One

“Hello? Anybody home? Okay if I use your phone?” Josh called for the third time.

He started to push open the screen door to the faded cabin but something stopped it from opening more than a few inches. Squinting, he found himself peering into the narrow stare of a shotgun inches from the inside of the screen. The way the muzzle wavered sent adrenaline through him like jagged lightning. He froze. So did his brain. The rest of him shook with a cold that had nothing to do with the chill breeze at his back.

This wasn’t the kind of greeting he’d expected in the laid-back Kootenay Valley. This wasn’t the kind of greeting he expected anywhere.

“Tell me that thing isn’t loaded,” he croaked.

The gun wobbled. He started to pray.

“I’d hate to lie to you,” a woman said in a rich, warm voice that didn’t fit with holding the shotgun on him at point-blank, barn-door range.

He wished he could see into the shadows well enough to tell who he was dealing with, but the only light was coming from the porch, shining full on him. All he could see of the woman was the pale oval of her face. She must be dressed in clothes as dark as the shadows that hid her.

Might as well turn on the charm and see where it got him. He offered a grin. “I didn’t mean to barge in, but I didn’t hear you answer my knock.”

“I didn’t.” The shotgun muzzle wavered.

“Oh.” Think fast, he warned himself, but his brain stayed in neutral. “Well, uh, can I use your phone? My cell was stolen yesterday.”

If he was expecting sympathy, he was in the wrong place. The woman didn’t make a sound, didn’t move. He added a few more silent curses at the punks who’d ripped off his phone, but that wasn’t helping the immediate situation, which was getting on his nerves.

“I was expecting a camper, you know, an RV, waiting for me, but it’s late and I don’t see any sign of anyone from the RV place. I own the property next door. I’m planning to put up a cabin over the summer. I wanted to spend the long weekend out here just getting acquainted with the area.”

He was blithering like an idiot but getting not a word from the woman in the shadows. “I’ll charge the call to my home number. It’ll just take half a minute to—”

“Josh? Josh Kincaid?” the woman said.

His jaw dropped. Leaning right up to the screen, he tried to peer inside. The muzzle of that damn shotgun disappeared. A second later, the screen door opened halfway. A tall, slender woman stood in the opening, backlit so he couldn’t see her face.

“How do you know me? Do I know you?” he demanded, shuffling a half-step closer. Thank God she’d put the shotgun down. “Did I do some work for you?”

He heard a low, sexy chuckle that stirred something inside him, but not his memory. The sound made him grin anyway. Things could very well get better.

“No, but you were always trying to get me to do your work for you.”

“Huh?”

“It’s Hope Delacorte. You were the bane of my last two years of high school.”

In the time it took her to swing the door open the rest of the way, he remembered. Hope Delacorte, the string bean with the ninety-nine average and the stuck-up attitude. He’d teased her about doing his homework, about riding on his battered old motorcycle, about letting him teach her about the birds and the bees. And she’d look at him as if he were a pile of dog poop and turn away as though even talking to him was beneath her.

“Come in.” Hope stepped back, making room for him. Josh stepped into the vestibule as a light came on, took a good, long look at the girl he hadn’t seen in sixteen years and said the first thing that came into his mind.

“You sure don’t look like a nerdy bean pole anymore.”

“Careful, Kincaid. I’ve still got the shotgun,” she warned, but he could hear the laughter behind her voice. Her turquoise eyes sparkled in a way they’d never done in high school. She wasn’t wearing her reddish blond hair in tug-able waist-long braids anymore, but had it piled on her head so he could tell it was still pretty long. And her lips parted in a way that made him wonder how they’d feel on his, which he’d never wondered before, since she’d had a mouth full of braces the last time he’d seen her.

“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled. “I may be a hell-raiser, but I’m not a fool.”

“My phone’s on the counter. Help yourself. It’s unlocked. I can offer you a cold beer or a hot coffee if you’d like.”

“Hot coffee sounds good,” he answered. “It’s colder out there than the weather guy said it would be.”

Fishing the RV dealership’s card from his shirt pocket, he entered the numbers, then held the phone to his ear. Listening to ring after ring, he watched Hope moving around the kitchen. Those long, slim legs made tight, faded blue jeans look sexier than anything Frederick’s of Hollywood could come up with. And the simple black top she wore clung just enough to show the trim lines of her torso.

Man, oh, man. Who would have believed Miss Priss would turn out to look so good? Just went to show how little a horny high school hotshot knew about the potential of a female bean pole.

The phone at the RV dealership kept ringing. Finally, a man’s gravelly voice barked “What?”

He asked for his salesman. “Nobody here,” the gravelly voice announced. “Closed up early. Holiday weekend. Victoria Day, you know.” Gravelly throat clearing rasped in Josh’s ear. “’Spect the government will change the name of this one, too, like they did Dominion Day. Canada Day! Pah!”

His hopes sank as his anger rose. “My camper wasn’t delivered. Can you find the salesman’s home number for me? Or the manager’s?”

“Not allowed. Musta been your RV that fell off the trailer.”

“What?” His bellow echoed in his ear. “My RV fell off the trailer?” Hope’s eyes went wide, then she turned quickly, probably hiding hysterical laughter.

He heard a wheezy chuckle. “One hell of a mess when that garbage truck T-boned the tractor-trailer. Pow! Glass all over the road, right out front here. No, sir, you won’t be getting your RV this weekend. You call back Tuesday. The salesmen fellas will be back to work.” In the middle of another raspy chuckle, the phone went dead.

Josh stared at the phone screen for a moment before setting it back on the counter, then vented his frustration with a few well-chosen but ultimately useless curses. He was going to have to camp out or turn back. The thought of driving all the way home to Kelowna, tired, hungry and thoroughly ticked off, didn’t turn him on. He’d stay, if only overnight. It was a territorial thing.

“Trouble?” Hope set a steaming cup of black coffee on the battered wooden kitchen table near him. She turned her back to rummage through a cabinet.

“You might say that,” he snarled. “My damn RV got totaled by a garbage truck, and the dealership is closed for the long weekend. Looks like I’ll be spending the night in my work van.”

His words met with silence, followed by a muffled snicker.

“It’s not funny,” he barked, then turned on his heel and started for the door.

“Josh, wait!”

He stopped and faced her. She held up a sugar bowl and creamer and smiled. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her smile in school. It was a really nice smile.

“Have your coffee, then get whatever you need for the night. You can stay here. The sofa in the living room opens into a queen-size bed, so you probably won’t even hang off the end of it.”

Her offer made him forget how mad he was about the RV. “Are you sure? I mean, you really don’t know if you can trust me.”

Her smile widened. “That’s all I need to know. If I couldn’t trust you to, um, behave yourself, you wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Little did she know.

He lifted the hot coffee mug as if toasting her and grinned back. “Well, thanks.”

Then he couldn’t think of a thing more to say, so he took a sip of the coffee. It was rich and hot, and warmed him all the way down, the way Hope’s smile did. Sometimes, when things were going downhill, a guy lost track of reasons not to be cynical. Suddenly, things were beginning to look up. Way up. He was stranded with a beautiful woman, in a cozy cabin next to a river with some of the best trout fishing in the universe.

It was enough to make a man count his blessings.

Hope carried her own cup of coffee to the wooden table and slipped into a heavy sweater before she sat in a rickety wooden chair. “I was thinking about lighting a fire before you knocked. It really is getting chilly. I hope it warms up enough to watch the fireworks Sunday night. The people at the little general store said there’s quite a show every year.”

“Part of the fun of fireworks used to be getting wrapped in a blanket with someone and drinking blackberry brandy. Remember?”

She sipped at her coffee, then shook her head. “Can’t say I ever did anything like that.” She fixed those turquoise eyes on him. “Too risqué for a nerdy bean pole.”

He winced, but her lips quirked up, letting him know she didn’t hold a grudge. “Hey, if I’d known you were interested, I would have offered you a corner of my blanket.”

“I probably would have fainted on the spot if you had,” she told him. “You scared me witless.”

“I did what?”

She lifted one shoulder. “You were the kind of guy who made me very nervous back then. Brash, cool, good-looking.”

“You’re not serious. You scared the pants off me!” Her eyebrows rose. “Well,” he corrected, “not literally, but you were pretty intimidating. I don’t think I ever heard you give a wrong answer in class. And you always looked at me like I was something that crawled out from under a rock.”

Her eyes flashed. “I did not!”

He must have hit a sore spot.

He couldn’t help himself. “So you thought I was good-looking, huh?”

Her cheeks turned pink. “In an adolescent way, I guess,” she muttered. “Not exceptional, of course.”

He grinned over the edge of his cup. She was lying. “Of course.”

“You haven’t changed in sixteen years,” she said, lifting her cup to her lips. “Still brash.”

“But still good-looking?”

She coughed and clamped one slender hand across her mouth, but he could see the laughter in her eyes.

“Sorry, but I owed you for laughing at my RV.” He set his empty cup down on the table and looked at her. “You want to rethink that offer? I’ll understand.”

She smiled. “Go get your toothbrush. I’ve got some stew to reheat. Do you like dumplings or dinner rolls?”

He gave his standard answer whenever any of his lady friends started acting domestic. “Whichever is easier.”

“Frozen dinner rolls it is. Better hurry up before it gets really dark. If you break your leg in a marmot hole, I can’t carry you.”

“Yeah, but any attempts you made would sure take my mind off the pain.”

She flicked her hand at him as if shooing away a fly, clearly not taking him seriously. “Go get your stuff before I regain my common sense.”

He winked and went, whistling softly.

Hope waited a minute before following Josh out to the porch. Pretending not to be aware of his lanky, broad-shouldered body striding across the grass and wildflowers between the cabin and his gray van, she took a deep breath. The air was sweet but cool, unusually so for mid-May. The sun had already set behind the jagged-topped mountains, turning the sky pink and gold and purple. It was such a beautiful corner of the earth. She was grateful to her parents’ friends, the Wilsons, for lending it to her for the weekend. It was the perfect place to sort herself out and reorder her priorities. She had some serious decisions to make, before her life spun out of control altogether.

She now also had a distraction who presented a very impressive rear view in his jeans, but that, she told herself firmly, had nothing to do with her. Besides, the back view of a man hit a sore spot, since that was the last angle at which she’d seen Kyle moments after she’d given him her good news—bad news speech.

Watching Josh yank open the rear doors of the van, Hope sank onto the creaky old porch swing and hugged herself to ward off the chill breeze. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that Josh had turned up out of the blue. He could be a welcome distraction. She’d been in the cabin for just over a day, and boredom with navel gazing had already set in. Two more days of sitting alone in the middle of nature’s splendor, dwelling on her problems, would probably send her running back to Kelowna too soon, without making a single useful decision.

With the toes of one foot, she gingerly set the swing in motion. As she rocked, she closed her eyes and wondered how she’d ever thought she could spend a long weekend in solitude. She was too accustomed to the bustle of other people, the chaos of work, the ticking of the clock, to know what to do with herself. And, she ruefully acknowledged, it was always easier to solve other people’s problems than one’s own.

Josh’s problem, for example, had been a snap to solve. Hope was still torn between guilt and amusement. She shouldn’t have laughed at his predicament, but he’d sounded like a wounded buffalo when he’d bellowed into the phone. The way he’d explained about the garbage truck and the camper had been pretty funny. Or maybe she just hadn’t been laughing much lately.

The crunch of footsteps on the gravel in front of the cabin alerted her to Josh’s return. She opened her eyes to find him just climbing the stairs, rising taller above her with each step. Okay, so she’d told a little white lie: he was way beyond exceptionally good-looking. He was gorgeous, in a purely rugged, masculine and unselfconscious way. Totally different from the smooth, pampered handsomeness Kyle took so much pride in.

Not, she warned herself, that anything about Josh mattered to her.

The woman smiling up at him from the porch swing sure didn’t remind him of the girl who used to stare at him as if he were a freak. This Hope looked soft, welcoming. He couldn’t help wondering how welcoming. Not that he was into tomcatting, but it was a question any normal, healthy guy would mentally ask about a good-looking woman like Hope.

He balanced his gym bag on his bent knee and met her eyes. “I could use a shower before dinner, if that’s okay.”

“Absolutely.” She rose as gracefully as a dancer. “I’ll show you where everything is.”

She was moving ahead of him already. He followed her into the cabin. She led him down the short hallway, talking over her shoulder. “The soap I use is perfumed, but there’s a bar of cedar soap in the cabinet under the sink. Towels are in the closet in the washroom. And I think there are some disposable razors in the drawer.”

He walked close behind her. She stopped short and turned. He plowed into her, knocking her backward. Reflexively, he dropped his gym bag, reached out and caught her waist with both hands. His quickly indrawn breath brought him the mingled scents of her skin and perfume.

With a soft cry, she froze and stared up at him, her lips parted much too temptingly for a mere mortal to resist. He ground his back teeth, then forced a grin when his libido was bellowing at him to bend and taste her mouth while he still had surprise on his side.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “You okay?”

She nodded, those startled eyes fixed on him. “I’ll just… The stew… The oven for the rolls…”

He took his hands from her waist. A moment later, she was gone, shutting the door behind her. Slowly, he let out his breath. Trying to ignore the tingling in his palms, he searched for the cedar soap and towels Hope had offered. What he couldn’t ignore was the way the room held her scent. He peeled off his shirt and jeans in a state of semi-arousal that got worse when he stepped under the hot shower and realized that, sometime earlier, Hope had stood there naked and wet.

With an impatient growl, he wrenched off the hot water and let the cold water pour over him until he was shivering. When he was dry, he climbed into his clean clothes, packed his gym bag and followed the aromas of stew and hot rolls toward the kitchen.

“Something smells good.”

Josh’s voice, coming without warning, startled Hope. Hastily, she shoved her notepad and pen into the nearest drawer and turned around. A quick glance showed her he hadn’t put his boots back on, which was why she hadn’t heard him walking along the wooden floor in the hall. He had nice feet, she noticed, which made her feel silly for noticing.

“Everything is almost ready,” she told him, uncomfortable under the steady gaze of his bright blue eyes. She would bet he’d seen her hide her brainstorming lists. Embarrassment made her try to fill the moment with chatter. “Miracles of modern technology here in the boonies. The Wilsons even have a microwave oven.”

“So does my RV,” he said. “Or it did.”

She chuckled at his grimace. “It will again. Or one just like it.”

“Yeah, well, I owe you for saving my worthless butt from a night on the floor of my van.”

Thinking about how he looked in formfitting jeans, she was tempted to tell him his butt wasn’t all that worthless, then thought better of it. A comment like that, definitely out of character to start with, would give him the wrong impression. She had to be straight with Josh and make sure he knew she was very much off-limits, to him or any other adult male.

“You can set the table while I throw a salad together,” she told him. His brows rose, and she wondered if, like Kyle, he expected her to wait on him.

But Josh went to the cabinet without a word of protest. He whistled softly while he set the Wilsons’ oddly assorted dishes and cutlery on the table. Hope wondered if that meant he was simply happy, or that he found her attractive but was too polite to try a wolf whistle or that he simply couldn’t get that particular tune out of his mind.

By the time she finished tossing the salad, Josh was opening the bottle of Pinot Noir she’d placed on the counter. She set the hot pot of stew on the table while he took the rolls out of the oven. The way they worked together, in unspoken, unexpected domestic harmony, shook her a little. It felt cozy and natural, which was the precise opposite of the way Josh had affected her in high school. Well, everyone grew up, she mused, and she was no longer the shy nerd he remembered.

They met at the table and pulled out their chairs. Sitting, Hope looked into Josh’s eyes and smiled. He smiled back, then took a roll and pulled it open. She watched the steam rise from its center as he tore off a small piece. His hands looked strong, his long fingers skillful. Unlike Kyle, his nails were neat but not professionally manicured. Silly as it was to dwell on, she decided she liked his hands.

“So,” he said, giving her a quick look before moving his attention to the pot of stew, “what have you been doing with yourself for the past sixteen years? Do you still live in Kelowna?”

She nodded. “I got my business degree at Simon Fraser. My dad retired last year, so I’m the CEO of the family business.”

Josh whistled. “I’m impressed.”

“What about you?”

“I dabbled for a couple of years at the University of British Columbia, then decided to do something useful. I’m a lowly electrician. Well, a lowly master electrician. Got my own company, though. Kincaid Electrical, in Kelowna.” The pride in his voice belied his self-described lowliness.

“Really? I’m impressed, but I didn’t have a clue you were still in town.”

“I guess we don’t travel in the same circles.”

She gave a little shrug. “Does that bother you? My being management while you’re labor?”

“Nah. Why would that bother me? I’m not a snob.” He grinned. “But I’ve gotta tell you, you don’t look like any of the CEOs I’ve met. For one thing, you’re a lot better looking. And softer.”

Hope laughed, inordinately pleased by his flattery, although she knew they were empty words. “You should see me at work. The iron maiden. Power suits, imported shoes, not a hair out of place.”

“Sounds pretty scary.”

“Sometimes, I scare myself.” Even to her own ears, her description sounded like one of those jokes that told the truth.

“What’s your family business? I don’t remember if I ever knew. Steel? Lumber? Something in aerospace?”

“None of the above. It’s KidsCan Togs. We manufacture baby and children’s clothes, and we’re the largest Canadian catalog house for kids’ things.”

He let his gaze sweep over her, then back up to her face. “That doesn’t exactly fit with the power-suit image. I’d have thought a kids’-clothes CEO would be, you know, more user friendly.”

“The exporters and manufacturers and wholesalers I deal with aren’t babies, Josh. If I were more, uh, user friendly, I’d get used. Tell me about your work.”

Hope discovered that Josh could tell stories in a way that made even the most mundane events amusing. He related tales of everything from mishaps to abandoned pets and a house full of aging nudists who insisted on watching him and his men work.

When she was able to stop laughing, she asked, “Would you like more stew?”

“Nope. I’m stuffed. Wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee, though.”

“You must keep your wife busy waiting on you,” she said in a tighter, prissier tone than she’d intended. Give a man a meal, and he thinks he’s entitled to special service. It was almost like having Kyle back in her life.

Josh didn’t seem to notice her irritation. “No wife.” He grinned. “You?”

She couldn’t help smiling back. “No wife, either.”

“Cute.”

“You asked.”

“What about a husband? Or a significant other?”

“No other, significant or otherwise.”

To cover her abrupt tone, Hope stood and moved toward the sink carrying their dishes. Then she filled the coffeepot with water and measured coffee grounds from a can in the freezer. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him if he had any woman or women in his life. It was none of her business.

“I don’t have anyone special, either,” he announced. “And no significant exes.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Ah! A Teflon man.”

“A what?”

“A Teflon man. The opposite of a Velcro man.”

“Okay.” He leaned back in his chair until it rocked onto the back legs. “Enlighten me.”

“A Velcro man sticks. Nothing sticks to a Teflon man. No commitments. No entanglements.” She turned back to the sink. “No scratches.”

He snorted. “Hey, I don’t happen to have anyone special right now. Maybe it was the other way around. You know, maybe I got dumped. Maybe some cruel woman broke my heart.”

She turned around, a sponge in one hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t make assumptions like that.”

He brought the chair legs down with a thump. “Don’t apologize. You were right. My last breakup was mutual. They’re always mutual, when women realize I’m not the picket-fence kind of guy. Does that faucet always drip like that?”

“Pardon? Oh. Yes, I guess. I’ve been meaning to replace the washer, but I don’t know where the owners keep spares, if they keep spares. They’re rather elderly, and they don’t use the cabin much anymore.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She smiled, feeling unexpectedly playful. “Is it safe for an electrician to fix the plumbing?”

He grinned. “I’ll practice safe plumbing. Promise. Anything else that needs fixing?”

“No,” she lied. Something did need fixing, something terribly wrong with her, but Josh certainly wasn’t the man to repair what was broken. “Coffee’s ready.”

“Thanks.” Josh wondered what her sudden change of mood was all about. It wasn’t as if an offer of help obligated her to anything more than a thanks and a smile. Not in his book, anyway. If he offered something, a favor or a night on the town, he didn’t do it to get repaid, with sex or anything else. He did things because he wanted to. And he seldom did anything he didn’t want to do. Hope might have forgotten that about him, but he intended to remind her before the weekend was over.

She carried two crockery mugs to the table, then filled them. The aroma of rich coffee floated into his head, soothing and jolting at the same time. Like Hope.

Pleased with that thought, he looked at her and caught her watching him. Immediately, she lowered her eyes and bit her bottom lip. Like the brush of a live wire, the desire to touch her lips with his own, to kiss away whatever was bothering her, zapped him.

But problem-solving for distressed ladies wasn’t exactly in his line of work as a Teflon kinda guy.