Can't Fight This Feeling. Christie Ridgway
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It smelled amazing and he instinctively moved closer, blocking the breeze and also blocking her in.
She set down her stack, then moved back, her behind meeting his groin. At the contact, she froze.
He told himself not to bury his face in her hair. He told himself not to slide an arm around her waist and pull her closer.
So he didn’t do either of those things.
But he also didn’t step away. Which meant that when she spun around, they were face-to-face. Chest to chest. If he bent his head, they’d be mouth to mouth.
They stared at each other and all he could think about was how damn beautiful she was. It was the face of a heartbreaker, with fine-grained, golden-tinted skin and large eyes framed by sooty lashes. The lush mouth was maddening.
Tempting.
She put her hand over his heart, attempting to push him back.
The thrust didn’t rock him. He covered her fingers with his, then frowned at how chilled they were. “You’re cold.”
“A little,” she admitted. This time, when she shoved at him, he retreated, though he still had her hand.
“Let me buy you a hot chocolate,” he said. Her cool skin, that killer face... It compelled him to offer her warmth. Sweetness.
She hesitated.
Her reluctance twisted something inside him. Did she consider him not good enough for her? He let go her hand. “You can still have a nice life,” he muttered. “Just after the damn drink.”
Then he ground his back teeth, instantly regretting his harsh tone. Why the hell was he like this around her? She put up his hackles. Made him feel prickly and irritable.
He was never the most genial of fellows, but he was actually considered by some women to be charming. No charm for her, though. No wonder she didn’t want to spend another minute around him.
“Never mind,” he said, making to climb into the truck. “Sorry.”
This time it was she who grabbed his elbow. “I’d like that. The hot chocolate.”
He blew out his breath, waiting a long moment to see if she’d change her mind. When she continued to stand there, he shut the vehicle’s door and pointed toward the corner. “Oscar’s Coffee.”
Inside the small shop were picnic tables painted a soft yellow. Brett directed her to one as he went to retrieve the beverages. He said yes to whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings without asking her.
Her gaze brightened when he put the oversize ceramic mug with its peak of fluffy stuff in front of her. “Yay. You got me the extras.”
“I don’t believe for a second you’re one of those women who denies herself. I’ve smelled the cookies you bake.”
She eyed his beverage, which was exactly the same as hers. “And here I expected you to order a cup of dark and bitter brew for yourself.”
“I like my sweets, too.”
“But not my cookies.”
He refused to squirm on the bench. For months every instinct had warned him against getting “cookies” close. Those instincts were still clamoring at him even now, but she must have entranced him with those warm, melted-chocolate eyes.
Her hands surrounding the cup, she delicately sipped her drink. Then she set it down and licked at the cream on the top of her lip.
He told himself the little action didn’t make him hard, but that was a lie. Clearing his throat, he attempted to think of something else. “Fund-raisers, huh?”
She glanced up.
“You told Mac about the one for the historical society.”
“Oh. Right.” Lifting her cup, she delicately blew on the liquid surface she’d revealed with her last sip.
Her pursed lips didn’t do anything to ease his tight muscles. “You learn how to do that in school?” he asked.
“Plan fund-raisers?” At his nod, she shook her head. “I was actually an international finance major in college. I had the mistaken idea that studying the subject might win my father’s approval and that he’d then bring me into his business.”
Somewhere along the line, Brett had learned her father was a well-known and wildly successful hedge-fund manager, whatever the hell that was. “But he dashed your hopes?”
“All for the best,” she said, waving a hand and directing her gaze back to her drink. “I’m not suited for that kind of risk, and it turns out I like to keep myself busy with more tangible activities.”
“I have a degree in landscape architecture,” he heard himself say. “But I can’t stand being cooped up in an office for so much of the day, sitting at a desk. So I don’t design landscapes as much as put my hands on them.”
She looked up, her eyes widening. “Oh.”
His voice turned dry. “Not quite the uneducated country bumpkin you thought, huh, uptown girl?”
Her brows slammed together. “It wasn’t that. I was surprised you managed to share three sentences about yourself.”
God, there he went again. If he could manage it, he’d kick his own ass. “I—”
“And that we might actually have something in common.”
That shut him up. All he’d been doing since the moment he’d caught sight of her the very first time was telling himself they were opposites in every—wrong—way. He’d used that thought as a wedge, a shield, an impenetrable wall that prevented him from eating her cookies, from asking her out to dinner and from doing what he really, ultimately wanted—taking her into his bed.
He rubbed his hand over his hair, aware she was studying him. Suppressing the urge to touch his scars, he wondered what she thought of them. What she’d think if she knew that he liked them as a reminder of important lessons learned.
“So...” she said now, a thread of amusement in her voice. “That’s quite a filing system you have.”
Glancing up, he enjoyed the way her small smile curved her lips. “You’d think six years in the army would have drilled organization into my marrow, but the minute I got out, I went back to sloppy paperwork.”
“You were in the service?”
“Tenth Army Mountain Division.”
“Mountain,” she said. “That must have significance.”
“It was formed during World War II for warfare in the Alps. The civilian ski patrol was used for recruiting purposes, and they found soldiers on the slopes and in ski clubs all over the States. Those same soldiers developed skiing as a vacation industry after the war.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Now you do.” He sipped at his chocolate. “Our grandfathers came back and laid out the ski runs and designed the lifts and operated the ski schools that this area became known for. So when mountain kids join up, the Tenth is tradition.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“Fort Drum, New York. But I spent time in Florida and a year in Afghanistan.” Just saying the word brought the whop-whop sound of choppers into his head, the taste of red dust to his tongue, the pungent scent and the oily feel of blood onto his skin. Pushing it from his mind, he rubbed his hand over his hair and switched subjects. “When my time was up, I was ready to come home.”
“No career as a military man for you?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to get away for a while, save some money. But my life is here in my mountains with my family. So I started my business, thus giving birth to my really lousy filing system.”
“You can