Olivia Gates - Best of Desire

“Thanks.”

He watched her climb down from the platform and walk toward him with a spring in her step. The little dog on the end of the red leash jumped and pulled, trying to get to her, so Jericho dropped the leash and the poodle raced to Daisy. The tiny dog was scooped up and cuddled while it wiggled in ecstasy.

Jericho thought briefly that he couldn’t blame the animal for the reaction. In fact, he almost envied the ridiculous little dog. “Jericho?”

Her voice sounded confused. “What?”

She smiled at him. “Just wondering where you were. I was talking to you and you just zoned out.”

Well, that was humiliating. “I was thinking about the wall,” he lied.

“Oh. Okay.” She sounded disappointed now, but added, “Let’s go and get it over with then.”

Get it over with. Hmm. That had been his plan in bringing her up here. Walk her through, watch her fail and get her off the mountain. What the plan was now, he wasn’t sure.

“So,” she asked as Nikki trotted ahead of them, “why’d you freak when I suggested you bring kids up here?”

“I didn’t freak,” he said, and assured himself that was true. A man who’d spent as many years in the military as he had wouldn’t be “freaked” by the idea of having kids run amok at his camp. “I was just…surprised by the suggestion.”

She pushed a low-hanging bough out of her way, ducked her head to pass under and said, “I don’t know why. In my old neighborhood, there were dozens of kids who would have loved to be here for a week or two.” She took a moment to glance around and he followed her gaze.

Early morning light tipped the edges of the pine branches. A soft wind sighed through the trees and a bright blue jay shot through the air like a colorful bullet. The woods never failed to center him. To give him the sense of peace that was as elusive as it was sought after. Just the thought of having dozens of teenagers rampaging through the forest he considered a sanctuary was enough to make him grit his teeth. But Daisy clearly liked the idea.

“Kids in the city have no idea really. What a world with no sidewalks or freeways looks like,” she said wistfully. “They’ve never seen the stars the way you can up here and I’m sure they’ve never heard silence so deep.”

“I’m not set up to have kids here,” he said, guiding her around a stack of boulders. “This is a leadership camp. We train CEOs and other corporate types how to use teamwork. How to count on each other and learn from each other. How to overcome negatives and turn them into positives.”

“All of which kids would benefit from learning,” she pointed out.

“Not my job,” he insisted. What the hell would he do with a dozen or more kids running wild on the mountain? Hell, just the liability issues alone would be staggering.

“You talk tough, but you’re not such a hard guy, Jericho King.”

One dark eyebrow lifted when he glanced back at her. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“Oh, I’m not,” she said, smiling into his scowling face. “See, I’ve talked with Kevin, your cook—who is, I hesitate to point out, barely more than a kid himself—”

“He’s twenty.”

“My point exactly,” she said smugly. “Anyway, he told me that not only did you hire him here with no references, but that you’re also loaning him the money to go to the Culinary Institute of America. So he can be the chef he dreams of being.”

“That’s different.” And real damn irritating to find out that Kevin was shooting his mouth off. Jericho was going to have to have a talk with the kid.

“How is it different?”

He wasn’t sure. Kevin had wandered up to the mountain a little more than a year ago looking for work. He’d been scrawny and exhausted from carrying around a chip on his shoulder for so long. He’d had a rough life but he’d stood up to it and made himself into a good kid despite the odds. He’d proven himself in the kitchen so quickly that Jericho had kept him on. Now, he was helping the kid get a start. No big deal.

Gritting his teeth, he said, “The difference is, I didn’t go hunting down a bunch of kids to sponsor. Kevin found us. He just showed up and wouldn’t leave. Besides, he stopped being a kid a long time ago. He’s been on his own since he was fifteen and—”

“And you gave him a chance to be what he wanted to be,” Daisy said, laying one hand on his forearm. “I’m just saying it would be nice if other kids had the same opportunity.”

Reluctantly, Jericho pulled free of her touch and said abruptly, “Maybe you should stop worrying about other people and give a thought or two to passing your own test.”

That kept her quiet for a while, but in the silence, Jericho’s mind raced with the thoughts and ideas she’d planted there. Damn it.

Six

Daisy was exhausted and every bone and muscle in her body ached like a bad tooth, but beneath the misery was a sense of accomplishment. She’d done it. So far she’d passed his silly tests and was well on her way to earning herself a place at his lodge. He wouldn’t be able to send her away now and she was that much closer to having the time to seduce him, make a child and have a family.

Over the past couple of days, she’d gotten to know Jericho King better than she would have by dating him for a month. Even though he resisted conversation, she’d been able to pry words out of him. And she’d had the opportunity to watch him. To study him. There was a sense of quiet confidence about him that was very attractive, and she had to admit that his stoic standoffishness only added to it.

There was a closeness between them now that under normal circumstances would never have happened so quickly. They’d worked together to make camp, to eat, to live. They’d slept curled up together…well, she thought, they had as soon as she’d moved over to him for warmth and stayed to snuggle. They’d talked more than most couples did in a week and they’d each learned something about the other, she told herself. He had learned that she wasn’t going to quit and go away.

And she had learned that he was unlike any other man she’d ever known. He seemed so solitary. So comfortable with his aloneness that Daisy was drawn closer and closer in an attempt to breach the walls he’d erected around himself so completely.

“These plants are edible,” he was saying, “if you dig them up and pound the root. Won’t be tasty, but it would keep you alive.”

She nodded as if she were making mental notes, but she didn’t care about edible roots. After all, she wouldn’t be wandering the forest foraging for food. Once her test was finished, she’d be at the lodge and wouldn’t step into the woods again without an experienced guide.

So instead, she watched the man. Jericho moved through the trees with a confidence born of self-reliance. He was a complex man. He hadn’t wanted her here and hadn’t made that a secret. But earlier, when he could have stood back and watched her struggle to climb the stupid wall—watched her fail—he hadn’t. Instead, he’d planted one big hand under her behind and boosted her up enough that Daisy was able to scramble to the top and then drop over the other side, victorious.

She knew she never would have been able to make that climb under her own steam. Hard to admit, but she simply didn’t have the upper-body strength to accomplish the task.

“Your best bet, if you’re lost in the woods, is to stay put,” Jericho told her, glancing over his shoulder at her to make sure she was paying attention.

“Hug a tree. Right.”

He shook his head and sighed. “But you wouldn’t stay in one place, would you?”

“Probably not,” she agreed cheerfully.