“I’m just going to come out and say this. The man was an idiot not to see what he had.”
Goose bumps shivered down her arms at the intense look in his eyes. She stared at him for a long moment, tension coiling between them and a glittery awareness floating in the air like dust motes in a sunbeam.
She set her water glass down, wondering if her face could possibly be as red as it felt, and tried hard for a casual smile. “Thank you, Riley. That’s a very sweet thing to say.”
“Nothing sweet about it, Claire.”
His voice was a low rasp in the kitchen. Before she could stir her brain to function, to speak or move away or something, he reached out a roughened thumb and caressed her jawline. Heat surged through her, wild and fluttery, and she wanted to lean into his skin like her silly dog nudging her hand for more petting.
“Claire,” he said softly, and then his whole hand curved around her chin and he tugged her forward slightly and kissed her.
His mouth was hard, warm and tasted of the outdoors. Beautiful and slightly wild. He didn’t rush the kiss, his mouth just barely moving on hers, and everything inside her seemed to sigh a welcome.
She felt as if she had been frozen solid for years, as if she had been waiting like the mountains for the sun to finally come out after long days of darkness. She closed her eyes, relishing the scent and the taste of him, the strength and heat of his fingers, the brilliant, delicious heat bursting through her.
Don’t stop, she thought. Oh, please, don’t stop.
He made a low sound in his throat and deepened the kiss and she leaned into him as his mouth slid across hers, as his hand tugged a little in her hair….
Through the soft haze wrapping around her, Claire was vaguely cognizant of a jarring sound, a door shutting somewhere in the house and then a voice that didn’t belong in this lovely moment she was having.
“Hey, you,” she heard Alex call out from the entryway. “What’s Ri’s pickup doing outside full of branches?”
She froze for only a second, her eyes flashing open. Her gaze locked with the intense aspen-leaf green of his—now somewhat dazed—then Claire scrambled back and picked up her sandwich, trying not to notice how her hands trembled.
She was just in time. An instant later, Alex walked into the kitchen. “Hey. Here you are.”
“Right. Um. Here we are. Hi.”
Chester, who adored Riley’s sister, jumped to his feet and headed over for a little love, which she freely dispensed, though her gaze wandered from Claire to Riley.
Claire knew her best friend well enough to feel more than a little trepidation when her gaze narrowed. What could she see? Were her lips swollen? Her hair messy? She wanted to check but couldn’t with Alex still studying her with the scrutiny she usually reserved for fresh produce at the farmer’s market to serve at the restaurant.
Claire drew in a shaky breath to quickly divert her, but for some reason, Alex apparently decided to say nothing.
“Hey, little bro. This is a surprise. What are you doing here this lovely May day?”
“Claire had a little tree damage from the wind last night. I was just taking the chain saw to the worst of the downed branches.”
“Well, wasn’t that neighborly of you?”
Riley didn’t seem fazed by the slight sarcastic tone in his sister’s voice. He smiled blandly, although Claire thought his expression still looked a little shell-shocked. “I do my best.”
He had far more experience even than she did deflecting the sometimes-formidable moods of Alexandra McKnight, Claire remembered.
“Would you like a sandwich?” Claire asked quickly.
“Maybe.”
When Claire reached down to maneuver the blasted chair toward the refrigerator, Alex stopped her with a hard glare and a foot in front of one of the wheels.
“If you dare try making me a sandwich, I just might break your other leg,” her dearest friend in the world snapped.
“Oh, come on. I can make a sandwich. I made one for me and Riley.”
“Leave me out of this, please,” he said in an amused voice.
“You should be in bed, not in here babying my little brother.”
Was that what she was doing? She risked a look at Riley and found him watching her, an unreadable expression on his features.
Claire cleared her throat. “I’m not babying anyone. All I did was make a sandwich.”
“Which you don’t need to do for me. If I’m hungry, I’ll make my own damn sandwich.”
“Just for the record, I didn’t ask her for anything,” Riley said. “The deed was done when I came inside.”
“But then, you’re never one to turn down a meal. Or anything else, for that matter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Riley asked, his expression suddenly dangerous.
Claire didn’t want to deal with their bickering right now, when she was already feeling unsteady and weak.
“You know where everything is,” she said. “Knock yourself out.”
“I will.”
While Alex moved around the kitchen pulling out ingredients—with much more fluid, efficient movements than Claire ever could, even before her injuries—she sat petting Chester and trying to avoid meeting Riley’s eyes.
So they had kissed. What was the big deal? She had every right to kiss anyone she wanted. She could start a queue of eligible men right here in the kitchen, line them out down the sidewalk and into the street if that was her heart’s desire.
Not that she knew that many men she might be interested in kissing. Her divorce had been final for two years and she’d gone on exactly one date, an awkward affair with a widowed insurance adjuster from Tellu-ride she met in line at the grocery store.
The whole thing had been a disaster from the moment he showed up at her house with his three children in the backseat.
“I couldn’t get a sitter,” he’d apologized, so she spent the entire dinner cutting meat into pieces, wiping faces, ignoring snide comments from his bratty prepubescent daughter.
She hadn’t been eager to dip her toes into the dating pool again.
Not that she was thinking about dating Riley. It was just a kiss, for heaven’s sake. Okay, a pretty stunning, toe-curling one, as far as kisses went. But still only a kiss.
She didn’t need to explain herself to Alex, not with Ms. McKnight’s own dealings with the opposite sex. Alex specialized in the short-term relationship, dating only ski bums or guests at the resort who came into her restaurant. She pushed away everyone who wanted anything more meaningful.
“So the kids are still gone with Jeff and the ditz?” Alex asked.
“Until tomorrow. Their tickets for the show are tonight.”
Jeff and Holly were taking the children to a traveling Broadway production of The Lion King. Claire would have loved to take the kids herself, but she’d decided her budget couldn’t quite squeeze out tickets at $150 a pop. That translated into a whole lot of bead sales.
“How are you coping on your own?”
She flashed a look at Riley, who had eased back in his chair, his arm over the back of the one next to him. Claire winced, thinking of her foolish worry over the visit from the Angel of Hope and how she had flashed her porch lights to scare him off.
“I’m fine. Just trying to hang on another few weeks when I can get a walking cast and be able to dump the wheels.”
“That’s