Cassie Miles - Mountain Blizzard

Their marriage was over, but she never had stopped imagining Sean as her lover. Nobody kissed her the way he did. The pressure of his mouth against hers was familiar and perfect. Will he do that thing with his tongue? The thing where he parts my lips gently, and then he deepens the kiss. His tongue swoops and swirls. And there’s a growling noise from the back of his throat, a vibration.

She’d never been able to fully describe what he did to her and what sensations he unleashed. But he was doing it right now, right in this moment. Oh yes, kiss me again.

She almost swooned. Swoon? No way! She’d changed. No more the lady poet, she was a hard-bitten journalist, not the type of woman who collapsed in a dead faint after one kiss, definitely not.

But her grip on consciousness was slipping fast. Her knees began to buckle, and she clung to his shoulders to keep from slipping to the floor. Her hands slid down his chest. Even that move was sexy; through the smooth fabric of his beige chamois shirt, she fondled his hard but supple abs.

This out-of-control but very pleasurable attraction had to stop before she lost her willpower, her rationality...her very mind. Pushing with the flat of her palms against his chest, she forced a distance between them. “We can’t do this.”

“Sure we can.” He slung his arm around her waist. “It’s been a while, but I haven’t forgotten how.”

Tomorrow he’d thank her for not dissolving into a quivering blob of lust. Firmly, she said, “I can see that we’re going to need ground rules.”

He kissed the top of her head and took a step back. “You cut it.”

“What?”

“Your hair, you cut it.”

“Too much trouble.” She fluffed her chin-length bob. “And getting rid of the Rapunzel curls makes me look more adult.”

“Oh yeah, you’re really grown up. How old are you now, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

She didn’t laugh at his lame attempt at humor. “I’m almost twenty-six.”

Their eight-year age difference had always been an issue. When they first met, she’d just turned nineteen. They were married and divorced before she was twenty-one, and she’d always wondered if their relationship would have lasted longer if she’d been more mature. It was a familiar refrain. If I knew then what I know now, things would be different.

More likely, they never would have gotten together in the first place. Older and wiser, she would have taken one look at him and realized that he wasn’t the sort of man who should be married.

“I like your new haircut,” he said. “And you’re right. We need some ground rules.”

She gestured toward the dining room. “Should we eat chili while we talk?”

“That depends on how much you want your aunt and former deputy Willis to know.”

Of course, he was right. She didn’t want to spill potentially dangerous information about Wynter Corp into a casual conversation. Until now the only thing she’d told Aunt Hazel was that she’d witnessed a murder in San Francisco. She hadn’t named the killer or the victim and certainly hadn’t mentioned that the Wynter family had a place near Aspen.

Regret trickled through her. She probably shouldn’t have come here. Though she’d been ultracautious in keeping her identity secret and her connection to Hazel was hard to trace, somebody might find out and come after them. If anything happened to Hazel...

Emily shuddered at the thought. “I don’t want my aunt to get stuck in the middle of this.”

“Agreed.”

“Come with me.”

She led him across the foyer to a living room that reflected Hazel’s eclectic personality with a combination of classy and rustic. The terra-cotta floor and soft southwestern colors blended with painted barn wood on the walls. The high ceiling was open beam. The rugged, moss rock fireplace reminded Emily that her aunt was an outdoorswoman who herded cattle and tamed wild mustangs. But Hazel also had a small art collection, including two Georgia O’Keeffe watercolor paintings of flowers that hung on either side of the fireplace.

While Emily went behind the wet bar at the far end of the room, Sean studied the watercolor of a glowing pink-and-gold hydrangea. “Is this an original?”

“A gift from the artist,” Emily said. “Hazel spent some time with O’Keeffe at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.”

“I keep forgetting how rich your family is. None of you are showy. It’s all casual and comfortable and then I realize that you’ve got valuable artwork on the wall.” He made his way across the room to the wet bar. “When I was driving up to this place, I had the feeling I’d seen it before. Did we come here for a visit?”

“I don’t think so. Hazel was in Europe for most of the year and a half we were married.” She peered through the glass door of the wine cellar refrigerator. “White wine or red?”

“How about beer?”

“You haven’t changed.” She opened the under-the-counter refrigerator and selected two bottles of craft beers with zombies on the labels. “You’ll like this brand. It’s dark.”

He didn’t question her selection, just grabbed the beer, tapped the neck against hers and took a swig. He licked his lips. “Good.”

A dab of foam glistened at the corner of his mouth, and she was tempted to wipe the moisture off, better yet, to lick it.

“Ground rules,” she said, reminding herself as much as him.

“First, I want to know why I have déjà vu about Hazelwood Ranch. Do you have any photo albums?”

She came out from behind the bar and shot him a glare. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not take a side trip down memory lane. We have more urgent concerns.”

“You’re the one who introduced family into the picture,” he said. “I want to understand a few things about Hazel. How long has she lived here?”

“The ranch doesn’t belong to our family. Hazel’s late husband was the owner of this and many other properties near Aspen. He renamed this small ranch Hazelwood in honor of her. They always seemed so happy. Never had kids, though. He was older, in his fifties, when they got married.”

She scanned the spines of books in a built-in shelf until she found a couple of photo albums. As she took them down and carried them to the coffee table in front of the sofa, she realized that she hadn’t downloaded her own photos in months. Digital albums were nice, but she really preferred the old-fashioned way.

“I knew there’d be pictures,” he said.

“Do you remember those journals I used to make? I’d take an old book with an interesting cover and replace the pages with my own sketches and poetry and photos.”

“I remember.” His voice was as soft as a caress. “The Engagement Journal was the best present you ever gave me.”

“What about the watch, the super-expensive, engraved wristwatch?”

“Also treasured.”

She went back to the bar, snatched up her beer and returned to sit on the sofa beside him. “I’m an excellent present giver. It’s a family trait.”

“How are they, the Peterson family?”

“My oldest sister had a baby girl, which means I’m an aunt, and the other two are in grad school. Mom and Dad moved to Arizona, which they love.” She took a taste of the zombie beer, which was, as she’d expected, excellent, and gave him a rueful smile. “I don’t suppose Aunt Hazel told my mom that she was calling you.”

“Your mom hated me.”

Emily made a halfhearted attempt to downplay her mother’s opinion. “You weren’t their favorite.”

Her parents had begged her to stay in college and wait to get married until she was older. Emily was her mom’s baby, the youngest of four girls, the artistic one. When Emily’s divorce came, Mom couldn’t wait to say “I told you so.”