Jill Shalvis - Chance Encounter

“No.” Her eyes were full of warmth and compassion. A save-the-world, bleeding heart.

Dammit. “He’s too young,” he said. “Too stubborn.” Though Chance himself had once been both, and Lucy had taken a chance on him. “He doesn’t listen.”

Brian’s eyes flashed. “I will.”

“With or without the attitude?”

“Without,” Brian said between his teeth.

“Then prove it. But it’ll have to be another day. I have to go clear the trails if we’re ever going to open. And you’re going to help,” he said pointing to Brian.

“Me, too,” Ally said.

Couldn’t she see he just wanted to be alone? “In those? ” he asked her.

She bent her head and looked down at her open-toed, dainty leather sandals. She wore a silver heart ring on the second toe of her right foot, which for some reason, seemed overwhelmingly sexy.

“I have some tennis shoes in my suitcase,” she said.

He imagined a pair of useless white canvas shoes. “Ah, hell. Go to Ted in the General Store. Tell him to boot you up before you kill yourself. You, too,” he snapped at Brian, who was wearing some sort of ridiculous black vinyl boot. “And hurry it up, would you?”

“You have such a way with children,” Ally said dryly when Brian had left.

“He’s not a child. Probably never was.”

“Funny, I’d have said the same thing about you.” She stared at the mountain, shielding her eyes from the sun. She bit her lower lip.

It was irrational. And really dumb, but Chance suddenly wanted to nibble on that full lip himself. Instead, he turned and walked away.

“Hey!” she called. “Where are you going?”

“Up.”

“Wait for me.”

“No.” But he made the mistake of stopping to glance at her.

She looked as if someone had taken away her lollipop. Sweet. Innocent. Hopeful. He groaned out loud.

“I’m tougher than I look.”

“That’s good,” he said. “You’re going to need it. But you’re still not coming with me, Ally. I’ve got all I can handle with Mr. Tough Guy.”

She looked surprised at his use of her name, which he’d studiously avoided until now. “Brian’s probably had good reason to be tough,” she said.

“Yes.” He hadn’t expected her to be so insightful, though she was looking at him curiously, as if she could read him as well as she could Brian.

What did she see when she looked at him like that anyway? Telling himself he didn’t care, he took his radio off his belt and radioed for Jo, his assistant, to come get her.

Let someone else take baby-sitting duty. He was done.

“I bet the two of you are a lot alike,” Ally said. “You and Brian.”

“That’s ridiculous.” And insulting. “He’s just a kid.”

“He clearly idolizes you. Wants to do what you do. That’s a big responsibility. And dangerous, I imagine, given your apparent lifestyle.”

“I don’t want him trying to be me.”

“I can see that.” She slipped off his jacket and handed it back to him, leaving her standing there in her defiance and thin blouse. Her nipples pressed against the fabric, and his body stood up and took notice, further aggravating his temper.

Though she barely came to his shoulders, she kept her chin raised defiantly, despite the goose bumps all over her now. “Take it.”

Take it.

Take her.

He had no idea where that irrational thought came from, but there it was, plastered across his brain, the image of him doing just that, taking her, her mouth wet from his, her eyes glazed over as he gripped her hips and-

He shook his head to clear it and grabbed his jacket. Already it held her scent, a light flowery one that was a complete contradiction of sweet sexiness, and as it had when he’d first looked into her eyes at the airport, his chest tightened.

Damn you, Lucy, he thought. What are you trying to do to me?

ALLY EXPECTED JO, Chance’s assistant, to be every bit as overtly male as Chance.

But Jo turned out to be short for Josephine, and while she wasn’t a man, she was tough as nails. Barely five feet tall, with bright red, curly hair that bounced with every step, Jo moved like lightning and talked at the speed of sound.

“We’ll get you geared up, but first let me fill you in,” Jo said after their brief introduction from the now vanished Chance, who’d ditched Ally at his first opportunity.

Ally grumbled to herself about being deserted, but had to admit, the disgruntlement might have come from witnessing the enthusiastic hug Jo had given Chance, the one where she’d pressed herself against him like a suction cup.

He hadn’t seemed to mind in the least.

Ally told herself she didn’t care, but she had no intention of staying behind while he went up the mountain. Nope, she was going, too.

Jo was still talking ninety miles an hour. “I’ve got your calendar for the week, and all the phone messages that have to be returned.” The rest of her words were tossed over her shoulder as she headed toward the lodge steps, leaving Ally no choice but to run to keep up, straining to hear her words.

Jo just kept talking, not even looking back as they ran up the steps into the huge open-beamed lodge. “There’s a stack of stuff that needs a quick reading and your signature.” She made a sharp right and went up more stairs. As she moved, she consulted a clipboard. “There’s five potential staff members to interview, that land permit to check over, and the new trails to discuss before mapping. After that you can talk to the fire inspector about your upcoming meeting and…”

Ally missed the next words due to the fact they were on their third flight of stairs and she was barely keeping up. She stopped for a second, her hand to her chest, sucking air into her poor lungs, wondering how long it would take her to get used to the high altitude, when Jo called out from the landing above.

“Where are you?”

“Here,” Ally huffed, rolling her eyes at the slight irritation in the other woman’s voice. Apparently they were all superhuman athletes here in Wyoming. “Coming!”

When she got to the third floor, Jo was just disappearing into the second office down the hall. By the time Ally got there, still panting as if she’d run a marathon, Jo was sitting in a chair next to a large desk, furiously scribbling notes and still talking as if Ally had been right behind her all the time.

“Oh,” Jo said, startled, looking up. “What was the holdup?”

Ally dropped into a chair and struggled to catch her breath. “You’re kidding me.”

Jo didn’t crack a smile.

Perfect. Attila the Hun. “I don’t seem to be in quite the same physical peak that you are.” Though she would be, come hell or high water. She was going to do whatever it took to do this right.

“You’re out of shape?” Jo looked over Ally’s body with a trained eye, and Ally squirmed, knowing what she saw-too many soft curves instead of tight, toned muscle.

Could she help it she favored cholesterol over exercise?

“What is it that you do again?” Jo asked politely.

“I’m a librarian.” Was a librarian, she reminded herself, with the familiar pang for the loss of the job she’d loved. For the loss of life as she’d known it.

No matter. She was now going with gusto. Soon as she could breathe again, that is.

“I meant what do you do for exercise?”

“Oh. Um…” How to admit that exercise had always been at the bottom of her priority list, right next to getting her annual flu shot?

“You don’t do any of it, do you?” Jo seemed disgusted. “No running, no swimming, no biking, nothing. I think I knew the truth when you put your jacket on the ski rack instead of the coatrack.”