, Zach. We’re just starting to turn a profit.”
Spike had his eye on a shiny, new red Wrangler. If they started paying someone a salary, he might as well kiss his would-be baby goodbye.
“It’s time to invest some of that back into the business. I think we’d end up making even more.”
“How?” Spike had basically majored in partying at Arizona State. Some of the finer points of business were lost on him.
“We hire someone who doesn’t mind cleaning, answering phones, taking reservations, and so on. — all the garbage we obviously hate doing. While they’re dealing with all the office mumbo-jumbo, we’re left with extra time to run more expeditions.”
Spike stopped listening after his first sentence. His mind immediately flashed to a certain gorgeous little brunette who had all the skills Zach just listed, and who felt like a slice of heaven when she was in his arms. Having spent far too many months in college cleaning the slop off plates at the nearby Denny’s, Spike couldn’t stand the thought of Amy on dishwasher duty at Mo’s Diner.
He’d been in that particular greasy spoon a number of times, and though he didn’t know Amy’s mom, he knew Mo. Well, he’d heard Mo…mostly yelling from the kitchen. He made a solid steak and eggs, and whoever made the banana cream pies should be given a medal of honor, but the man’s personality left a lot to be desired. If Spike could offer Amy a way out of that hellhole, she might be grateful. Very grateful.
“Spike? Earth to Spike. What do you think?”
Spike smiled into his mug of sludge and wondered if Amy knew how to make coffee.
“I think I know just the person.”
Amy crammed papers from the recycling bin at Bob Roberts Realty into a bag, punching them down angrily and with great relish. She’d hoped getting mad at herself would bring her to her senses and get her to stop thinking about the way Spike’s gaze had lingered on her lips when she laughed, or how he’d held her just a little too long once they’d reached the floor…after he freaking rescued her!
It didn’t. It only made her think of a hundred more things that attracted her to him such as that crazy-adorable, slightly off-kilter smile that everyone in the Roberts clan seemed to have. She jammed in another handful of paper, trying to smash the image out of her head.
She sighed and plopped down into Bob Roberts’ tufted leather executive chair. It was no use. The only thing to do was admit she had a crush on the gorgeous man who’d come to her rescue and move on. Any other girl on the planet would have felt the same about Spike Roberts — most of them in Silver Springs already had, at one time or another. Now it seemed it was her turn.
Besides, it wasn’t like it would ever go anywhere. Even if he’d thought she was cute — and she couldn’t stop remembering the way his broad hand had skimmed down her back as he released his grip on her — there was no future for them. Ethan was her top priority, her only priority. Men would just have to continue to take a backseat, especially men like Spike.
Sure, their fun-loving ways and spontaneous natures made life exciting, but they weren’t known for reliability or longevity. Even if she allowed herself to succumb to his charms, he’d be gone at the first sign of trouble. There was no doubt about it, Spike Roberts would be very bad for her.
It wasn’t because he was a bad guy. Even though he hadn’t really known she’d even existed back in high school, she knew him better than she should. He and his group of jock buddies left a string of broken hearts behind them, hers included, and from what she could see, the ones who’d stayed in Silver Springs hadn’t changed much. No doubt maturity would come for them at some point, but so far, they’d escaped that fate.
Not that she was complaining. Despite her current circumstances, Ethan was the best thing to ever accidentally happen to her. Until she’d held his tiny, pink body in her arms, his furious wails echoing around the delivery room, she’d never truly known what love was. Until that moment, she’d been terrified by what kind of parent she’d be, but the instant his tiny fingers wrapped around one of hers, she knew she would sacrifice everything for him. She’d happily do whatever it took to give him a better life than she’d had, and without complaint.
As Amy dumped the trash and recycling into the bins behind the office, she marveled at the miracles Ethan had brought to her life. His conception alone had saved one life, and his birth had saved hers. If he kept that up, he’d be a world-renowned doctor by the time he was thirty.
In fact, that’s why she’d worked two jobs — sometimes more — since she’d peed on that stick. College wasn’t getting any cheaper. What she’d saved so far wouldn’t pay for a single term at a community college, but she had thirteen more years to go. Hopefully, she’d find something that paid better than Mo’s, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Locking the back door, she stopped for a bathroom break before heading to her next client. As she washed her hands, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Most of the hair she’d pulled back in a ponytail had worked free and stuck out at odd angles. She tried mashing it down with her damp hands, but the dry, mountain air just set it on end again. Dark circles sat heavy under her eyes, a testament to how exhausted she was after a long day of washing dishes, and now cleaning offices. A touch of makeup might have hidden them, but she found cluttered desks and garbage cans never seemed to care what she looked like.
Her reflection was a harsh reminder that guys like Spike and his crew didn’t date cleaning ladies carrying a four-foot, fifty-pound piece of baggage. Especially if they couldn’t climb a stupid rock wall.
Amy splashed some water on her face, grabbed her bucket of cleaning supplies, and locked the front door behind her. Bob Roberts had been a client for almost five years. He’d been very kind to her when she needed it most, and she’d never forget it.
Turning toward her beat-up old Ford Taurus, her heart leaped into her throat. The man leaning against the car parked next to hers startled her, but it only took the blink of an eye to recognize him.
Spike.
Her heart fluttered at the sight of him, then it pounded, as she remembered the sight of her. She tried to melt into the shadows, but he’d spotted her. There was no escaping a humiliation worse than getting stuck on a climbing wall.
“I was hoping I’d catch you,” he said, his breath floating up in clouds of white.
She fumbled around in her pocket and tugged a red beanie over her disobedient hair. “How long have you been waiting? It’s pr
etty cold out here.”
“It’s not even below freezing,” he said with a grin. “I just climbed an ice face today. This is practically balmy.”
He shrugged out of his puffy down coat and draped it over her shoulders, which were covered only by a thin, wool coat she’d bought at the thrift store a couple of years earlier. His distinctive scent hit her nose, and she smiled. She’d never drink eggnog again without thinking of Spike.
“Thanks.”
If he kept being all chivalrous, she was going to have a really hard time not daydreaming about him.
“My pleasure,” he said, taking her bucket from her hand. When their fingers touched, a little zap of static electricity sparked between them. Because…of course it would.
“Amy, I have a little proposition for you.”
She shot him a suspicious look. “Oh, really?”
“Nothing lewd, sad to say,” he laughed. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in working for me.”
Amy stopped mid-step in total shock. “Excuse me?”
“I want to offer you a job.”
It took a minute for her befuddled brain to untangle his words. Then it hit her. He wanted to hire her as a cleaning lady because…of course he would. Why this saddened her beyond all comprehension was a mystery.
“Oh, okay. I have a rate schedule for cleaning in my car. Let me just—“
“Not a once a week cleaning job,” he said, laying a hand on her forearm to stop her. Even through his thick coat and her thinner wool one, the heat from his touch felt like a thousand suns. “I’m offering you a long-term job.”
“Doing what?” Her prowess at outdoor sports had been proven pretty convincingly the day before at the training center. Other than occasional easy hikes and a few bike rides on the outskirts of town, Amy had no time to pursue extreme — and extremely expensive — leisure activities.
Spike pulled his hand away as if he’d felt the heat between them too, and she stumbled back a step or two to put some space between them. He scrubbed at the back of his neck, and took a deep breath before continuing. At least it wasn’t just her brains that were scrambled.