He entered his room, saw the remnants of the kitty supplies, and thought it felt like about a million years had elapsed since containing demon kitty had been his immediate concern. “Amazing what can happen in a single day.” And he knew. He’d won millions in less than twenty-four hours. Lost a bit, on occasion, too.

He couldn’t be entirely certain until some time had passed for him to think on it properly, for it to sink in properly, sort of like winning another championship bracelet or a record-breaking pot. But he was pretty sure this was going to rank right up there.

He pulled back the bedspread, dropped the towel at his feet, sprawled face first onto the fresh, cool, white linen, and dropped immediately to sleep.

Chapter 9

Well, Kirby had gotten it half right, anyway.

The whole wild and crazy spontaneous casual sex thing-that part she’d figured out. The part about not falling apart and crying afterward because she was already getting emotionally involved? Yeah, that part she had to work on. She wondered if Brett even knew. He’d stood behind her, under the spray, for quite some time before reaching for her. She’d tried, desperately, to stop the tears, but in the end had worked on being really quiet about it. Had he known? Is that why he’d reached for her?

He’d been…different, that second time. Less intent and hungry, more…she wasn’t sure how to describe it. Not as intent, no, but maybe all the more intense because of it. He’d been…gentler. Thorough. Like he’d had his appetite slaked the first time and now just wanted to savor the intimate contact. She wasn’t sure which had been more effective in destroying whatever defenses she’d built up in the past few years. Any physical defenses she’d built were gone before he’d pulled her pants down in the kitchen, but she’d thought, after waking up next to him on her bed, that her emotional defenses were shot, too. Hence the tears in the shower as the totality of the step she’d taken, and what it meant, what it signified to her, personally, hit her fully.

But that second time…yeah, she’d still had emotional defenses left to shatter as it turned out. She was thankful for the phone ringing and the stupid vendor asking whether she was wanting to stock up on wine and champagne for high season. She wasn’t sure what she’d have said to Brett. As it was, she’d asked the vendor if perhaps he was high, or if he’d bothered to notice that with no snow, there was no season, of any level.

Yes, perhaps it was best that she’d said her first post-earth-shattering-moment words to a salesman…and not to the man who had been responsible for all that world shaking.

At the moment, she was hiding. Unashamedly. She’d stayed in her office for a bit after ending the call, chicken that she was, and when she’d gone back to her room, Brett was gone. She’d dressed, paced, laundered towels and bedspread, paced some more, then finally climbed the stairs to his room. His door was closed, and there was no sound coming from behind it. His bike was still parked out front, so she assumed he was in there. Probably sleeping.

She’d crept down the back way to the kitchen, only to find her clothes and panties folded in a pile on one of the kitchen chairs. Mortified and kind of amazed at herself still, she’d added them to the laundry, set out a bottle of wine, along with some cheese and crackers, in the front parlor, in case he came down. It was part of his room and board, after all.

Then she’d grabbed the legal pad and pen she’d started her garden design on and headed outside again. Kind of full circle, a bookend to how and where it had all started. She sat, cross-legged, between the trees and the open hillside on the side of the house, supposedly dreaming up her garden pattern and subsequent planting schedule. But the pad remained empty of sketches and lists. Instead, she found her gaze drawn to Brett’s bike. Again. And her mind replaying what Thad had said on his answering machine message.

What happened next? she wondered. Was that it? A casual, if mind-blowing, fling? Did he hop on his bike now and head out to parts unknown, never to be seen again? Much less go to bed with. Or…did he stay? And, if he did…then what? How did she act? How should she feel? More importantly, how would she feel? She drummed her pencil eraser on the yellow lined paper. She didn’t know what to do with what she’d done. She supposed she’d always assumed her casual lover assignation, when she’d finally had one, wouldn’t be at the inn but somewhere else. That she’d come back, resume her life, then decide if and when she would see the guy again. Control. Calling the shots.

She laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Yeah, I’m in control all right.” He was under her roof and very admittedly already under her skin. She sucked at casual. One time-okay, technically two times-and she was already spending way too much time thinking about him. All of her time, actually.

Not that she had much to distract her, Kirby argued silently. After all, it was the most exciting thing that had happened since…well since she’d almost killed herself falling out of her own tree, but before that? In a very, very, far too many verys, long time. Naturally she was going to think about it, ponder it, analyze it. She felt the weight of her cell phone in her hoodie pocket and was tempted, for about two seconds, to call Aunt Frieda. Frieda wasn’t her actual aunt. Kirby had no idea if she had actual blood relatives left anywhere. Frieda, who had worked at the resort and taken Kirby in when she was sixteen and had left her most recent foster family when they’d told her they were packing up and moving to Texas.

Frieda had been one in a long line of resort folks who had kind of adopted her after her biological mother, a teenager working at the resort, had left her in the manager’s office with a note pinned to her onesie and taken off for parts unknown. She’d bounced in and out of foster homes and state-funded homes, but had always stuck around the resort because that was really home to her. Frieda had let her stick around until she finished her college degrees, and had become as close as anyone had ever come to being Kirby’s family. Longest she’d ever stayed in one place, that was for sure.

But while Frieda was solidly supportive of Kirby’s goals, and proud of the career she’d launched after graduation, and the business she was trying to start now, she hadn’t been a huge fan of Kirby’s relationship with Patrick. Given the way it had ended, clearly Frieda had been the better judge of character. So Kirby couldn’t quite imagine how she’d start a phone conversation that needed to be steered in the direction of how she’d had wildly satisfying animal sex in her own kitchen with a virtual stranger. Who happened, apparently, to be kind of famous. If you liked poker. And was also maybe filthy rich.

Of course, Patrick hadn’t exactly been hurting, but this was a different scale and sort of wealth. At least so she imagined given what Thad had said. Patrick was born into money, but he always seemed to have all of his ready assets tied up in this investment scheme or that new development deal. She had no doubt he’d always be successful as he was a born wheeler and dealer. Why she hadn’t realized that skill would naturally extend from the boardroom to the bedroom, she had no idea.

Complete naïveté where men were concerned was only a partial excuse for her inability to see what had always been right in front of her face. She supposed it had more to do with her wanting what she’d never had. Stability, a family, someone she could truly count on. A foundation. And in her mind, the older, more mature, well-established Patrick was easily all those things. And he’d chosen her.

She sighed and thought again about the man who was sleeping right now on the top floor of her inn. Brett hadn’t chosen her, he’d just taken advantage of an opportunity. As had she. She had no idea if he was stable or wise, or what he did with his earnings, much less what had put him in such a quandary that he’d taken off on his motorcycle and headed out for parts unknown. Certainly if she was looking for stable and steady, a new foundation, so to speak…he certainly didn’t seem like a very wise candidate. But then, on paper, Patrick had been perfect.