stayed at the lodge until after midnight, but he’d known he was in deep trouble when he couldn’t summon the slightest bit of interest in the women who’d approached him, and there had been a bevy of them to choose from. While Shane and Ryan had enjoyed dancing and flirting with the female population, Marc had found himself comparing those women to Brooke…and found them all sorely lacking. Physically, any one of them could have sufficed. Mentally, none had stimulated him beyond a token smile.
He wanted to taste Brooke again. Badly. Even though he knew he shouldn’t. Knew he was completely wrong for her. And that she was completely wrong for him.
Somewhere along the way, those issues had ceased to matter.
And that’s when he knew he was in big, deep trouble. The kind that tripped a guy up inside. The kind that defied logic. The kind that overruled common sense and rational judgment.
The kind that made a usually sensible, intelligent man make incredibly stupid decisions.
Ever since a relationship with a woman during his senior year in college had turned disastrous, and made Marc realize he was too much like his own father, he’d never allowed another woman to get too close emotionally—for both their sakes. The guilt that had plagued him after that incident had been excruciating. But beyond the remorse, his actions had cemented in his mind his greatest fear, that he didn’t have what it took to sustain a lasting commitment—that fidelity was a chromosome missing from his family’s gene pool.
For the past eight years he’d devoted his time and energy to his electrical business, and dated women who didn’t make demands he knew he’d never be able to satisfy or fulfill. He’d never allowed his relationships to turn serious, and ended them before something deep and emotional developed.
One kiss, and he felt emotionally connected to Brooke—a revelation he found both scary, and exhilarating.
Not with her, his mind chided.
Listening to the voice of reason in his head, he determined that sooner or later they needed to discuss that kiss, to put things between them back on track, and into proper perspective. They’d always been friends, and maintaining that easy, casual relationship they’d shared during her marriage to his brother was of the utmost importance to him.
With that plan firmly in mind, he unzipped his sleeping bag, got up, and made his way to the bathroom. Closing the door, he flipped on the light, and decided he’d get his shower out of the way before the women woke up and the men lost their chance at any hot water.
Half an hour later, feeling more refreshed and his aching muscles more relaxed, he slipped on a pair of long thermal underwear and shirt, and overlaid that protective warmth with jeans and a flannel shirt. Quietly exiting the bathroom, he grabbed his ski jacket and made his way to the kitchen. He found the keys for the outdoor shed on the peg by the back door.
Since it appeared his friends were sleeping off a night of too much fun, he had plenty of time to take one of the two snowmobiles parked in the shed and enjoy the light snowfall that had coated the ground during the night.
He suddenly craved something sweet. Since Brooke was out of the question, he’d just have to head down to Quail Village to the quaint bakery there and settle for confections of the pastry kind.
WHEN MARC RETURNED an hour later, the other snow-mobile was gone, the lights in the cabin were on, and the kitchen was filled with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Tugging off his gloves, he stepped into the warm kitchen and closed the door to the mudroom behind him.
Brooke and Jessica turned from the counter to face him, and he smiled. “Good morning, ladies,” he greeted them, setting the pink box of pastries on the oak table.
“Morning,” Brooke replied in her normal, good ol’ sister-in-law tone, then turned her attention back to pouring the steaming brew into the two mugs on the counter.
Ryan walked into the kitchen, and Jessica instantly honed in on the other man. “What could be good about waking up to a lawyer trying to negotiate time in the bathroom?” she asked, stirring cream and sugar into her coffee.
A lazy smile creased Ryan’s lips, and he lifted a brow over a dark brown eye glimmering with amusement. “I did not try and negotiate time in the bathroom.”
“What was I thinking? You’re absolutely right,” Jessica conceded humorously. “Divorce attorneys don’t know how to negotiate, they trounce their opponents, which is exactly what you did to me.” Wandering over to the table, she peeked into the pastry box and selected a bear claw. “And just to set the record straight, Mr. Matthews, your ‘I’ll only be a minute’ turned into twenty.”
Marc met Brooke’s gaze, and they both suppressed a grin at the obvious undercurrents between the sparring couple.
Retrieving a cup from the cupboard, Ryan filled the mug with coffee. “I didn’t take that long,” he countered mildly.
Jessica crossed the room and stopped beside Ryan. “How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?” she asked sweetly, then replied before Ryan could. “His lips are moving.”
With that victorious remark hanging in the air, she left the kitchen.
Marc chuckled and shook his head, feeling a twinge of sympathy for his good friend who was more used to women sweet-talking rather than mocking him.
Ryan joined him with his own deep laughter. “She’s not much of a morning person, is she?”
Brooke grimaced in apology. “No, she’s not.”
Picking a jelly-filled doughnut from the bakery box, he took a big bite, chewing contemplatively. “You know, as crazy as it sounds, I find her very stimulating.” On that note, he headed back into the living room, a grin curving his mouth and a challenging light sparking in his eyes.
As soon as Marc was alone with Brooke, silence, and a slow building awareness, settled between them. He still stood across the room, near the table, and she leaned against the far counter, looking at him over the rim of her mug as she casually sipped her coffee, but the charged energy that arced between them was unmistakable.
The instantaneous, intimate connection still startled him on an emotional level. Physically, he wasn’t so surprised at his reaction. He’d always thought of Brooke as beautiful, and sensual in an understated way—her marriage to his brother hadn’t blinded him to her allure. He was first and foremost a man who liked and appreciated women, and as such it was difficult not to notice the curves that made her intrinsically female—especially now, when the turtle-neck sweater she wore clung to firm breasts, and black leggings molded to the swell of her hips and those long, slender legs that had consumed too much of his thoughts lately.
But it was the warmth in her blue eyes that made his heart beat faster and caused a riot of emotions to clamor within him—wants and needs he’d denied himself for eight long years. Wants and needs he had no business contemplating now, or ever, not when he’d resigned himself to the kind of life-style that didn’t include the kind of commitment a woman like Brooke demanded…and deserved.
But those sensible thoughts did nothing to douse the undeniable desire that had taken up residence in him since that kiss they’d shared. While Brooke currently displayed admirable restraint and nonchalance regarding their situation, Marc experienced a contrary surge of recklessness that battled his willpower to resist her.
Shrugging out of his jacket, Marc laid it over the back of the chair, and turned to direct his gaze at Brooke. “Got enough coffee left for me to have a cup?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, a bit breathless, he suspected, from the rippling heat they’d generated in the short span of time they’d been alone.
He watched her retrieve another mug from the cupboard and pour in the last of the coffee, her hand trembling ever-so-slightly while she tried to regain her composure. Crossing the small space that separated them, he pushed his fingers through his tousled hair and away from his face, the strands still chilled from his morning ride to the village.
She turned