Olivia Gates - Best of Desire

He couldn’t even escape her at night. His dreams were full of her. And the knowledge that her room was only three doors down the hall from his plagued his mind constantly.

Her dog wasn’t helping the situation any, either. Ever since he’d found the little thing that last night in the forest, the poodle had officially adopted him. He could hardly take a step without watching first where he set his boot, afraid he’d crush the damn thing. He’d taken plenty of ribbing about his newfound friend from the other guys, too. Hell, he’d often thought about getting a dog himself, but his plans hadn’t included a dog so small it could sit on the palm of his hand.

“Is there a reason you look like you want to bite through a brick?”

Jericho came up out of his dark thoughts with a fierce scowl on his face. He turned on his old friend and said, “This is all your fault, you know.”

“What’d I do?” Sam argued, his own features twisting up into a frown.

“You brought Daisy here. You’re the one who offered her the damn job.” Of course Jericho was the one who had hired her, but that was beside the point. “She doesn’t belong and she never will and pretending otherwise is just making a bad situation worse.”

Sam’s features cleared up and a smile tugged at his mouth. “She’s getting to you, isn’t she?”

“Hell, no, she’s not,” he lied. Damned if he’d admit to Sam what he couldn’t admit to himself. “She’s just a distraction is all.”

“She is that,” Sam agreed and opened a stall door to pour feed for one of the horses. When he was finished, he stepped back, closed the stall again and walked to the next one. “A pretty woman’s always a distraction. And one that can cook, too?” He whistled, low and long, shaking his head for emphasis. “Well, that woman’s a treasure to a man who isn’t too stupid to see what’s right in front of him.”

Jericho stared at his friend’s back hard enough to bore holes right through his body. “Now I’m stupid?”

“Didn’t say that, but won’t argue the point, you being the boss and all.”

“Thanks very much,” Jericho muttered and shot a look toward the main house. The barn doors were open, watery winter sunlight slanting across the neatly swept stone floor. Inside the house, Daisy would be bustling around the kitchen preparing lunch for the employees. She was probably singing, he told himself, in that slightly off-key voice of hers. His insides stirred at the thought, and he told himself he was in bad shape.

“You’re the one making yourself miserable, you know,” Sam told him casually as he continued making his rounds down the row of horse stalls. “Nobody else here has a problem with her. She’s doing a good job and she’s nice on top of it.”

“Nice.”

Sam shot him a look. “Yeah, nice. You might want to try it.”

Oh, that was the problem, Jericho thought, shoving both hands into his jeans pockets. He wanted to be more than nice to her. He wanted her under him, over him. He wanted to slide his hands over those luscious curves, look down into her whiskey eyes and see his own desire-ravaged face reflected back at him. And he wanted it now.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered and stalked out of the barn. What he needed, he told himself, was a hard hike up the mountain. Maybe a night or two on his own. Get his mind clear. Get his sense of control and order back. Get the hell away from Daisy Saxon before she drove him completely crazy.

* * *

Daisy was worried.

Jericho had been gone for two nights already and, with no signs of coming back, he was about to make it three. He’d disappeared up the mountain with hardly more than a word to her or anyone else. Sam didn’t know where he’d gone—or he simply wasn’t saying—and the other guys were just as clueless.

They didn’t seem concerned either. They only said that Jericho did this from time to time and she shouldn’t worry herself over it. But how could she not?

She’d become accustomed to seeing him every day. To hearing him move around the house. To knowing that he was right down the hall from her every night. Without him there, something vital was missing. Even Nikki was moping around the house as if she’d lost her best friend.

The house was closed up for the night. There were no clients at the moment and the other employees lived in a separate log home on the other side of the compound. She and Nikki were alone and though she wasn’t scared, she was uneasy. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she shivered in her short cotton nightgown and stared out her bedroom window at the moonlit darkness beyond the glass.

“Where are you?” she murmured.

How long was he going to stay out there on his own? Why was he gone? She’d so hoped they’d made a connection on their two days in the woods together. She remembered with perfect clarity that deep, lingering kiss that still had her waking up in the middle of the night with her body aching and her heartbeat racing.

How could he just leave? Doesn’t he care if people worry?

Behind her on the bed, Nikki whined in sympathy.

But Daisy didn’t want sympathy. She wanted Jericho. Home. Where he belonged. Funny, but she hadn’t even realized until this moment that she’d already begun to think of this place as home. Strange how quickly she’d acclimated to being here. To this way of life. So completely different from life in the city, living on the mountain was slower yet so much more…fundamental. Here, everyone worked together to make sure life moved as it should. The employees at the camp were a family and she’d slid into their company so easily, she’d come to rely on all of them.

But when the head of their family was missing…

“Darn it, where are you?”

Chewing at her bottom lip, she ignored the growing chill in the room and wondered what it would be like here when the snow came. Would she still be here? Would Jericho still be avoiding her? Or would she be pregnant and already gone from this place?

The thought of that sent a curl of regret unspooling at the pit of her stomach. She’d never planned to stay here forever. But now that she’d been here a while, become a part of things, the thought of leaving left her feeling…empty.

But she would have her child, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t be alone anymore.

She would have her own family again.

“If he ever comes back,” she muttered.

Behind her, Nikki suddenly jumped onto all fours and let out a yip of excitement. Daisy turned to look at her dog, then swung around to gaze out the window again. Jericho, bathed in moonlight, stepped from the tree line and walked across the wide yard, stopping directly in front of the house.

Nikki leaped off the bed, hit the wood floor and skidded, her short nails clacking against the oak planks as she raced for the closed bedroom door.

But Daisy wasn’t watching her dog. Instead, her gaze was locked on the man standing in the yard. Moonlight stretched his shadow across the grass and outlined him in a pearly light that seemed otherworldly. In the stillness, he tipped his head back, looked up at her window and met her gaze. Heat sizzled through her and a part of her was amazed that she could feel such an intense reaction from the man at such a distance. She lifted one hand and laid her palm against the cold windowpane as if she could touch him if she concentrated hard enough. And in that instant, something of her thoughts must have transmitted themselves to him because his features went hard and taut and a moment later, he was stalking toward the house with purposeful strides.

Daisy whirled around, grabbed up her robe from the end of her bed and pulled it on as she raced across the room. She threw the door open and Nikki burst free, flying down the hall and then the stairs, headed for the front door. The little dog got there just as Jericho opened it and when he stopped on the threshold, Nikki went up on her hind legs and waved her forepaws at him in celebration.