Christie Ridgway - Can't Fight This Feeling

The full-timers had to share with those flatlanders, though. The resort mountain communities of the area had palatial homes near ski runs and expansive mansions on the banks of private lakes. Wealthy people came up on weekends to their alpine retreats, which gave rise to businesses that provided for the visitors’ needs and tastes: gourmet grocers and house-cleaning services, organic restaurants and landscape-maintenance companies.

“Yep, flatlanders,” Brett told the other man.

“Rich?”

Brett shrugged. “Eye of the beholder, right?” Money didn’t impress the Walkers. The opposite, really, and he’d been inclined to dislike Ryan and Jace on that principle alone. But the men his sisters had chosen had proved themselves, which hadn’t always been the case.

Shay had been the product of a brief affair between their mother and a wealthy visitor when his parents’ marriage had hit a rough patch and his father had temporarily decamped to South America. But Dell Walker had ultimately returned and treated Shay as his own for the rest of his life—her bio dad had never shown his face again.

Poppy had become a single mom when her son’s rich-but-shallow father had run back to Beverly Hills.

Brett had been screwed in his own way by the moneyed. He’d earned the chip on his shoulder.

“Business good?” Don asked now.

“Sure.” This time of year, he was still mowing and trimming, but soon enough he’d be planting bulbs for spring and protecting flower beds and shrubbery from the coming harsher weather. “We’ll see what happens in winter.” Then he switched to snow removal. If there wasn’t any white stuff to shovel or plow, he’d be in for a dry spell.

“But you’re still out and about the area every day, right?”

Brett’s eyes narrowed. Don wasn’t just shooting the breeze. “Yeah...” He drew out the word, uneasy again.

Don cleared his throat. “I don’t like to sound an alarm...”

Except that’s exactly what he was doing. “Spit it out.”

“Looks like we have a string of burglaries,” he said, frowning.

“Here?” Brett glanced around. This particular community was gated, and besides the patrolling sheriffs, residents could let a security service know their schedule and request daily checks.

“Here, there, across the lake, on the mountain ridge. There isn’t a real pattern we’ve detected, other than break-ins and missing valuables. You and I both know there are ways to get to these homes that bypass the gates and kiosks.”

“Yeah.” Brett ran a hand over his short hair. Thieves could come by boat or zip around on dirt bikes and avoid the paved roads. “We had trouble with kids in our cabins during the summer.”

“I thought of that,” Don said. “Any trouble since?”

“No. I’m living out there now.” Four miles off the mountain highway was a tract of Walker land that had once been a successful, though small, ski resort. After a wildfire came through and destroyed nearly everything, it had been left to nature. Then, last spring, Poppy had decided she wanted to refurbish the dozen cabins that remained standing. Despite the initial objections from the rest of the siblings, they were making progress. Slow progress, but progress all the same. “We think the fire in one of the bungalows was set by local kids. This seem the same? Locals?”

“They’d know how not to get caught.”

Unless they were naive enough to let themselves be used, Brett thought. But he shook it off because he wasn’t eighteen any longer and at the mercy of a lying little rich girl and her daddy who thought his spoiled darling could do no wrong.

“Keep your eyes open, will you, Brett?” Don said. “Since you’re cruising around all day, you might catch sight of something or someone that will help us crack this.”

“Will do.”

With a wave, Don returned to his car and Brett continued on with his day. But uneasiness continued to dog him. If people suspected area kids were the culprits, it wasn’t a large leap to any local being blamed. If the owners of the vacation homes began distrusting the help they hired, it could impact the bottom line of people like Brett with his landscaping business. His sister Mac, too, who operated a cleaning service.

This wasn’t good.

His schedule full, Brett’s day didn’t finish until he was nearly out of daylight. Muscles aching, he pushed the lawn mower up the ramp into his truck’s bed. Then he settled into the driver’s seat and grabbed some water, practically hosing it down his parched throat. He’d brooded over the burglaries while he worked at a handful of properties. The usual mowing and clipping, but he’d also raked up mountains of fallen leaves. The pinecones had seemed to have it in for him. Two of the prickly buggers had fallen directly on his head.

He wanted a cold beer, a long shower and a hot meal.

Since he’d have to make yet another stop to purchase two out of the three, his lousy mood was only amplified as he started off in the direction of the highway.

It was quiet in the neighborhood. Nothing unusual for a midweek autumn day. But, remembering Don’s words, he paid more attention than he normally would. That’s why he slowed and gave a piercing once-over of the Rodriguez place.

“Liar,” he muttered to himself.

The piercing once-over was all about the damn woman he wanted to be all over—Angelica Rodriguez.

He sighed. She was so exactly not the type for him. She’d spent the summer at the house that now looked empty of life. Her mother was an infamous supermodel, now divorced from Angelica’s father, a hedge-fund manager with a Midas touch. Brett didn’t think the young woman did anything but dream up ways to torture him. When he arrived to work on the grounds, she’d come outside wearing radiant smiles and little sundresses.

She was evil like that.

Not to mention how she tempted him in other ways. Freshly made lemonade. Oatmeal and raisin cookies—his favorite. He didn’t know how she’d discovered that fact, but he wouldn’t put it past her to use Daddy’s money to purchase a background check of him.

All summer he’d been completely, uncomfortably, maddeningly aware she’d had an itch to go slumming. With him.

But looking at the huge villa-style house on the lake, dark except for a couple of dim security lights mounted on the outside, he guessed she’d gone home...or at least to some other Rodriguez-owned domicile. In Bel-Air, maybe. Malibu. For all he knew, Paris.

Thank God. He’d been losing his will to hold out against her. Would any man blame him? She had liquid brown eyes, a wealth of silky, espresso-dark hair, a body...

Don’t think about her body.

She’d once told him she’d modeled for a time in childhood to early teens, until she’d gotten too “fat.” Translation: long legs, beautiful features.

And breasts.

Bountiful, distracting, unforgettable breasts.

Brett closed his eyes, and he could still see them, damn it. Beneath a tank top. Under a loose-fitting shift. Once he’d seen her in a bikini.

That day, he’d been afraid he’d lose his eyesight. Because not only had he garnered a glance at her front, but she’d turned around and he’d spied her luscious butt in bathing-suit bottoms.

Yeah, that kind of “fat.”

It should be against the law.

Blowing out a breath, he opened his eyes to take a final look at the place before moving on. He could see it clearly enough through the iron bars of the wide double gate. Now that she was gone, he was going to forget all about her.

A tiny light moved behind a window.

Brett rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Was he seeing things? Blinking hard, he surveyed the place once more. The light was gone—