All I Want...

She made herself laugh, mind racing. Forget the possibility of going out with him? Uh, no. But she couldn’t do this. Could she? Was she going to do this? Krista would say she had to.

“No, I didn’t forget.”

He sat on the edge of her desk and tipped his head, watching her. His eyes were so, so dark. “And…do you want to go?”

Yes. God, yes. With a sudden force that shocked the hell out of her, she wanted to.

“My boyfriend. Link. I don’t think he’d…” She gestured stupidly back and forth between herself and Josh.

“This isn’t about Link.”

She flashed him a warning glance and he put up both hands in surrender. He had nice hands, narrower than Link’s and with longer fingers. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m a nice guy. I’m not out to make you do anything you don’t want to. And I’m not trying to bust anything up, especially if he makes you happy.”

Her head started spinning. She took her time tucking the holiday party file back in its place in her desk drawer, wishing he hadn’t phrased it quite that way. Especially if he makes you happy. “Thank you.”

“But unless I’m wrong here, and you can feel free to tell me if I am…”

His silence made her look up again. Her stomach-flipping reaction to his obvious concern made her wish she hadn’t. “Yes?”

“You don’t strike me as happy.”

She bent her head, closed the drawer. “Things are…tough right now.”

Oh, good one, Lucy. Open the door and invite a man you’re madly attracted to right into your vulnerability and confusion. Call her the queen of earnestly blundering into stupid situations. Too much honesty was not a good thing. Especially around someone she had no real relationship with.

“I’m a good listener.” He smiled. Even his teeth were perfect. He looked like a movie star, like a rougher, more masculine version of Orlando Bloom but with that same slender, dark-curled, dreamy perfection. “And I’m good at meaningless chatter if you don’t feel like talking about anything intense.”

“Why do you want to go out with me?”

He gave a little shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d ask such a question. “Because I like you. I don’t get to talk to you much at work. You’re always so serious and I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than this. A lot more.”

Whoa. His voice had dropped to a husky, seductive murmur on the last three words. She could barely breathe from the excitement of a man so intrigued by her. This was getting very, very dangerous.

Link. She loved Link. This guy was cotton-candy fluff and Link was the salt of her earth.

“Link and I are—”

“This has nothing to do with you and Link. I’m after friendship.” He looked pained for a second, then slid off her desk and crossed to the empty couch where people sat waiting to see her boss, Alexis. “Okay, maybe that’s bullshit. Maybe I just want it to be true because it would be easier. But if friendship is all you have to offer me, I’ll take it, Lucy.”

Her name came off his tongue, traveled across the room and sounded like the best thing she’d ever heard.

“I don’t know what to say.”

He turned and met her eyes, grinned, slow and lazy and sexier than was good for her sanity. “That’s better than no.”

She cleared her throat. Link was home waiting for her. There was no way she could do this to him. “I’m afraid no is all I can say right now.”

“Right now?” He crossed the room back to her and she dropped her eyes, unable to take the hope in his.

She should say or ever. She needed to say it. She had to say it. Or she’d open up such a Pandora’s box she’d never be safe again. Never again feel the world belonged only to Link and her. If she let this man in…

God, she wanted to.

“Maybe…a drink would be okay. Sometime.”

“Not today?”

“No. I can’t. I have to—” She looked at her watch, trying to think of something besides get home to Link and cook his dinner, because that made her sound so dull and slavish. “Go. Somewhere.”

Yeah, quick thinking, Lucy. She was no good at lying. She’d be no good at cheating.

“Okay.” He smiled and touched her shoulder the way a friend might, just a gentle tap. Only it didn’t affect her the way a friend’s touch would. “I’m really looking forward to ‘sometime.’”

She watched him walk away, his smooth, graceful stride so different from Link’s powerful, lumbering step, and sank back into her chair, cheeks on fire. What had she done?

And what was she going to do with the terrible fear that he wasn’t looking forward to “sometime” even half as much as she was?

KRISTA PEERED THROUGH her snow-shrunk windshield, wipers clearing the white fluff away as fast as it could fall. And it was falling fast. Good thing she’d gotten restless and left earlier than she’d planned this afternoon. She was a few miles from the inn and the snow had only been falling for an hour or so, but the radio report indicated travel conditions were going to get worse as the evening wore on.

At least the drive had been lovely. She’d been to Maine quite a few times but never stopped being amazed at the change from the New Hampshire border, across the Piscataqua River, into the peace and green of the appropriately nicknamed Pine Tree State. This time she’d traveled farther north than the usual coastal hotels and shopping meccas. She’d left 95 at Route 201, the Old Canada Road National Scenic Byway, and headed northwest to Skowhegan. Then past. Then after forever, she’d turned onto what was a fairly unpromising-looking little track, which Betty Robinson, the Pine Tree Inn owner, had cheerfully assured her was not going to seem right but was.

If she said so.

Certainly no problems with traffic. Maine was not jammed this time of year as it could be in summer. Ideal for what Krista was after. Off-the-beaten-track romantic holiday getaways.

So far she could see how this could be very romantic. Closer to Skowhegan there had been other choices, one inn in particular had caught her eye online while planning this trip—king-size beds and fireplaces in every room. But she was determined to stay away from the usual destinations, so here she was, miles from a town of any size, bumping through the snow to the Pine Tree Inn, frankly unsure of what to expect….

And wishing she wasn’t alone. Thinking—for no good reason and in spite of having told herself a thousand times to stop—of a pair of hazel eyes recently sighted in a Thai restaurant and wishing they were along for the ride. Then this visit could have been the romantic launch to a new adventure, which maybe this time would have worked out forever.

Or at least longer than a-few-to-several weeks.

Total attraction. Unbelievable attraction. Nearly unbearable attraction.

Wistful sigh.

Had he responded to her amazing charms and inviting smile by walking forward, grabbing her arms, hoisting her to her feet, gazing into her eyes while breath swelled his manly chest and declared he’d never felt such a pull to any woman before and would she please accompany him to the nearest spot where they could get comfortable and privately and immediately naked or he’d go mad from wanting?

Um. No.

He’d missed most of her inviting smile and obviously had no problem dismissing her amazing charms, because after that breath-stealing connection, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

Not that it was necessarily about her. Maybe he really was in a crazed hurry to leave, and maybe he regretted walking away from what might have been as much as she regretted him walking.

But then maybe Lucy was right, and Krista was too into the hot bod and the hot chemistry and maybe she should start dating men she wasn’t that attracted to. Men she could feel so-so about while insisting she was in love, hanging on year in and out, after anything they had in common had long since fled screaming from the boredom. Just like Lucy.

Good idea!

Not.