followed her and settled on an underwater ledge across from her.
She sighed as the hot tub’s jets pounded her gently, massaging her muscles. She closed her eyes and leaned back, relaxing against the tub’s side.
“Better?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
After a few moments, during which she heard him lift and sip from his wineglass, he instructed, “Look up.”
She did, and gazed at the inky black sky. Dozens of little stars twinkled back at her.
“My guess is that you haven’t had much time to stargaze in your life,” he commented.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Neither have I.”
She looked down at him, and asked, “Why do you think Hunter wrote a stipulation in his will that you and his other college buddies have to stay at the lodge?”
“Why didn’t he just give the money to charity, you mean?” She nodded.
“We’d made a promise to one another all those years ago, on a night after too many beers. We’d vowed to become huge successes—on our own, not riding on our families’ coattails—and then reunite in ten years. Once Hunter got sick, the rest of us forgot that crazy night. But Hunter never did.”
He looked heavenward. “Maybe he knew we’d need to do this. And somehow he knew it would be up to him to get us to come here just to take a moment and look up at the stars.”
“I guess he was right, because it’s been a while since you’ve taken time to look at the stars.”
“Ages,” he answered absently, then he lowered his head to look at her. “How about you?”
“Ages,” she concurred.
A companionable silence followed. She sipped her wine and looked off into the dark trees, then out at the dark waters of Lake Tahoe.
Finally, she asked, “So you and Hunter were close friends?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I didn’t have siblings, so all six of the guys from college were like brothers to me.” A wry smile touched his lips. “We called ourselves the Seven Samurai.”
She laughed. “Who came up with that name?”
“Blame it on too many late nights chowing down on bad pizza and watching Kurosawa movies. We studied hard, but partied harder.”
“You talk about it as if it’s one of the better times in your life.”
“It was.”
“Did you find it difficult being an only child?” “Did you?” he countered. “It was more difficult being Brenda Hartley’s daughter.”
He raised his wineglass in silent salute. “I felt the same way.”
“It was as if the college partying days never ended for Brenda,” she elaborated, “except she never went to college….”
“But you did,” he prompted.
“Yes,” she said, looking at him in surprise. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “A good guess.”
“I worked my way through community college in Reno to get a degree in business administration.”
The conversation moved to the challenges of starting a business. Kelly found herself fascinated by the tales he had from his climb to the top of the cable-communications world.
After a while, he said, “Now I have a question for you that I’ve been wondering about. Why did you settle around Tahoe or, more specifically, Hunter’s Landing?”
She sighed. “How I got where I am is a lot less interesting than how you got where you are.”
“I’m all ears.”
She regarded him. He really did seem genuinely curious. “I knew I had to get out of Clayburn,” she said eventually. “I knew I didn’t want to go to Vegas, but Reno wasn’t too far. Once I found a job in Reno, I enrolled at a community college and, on weekends, I’d take cheap day trips to Tahoe.”
She shrugged. “I fell in love with the area and, since there’s a big tourist trade here, not to mention lots of seasonal residents, it seemed like the perfect place to try to open a business.”
“You’ve got good instincts,” he said.
They’d both finished their wine by this time and the music had died away, replaced by the stillness of the night.
She looked around. “I could lie in here forever, but I’d be a wrinkled prune!”
“Ready to head in?” he asked.
“I think so.”
They’d been having such a relaxed, quiet conversation, she’d started to forget they were barely dressed.
Now, however, she was nervous about emerging from the tub.
He placed the wineglasses and wine bottle to one side on the deck and rose. Water sluiced from his body as he climbed out of the hot tub, and awareness shimmered through her as she got a close-up of sheer male virility.
He turned then and made to help her.
She took his outstretched hand and stood up, stepping on the tub ledge, then out onto the deck.
He picked up a couple of towels and handed one to her.
“Th-thank you,” she said, and attributed her stutter to chattering teeth caused by the cold.
Except when her eyes accidentally met his, she’d noticed he was looking fixedly at her body.
She looked down at herself, and realized what he saw.
His white shirt was dripping wet and clung to her like a second skin, defining all her curves. Her nipples, made hard by the cold air, were pronounced against the thin cotton of her bra and his shirt. She looked more top-heavy than she did under her own carefully chosen clothes.
She shivered, and his eyes narrowed.
He dropped his towel and slowly reached up and brushed back wisps of her hair.
Then instead of withdrawing his hand, he trailed the back of it along the curve of her jaw, down her neck and lower….
His hand traced the curve of her breast, then moved up to touch a lock of her hair. “Tempting curves, siren hair.”
She sucked in a breath.
He looked as if he was still waging a battle with himself, caught between desire and something else.
“I should hate you,” she whispered. It was a desperate last bid to avoid what was happening between them.
“No, you don’t. Not really. Not anymore,” he whispered back.
“I want to hate you.”
“I wanted to hate you, too,” he admitted without a trace of apology, “but I can’t. I want you.”
He looked into her eyes, his full of desire, then cupped her neck and drew her near.
He searched her face for a moment before he bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
As she let go of her towel, she thought that this moment had been inevitable since the first time he’d walked into her shop.
If he hadn’t discovered who she was, and she hadn’t found out who he was, they’d probably have reached this point long before now.
His lips claimed hers in a deep, searching kiss. Her body came up flush against his, molding to him, seeking welcoming heat where before there had been just cold.
Her hand moved to the back of his head, pulling him down to her, and she