LITMIR.BIZ

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business. No one calls me that. It’s either Lexie or Lex…”

      Her voice petered out faster than a stalled engine. She knew the man reaching out to shake her hand was Cashner Aaron McKay, the owner of Silver Mountain. She’d have known his voice from their telephone calls even if the pilot hadn’t identified him, and he’d been so natural and easy to talk with that Lexie had been looking forward to meeting him. Still was. It was just that the blazing sun had first shadowed his face, and from their phone calls, she’d just assumed that McKay would be someone like Jed Harper—someone older. Someone with skin leathered by a hundred million years in the sun who wore cowboy boots. Someone who didn’t slap her snoozing female hormones wide-awake.

      But now he was closer. So close the sun wasn’t blocking her vision. So close that she realized two startling things simultaneously. Her host for the next few weeks was the Marlboro man come to life—sans cigarette. The hunk was take-your-breath adorable, tall and lean and blue-eyed and downright edible. And the second thing she realized was that she was standing downhill…which meant that the hand she’d shot out to shake his was coming perilously close to poking the hunk in the crotch.

      Faster than lightning she yanked her hand up to an appropriate height. Humor seemed to responsively glint in his eyes—not that she had time to analyze his reactions. They did the handshaking thing, which thankfully gave her throat a chance to swallow some of that saliva before she drooled all over him. She’d already resigned herself to the month of torture ahead…but being able to regularly look at McKay was definitely going to lighten her suffering significantly.

      “Lexie…” His gaze was direct, the slow grin friendly, but the callused palm that had so warmly gripped hers abruptly dropped. She never sensed any negative vibes, just that he hadn’t noticed her in any particularly personal way. Possibly he didn’t go for short-haired, sprite-size brunettes with city pale skin. “Glad to finally meet you in person. And I hope you’re going to love our Silver Mountain. We’ll get your gear, get you settled in. Jed, you coming up to the house for an iced tea?”

      “You bet. And where’s our favorite hellion?”

      Cash let out a low, easy chuckle. “Sammy’s still doing that home-schooling we set up out of Hammond’s…but he’ll be raring home in another hour or so.”

      “Sammy?” Lexie asked.

      “Sammy’s my son. Well, I guess technically he’s my nephew, but he’s my son in every way that matters. You’ll meet him at dinner, if not sooner…although he’s a little more shy around the women guests. At least you can hope he’ll be shy. Otherwise you’re at risk of his talking your ears off.”

      Again, that slow, easy grin. Jed grabbed two of her designer bags and loped on ahead. Cash grabbed four. Neither remarked on the amount or size of her luggage. “That’s it, Lex? Anything else you need carrying?”

      “No, no sweat.” Briefly Lexie wondered what he meant by referring to this Sammy-child as being both nephew and son, but right then she stumbled over a gnarled root. There was nothing particularly new there. She’d always been able to trip on thin air—athletics weren’t exactly her strong point—but she really did need to promptly change clothes. Her Italian sandals had been comfortable for flying, but lacked a certain sturdiness for this type of terrain. Worse yet, the hike was all uphill. The strip where the teensy plane had landed was the only flat spot anywhere in sight. A stitch in her side was screaming by the time they’d gone a hundred yards, and the only things she was toting were her purse and laptop. “I’m not too used to exercise,” she huffed.

      “That’s okay, no one is when they first come here. That’s the point. That you get a serious break from constant work and the stresses of city life, right?”

      “Right.” Although no one had warned her about all this ghastly fresh air.

      “Even if you’re not normally into country life, I think you’ll find it grows on you. There are no bottom lines here, no deadlines, no tests to pass…”

      She knew all the reasons why she’d signed up to come here, so there was no particular reason to listen. Besides, she could have looked at his back all day. My. At fourteen, she’d thumbtacked posters of hunks on her bedroom wall like every other hormone-driven adolescent girl. Then, of course, she’d grown up and realized that looks were no measure of character or anything else that mattered. By twenty-eight, she’d come to another realization milestone. Maybe heartache was the pits, but just looking was a lot of fun and didn’t cost a dime.

      Over the years, she’d tried picking out potential lovers with the same meticulous care she picked stocks—studying assets, start-up costs, long-term growth potential, how long one needed to be patient before seeing a return, that kind of thing. Her analysis methods worked fabulously with stocks. But with men…well, temporarily she’d sworn off gambling with anything so high-risk.

      As she told her friend Blair, vibrators were just a whole lot less aggravation.

      But that wasn’t to say that she didn’t enjoy looking. On a scale of l to l0, McKay easily had a l0 fanny—and Lexie had always been a fanny type of woman. Still, eventually, she got around to noticing the rest. The flannel plaid shirt looked straight out of L. L. Bean; the boot-cut jeans were old and loose and worn-in like an old friend. His hair was short and as straight as mink fur but tawny, a mix of sun-streaked caramel and butterscotch. Even this early in May, his skin was sun bronzed, that tan incredibly striking against his light blue eyes. He had a man’s-man look all day, his jaw looking cut out of stone, the cheekbones jutting out to give him an even more rugged profile. And there was that cute itsy-bitsy guy butt again—

      “Not too far, now, Lexie. The house is just around the corner.”

      “No problem,” she sang out. She was loathe to tear her eyes away from the only seriously interesting view—his butt—but around the last curve, the lodge loomed in sight. The big, fat log house stood three stories high, with a wraparound veranda graced with porch swings and wooden rocking chairs. She clumped up the porch steps behind Cash—stumbled on the doorjamb, but thankfully didn’t fall—and then stepped in. Jed had already dropped her two bags and disappeared from sight when the screen door clapped behind her.

      Whew. The place made her think of a movie set for a Western oil baron story. The front door led into a square foyer with a giant staircase, but off to the right was a living room with sprawling couches and groups of oversize chairs in forest-greens and honey-leathers. Man-size windows opened on the mountain view, and nests of thick-pile rugs were scattered around. She glimpsed a gaming table in a dark, scarred mahogany. An upright piano. An oil painting on the far wall, almost as big as the wall itself, a mystical painting of the mountains bathed in a morning mist in ghost-whites and whisper-greens and blues.

      A stone fireplace dominated the great room, smoke-scarred and full of character. The chestnut floor and oak ceiling beams looked equally well-worn and well loved.

      “This is the hangout place in the evenings.” Cash led her through, either because they had to go that way, or to help familiarize her with the layout. “If you’re bored, you can usually find a game of poker or pinochle going on after dinner. Even summer nights, it’s cool enough that we usually light a fire here. Then in here’s the dining room….”

      She poked her head in, saw an oblong pine table with a million leaves and a wagon wheel chandelier.

      “Meal hours are posted in your room, but if you get hungry other times, you can always raid the kitchen on your own. We’re not running this place like an inn. We want you to feel it’s your home while you’re here…with one little exception. Before we go any further, we need to make a stop.” Past the dining room, he popped a door on another room, this one stashed with the desk and file cabinets of a no-nonsense office. Temporarily he thumped her luggage down. “Afraid you need to strip here, Lex.”

      Not that she wasn’t willing—for him—but the suggestion still startled her. “Did you say strip?”

      “Uh-huh.” His expression was so deadpan that she almost missed the unrepentant twinkle in his eye.

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