Mountain Heiress

The brush of her lips against his was so unexpected that he didn’t quite believe it had happened. At the same time, her kiss had a profound effect. It changed everything.

Chapter Five

It had only been a chaste little kiss. Not really a kiss at all; Gabby had only touched his mouth with hers. The last time she’d kissed a guy like that was when she was seven years old and Jimmy Franzini had dared her to do a flip off the monkey bars in the school playground. She did it. Then she kissed him.

When she was seven, she’d felt triumphant. So there, Jimmy Franzini. Right now, as she leaned against the wall in the entryway of the Roost, her heart was dancing a tango, and she couldn’t swallow. Zach Sheffield was most definitely not a seven-year-old boy. He was one of the most virile men she’d ever met, and he wasn’t going to let her skip away into the playground without consequences. Should she apologize? No way, she wasn’t sorry. The best thing was to act like it never happened.

But when she took a step toward the kitchen, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her snug against his chest. There was no point in struggling; he was too strong, all muscle. More importantly, she didn’t want to break away. The heat from his body sparked a fire that raced through her blood. Her chin tilted up, and she gazed into his blue eyes. He kissed her hard enough to take her breath away. When his tongue penetrated her mouth, she actually felt a little bit woozy as though she was melting.

He ended the kiss and stepped back. “Are you ready to listen to me now?”

“Uh-huh.”

She looked up at him and blinked. Though she was never at a loss for words, all she could do was stare with a stupefied gaze. A kiss like that deserved a comment. She had to say something. “Zach?”

“What?”

“Next time, take off your hat.”

As she followed him back to the kitchen where Charlotte was peering into the side of the stainless steel toaster, trying to see her reflection, Gabby struggled to make sense of what had just happened. His kiss was incredible. In her experience, which wasn’t all that extensive, she had to rank it in the top ten, maybe the top three or even number one. But did it mean anything? There was physical chemistry between them; she’d felt it from the start. But the differences between them were too vast to calculate.

Even though she’d implied that she wasn’t a quitter and would stay at the Roost, that decision wasn’t firm. It was just as likely that she’d get her car serviced and head back to Brooklyn, where she belonged. How could she stay here with the threat of imminent danger and bad guys watching the house? For the moment, she knew only one thing for sure: Zach was in charge. She was willing to let him take the lead. For now.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We need to go through the whole house to check on overall security. Then we’ll talk about procedures in case of a break-in.”

“Okay,” Charlotte said. “Want some lemonade?”

Something cold to douse the flames raging inside her? “Perfect.”

Gabby chugged half the tall glass of lemonade while Zach went to a door at the rear of the large kitchen. He twisted the key in the lock. “We’ll start here.”

“You’re going to be surprised,” Charlotte said to her. “The house is bigger than it looks in photographs and from the road. The first Roost was built by the Frenchman and his wife in the 1800s.”

Gabby’s common sense had returned enough for her to comment. “But this kitchen looks completely modern.”

“It’s new,” Charlotte said. “The front part of the house was built in the 1950s. Michelle had it renovated a couple of times, including a recent update of the kitchen. It’s basically a two-story with five bedrooms upstairs.”

“Michelle didn’t move out here until the sixties,” Gabby said, recalling a bit of family history. “Who owned the Roost before that?”

“I think the property has always belonged to the Rousseau family, but it was vacant for a long time and fell into disrepair.”

“Why did they move back?”

Zach explained, “After World War II, Aspen began to develop a world-wide reputation as a ski resort, and the property values skyrocketed. The Roost is especially attractive because you’ve got a good well and your family owns the water rights. One of your relatives sensed a good deal and hired a contractor to build the two-story. I think the first plan was to sell, but they moved back in.”

He pushed the door from the kitchen open. “This center area isn’t the oldest part of the house. It was added on when the family got bigger. At one time, this area was a kitchen, living room and bedrooms. Michelle had it gutted, leaving only the essential support beams and outer walls. She turned it into a studio.”

She followed him onto a small landing and down three stairs to Michelle’s art studio—an open space that was nearly as wide as the two-story house it was attached to. If it was possible to fall in love with a room, Gabby was smitten. The ceiling peaked in the center. There were so many skylights and windows that it was unnecessary to turn on the overhead lights. In one corner was a potter’s wheel. One entire wall was waist-high storage cabinets. A double-wide garage door had been installed, probably to allow large projects to be easily moved in and out.

Nearest the house were the remnants of a former kitchen—a fridge, double sink and plenty of counter space. Though the art supplies had been cleaned up and put away, paint spatters outlined the work areas.

Two freestanding gas fireplaces provided heat, but neither was turned on, leaving a chill in the air and a sense of vacancy. Gabby felt a pang of regret that she’d never really known her great-aunt. This had been the place where Michelle did her creative work. Now the easel in the center of the room stood empty.