Merry and Bright Read online

  One way or another . . .

  He was close. Close enough that she could have bumped his body with hers as she tipped her head up and looked past his lenses and into his eyes, which weren’t just a solid light brown, but had gold swirling in the mix and were as surprisingly warm as his hands.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

  “Are you?”

  There was a beat of silence, and in it, much of the good-natured humor drained from him, which she found oddly unsettling. He was more sincere than she’d given him credit for.

  And tougher.

  And something else, too, something that surprised her. He was kind of sexy with that intense, intellectual gaze behind those glasses.

  “You think I want you to fail,” he finally said with a hint of disbelief.

  “I think that would suit Edward, taking this place from me even though he could care less about it. He could probably sell the property in a blink, and, poof, make condos appear, or something else with lots of concrete.”

  Danny opened his mouth, then slowly shut it again. Hard to argue the truth, apparently. After a moment he shook his head and flashed her a rather grim smile, full of no amusement at all and maybe even some hurt. “The fact is, Hope, I’m here only because your brother wants to make sure the terms of the loan are going to be met, nothing personal. It’s just the job. It’s business,” he said with soft steel. “That’s it.”

  “The terms will be met,” she said with equal soft steel. “So you can go home and report just that.”

  “As I’m snowed in, we appear to be stuck with each other for now. And since we are, maybe I can help. If you showed me your financials—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Nothing personal,” she said, sending his own words back at him. “But I don’t need your help.”

  He looked at her, and she’d have sworn she saw a brief flash of empathy, even respect. And also frustration with some caring mixed in.

  Which was impossible, she told herself, since he was a rat bastard, and rat bastards didn’t care.

  As always, Hope woke up at the crack of dawn. It was a lifelong habit. When she was little, her father died from a heart attack, and she’d get up early to make toast and tea for her stricken mother.

  Later, after her mother remarried and divorced two more times, Hope still got up early to work at a resort, where she’d cook from dawn until the start of high school since Edward had gone off to college without looking back. Mother had never really recovered from her losses.

  Hope had always kept up the early-morning habit because she liked getting things done during those hours when everyone else was snoozing away, but this morning, she suddenly wished she’d developed a different habit.

  Like flying south for the winter.

  Because this morning, lying in bed in the dark dawn, she kept thinking about the unwelcome guest she had upstairs.

  Danny Shaw. He was Clark Kent on the outside and sheer, determined Superman steel on the inside.

  And he didn’t think she could do this.

  Facing that fact made her feel better. Because facing it, she could fight it, do something about it.

  Kicking off her covers, she got out of bed and shivered. Holy smokes, it was a cold one. The thermometer on her window said five.

  As in five degrees.

  And it was still snowing like a mother. She needed to stack some more wood today. She also needed to clear snow and put up the rest of the decorations.

  But it wasn’t until she stood in her bathroom that she realized her biggest problem. She had her toothbrush in one hand and a mouthful of toothpaste as she stared into the bathroom sink; the handle cranked to full blast, no water coming through.

  The pipes were frozen.

  “Oh no, no, no, no . . .” Not today, not when she needed to make a great impression. Not when she needed Danny to think everything was perfect.

  Dammit.

  Obviously, the place wasn’t perfect. It was built in the 1940s by a wealthy mine owner as a vacation home, then renovated in the ’80s by the family of the original owner. Currently the place was in some fairly desperate need of more updates and renovations, which she was getting to on an as-needed basis.

  Like the plumbing problems.

  And unfortunately, there were other problems as well. Upstairs were the guest bedrooms, which needed paint. Downstairs were the kitchen, dining room, living room, and social area, and a small but quaint servants’ quarters off the kitchen where Hope lived.

  All of which also needed paint.

  And more.

  Lori and her new husband Ben, a local handyman, lived about a mile down the road in their own place. Hope could call Ben about the pipes. He’d snowmobile here in a heartbeat, but if she’d learned anything in her twenty-nine and three-quarters years of life, it was to do for herself whenever possible.

  Even when it seemed impossible.

  The bottom line was that the B&B was everything to her. She’d certainly put everything she had in it, and not just money, but her heart and soul. It was the first thing that had been entirely hers, and having people come and stay and enjoy the Colorado mountains—the hiking, biking, skiing, or whatever they’d come to the wilderness for—never failed to thrill.

  It was a world away from where she’d grown up in Los Angeles, in the heart of the city, and a world away from the rat race that had once threatened to consume her when she’d lived and worked there as a chef. Now, here, in the silent magnitude of the magnificent Rocky Mountains, she’d found tranquility and peace.

  And frozen pipes. She spit out her toothpaste and looked down at her thin, loose cotton pj bottoms and cami. She added on a pair of thick sweats, a scarf, a knit hat, her down jacket, and her imitation Ugg boots.

  She caught sight of herself in the mirror—the Pillsbury Dough Woman—and laughed. Good thing she didn’t have a man in her life, she thought as she grabbed her blow-dryer and headed into the kitchen, where she added an extension cord to her arsenal. She plugged the cord into an outlet on the counter, then carefully propped open the cellar door with a large can of beans because it had a tendency to shut and lock.

  The stairs made a heck of a racket, which oddly enough had always comforted her. She figured if the boogey man was ever going to climb the stairs to get to her, she’d at least hear him coming.

  In the cellar, she eyed the pipes, indeed frozen solid. “Please work,” she said, and stretched out on the ground underneath the pipes and turned the blow-dryer on high.

  Two minutes later the pipes were still frozen solid, but she was warming up nicely, and she blew her out-of-control bangs out of her face to see better. If she’d had a pair of scissors with her, she’d have cut them off right then and there.

  She heard someone come down the stairs, and then a set of shoes appeared at her shoulder.

  Nikes, brand-new. Size—at least twelve.

  “Your pipes are frozen,” the Nikes said.

  She didn’t look up. Maybe if she didn’t, Mr. Big City Know It All Rat Bastard would go away. Far away. “I’m on it.” She readjusted the heat coming from the blow-dryer and concentrated, picturing the pipes melting because, hey, you had to dream it to live it—

  Danny crouched at her side, his legs at least a damn mile long. She’d always thought of him as a little on the skinny side, but with his pants stretched taut against him, she could see that those legs actually had quite the definition of muscle to them. She glanced up the length of them.

  And up.

  Yep, those pants were expensive. Probably worth more than all the clothes in her closet. Which, as she tended to live in jeans and tees, wasn’t saying that much.

  “Need any help?” he asked.

  “I can handle it.” She made the mistake of turning her head and meeting his gaze. First of all, it was barely the crack of dawn and yet there he was, dressed as if he was going into the office, with a button-down shirt and pullover sweater in a deep royal blue that seemed so soft and yummy
she almost forgot he was not only Nerd Central but also capable of siccing Edward on her.

  And he smelled good, again. How that was even possible when she knew he couldn’t have possibly had a hot shower, she had no idea. But he looked fresh and clean and neat, his every hair in place, his glasses revealing those warm eyes.

  He’d even shaved, with what must have been an electric razor.

  And she? With her multiple layers, disastrous hair and no makeup—and she was pretty sure she hadn’t shaved her legs this week—she felt extremely out of place. Way to go, Hope. Way to be hot and irresistible.

  Not that she cared what he thought about her appearance, but she did care very much about what he thought about how she was running this place. “Go on up,” she said. “I’ll handle this.”

  He didn’t move.

  She swiped her arm over her forehead. Yeah, it was getting hot in here. With one arm still holding the blow-dryer in place on the frozen pipe, she pulled off her scarf and hat, trying not to picture what her hair must look like.

  His face appeared next to hers as he, without regard for those expensive clothes and the dirty floor, stretched out on his back at her side and peered at the pipe, an icon of grace and physical power.

  “You’re making progress,” he said. “You have another blow-dryer?”

  He was polished, where she was not. He was smooth and knew what to do in any social situation, where she most definitely did not. He was her mortal enemy.

  So she had no idea why she looked at his mouth and felt an odd pang of excitement. She’d simply gone too long without a man’s touch; that was what was causing this ridiculous and untimely sense of loneliness that was clearly making her lose her mind.

  “Hope?”

  She was still looking at his mouth. It was a really nice mouth. Probably all the better to pull his prey into his web.

  He caught her staring at him and skimmed his hand up her arm. “You okay?”

  Was she? His fingers were warm and sure, and his body was lying so close to hers that she could almost taste the testosterone coming off him. Tiny prickles of desire raced up her spine to the back of her neck.

  Huh.

  “Hope? You with me?”

  “Yeah.” She cleared her throat as he ran his thumb over her knuckles.

  He stared down at her hand as he slowly traced her skin. “Blow-dryer?” he murmured.

  Right. “Upstairs. Second bathroom beneath the sink.”

  She didn’t have a spare blow-dryer upstairs in the second bathroom beneath the sink, but it would get him out of her hair, because clearly his closeness was killing off her brain cells one by one.

  When he left, she let out a long, careful breath. Whew. How in the hell she’d managed to both hate him and lust after him at the same time, she had not a single clue....

  3

  A lone in the cellar, Hope felt the vibration of Danny’s footsteps going up the two flights of stairs. Since she was sweating, she pulled off her jacket and sweatpants and went back to blow-drying the frozen pipes. When she heard Danny coming back down, she yelled, “Don’t let the cellar door shut!” just as he did exactly that.

  Shit! She sat straight up and bashed her head on the now semi-frozen pipe. Stars exploded behind her eyeballs. Damn, shit, fuck. Rolling to her hands and knees, she crawled out from beneath the pipe, but before she could get to her feet, Danny was there on his knees, pulling her up against him.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded.

  “No, I’m not. You locked us in here, Genius Boy.” She sucked in a breath and pressed her hands to her forehead. “And you nearly killed me.”

  “Didn’t have to.” He pulled her hands down and put his face within an inch of hers as he studied her forehead. “You almost did it on your own.” He probed the spot, making her hiss in a breath. “Miraculously, you’re going to live. You know your name? Mine? Where you are?”

  “Hope O’Brien, Idiot, in my damn cellar.”

  His lips twitched. “I thought I was Genius Boy. You didn’t break the skin, but you have a good-size lump. You need ice.”

  “Ouch,” she breathed when he kept touching it.

  “Aw.” Lips still slightly curved, he leaned down and pressed them to her forehead.

  She jerked back in shock. “What are you doing?”

  “Kissing it all better.” His eyes were hot silk and sweetness, one hell of an intoxicating combination, quite lethal to her resistance effort. “Did it work?”

  Well, her forehead was tingling now instead of aching. And in fact, her entire body was tingling. Good Lord.

  “Did it, Hope?”

  Yes. “No!”

  His slight smile told her he read the lie quite easily.

  “We’re locked in,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let’s worry about that.”

  “Are you sure?” He craned his neck to look up at the door. “Maybe—”

  “Locked. In.”

  “Okay. So we have lots of time for you to tell me why you sent me on a wild goose chase.”

  She didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because he had taken her face in his hands and was staring into her eyes. “Stop that.” She tried to pull back. “I’m fine. So don’t even think about kissing me again.” Because she was thinking about it enough for the two of them.

  “Damn, you foiled my evil plan.” But for all his joking, there was concern in his eyes and his voice, and there was something in her that reacted to that, something she didn’t trust. She didn’t need worry or concern, she took care of herself. Always had. “You should know, I’m only attracted to the bad boys. You don’t come even close.”

  “I knew I should have worn my leather pants.”

  She heard the laugh huff out of her and shook her head at herself. Not going to be charmed by him . . . Still way too hot, she yanked off her sweatshirt and tossed it aside. She got to her feet and stalked the length of the cellar. When she whirled back, she stumbled to a halt.

  Genius Boy had pulled off his sweater as well, unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt, and shoved up his sleeves to his elbows, revealing forearms that weren’t scrawny but looked surprisingly strong. “What are you doing now?”

  “Your radiator kicked on. It’s hot in here.”

  Yes. Yes, it was, and when his gaze dipped from her face to take in her pj’s, the worn camisole and cotton pants that somehow she’d actually thought were a good idea, it got even hotter.

  His gaze snagged on her breasts. The soft, silky material had been washed a thousand times. The pale blue was most likely a tad bit see-through. With an inward wince, she looked down at herself.

  Not sheer, but thin enough to clearly see the outline of her nipples, which for some annoying reason were hard. Bad nipples.

  “Maybe if we pound on the door and call for help . . . ?” he murmured, his voice husky and low.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “There’s no one else here.”

  “Lori?”

  “Doesn’t come on until eight.”

  His jaw dropped. “You’re by yourself running the entire inn from evening until morning?”

  She heard the disbelief, which put her back up. “It’s not a big deal.” She frowned. “Normally.”

  “It could be dangerous, Hope. You should have someone here with you at all times.”

  “The only danger to me is you.”

  “Me?” He looked horrified at the thought. “You’re not afraid of me.”

  She didn’t want to go there. “Look, my point is that I’m selective about my guests, and besides, it’s not like this is the big city. Muggings are nonexistent.”

  “Still,” he said, looking worried.

  For her, she realized, and stared at him in surprise. He was worried about her.

  How long had it been since someone had worried about her?

  “And that plumbing should be wrapped in insulation,” he pointed out. “If it was, the pipes wouldn’t freeze.”

  “I agree. I hav
e some renovations ahead of me.”

  “Do they include fixing the drain in the upstairs bathroom—which by the way, doesn’t have a blow-dryer. It doesn’t even have towels.”

  “They’re in the laundry.” She was well aware of the failings of this place. Ben had offered to fix the problems, but she refused to let him work ahead of what she could pay him. Things were getting done as she could afford them.

  “Look,” he said softly. “This place is great. It’s got history and character and charm, but it needs work. You need to get better control of—”

  “Control?” she choked out. “I realize I need some things done, and I’m getting to them, but don’t you dare stand there and talk to me about control when you don’t even have any over your life. You’re nothing more than a lackey for a man who likes to torture the less fortunate, and—”

  “Hope.” He shook his head and dissolved her temper when he stepped close again. “We both know why I’m here, and that’s because you’re in financial trouble.”

  “So I’ve had a bad year—” She broke off when he lifted a hand to touch the bump on her forehead, which didn’t hurt nearly as much as the taste of her possible failure.

  His touch was so gentle that she felt thrown, as she did by his nearness. “I really thought I’d have the money back from Joey by now,” she whispered.

  “Have you looked into alternative financing?”

  Yes. And as she was mortgaged to the teeth, she’d been laughed out of three banking institutions to date. She was working on a fourth. “Look, all I did was e-mail Edward and ask for an extension. No big deal. Instead of bothering to answer, he sent you.”

  “Because he doesn’t give extensions,” he said softly, his finger still on her.

  She slapped it away. “Fine. So now I know. So just go ahead and get out of here and I’ll figure something else out.”

  “Door’s locked,” he pointed out calmly. “But after we get out, I’ll—”