RaeAnne Thayne - Thunder Canyon Homecoming / A Thunder Canyon Christmas

“Peter’s a good guy,” Corey said. “And he makes my mom happy. It’s pretty amazing to think about the fact that he was willing to marry a woman who was on her own with six kids.”

“But—” she prompted.

He didn’t say anything.

“But he’s not your dad,” Erin finished for him.

“No, he’s not. I was so young when my dad died that my memories of him are pretty foggy, but it was still hard to accept anyone else trying to take his place. It’s only recently that I’ve realized Peter made his own place—and I’m glad it’s with my mom.” He shook his head. “But it seems that we’re always talking about my family—tell me something about yours.”

“The Castros aren’t nearly as interesting as the Traubs,” she said.

“That’s an opinion, not a fact,” he chided.

She shrugged. “Okay, my parents are Jack and Betty. My dad’s a harbor cop and my mom is a high school history teacher. I have two brothers, Jake and Josh, both of them older. Jake is a cop in New Orleans and Josh is a perpetual student. He’s currently studying geosciences at Princeton.”

“And what do your parents think of your decision to move to Montana?”

“They’re trying to be supportive. They understand that I needed to make some changes in my life. They just wish I didn’t have to make them so far away.”

“It could be worse,” Corey said philosophically. “You could have gone to New England.”

She smiled. “Which is what I remind them whenever they start complaining about how far away Thunder Canyon is from San Diego.”

“Do you get home to visit them very often?”

“Only once since I moved here,” she admitted. “I’d hoped to go back again for Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to work out now.”

“It’s hard being away from family, especially at the holidays.”

She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever missed a major holiday with them.”

“So why don’t you invite them to come here?”

She seemed startled by the suggestion. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to see the possible solutions to a problem.”

“That’s exactly what you do, isn’t it? Companies hire you to come in and determine what’s not working, and you fix it.”

“I offer suggestions,” he clarified.

“And if a company doesn’t take your suggestions?”

“People don’t often ignore advice that they pay for, but it’s always their choice.”

The waiter brought their lunches.

Erin plucked a curly fry from her plate and bit off the end. “How long does it usually take—your review and analysis?”

“Are you trying to figure out how long I’m going to be in Thunder Canyon?” he teased.

“I’m trying to make conversation,” she retorted, but the flush in her cheeks confirmed his guess.

“Well, the answer to that question is that it varies depending on the complexity of the problems. Is the company simply looking to improve its bottom line, or is it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? Is it a mom-and-pop operation or an international conglomerate?” He picked up his spicy barbecue chicken sandwich and bit into it.

“So it could be weeks or months,” she guessed.

He nodded, chewing.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I enjoy the challenge.”

“Is that why you’re here with me now—because I turned you down the first time you asked me to dance?”

“ You’re here with me ,” he pointed out. “And if you’d accepted my original invitation, the only thing that would have been different is that we would have shared our first dance sooner.”

“First dance?”

He grinned. “Yeah, I’m counting on there being more.”

She smiled back, not protesting his assumption this time. Then her gaze slid away, caught by something across the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that it wasn’t a “something” but “someone”—her boss, Grant Clifton. But it wasn’t the direction of her gaze that bothered him so much as the brief glimpse of yearning that he read in her eyes.

Then she focused on her plate again, and Corey was left to wonder if he’d just imagined the longing he thought he’d seen. He hoped so. He sure as heck didn’t want to think that she was lusting after a man who was his friend, her boss and married to boot.

However, it would explain why she’d been resistant to his overtures. Not that he thought he was irresistible, but in his experience, most women were flattered by his attention and often sought him out, and he’d been trying to figure out why Erin seemed impervious to his legendary charms.

He’d considered the usual reasons—she was just getting over a failed relationship, she didn’t like the color of his hair or his eyes, she thought he was too tall/too short or too young/too old, or she just wasn’t attracted to him—although he’d discarded that possibility after their first kiss because he knew that a woman couldn’t kiss a man the way she’d kissed him if she didn’t feel at least some degree of attraction. It had never occurred to him that she might be infatuated with her boss.

“How’s your sandwich?” Erin asked.

“Great,” he said, and picked it up again.

They chatted casually as they finished their lunches. He noticed that Erin was both attentive and entertaining, her focus never again wavering. Maybe he had imagined the look she’d sent in Grant’s direction. Maybe she’d actually been looking at someone else’s lunch—or their dessert. He’d dated a lot of women who looked enviously at the cheesecake on someone else’s plate but refused to order their own.

“Dessert?” he asked her.

There was still a handful of fries on Erin’s plate when she pushed it aside, shaking her head. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“Not even a tiny slice of pecan turtle pie?”

She sighed wistfully. “As much as I love DJ’s pecan turtle pie, I know they don’t serve tiny slices.”

He flagged down their server and ordered a slice anyway, asking for it to be boxed so Erin could take it home.

The cake was delivered along with his credit card slip, and Corey slid the dessert across the table to her.

“I really don’t need the three thousand calories in this box,” she told him. “But I’ll say ‘thank you’ anyway, knowing that I will savor every last bite while I’m watching American Idol tonight.”

“What do you watch on Fridays?” Corey asked, as they headed out of the restaurant.

“Nothing in particular.”

“Then how about catching a movie with me?” he suggested.

“What movie?” she asked.

“I don’t even know what’s showing,” he admitted.

“I would have expected you to find that out before you decided you wanted to go.”

“I just thought it would be fun to go to a movie with you.”

“I don’t like horror flicks,” she warned him.

“You could snuggle up to me during the scary parts.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She laughed but shook her head. “All the parts are scary parts, and I’d have nightmares for a week.”

“Okay, no horror flicks,” he promised.

“And I’m not big on sci-fi, either.”

He nodded his understanding. “Aliens can be pretty scary.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”

“Of course not,” he said, but his lips twitched as he tried not to smile.

“Just for that, you have to buy the popcorn.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he told her, and he meant it.

She eyed him warily. “What are we doing, Corey?”

“Setting up a date.”

“Is it that simple?”

“For now.” They were back at the reception desk, and as much as he wanted to linger, he knew she needed to get back to work. “I’ll give you a call to let you know what time on Friday.”