Susan Mallery - Kiss Me

Zane stood leaning against the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. He looked strong and unmovable. Maya’s claims about Chase’s broken spirit didn’t hold water when compared with the teenager’s outgoing personality, but Phoebe couldn’t help wondering what Zane was thinking as he studied his brother.

“Is your room all right?” Zane asked her.

She nodded. “Everything is great.”

“Maya wants me to take you to dinner in town.” He glanced at his watch.

Feel the love, she thought, not sure if she should call him on his lack of graciousness. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine.”

“Can we go to Margaritaville?” Chase asked. “I could go for nachos.”

“What you could go for even more is staying home and finishing cleaning all the guest rooms. There’s a pizza in the freezer. Elaine Mitchell’s going to pick up the greenhorns and Maya on Friday and bring them out to the ranch in her tourist van. You’ve got a lot of work to do before they get here.”

“But—”

Zane cut him off with a look, then turned back to Phoebe. “Meet me downstairs in an hour.”

Phoebe knew a dismissal when she heard one. Due to the fact that she was an uninvited stranger who had shown up with little warning, she didn’t feel that she was in a position to complain.

She gave Chase a quick smile, then moved toward the door. Zane stepped out of the way to let her pass. As she walked by him, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and swayed in salutation.

* * *

WHEN PHOEBE LEFT her room an hour later, she could hear Chase singing in a bedroom down the hall. She smiled. He was such a cheerful kid, a pure-hearted spirit. Forced to stay home and do chores, he’d decided he might as well make them fun.

She was a little nervous about spending the evening alone with his big brother, though. What would they talk about?

Zane was waiting for her at the base of the stairs. She stopped on the last step so that when he turned toward her, they were eye to eye.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything dressier,” she said. She’d changed into white jeans and a pale, dusty purple top with an embellished scoop neckline.

His gaze traveled to her feet and back to her face. She thought maybe she read masculine appreciation in his raised brows.

“You’re fine,” he said.

So much for any appreciation. On his part, at least. “Give me a moment while I bask in the glory,” she murmured and stepped past him to the front porch and then down toward his truck.

Zane got there ahead of her. A neat trick explained by his much longer stride. He towered over her. He’d changed clothes, too, into dark blue jeans and a fitted white T-shirt that showcased his hard-earned muscles. His dark hair was still damp. An image flashed through her mind of him in the shower, water running over his broad shoulders.

He opened the door for her, then helped her into the truck. The masculine scent of his soap and shampoo wafted toward her as he climbed in beside her, making her limbs melt into the leather seat.

This felt like a date. It wasn’t, but still. Phoebe sighed. Maya had promised her a distraction, and Zane was certainly that. Too bad he didn’t seem to like her one bit.

* * *

PHOEBE WAS A little relieved when Zane didn’t park outside Margaritaville. After Chase had mentioned wanting nachos, it would seem mean to eat there. Instead she and Zane walked into a place called The Fox and Hound.

The restaurant had lots of dark wood and booths. There were English hunting prints on the wall. Campy, Phoebe thought happily, following the hostess to a booth and sliding in.

She told herself the quivering sensation she felt inside was because she was hungry and had nothing to do with the man sitting across from her. Then she felt bad for lying, if only to herself.

She took the offered menu but didn’t open it. When they were alone, she glanced at Zane.

“Do you not like me or is this just your style?”

Zane’s gaze was steady. Almost laser-like. She wanted to squirm but didn’t. Nor did she look away.

“I like you fine,” he said at last.

The low gravelly quality of his voice was so nice, she thought, before the actual words sank in. “Really?”

He sighed. “Why are you surprised?”

“You aren’t exactly welcoming. I know you’re doing all this to teach Chase a lesson, so it’s not like you asked me to visit, but you didn’t have to take me out to dinner just because Maya asked you to.”

“You didn’t have to say yes.”

“I was hungry.”

“So was I.”

* * *

ZANE KNEW THAT he and Phoebe were no longer talking about the same thing. At least not when it came to hunger. She would be thinking fish and chips, and he was thinking more along the lines of naked.

He wanted to tell himself it was simply because he was a man and she was a woman, but he knew it was more than that. As he’d admitted, he liked her. She was cute and funny. When she looked at him with her big brown eyes, he wanted to grab Tango and ride his horse into the sunset to save something for her. Talk about idiotic. He barely knew her.

Yet there was something about Phoebe Kitzke. An innocence, maybe. No, that wasn’t right. It was how she seemed trusting. More fool her. Or maybe him.

Not that it mattered. Wanting wasn’t having. She was here as Maya’s friend. Possibly to keep watch over him so he didn’t hurt Chase. Because Maya wouldn’t trust him.

“You’re looking fierce,” Phoebe said.

Her hair was long and loose. Sexy. He deliberately steered his brain away from that line of thinking.

“My sister brings out the fierce in me.”

“Because of how she’s always thinking you’re too hard on Chase?”

“Maya talks too much.”

“She says less than you think,” Phoebe told him. “It’s more what she doesn’t say. She worries about Chase.”

“Everybody does.”

Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “She worries about you, too.”

He raised a brow. “I doubt that.”

Phoebe raised her shoulders, then let them drop back into place. “Okay, maybe she doesn’t say that exactly, but I know she does. We’re friends.”

“Being friends gives you insight?”

“Of course. It’s not like being family, but it’s close.”

“Family can be a pain in the ass.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but it has to be better than being alone.”

Maybe if he didn’t feel so responsible for Chase, he would be able to enjoy his brother more. As it was, he walked that precarious line between brother and father figure. He spent half the time annoyed with some of the boy’s boneheaded decisions and the other half worried the kid was going to screw up his own life.

“An optimist.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s important to be realistic.”

She leaned toward him. “It’s important to have dreams. To see the possibilities.”

He’d believed that once, he reminded himself. Before he’d destroyed what mattered most to his father. Before he’d understood that some things were unforgivable. No matter how much a kid tried to make them right.

Their server came by to take their drink order. Phoebe asked for a glass of red wine while Zane got a beer. When they were alone again, Phoebe leaned toward him.

“Tell me about Fool’s Gold.”

“What do you want to know?”

He was expecting a question about the tourists, or the history. Instead she surprised him by asking, “What do you like best about living here?”

“It’s what I know.”

She nodded slowly. “Because you’ve lived here all your life. I get that. You have a connection with the town and the rhythm of the seasons. You probably have friends from when you were really small.”