Christie Ridgway - Can't Fight This Feeling

“Thank you.” Angelica decided she’d leave him a huge tip, no matter the slim state of her wallet. “I appreciate your kindness.”

He double tapped the bar with the flat of his hand and then turned to obey the summons of another customer. Glory glanced around the crowd, not bothering to pretend she wasn’t checking out the clientele. “Like I said, it’s popular here on ladies’ night.”

Angelica made a more surreptitious examination. There was warm laughter and a convivial, community feel with people grouped mostly in threes and fives and sixes. Because of that, a couple huddled close in a cozy booth caught her eye. The man was turned from her so she only saw his expertly cut black hair and wide shoulders. All his attention was focused on the slender blonde beside him who was obviously in full-on flirt. A little smile playing on her lips, she was gazing up at him through her lashes.

The big diamond engagement ring on her left finger flashed in the light from the candle on their table. A sudden pang of envy made Angelica rub at the spot over her heart. She hadn’t lied to Brett. Weddings didn’t make her go spontaneously squishy. Still, looking at those two, so wrapped up in each other...it was lovely. So lovely she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

Quickly, she looked away, embarrassed by the effect they had on her. Loneliness was to blame, she decided. Uncertainty. The fact that her foundation had swept away from beneath her feet.

“Ugh,” Glory said, turning from her perusal of the bar to hunch around her beer.

“What?”

“My dad’s here.” She grabbed Angelica’s elbow. “Don’t look! He’ll see us and come over.”

Angelica laughed because she liked Glory’s dad. He was solid and friendly and had never cheated a soul—you knew it by looking at him. “What’s the matter? Does he know you stayed out past curfew last night?”

“I wish,” Glory grumbled. Her lack of a love life was the subject of much lamenting. “There’s nobody to get naughty with. By the time I was twenty, I’d dated every decent boy in the area. And every smart girl around here knows to keep her distance from flatlanders.”

“Glory, you didn’t stay away from me,” Angelica pointed out.

“I know. We just hit it off from the first. But it’s also different because you’re another woman.”

“Still—”

“We’ve had this argument before,” her friend said, cutting in. “It comes down to this. Unless a man lives permanently in the mountains, I’m not risking heartbreak by even giving him the time of day. I’m this generation’s face of Hallett Hardware, which means I’ll be behind the register until the day I give the keys to my son or daughter. No sense falling for some dude whose life is a long distance away.”

Angelica sighed, but could hardly blame her friend for her practical outlook. When her dad had retired, only-child Glory had been given the reins to the store. It was expected she would hold them until she passed them on.

If Angelica had a place like this where she belonged, among people she’d known all her life, who watched out for her and who’d have her back no matter what—well, she’d be careful not to jeopardize that either by falling for the wrong person.

That kind of stability was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted. Close family. Trustworthy friends. A place where she could sink her roots deep.

Glancing over her shoulder, she cast another look at the happy couple. Some people had it easy. They found their partner and their place without effort. Those two had probably recognized each other by matching glows and then gracefully—and gratefully—given in to the inevitable.

Her body seized as a familiar figure strode up to the couple’s table.

Brett Walker interrupted the pair’s intimate conversation without hesitation. He lightly cuffed the back of the man’s head and when he shifted, leaned around the other guy to buss the blonde on the cheek. She bounced on her seat and pointed at a free space on the curved banquette.

When he slipped onto the cushion, Angelica told herself to look away. But her gaze refused to budge because he was actually smiling at the woman, a real smile, a free smile, that looked relaxed and warm. Everything he wasn’t in Angelica’s presence.

Then the blonde made a gesture toward the bar and it was clear what would happen next. Brett would make his way there to pick up a drink and he’d see Angelica and...

She didn’t know what would happen. She only knew she had to get away before he caught sight of her.

Murmuring something about the ladies’ room to Glory, she slid off her stool and scurried in what she hoped was the right direction. A doorway led her to a darkened hall that didn’t lead to restrooms, but instead a solid door with a sign that read Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound When Opened.

She approached it anyway, with some vague idea of hiding in the shadows there until...sometime when she felt it was safe enough to return to the bar.

Behind her back, a man called her name. “Angelica?”

Her eyes closed. Of course Brett had seen her escape. “Um...yeah?”

The rug muffled his footsteps, but she sensed his approach. The hairs on the back of her neck jumped to attention. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Can’t a woman have a little alone time?” she snapped out, without turning toward him.

She didn’t need to see him to sense the rising of one of his eyebrows. “Hiding by the back door?”

With a shrug, she tried to indicate nonchalance instead of idiocy.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, his voice low.

“Of course not!” She glanced over her shoulder to see him rub his palm over his hair, his expression frustrated. “Why’d you follow me?”

“I—”

“Never mind. I’m leaving.” But she did nothing more than turn to face him.

“What are you doing here, anyway? This doesn’t seem your kind of place.”

She was supposed to be networking, she remembered. Making contacts in hopes of finding another job. Because she was without family, without a home, without more than a few dollars to her name.

Suddenly, it was too much. Overwhelmed by her situation, overstimulated by the presence of the man she’d been attracted to for months, she felt another upwelling of those useless tears. Angry at her herself, she dashed them away with the edge of her hand.

“Angelica.” Then he was close. Closer than when they’d been saying goodbye at the coffee place the other day. Closer than ever before. She felt his breath on her temple and his body heat made her own skin prickle.

His fingers gripped her chin to tilt her face to his. Then he groaned, the sound frustrated. Resigned.

“This is a bad idea,” he murmured.

And before she could agree, because having his hands on her was terrible , he kissed her.

His lips were hard, his tongue insistent. She opened for him—there seemed no alternative—and he swept inside in the same way he swept away all her sensible thoughts. Her fingers clutched his biceps and they swelled under her touch.

His head tilted, and the kiss went deeper. Her tongue slid along his, and they both shuddered. He crowded her until she stepped back, her shoulder blades to the wall. That didn’t stop him, he just kept pressing into her and instead of being nervous of his big, masculine frame surrounding her smaller one, she only felt...turned on.

And, strangely safe.

One arm curled around his neck and she tilted her hips, the jut of his sex against her belly. His hands clutched at her hair and he pushed into her, harder, and then...

He tore his mouth from hers. Stepped back.

“Bad idea,” he muttered again, and was gone.

Angelica sagged against the wall, struggling to bring her breathing under control. Her fingers shook when she brought them to her lips, which felt both bruised and scorched.