There was more than one way to help out a friend.

Chapter 15

Kirby pushed her glasses up on top of her head and rubbed her eyes. She’d been going over the revised business plan her accountant had dropped off a few hours ago after his meeting with the bank. She was satisfied with the outcome, but her eyes were crossing at this point. She needed a break.

Naturally, her thoughts strayed directly to Brett. He’d been a guest of her inn now going on three weeks, but most of the last two he’d spent at the resort. Working to help her out, she knew, but that didn’t mean she selfishly didn’t miss his presence here. They’d had a few meals together and a couple of well-timed, very steamy, shower interludes, but most of the former had been spent talking about the charity event planning and the latter had been spent…well, not talking much at all.

She’d told herself time and again that it was for the best, their keeping things light, casual, and spontaneous. She was already far more invested in him emotionally than was healthy, knowing, as she did, that he’d move on after the event was over. She was forever grateful for the leg up he was offering her, the chance to keep her business afloat…so it was really wrong of her to want more. To want it all, frankly. She knew that.

But it didn’t seem to stop her from wanting anyway. Dammit.

And who could really blame her? Other than the fact that he was thirty years old and had no clue what he was going to do with the rest of his life, he was perfect. And hell, she hadn’t really embarked on realizing her own dreams until she was five years past that mark herself. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t already made quite a success out of himself. She just wished…

Well, she wished for things she couldn’t have, is what she wished for. That he’d miraculously decide to go from the glitz and glamour of a high-rolling lifestyle in Vegas to wanting to live in a rural mountain village in Vermont. With her.

Yeah. That was going to happen.

As she reminded herself. Far too many times. Every day. Hourly at times.

She clicked the reservation screen up on her computer again and looked, once more, at the fully booked schedule she had coming up. In two days, they’d start coming in, and by the weekend, when the event started, she’d be fully packed. And finally, mercifully, she’d be too busy to think about pretty much anything other than keeping her guests happy.

And that would make her happy. Lonely, perhaps. But happy.

Dammit.

Which was the other thing. She’d been perfectly content since coming east, to forge her own path, make her own choices, rule her own roost. Alone. It had been both a relief and a triumph. She knew she’d forge new relationships as time passed, both with the locals and in her private life as well. She hadn’t come here determined to be a social shut-in or anything. Far from it. She just hadn’t really seen herself falling into another long-term, serious relationship. Yet. Or maybe even ever.

She’d more or less left that part up to fate. So it seemed kind of unfair, she thought, being as she’d been so open-minded and honest and decent about the whole thing, for fate to go and hand her the perfect man on a platter…only, too bad, you can’t keep him. You can only lust and need and taste and remember what it was like to want that in your life on a regular basis.

Damn damn dammit.

She sighed and clicked off the screen, then groaned as she turned to look at the clock only to feel how stiff her neck had gotten. She’d been hunched over this desk for what felt like days. She shoved her chair back and stood, rubbing her lower back and rotating her shoulders and neck a few times.

Time for a shower and then a hunt through the kitchen to see what she felt like dredging up for dinner. Her thoughts got sort of tangled up on that shower part as she walked out of the office, memories of the very wonderful one she’d shared with Brett-had it been yesterday? Seemed like forever ago now-swimming through her mind. He was attentive, and he made her laugh. And moan. A lot of moaning, really. She sighed and detoured the other direction, toward the kitchen. She was in no mood to stand in the shower and feel sorry for herself. She was just pathetic enough at the moment to indulge in a good, long, pity sob, and there was simply no excuse for it.

Her inn was going to be full, the air had a distinct touch of chill to it of late. At night, anyway. If her luck really was turning, then possibly by the time the event was over and all the attendant hoopla had ended along with it, there might be snow on the ground. Or, at least enough of a nip in the air during the daylight hours for the resort to finally put their bazillion-dollar snow-making system to work covering the newly designed slopes.

“Think positive,” she murmured under her breath. “Optimistic thoughts only.” Straightening her shoulders and resolutely not thinking about showers, muscled chests, or big, strong hands slipping and sliding all over her steam-slicked skin, she marched into the kitchen…and went straight to the wine rack. So she needed a little assistance with the resolutely not thinking part. “Sue me,” she muttered.

After pouring a half a glass, she savored a few sips while looking out the rear kitchen window. Her gaze strayed to the big oak. Hard to believe it had only been a few weeks since she’d chased after that damn kitten. It seemed almost forever ago now. So much had happened since then. Her quiet little life here was anything but anymore.

Her lips curved in a slow smile. In fact, if her entire body could curl into a big smile, it would have. Sure, she was tired, but it was the good kind of tired that came from the hard work she’d been waiting for months to put in every day. After almost a year spent in the hard physical labor of getting the place into shape and ready to open, it had been difficult bordering on insanity-making to find herself sitting around…waiting for guests, for snow, for…something, anything, to happen. With no funds to continue crossing off anything else on her to-do restoration list, she’d been forced to putter. She was not a good putterer. She was a doer, not a sitter.

And then she’d climbed a tree, almost died; Brett had saved her and shown her a slice of heaven. Nothing had been the same since.

She sighed again, savored another slow sip…but the smile wouldn’t go away. She was happy. As long as she lived in the moment, where there was no room at her inn, and Brett was still in residence, officially anyway, then life was good. Pretty damn good.

She sipped some more…and thought there was something to be said for living in the moment. Enjoying the good parts while they were happening. Not wasting them thinking about the less than good parts that were just out there on the horizon, headed her way. Yep, as long as she was standing here, sipping wine, and happy and content with her world, it didn’t matter what the next day was going to bring.

“Looks like I didn’t need to stop and get this on my way in.”

She startled at the sound of his voice, almost sloshed the rest of her wine on her shirt. And didn’t care in the least. Because she was happy. And living in the moment. And that moment had just grown exponentially even better. Way, way better.

She spun around, knowing she should be smart, play it cool, casual, like a woman who enjoyed his company when he was around, but didn’t think about him incessantly when he wasn’t.

Fat chance. If she’d been happy a moment ago, she was blissful now. So she lived in that moment, too.

“There can never be enough wine,” she said, crossing the kitchen toward him.

His leather jacket hung open to reveal a rumpled T-shirt and well-worn jeans. No leather, butt-framing chaps today. A pity. There was stubble on his cheeks and a decided case of helmet hair going on with his increasingly shaggy locks. She kind of liked him all stubbly and shaggy and rumpled. Made her want to get him into the shower. Or into bed. Or, well, the kitchen table was looking pretty damn good.