I don’t want you to worry that your teaching skills or your program ideas are at fault. It’ll just be me screwing up. Not you.”
Well, if this wasn’t a damnably strange conversation—but she’d sparked his competitive spirit now. She was right. He hadn’t failed with anyone yet, and he certainly didn’t intend to start with one half-pint brunette. “How about if we don’t worry about failures or successes quite yet? We’ll just take it slow, see how you do tomorrow.”
“Okay. Sure…although maybe I should mention—the only thing I just know I couldn’t handle in your program is the mountain climbing.”
“Heights aren’t your thing, huh?” He cocked his head. “A while back, maybe last year, I think I saw an article about you. The Pixie with the Midas Touch, something like that?”
She winced. “Man, I hate that label. But yeah, that article was about me—except that the journalist slanted it to make me sound way more hotsy-totsy than I am. I started investing in the stock market when I was fourteen. Just birthday money. Nothing extraordinary. But somehow any stock I bought developed this nice habit of doubling, until that ‘Midas Touch’ tag started to follow me around. I couldn’t shake it. Anyway…” She motioned around the library, as if hustling to divert the conversation away from herself. “This is an incredible home you have here. Was the lodge in your family? Is that how you happened to create this retreat for executives?”
From a stranger, he usually minded nosy questions. But not from her. He’d specifically tracked her down—not just to feast his eyes on that sassy mouth or skinny little body. But to clear the air on where he was coming from—and find out for sure where she was. “Yeah, the house was in the family. My great-gramps trekked to Idaho back in the Silver Rush. There’s still a petered-out silver mine on the property, although it was never worth much.”
“So you grew up here?”
“Yes, although not by choice. When I was a kid, the only thing on my mind was city lights and getting out of here. But we lost both my dad and my gramps in the same logging accident, so I grew up as the only male around. My grandmother gave me a sense of honor I couldn’t shake. Family first. That was her cardinal principle, and about the time my mom died and left me the property, I was stuck with it. No point putting it on the market—who in his right mind would want to buy it? There’s nothing up here but mountains and eagles. And I was living in Boise then, making good money—and spending it even faster. In fact, that’s how I got my Cash nickname, because I never could hold onto a dime. And to tell you the truth, I never cared.”
The start of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She was enjoying the yarn spinning. “So the lodge was in your family…but you had absolutely no reason to want to be here.”
“Exactly. Except that I have one younger sister, Hannah. And somehow she missed all the family lessons about that honor-first business. She got pregnant with Sammy. Took off to find her so-called fiancé after Sammy was born and it seems she still hasn’t found him, because Sam’s eight now and he’s still with me.”
Compassion seemed to soften and darken her eyes. “I loved watching you two together. You’re obviously close.”
“Cut-and-dried, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for him. He may only be my nephew, but I love him like a son.” He used his drawling, lazy voice. Reliably that tone tended to relax people, which helped when he had to say something tough. “Somehow the place has turned into a real male bastion. I swear I’d hire women—there’s no reason in hell the staff has to be all male—but there just doesn’t seem to be any females dying for jobs in this neck of the woods. And yeah, for sure, we have women guests, but they’re only here for a short time. Which is why I brought this subject up, so I could tell you the lay of the land as far as Sam. He can be a little sensitive around women.”
“He’s a darling.”
“Yeah, I think so. But with females, he’s not long on trust. He just doesn’t believe any woman is going to stick around for him. The guests come and go. His mother’s flightier than wind. And when I saw him talking to you at dinner—”
“You got worried?”
“Not worried. But he doesn’t do that. Warm up to women strangers the way he did with you. He usually avoids all females like they had cooties. So if he starts to form an attachment, I’m just asking you to be careful. He acts like a pretty tough little kid, and he is. But he can still get hurt.”
“I’m glad you told me.” Her eyes met his. “Just for the record, I’d shoot myself before deliberately hurting a child. Just in case that was the message you were trying to get across in that gentle way of yours.”
She cut her gaze away from his so fast that Cash felt a sharp slash of guilt. “Hell. Did I hurt your feelings? Keegan says I’m as subtle as a sledgehammer on my good days.”
“I was teasing you, not complaining. And it wouldn’t matter if you hurt my feelings or not. I’d do the same thing in your shoes—say whatever needed saying to protect a vulnerable child in my care. I loved watching the two of you together.” Swiftly she glanced at her wrist. “Good grief, it’s almost midnight. I’m keeping you up, and me, too. I just came up here to find a book.”
She grabbed the book, then uncoiled and leaped to her feet, then swooped back down—apparently—for her shoes. Cash saw her suddenly flying around, but when he stood up from the chair, she seemed nowhere near him. He wasn’t exactly sure how a shoe suddenly hurtled out of her hand. Or why the book dropped. Or how the crown of her head somehow managed to ram into his chest, throwing both of them off balance.
Instinctively he grabbed her, his hands closing around her upper arms until she steadied. And she steadied fast enough, but she was still red-faced and laughing when she tilted her face.
“Cripes, I’m so sorry. I warned you I was clumsy, didn’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it—um…” She started to bounce down to reach for the fallen shoe again, and almost jabbed a sharp elbow in his crotch. Startled, he grabbed her arms again—as gently as he could—and tried to tactfully lift her a few inches safer distance from him. “How about if you let me get your shoes and the book? And don’t move for a second.”
“Scared I’ll do you injury, huh?”
“I think you’ve got incredible potential as a defensive end. Although I’m afraid defensive ends don’t usually come in your size.”
She chuckled. But then her laughter faded. As if someone flipped a switch, Cash was suddenly conscious of the sudden hush in the room, the dark shadows and intimacy of lamplight, the scent of books…and her perfume. It wasn’t pixieish and gamine like her, but a soft, sexy, exotic scent, spices he didn’t know, flowers he couldn’t name. The perfume made him uneasy, but that wasn’t why he shifted on his feet.
An embarrassed rose was still brushed across her cheeks from her near tumble. But at that second, her face was still tilted toward his, her lips barely parted, those liquid chocolate eyes fastened on his face.
He had the craziest sensation that she wanted to kiss him. Or to be kissed. By him.
That first lunatic sensation was followed by another. He wanted to kiss her. The way he hadn’t wanted to kiss a woman in forever. Not a let’s-get-it-on kiss. Not a hi-there-honey kiss. Not a let’s-test-these-waters kiss.
But a kiss that communicated Damn, I’ve been waiting for you forever. I didn’t know I’d ever find you. I really didn’t believe you even existed. Not for me.
His throat was suddenly too dry to swallow, his pulse galloping like a colt’s in spring. He couldn’t remember ever having this stupid a reaction to a woman. Naturally, though, he recovered swiftly, smiled, moved. Especially moved. “Well, you’re not going to have any trouble finding your way back to your room, are you?”
“I don’t think I’ve memorized the whole layout, yet, but I know I can find my room, no problem.”
“Well,