Snowbound With The Boss
Of course not. That would have made her life too easy. Way better to strand her here on the mountain with a man who had shaken her nice, comfortable life right down to the ground.
Slowly straightening, she shook her head, hoping to clear out the ragged, disjointed thoughts somersaulting through it. Didn’t work, but she pushed through, pushed past. Bending, she took a few of the logs she’d carried in and set them in the hearth. Then she laid down kindling from the nearby basket, took a long wooden match, struck it and held the flame to the kindling until it caught. Taking a minute to get the fire started would help her settle—she hoped.
She watched the fire catch, licking at the wood until the hiss and crackle jumped into the otherwise quiet room.
“You can do this,” she muttered under her breath. “He’s just your boss.”
Lies, her mind whispered. All lies. Not even very good ones. The sad truth was, Sean Ryan was so much more than the man she was currently working for. He was the first man in years who’d been able to not just sneak past her well-honed defenses but obliterate them. One smile from him and her knees quivered. One glance from his lake-blue eyes and her long-dormant hormones began a dance of joy. Oh, that was humbling to admit, even to herself.
She really didn’t need this.
Kate had a good life now. She’d built it carefully, brick by brick, and damn if she’d allow attraction to ruin it all.
Of course, standing strong against what Sean Ryan made her feel would have been much easier if he’d just been able to leave tomorrow as scheduled. But with the blizzard, they could be trapped together for days.
And that thought brought her right back to the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Frowning, she reminded herself that she’d already survived something that would have crushed most people. She could live through a few days in close quarters with Sean.
Nodding in agreement with her silent pep talk, she pushed up from the hearth and turned to get more wood. Sean stalked into the room, arms full of more logs than she could have carried in one trip. He didn’t look any happier about their current situation than she did.
Sadly, that didn’t make her feel any better.
“Just stack it there on the hearth,” she said, waving one hand. “I’ll go out for more.”
“Yeah,” he said, dropping the wood with an ear-shattering clatter. “I’ll get the wood. I can carry more than you, so that means fewer trips.”
She wanted to argue, but he was right. Still, it was hard for her to accept help. Kate stood on her own two feet. And for the last couple of years especially, she’d deliberately dismissed anyone who thought she couldn’t handle things herself.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ve got emergency supplies out in my truck. I’ll get them while you bring in more wood. Get a lot of it. It’ll be a long, cold night.”
“Right.” He paused. “What kind of supplies?”
“Blankets, lanterns, coffeemaker—the essentials.”
He gave her a wide smile. “Coffee? Now you’re talking. I’d give a hundred bucks for a cup of coffee right now.”
Why did he have to smile? Why did that smile have to light up his features, sparkle in his eyes and cause her already-unsteady nerves to wobble and tip dangerously? This whole adventure would be so much easier on her if she could just hate him. Damn it.
“A hundred dollars for coffee?” She nodded. “Sold.”
His eyebrows shot up, and that wicked curve of his mouth broadened. “Yeah? Well, I’ll have to owe you since I don’t have that much cash on me.”
Just too much charm, she thought. And he turned it on and off like a faucet. Her breath caught a little. “That’s okay, I’ll send you a bill.”
“No problem.” Amusement drained from his face, but his eyes glittered with promise. “We’ll settle things between us before I head back to California. You can count on it.”
Oh, boy. Kate watched him go, then turned up the collar of her jacket. She headed for the front door, giving herself a silent, stern lecture as she went. She couldn’t believe how that smile of his had affected her. Honestly, he’d been hard enough to resist when he was miserable and complaining about the snow. But a smiling Sean Ryan was even more dangerous.
She stepped outside and welcomed the blast of cold wind and the stinging slap of blowing snow. If anything could put out a fire burning inside, it was a Wyoming winter. But even as she thought it, Kate had to admit that the slow burn of attraction, interest, was still glowing with heat.
She trooped across the wide front porch, down the steps to where she’d left the truck. Snow was already filling up the bed and stacking against the tires. If she left it sitting out here, by the end of the blizzard she and Sean would have to dig out the truck before they could leave. Jumping into the cab, she started it up, then drove around the edge of the old hotel toward the four-car garage standing behind it. She had to jump out of the truck back into the snow to open the door, but once she had her vehicle parked, it was a relief to be out of the wind.
Kate reached over the side of the truck to the metal box in the bed. Unlocking it, she dragged out her stash of emergency supplies. A heavy plastic craft box that she’d commandeered for the purpose, along with a sleeping bag and the two blankets she kept there in case she was ever stranded in the snow.
Heading out of the garage, she closed the door behind her and paused for a moment to look up at the hotel. Sean was no longer on the porch, so he was inside, by the fire. Stranded alone would be a little scary. Stranded with Sean was terrifying.
Oh, not that she was worried about her safety. It was more concern for her sanity that had her biting her bottom lip as disjointed thoughts bounced off the walls of her mind.
He was too gorgeous. Too smooth. Too rich. And not to mention the fact that he was her boss. This one job for Celtic Knot would give her sometimes-floundering construction company a jolt that could keep them going for the next few years.
So it was imperative she keep a grip on the hormones that insisted on stirring whenever Sean was close by. She couldn’t afford to give in to what her body was screaming for. An affair with Sean was just too risky. It had been more than two years since she’d been with a man. In that time, Kate had managed to convince herself that whatever sexual needs or desires she’d had, had died with her husband, Sam.
It was lowering to have to acknowledge, even silently, that her theory had been shot to hell by Sean Ryan’s appearance in her life.
She shifted her gaze to the hotel, where firelight danced and glowed behind the window glass. Only midafternoon and it was already getting dark.
The wall of snow between her and the hotel was thickening, letting Kate know that this was a big storm. She and Sean could be stuck here for days.
How weird was it that she could be both annoyed and excited by the prospect?
Two
Inside, the fire was already spreading heat around the wide room. Firelight flickered across Sean’s features as he bent low to gently lay another log across the already burning wood. He turned his head to look at her, and Kate’s breath caught. Fire and light burned in his blue eyes and seemed to settle inside her, where that heat flashed dangerously bright.
A second or two of unspoken tension hummed in the air between them, making each breath she drew a victory of sorts. When she couldn’t take it another moment, Kate shattered the spell of silence by speaking. “If you bring in one more load of wood, that should see us through tomorrow.”
“Right.” He straightened slowly and shoved both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. Nodding at the pile of things at her feet, he said, “You carry a lot of emergency supplies.”
Happy to be on safe territory, she glanced down at the things she’d brought inside. “I’d rather be prepared than freeze to death,” she told him with a shrug. “You never know when your car won’t start or you’ll blow a tire or slide on some ice into a ditch...”
“Or get stranded in a blizzard?”
“Exactly.” She gave the black nylon sleeping bag a nudge with the toe of her boot, edging it closer to the two wool blankets beside it. “Blankets to keep warm and in the box I’ve got a battery-operated lantern, PowerBars, chocolate and coffee...”
“There’s that magic word again,” Sean said with a half grin.
“Finally something we can agree on,” Kate answered, a reluctant smile curving her mouth.
Sean’s grin only widened, and her heart tripped into a gallop. “Yeah, we’ve had an interesting week, haven’t we?”
“That’s one way to put it.” Kate sighed, bent down and opened the box to pull out her ancient coffeepot. Snatching the bag of coffee, too, she stood up again and met his steady gaze. “You’ve argued with every one of my suggestions for this place.”
“My place,” he said simply. “My decisions.”
She’d never had a client fight her on nearly everything before Sean. Normally, Kate didn’t mind trying to incorporate a client’s wants into the required work. But she also knew what was possible and what wasn’t. Sean, though, didn’t consider anything to be impossible.
“My crew. My work,” she countered.
“And here we go again,” Sean said, shaking his head. “Yeah, you’ll be doing the work, but you’re going to do it the way I want it done.”
“Even if you’re wrong.”
His mouth tightened. “If I want it, I’m not wrong.”
“You don’t know anything about construction,” she argued, even knowing it was fruitless. Her hands fisted on the coffeepot and the bag of coffee. The man had a head of solid rock. Hadn’t she been hammering at it for the last week?
He pulled his hands from his pockets, crossed his arms over his chest and stood, hipshot, giving her a look of resigned patience. “And how much do you know about video games? Specifically ‘Forest Run’?”
“Okay. Not much.” This argument was circular. They’d had it several times already, so Kate knew nothing would be settled and still, she had to admit again that he was right.
“Or nothing.”
“Fine. Nothing.” Her voice sounded defensive even to her, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “I’m a little too busy to be wasting my time playing video games.”
Briefly, insult flashed across his features. “Thankfully, there are a few hundred million people worldwide who don’t feel the same way.”
In a heartbeat, he’d reminded her of the difference between them. He was the billionaire. She was the hired help. “You’re right,” she said, though the words burned her tongue and nearly choked her. “I don’t know what gamers would want in a hotel designed especially for them.”
He gave her a short, nearly regal nod.
“But,” she added, “you don’t know about construction. What can and can’t be done and more importantly, what should and shouldn’t be done. You hired me because I’m a professional. When I tell you a wall is load-bearing, it’s not because I want to deny you the ‘open space to reproduce the sorcerer’s meeting rooms.’ It’s because if I take down that wall it destabilizes the entire building.”
His mouth worked as if he wanted to argue, but all he said was, “You have a point.”
“Thanks, I thought so.”
A brief twist of a smile curved his lips and was gone again in a flash. “You’re the most opinionated woman I’ve ever met.”
Kate took a breath. Strange but it was only Sean Ryan who brought out the argumentative side of her. Normally, she found a way to deal with clients with patience and reason. But he pushed every button she had and a few she hadn’t even been aware of. She found herself digging in, defending her position and never giving ground, which was no way to complete a job. Especially this job. She was going to have to learn how to deal with Sean Ryan in a calm, rational way, and she might as well start now. “Okay, I guess you have a point, too.”
His eyebrows lifted and amusement shone in his eyes. “Are we having a moment, here?”
Why did he have to be amiable along with irritating? Something inside her flipped over, and Kate took a long, hopefully calming breath. She’d been so solitary, so insulated, since Sam died, being this attracted to a man was staggering. And a little nerve-racking. But all she had to do was get through this storm. Survive being stranded with Sean Ryan long enough to see him get on his private jet and head back to where he belonged. Then everything would get back to normal and she could forget about how he made her feel.
“Why don’t you bring more wood and I’ll make that coffee.”
“And the moment’s over,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’ll let it go for now, though, since I really want some caffeine.”
Kate held her coffeepot and the bag of grounds up like trophies. “The gas is connected. All I have to do is light a pilot light and we can use the stove.”
“You’re a goddess,” he said with a dramatic flair.
Amused, she shook her head. “You’re easily impressed.”
“Really not,” he told her and winked.
He winked, she thought as she walked to the kitchen and got things started. Why did he have to be gorgeous? she wondered. Was it some sort of trick by Fate, to send a man like him to her when she least wanted him?
Mumbling under her breath, she filled a pan with water and used a kitchen match to light one of the gas burners. While she waited for the pot to boil, she headed for the kitchen pantry to look through the food supplies she and her men had left here over the last week.
On normal jobs, they kept a cooler on the job site, stuffed with food, snacks and the guys’ lunches. But the hotel job was different. They would be working here for a long time and no doubt with lots of strange hours, so they’d more or less taken over the kitchen to store extra supplies—including paper plates, cups, towels and even, she saw, a plastic bag of disposable silverware.
Smiling to herself, she looked through the snacks and realized she could identify who on her crew had brought them in. Andy had a thing for Cheetos and Paco always had nacho-flavored corn chips with him. Then there were Jack’s Oreos and Dave’s peanut butter crackers. Kate herself had brought in chocolate, tea bags and those always-had-to-have Pop-Tarts. Brown sugar and cinnamon, of course.
“Not exactly a five-star restaurant,” she murmured a few minutes later, “but we won’t starve.”
“Yeah?” Sean’s voice came from directly behind her, and Kate jumped in response. He ignored her reaction. “What’ve we got?”
Kate moved away, forcing him to back up, too. “Cheese and crackers. Chips, pretzels and cookies. Everything you probably shouldn’t be eating.” She glanced at him. “My crew likes their junk food.”
“And who can blame them?”
A small smile tugged briefly at her lips. Kate closed the pantry door and opened the refrigerator. “There’s more in here, too. The storm hasn’t taken out the power yet. That’s good. Okay, we’ve got lots of those little cheese sticks, plus there are three sandwiches from yesterday, too. A few hard-boiled eggs thanks to Tracy, and some macaroni salad.”
He frowned. “When we brought lunch for everyone yesterday, there was one sandwich each. I didn’t expect leftovers.”
“Normally, you’d be right. The crew’s usually like locusts, mowing through anything edible—especially if they didn’t have to buy it themselves,” she said with an affectionate smile for the people she worked with every day. She looked up at him and added, “But thankfully for us, Lilah and Raul are both on diets so they didn’t eat theirs and Frank left early because his wife was in labor. So we’ve got food.”
“I forgot about Frank’s wife having a baby.” Sean leaned against the counter. “What was it, boy or girl?”
“A girl.” Kate couldn’t stop the smile as she remembered Frank’s call late the night before. “He’s so excited. They’ve got four boys already, and he really wanted a girl this time.”
“Five kids?” Sean asked, then whistled low and long. “Are they nuts?”
He looked so appalled at the very idea, Kate was insulted on behalf of her friends. “No, they’re not. They love kids.”
“They’d better,” Sean muttered and shook all over as if trying to ward off a chill.
“Wow, really hate the thought of family that much?”
Something flickered in his eyes—a shadow—and then it was gone, so fast, Kate wasn’t really sure she’d seen it at all.
“No,” he said, half turning to lean one hip against the battered kitchen counter. “Just not interested in having one of my own.”
“So no driving need to be a father,” she said flatly, thinking this was just another insight into the man she would be dealing with for months.
“God, no.” He shook his head and laughed shortly. “Can’t see me being a father. My brother maybe, but not me.”
Though he was brushing it off, Kate remembered that shadow and wondered what had caused it, however briefly. Curiosity piqued, Kate couldn’t help asking, “Why?”
He blew out a breath, crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I like having my own space. Doing things on my own time. Having to bend all of that to fit someone else’s schedule doesn’t appeal to me.”
“Sounds selfish,” she said.
“Absolutely,” he agreed affably. “What about you? If you like kids so much, why don’t you have three or four of your own?”
Her features froze briefly. She felt it, couldn’t prevent it and could only hope that he didn’t notice. One thing she didn’t want was to tell Sean about her late husband and the dreams of family they’d had and lost. “Just hasn’t worked out that way.”
“Hey.” Sean moved closer and his voice dropped. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said briskly, lifting her chin and giving him what she hoped was a bright—not bitter—smile.
This was simply another reminder of the differences between them, Kate thought. Mister Billionaire Playboy probably thought having a family was like being chained in a cage. But it was all Kate had ever really wanted. She’d come close to having the whole dream—home, husband, kids—but it had been snatched from her grasp and now she was left with only the haunting thoughts of what might have been.
Something Sean clearly wouldn’t understand. But that wasn’t her problem, was it?
“Anyway,” Kate said, “we’ve got enough food for a few days if we’re careful.”
“Right.” He accepted the change of subject easily enough. “Do we have enough coffee to last?”
We. Now they were an unlikely team. As long as the storm lasted, they would be we. And she could admit, at least to herself, that in spite of everything, she was grateful not to be stranded up here by herself. Even if it did mean that she and Sean were going to have far too much alone time together.
But for now, dealing with their shared addiction to caffeine took precedence. “I’m on it.”
The water in the pan was boiling, so she carefully poured it into the drip filter on her travel pot. She felt Sean watching her. How odd, she thought, that the man’s gaze could feel as tangible as a touch. And odder still, she caught herself wishing he was touching her, which was just stupid.
For heaven’s sake, hadn’t she just been reminding herself how different the two of them were? How he was temporary in her life—not to mention being her client, so in effect, her boss. It was undeniable, though. This flash of something hungry between them. It was dangerous. Ridiculous. And oh, so tempting.
It was the situation, she told herself. Just the two of them, stranded in an empty hotel with several feet of snow piling up outside. Of course, her mind was going a little wonky. And the only thing wrong with that explanation was that her mind had been wonky since the moment Sean had arrived in Wyoming.
Over the sound of the howling wind outside, Kate listened to the water plopping through the filter into the coffeepot. A rich, dark scent filled the air, and behind her, Sean inhaled deeply and released the breath on a sigh.
“Man, that smells good.”
“Agreed,” she said and carefully poured more water into the filter. While the coffee dripped into the reservoir, Kate walked to the pantry, where she’d stored a few paper supplies for the crew. She grabbed two cups, tossed one to Sean and then turned to the now-ready coffee and poured some for each of them. The first sip seemed to ease some of the jagged edges tearing at her mind.
Leaning back against the counter, she turned to stare out the window above the sink. It was a bay window, with plenty of space for fresh herbs to grow and thrive in the sun. Right now it was empty, but Kate could imagine just how it and everything else about the hotel would look when she and her crew were finished. Still, it was what was happening beyond the glass that had most of her attention.
The snow was coming down so thick and fast, swirling in a wind that rattled the glass panes, she couldn’t see past the yard to where the lake stretched out along the foot of the mountains, and the forest was no more than a smudge of darkness in the world of white.
“This happen often?” Sean asked, as he moved up beside her.
His arm brushed against hers, and Kate sucked in a gulp of air to steady herself. “Often enough,” she said, determined to get a grip on the rush of something hot and delicious pulsing inside her. Another sip of coffee sent a different kind of heat sweeping through her. “Ask anyone and they’ll tell you. If you don’t like the weather in Wyoming, wait five minutes. It’ll change.”
He leaned forward and tipped his head back to see what he could of the sky. “So five minutes from now, the sun should be shining and the snow melted?”
She had to laugh because he sounded so hopeful. “Not likely. This looks like a big one. I figure we’re stuck here for a couple of days. Maybe more.”
He sighed, nodded and looked at her. “At least we have each other.”
And that, Kate told herself, was the problem.
* * *
They decided to ration what food they had, so an hour later, the two of them split a sandwich and shared a few crackers. Sitting in front of the fire, with the wind and snow pelting the windows, Sean glanced at Kate beside him. They’d pulled the old leather couch closer to the hearth, and now each of them had claimed a corner of the sofa for themselves.
Kate stared into the blaze, and firelight danced across her features and shone in her hair. Her eyes were fixed on the flames, as if looking away from the fire would mean her life. Her behavior told him she was nervous around him. He liked knowing it. Made his own unease a little easier to take.
He frowned to himself as that word reverberated a few times in his mind. Unease. Hell, Sean hadn’t been uneasy around women since freshman year of high school. Dana Foster—her red hair, green eyes and wide, smiling mouth had turned Sean into a babbling moron. Until he’d kissed her for the first time. That kiss had opened up a world of wonder, beauty and hunger that Sean had enjoyed ever since.
The women in his life—most of them—had come and gone, barely causing a ripple. Of course, there’d been one woman, years ago, who had affected him, changed him. But he didn’t allow himself to think about her or what had happened between them. Ancient history that had nothing to do with who and what he was today.
Now there was Kate. And what she did to him was so much more than that long-ago woman. Admitting that really bothered him and acted as a warning bell. Kate had him tied into knots, and he didn’t appreciate it. She made him feel nearly desperate to have her. And while his body clamored for him to go for it, those warning signals continued to ring out in his brain, telling him to keep his distance and to get the hell away from her as fast as he could. But that wasn’t going to happen, thanks to this blizzard.
He’d avoided any kind of entanglements for years and wasn’t looking for one now. But logic didn’t have a lot to do with anything he was feeling at the moment.
He wanted her. Wanted her badly enough that his mind was filled with images of her all the damn time. When he was with her, his body was tight and hard, and the longer he was with Kate, the worse it got. That need clawed at his insides, demanding release. Still, sex with her would only complicate matters, and Sean was a man who didn’t like complications.