Rachel Gibson - The Trouble With Valentine's Day

As if Rob could forget her offer to show him her bare butt. As she walked away, Rob's gaze slid down the ponytail that hung below her shoulders, past the tight black shirt to her rounded behind in-black pants. No, he hadn't forgotten her. The image of her within the soft lighting of the Duchin Lounge had stayed with him long after he'd left the bar. That night he'd dreamed of soft auburn hair and eyes the color of rich earth. Of long legs and arms entwined with his. Of sex so intense, so real, that he'd just about climaxed in his sleep. That hadn't happened to him in a long time. A man didn't tend "a to forget a thing like that. At least not right away.

"I really don't need her help," Stanley said, "but it's nice to have her around, just the same."

Rob returned his gaze to the grocery store owner. He wasn't certain, but he thought he detected a light in Stanley's eyes when he spoke of his granddaughter. A little light that he'd never seen there before. He liked Stanley Caldwell, and he respected him, too. "Is she living with you?"

"Yeah. She pampers me, but I try not to get too used to it. She can't stay with me forever. She'll have to get back to her own life one of these days."

Rob grabbed an apple and moved toward the front counter. "Where's home?" he asked. He'd been living in Gospel long enough to know it didn't take much to get a person's life story, whether you were interested in hearing it or not. And in this particular case, he was mildly curious.

"Katie's from Las Vegas," Stanley answered as he moved behind the counter and rang up the milk, granola, and apple.

As Rob dug out his wallet, he wondered if Kate Hamilton was a dancer in one of the casinos. She was certainly tall enough. She had the breasts for those skimpy costumes, too. Back in his hell-raising days, she would have been just the sort of woman he would have gone for. Tall. Built. Easy.

"She's a private investigator," Stanley provided while he placed the box of granola in a plastic bag.

That announcement surprised Rob. Almost as much as when he'd turned around and seen her standing a few feet from him, looking as stunned as he'd felt.

He handed Stanley a ten. "She doesn't look like any investigators I've ever met," he said, and he'd known a few.

"That's what makes her so good," Stanley bragged. "Women talk to her because she's one of them, and men talk to her because we just can't resist a beautiful woman."

Rob had been doing a pretty good job of resisting women for a while now. Beautiful or otherwise. It wasn't easy, never that, but he'd thought he'd gotten over the worst of it. The constant craving-until a certain redhead had propositioned him. Walking away from Kate Hamilton had been one of the hardest things he'd done in a very long time.

He put the bills in his wallet and shoved it in his back pocket.

"Here's the key to your place," Stanley said and shut the cash drawer. "A couple of boxes from UPS came while you were gone. And yesterday, I picked your mail up off the floor for ya."

"You didn't have to do that." Rob took the key to his store and put it back on his key ring. Before he'd left for his ski trip, Stanley had offered to accept freight for him. "I appreciate it, though. I made you something for your trouble." He unzipped the breast pocket on the inside of his jacket and pulled out a fishing fly. "This is a bead-head nymph I tied just before I left. Rainbows can't resist these guys."

Stanley took it and held it up to the light. The ends of his handlebar mustache lifted up. "It's a beauty, but you know I don't fly-fish."

"Not yet," he said and grabbed his bag of groceries. "But I'm planning your intervention." He headed for the door. "See ya, Stanley."

"See ya. Tell your mother I said hello."

"Will do," Rob said and walked from the store.

The midmorning sun bounced off snow banks and blinded him with white, stabbing rays. With his free hand, he dug around in the pocket of his heavy coat for his sunglasses. He shoved the Revos on the bridge of his nose, and instantly the deep blue polarized lenses eliminated the glare.

He'd parked his black HUMMER in the first slot, and he slid easily into the front seat. He didn't care what anyone thought about his HUMMER. Not his mother and certainly not environmentalists. He liked the leg room and the shoulder room too. He didn't feel so huge in the HUMMER. Cramped. Like he took up too much space. He liked the storage capacity and the fact that it plowed through snow and climbed over rocks with grit and spit and enough pure muscle to spare. And yeah, he liked the fact that he could climb over the top of the other cars on the road if he had to.

He fired up the vehicle and reached into the grocery bag to pull out the apple. He took a bite and put the SUV in reverse. From within the M &S, he caught a glimpse of red ponytail and black shirt.

Her name was Kate, and the night he'd walked out of the Duchin Lounge, he never thought he'd see her again. Not in a million years, but here she was, living in Gospel. Stanley Caldwell's granddaughter was working right across the parking lot from Rob, pricing cans and looking better than he remembered-and what he'd remembered had been pretty damn good.

Rob shoved the HUMMER into gear and drove around to the back of his store. She hadn't been pleased to see him. Not that he could blame her. He could have let her down easier that night. A lot easier, but being propositioned had pissed him off. It had reminded him of a time in his life when he would have taken her up on the offer. When he wouldn't have even hesitated before he kissed her mouth and tangled his fingers in her hair. A time when he would have stared into her liquid brown eyes as he had sex with her all night long. A time in his life when women had been within easy reach and he'd never gone without.

Back then, his life had been fast and furious. Full tilt. Balls to the walls. Everything he'd ever expected and could ever want. Yeah, he'd been blindsided and slammed in the corners more times than he could count. He'd made mistakes. Done things he wasn't proud of, but he'd loved his life. Every damn minute of it.

Right up to the second it had been blown all to hell.

Three

Rob opened the back door to Sutter Sports and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. He took the stairs up to his office and bit into his apple. The sharp crunch joined the sound of his footsteps, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He flipped on the light switch with his elbow and headed toward the open end of the loft, which looked down into the dark store below.

A tandem canoe and nine-foot kayak were suspended from the ceiling beams and cast shadows across a row of mountain bikes. With Sun Valley sixty miles away, and several gun and tackle stores within the city limits of Gospel, Surfer's didn't sell winter sporting goods. Instead he concentrated on summer recreational equipment, and last summer he'd made a nice profit off the rental side of the business.

The temperature in the building was sixty-five and felt warm in comparison to the biting chill outside. He'd lived in every time zone and climate in North America. From Ottawa to Florida, Detroit to Seattle, and several stops in between, Rob Sutter had been there and done that.

He'd always preferred the four distinct seasons of the Northwest. Always enjoyed the radical change in temperature and scenery. Always loved the raw, in-your-face wilderness. And there weren't many places more raw or in-your-face than the Idaho Sawtooths. His mother had lived in Gospel for nine years now. He'd lived here not quite two. It felt like home, more than any other place he'd lived.

Rob turned away and headed for his desk in the middle of the large room. A carton of Diamond-back fly rods and a box of T-shirts with his store's name and logo on the front leaned against his workbench on the far side of the room. His vise and magnifier competed for space with intricate tools, spools of thread, tinsel, and wire.