Instant Attraction

Chapter 14

As Cam let Katie drive back to the lodge, Serena’s words echoed in his head, all while extremely aware of how warm and sweet and sexy she felt in his arms.

Don’t be selfish with her, Cam. For once in your life…

And he had been plenty selfish in his life, she was right about that. Katie had been through hell, and yet unlike him, she was making something of herself. Trying to be happy.

Sleeping with her would make him happy, of that he had no doubt. It’d ease a tension he couldn’t seem to shake.

But what would it do for Katie? He knew enough about her to know that when she slept with someone, it meant something to her. She wasn’t a one-night stand woman. She deserved better from him. Much better.

When she pulled them up to the equipment garage, she sighed in pleasure, staying where she was a moment, her head resting back on his chest. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You drove.”

“And thanks for that too.” She slid out of his arms and off the snowmobile. When she caught sight of his face, her smile slowly slipped away. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Except that he was trying to do the right thing for someone else for a change. “I just have to get going.”

“Okay.” But she stood there a moment longer, clearly hoping he was going to break the sudden awkwardness.

Not going to happen. He was saving her from himself.

“Okay, well, thanks again.” She turned, then looked back. “Look, um…Did something happen that I missed?”

“No, I’ve just got things to do.”

She kept her eyes on his. “Okay, I get that. But I ask because the last time I let this odd feeling go, it turned out you were back on the mountain for the first time. So I can’t help but wonder what’s happening now. Inside you.”

“Katie…this is for the best. Really.”

She blinked. “Oh. You mean…you withdrawing. Pulling back.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Wow.” She shook her head. “I didn’t see that coming.”

She wanted to say more, he could tell, but though she was direct, she was not pushy, and in the end, she gave him a smile that didn’t quite meet her whiskey eyes. “Good-bye, Cam.”

He felt like an ass. Like he’d just kicked a puppy. Like he’d once again let down someone he cared about. “Goodbye, Katie.”

With a nod, she turned and walked off without another word, leaving him torn between a huge relief and the feeling he’d just done exactly the opposite of his intention-he’d hurt her.

That, and also, possibly, he’d just let the best thing that had happened to him in a damn long time walk away. With a rough exhale, he turned inside the equipment garage and found Stone coming out. “Hey. Thought you had that trip to-”

“Canceled,” Stone said. “But there’s a group who wants to go up the summit tonight for a moonlight snowshoe hike. I’m giving it to you.”

“No, no way. Not in the mood.”

“Get in the mood.”

“Why? What’s wrong with your legs?”

“Got a date.”

Cam lifted a brow. “That new server at Moody’s?”

“Maybe.”

“Doesn’t seem fair, me taking the hike, you getting lucky.” Especially considering he’d be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.

Gee, what a change that would be.

“Seems to me, you’ve been plenty lucky,” Stone reminded him. “And given what I interrupted the other day-”

“Yeah, that’s…not happening.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Cam stretched the tensed muscles in his neck. “Because I’m an idiot.”

Stone studied him a long moment. “You falling for her? Is that why you’re backing off?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ah, so this is the Wilder trait kicking in, the fuck-up-your-happiness trait.”

“Shut up, Stone.”

“Jesus.” Stone shook his head. “Really, Cam? You don’t think you’ve punished yourself enough this year? I get that you’re not a hotshot snowboarder anymore, with an MTV crew following you around 24/7 and chicks throwing themselves at you. But who is? Get over it.”

“I am. I’m trying.” He shoved Stone out of his way and stalked into the garage, then whipped back. “I’m still here, aren’t I? And before you get all pissy over that”-he stabbed a finger into Stone’s chest-“you should know, I’m still here because I want to be.”

“Then why the fuck are you yelling?”

“I don’t know.” Cam turned to the window and eyed the white mountain peaks that had once been his entire life, and were now as well, just in a different way. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with myself,” he said, his anger draining. “But I know I feel good here.”

Stone sighed and slung his arm over Cam’s shoulder. “Okay, I’ll take that. So am I going to get lucky tonight or what?”

“I’ll take the damn hike. But as to the lucky part, bro, that’s all on you.”

Katie was working at her desk, trying not to think too hard when Annie came up the stairs with the mail. Her apron read: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, with a cartoon chef flipping her middle finger.

Katie looked past the apron to the scowl on Annie’s face. The scowl was in no way unusual, but something else was.

Annie was wearing brand-new jeans that weren’t baggy. Her shirt was a plain Henley, but the long-sleeved cotton material was fitted and unbuttoned to her waist, revealing an even snugger tank top beneath and a lovely figure. Her hair was loose and shiny, and though she wore no mascara, she did have on gloss.

Katie smiled. “I bet Nick’s eyes pop right out of his head when he sees you.”

“We’ll see. The delivery guy stopped by just now and seemed to like what he saw just fine.” She paused. “So have you seen him? Nick?”

“With Cam,” Stone told her, coming out of his office. He was thumbing a text message to someone on his phone while simultaneously flipping through a stack of phone messages. “They’re organizing the gear for tonight’s snowshoe hike.” He took a glance at the two women, then executed a comical double take at Annie.

Annie tugged on the hem of her fitted shirt and shifted on her weight self-consciously. “What?”

“What happened to you?”

“What happened to what?”

Annie’s tone clearly said, “Warning: Dead Nephew Walking,” but Stone didn’t seem to catch it. “You shrink your clothes?” he asked.

Annie slapped the mail against his stomach, hard enough to make him wince. “No, you idiot, I didn’t shrink my clothes. I bought them this way.”

“I think you look pretty,” Katie said, hoping to help avoid Stone’s death.

Stone finally bought a clue and nodded, “You do. You look pretty.”

“I was going for sexy,” Annie said.

“Sexy?”

“Yes, for Nick. I want to look sexy so that your good friend would want to do your aunt. There. Do you wish me to be any clearer?”

Stone winced. “What I wish is that I’d stayed in my office.”

Annie tugged at her shirt again and turned to the window. “This is so ridiculous. I’m so ridiculous.”

“No,” Stone said. “It’s…nice. And you really do look-”

“Ridiculous.”

“Pretty.”

Annie gave him a long look over her shoulder. “You know that would be so sweet if you weren’t completely full of shit.”

“Maybe we should develop a code of some sort,” Stone said to Katie when Annie had stormed back down the stairs. “You know, like hey, crazy aunt alert.”

Katie wasn’t thinking of him, but of Nick. “What are the chances that Nick’s as slow as you?”

Stone considered a moment. “Good to excellent.”

“Well, that’s a shame.” Katie shook her head at all the men in this place. “I really did like that man.”

That night, Cam’s group comprised five coworkers attending a conference near South Lake Tahoe. They’d made the trek up to Wishful in a limo, and from there Nick had retrieved them in the Sno-Cat.

Cam stood in the lodge’s big main room assigning everyone snowshoes when he felt the prickle of awareness at the back of his neck. Turning, he met Katie’s gaze.

“Yeah,” Nick said, standing next to him, doling out the snow poles. “Did I forget to tell you? She’s joining the group for tonight.”

Cam just looked at him.

“Hey, it’s after hours and she signed up.” Nick shrugged. “She wants an adventure. It’s not my fault you went and fucked everything up, and made it all awkward.”

Cam shook his head. “How do you know these things?”

“When are you going to learn? I know everything.”

Annie came into the room holding a tray filled with sacked snacks. For once she wasn’t wearing clothes two sizes too big, and her aprons were nowhere in sight. She looked softer, even pretty. Cam turned to Nick, who was standing there staring at her, mouth agape, struggling to comprehend.

“Everyone take one and tuck it into your backpacks,” Annie called out. “You’ll all be wanting to kiss me when you get back, I can promise you that.”

This was met with some cheers, and one of the guys shifted closer, flirting with her.

Nick continued to look like his brain had been knocked clear across the room.

“You know everything?” Cam whispered to him. “Really? Do you know how to get her back?”

“Fuck you.” Nick accompanied this with a little shove.

Eyes sharp, Annie looked over. Cam smiled at her while speaking to Nick out of the corner of his mouth. “You might want to remember, I’m her favorite. Pick on me and she’ll kick your ass.”

Nick ignored this and walked up to Annie. “Hey.”

She slid him one of those indescribable looks that Cam knew from experience always meant trouble in one form or another.

“Why don’t you come with us tonight?” Nick asked her.

She cocked her head. “Why? Is there some reason I should?”

“Yeah, it’s a full moon. It’ll be a great view. We could wait while you change.”

“Is there something wrong with these clothes then?”

“No.” Nick clearly sensed trouble, but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to the intricate workings of the female mind and how to follow them.

Annie’s voice cooled to subzero. “I’ll go if you can tell me what’s different about me tonight.”

Nick gulped. “Your hair. You did your hair.”

Annie’s mouth tightened and she slapped a hand to his chest to push him out of her way. “Sack snacks,” she said again to the group. “Come get your sack snack-”

Nick reached for one.

Annie held them out of his reach. “Sorry, I didn’t make one for you.”

“You said you had enough for everyone.”

“Everyone but you.”

“But you have an extra right there-”

“It’s Cam’s.”

Cam caught it an inch from his face. Annie could throw on the best of days, but when she was pissed, she could pitch for the A’s.

Nick sighed and went back to giving out poles to go with the snowshoes.

“Thought you knew everything,” Cam said to him.

Nick growled, and Cam moved away just in time to avoid bodily harm. He watched Katie accept her poles and the snowshoes with a sweet smile, clearly avoiding getting too close to him. No doubt, she was more than a little confused by his hot-and-cold behavior. He had no defense, no good one anyway. When it came to her and what the hell was the right thing to do, he no longer had a clue.

When everyone was ready, they moved outside. They were going to take the Stone Creek Summit trail from the back of the lodge, which would lead up the High Sierra Pass to a plateau that on a bright, crystal-clear night such as tonight would seem like the top of the world.

His group consisted of one romantically linked couple, three friends, and Katie. Let’s not forget Katie. As if he could, she with the biggest, most expressive eyes on the entire planet, not to mention the fact that she was wearing those ski pants he’d given her and right this minute was bending over to tighten her boots, giving him a nice view of the way they fit her sweet ass. Especially since he’d had his hands on said sweet ass and wished he was getting his hands on her again in the near future, without the pants this time. In fact, he wanted to get his hands on her, his mouth on her, his tongue-

She straightened and turned, and caught him staring.

“Odd to find you staring at me like that,” she said lightly. “After earlier, when I figured either you changed your mind about wanting me, or…you’re so scared of me.”

Hell of a multiple choice.

She waited for a minute, then smiled a little tightly as she patted his arm. “It’s okay, Cam.” She moved away to join the others, leaving him staring after her. After his accident, he’d closed himself off. If he were being honest, he’d done that long before too. But that technique didn’t seem to be working for him much anymore.

Only he wasn’t sure what to do to change it. Christ, he was tired of thinking, tired of himself. He turned to the group, clearing his head as everyone began to put on their snowshoes. The night was a good one, about thirty degrees. Better than the freeze-your-balls-off cold it’d been all week. “Anyone having problems?”

Only one hand shot up: Katie’s. “I’m sorry,” she said apologetically when he crouched down at her side. “I don’t know which foot is which.”

“With these snowshoes it doesn’t make a difference.”

“Okay, I’m good then.” Standing up, she took a step, and walked right out of the snowshoes, nearly falling on her face. “Huh, maybe not so good.”

He gestured her back over to him and helped her, which required him kneeling at her side, putting his hands on her legs, “Katie?”

“Yes?”

“About those two choices you gave me.” He lifted his head. “I’m not afraid.”

She looked at him a long moment. “No worries. I think I get it.”

“No, you don’t.” He tightened her bindings with a little tug. She gasped and put her hands on his head, gripping his hair, using him for balance. “I’ve climbed Mt. McKinley,” he told her. “I’ve skied the Death Zone in France. I’m not afraid of much.” He paused, then told her the stone-cold hard truth, “But I tend to be a quitter.”

“Oh, Cam. No-”

“Don’t.” He said this more harshly than he’d intended, but as the saying went, the truth hurt. He quit. When the going got tough, the tough got going, and he walked.

Always.

“It’s just the way it is. Lift your foot.”

She complied, and he tightened the other boot as well so that she’d stay in them for the next few hours of climbing. Her fingers were still in his hair, but more so than that was the fact that his head was at her crotch level. If he turned his face, he’d be within two inches of where he’d wanted to be since he first saw her in his bed. A ridiculously immature thought, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “Try that.”

She walked a few steps and turned back. “I feel like a duck.”

“That’s natural. You’ll get past it.” He took her hand and pulled her in close, tipping up her chin to meet her gaze. “And as for the other choice…I do want you. So damn much.”

“You don’t have to say that-”

“I want to kiss you,” he said quietly. “Touch you. I want to do things to you, all night long.”

She stared at his mouth, hers falling open.

“I want to feel your heart pound for me when I’m inside you. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear on that. I’ve been unclear on a lot of stuff lately, especially with you because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Misguided,” she murmured, her voice a little thick. “I take care of myself, Cam.”

“You do. I know that. You’re so strong, but I…Look, I wasn’t completely honest. You do scare me. Okay? You scare the hell out of me.”

She nodded. “I could hold your hand.”

He let out a low laugh and drank in the sight of her by moonlight, trying to fit into his world. Fitting into his world. “Just so you know, you are truly the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you.” She took the last step between them. “Oh, and one last thing.” She kissed him, one quick, hard, very nice kiss on the lips before pulling back. “That’s what you’re missing out on by being afraid of me. Just so you know.”

When she’d walked away, Nick leaned in. “I’m glad to see I’m not the only idiot in residence.”

Still reeling, Cam lifted his middle finger and scratched his nose with it in Nick’s direction. While Nick laughed, he called out to the group. “Everyone ready?” He struggled to gather his thoughts. “We’ve got three miles to cover. At the top, we’ll stop for pictures. Hopefully the sky will stay clear and you’ll get a great shot at the full moon.”

“So romantic,” the woman with her boyfriend whispered.

And she was right. It was incredibly romantic. Cam slid Katie a quick glance, and found her looking at him.

Nick leaned in to Cam again. “It might be scary up there. Need me to hold your hand?”

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.” Cam led the way, with Nick taking up the rear, still chuckling at the both of them.

For Katie, the snow hike started off easy enough but quickly turned challenging. Even so, it was hard not to be completely awed by the night. The moon shined down on the snow, bouncing the reflecting light over the snow-covered trees, the mountains. She’d never paid much attention to the night sky in Los Angeles. Or to the daytime sky, for that matter. Either it was a dingy blue, thanks to the smog, or it was a dingy black, also thanks to the smog.

But here.

God, here.

Here in the Sierras, the sky had a million different looks, from pale purple in the dawn, to an eye-popping blue midday, to the blackest of black at night, and every single one seemed so large, so stunning.

Sort of like the man who was leading her hike right this very moment.

I want to do things to you…

Just thinking about his words had her breath coming faster, and Cam turned his head to check on her. “I’m good.” As long as I don’t picture you doing things to me…

But she did picture them as they kept going. And going. And going…As Cam promised, after a few minutes, she no longer felt like a duck as they all moved up the same hill he’d taken her up once before, in the Sno-Cat.

This time, under her own steam, it was a challenge. Her breath was huffing in her chest, making little white puffs of clouds with each exhale. They walked single file, the trail didn’t allow for anything else. Stone had warned her that snowshoeing up this particular mountain was pretty much a solitary experience, but that had appealed.

The couple in front of her, John and Sally, had a flask filled with something they kept passing back and forth, which made them giggle with increasing frequency.

Cam turned back often, checking on everyone, and each time he locked gazes with her, her heart stuttered.

He wanted to do things…and she wanted him to do those things…He kept a close eye on Sally and John, too, probably because after an hour, John was completely hammered and kept tripping over his own feet. Twice Nick had leaned past Katie to tell him to be careful.

Cam did the same from the front.

But John-Sally called him “Sweetie Pie”-wasn’t listening too well. He wasn’t obnoxious or rude or anything. In fact, he was quite happy and jolly. But he was definitely not heeding any advice.

The trail became increasingly narrower, with a sharp rock wall to their right, and then a decent drop to their left. When “Sweetie Pie” began to sing show tunes, Sally merely laughed. When he added in dance moves, coming extremely close to the edge several times, Katie held her breath. “Careful,” she begged him, adding what she hoped was a pleasant smile when she wanted to tell him not to be stupid. “Don’t fall.”

“I won’t,” he said just as one of his legs buckled. Katie shoved him clear of the edge at the same time he wrapped his arms around her for balance, but both of them wobbled and teetered, and Katie’s life instantly flashed before her eyes. Another time and place, another cliff…

As the panic hit her, her last coherent thought was, she was going to die before Cam could get her naked, and that was just really, really unfair.