“I’m sure that she’d love to talk to you,” he said next. “I can introduce you to her if you’d like.” As a man who knew her from work and had heard about her interest. Not as someone personally interested in Lindsay Warren. A friendly gesture.

  Because he was a friendly guy.

  “That’d be great,” Lindsay’s tone, still uplifted, sounded more like the artist he’d like to know more about.

  And want less.

  * * *

  The view from the top was magnificent. Even better than the glorious landscape visible from the path she’d taken in Shelter Valley. The colors, vivid blue sky, mountains and vegetation in a breathtaking panorama as far as she could see, all topped by sunshine that made everything glow like gold...a woman could almost believe that she could achieve everything her heart desired, could be anyone she wanted to be, sitting up there looking out at the world.

  Munching on watermelon and grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries and bananas from the plastic dish Cole had set between them, Lindsay felt the misters’ light touch and took a breath of pure happiness. And was struck by it. The uplifted excited sensation mixed with calm, the beauty and strength, the desire to remain in it...they were new to her. Or at least more potent than anything she’d ever known.

  “You know my life story—what’s yours?” Cole’s question, floating on the air, sounding so easy and casual, hit her like a ton of landslide rocks.

  She shook her head. At a complete loss for the second it took her to focus on real life again. “I grew up in Southern California. Lived in the same house until I was twenty, which was when I graduated from University of California San Diego and got my own place. And the rest you know. I’m an artist who makes enough to drive an old car, but one with character, mind you, and live in the smallest apartment in town.” Her voice lightened as she got back into her groove, and she finished with a grin before popping a strawberry in her mouth.

  Thus precluding any further awkward questions.

  If she could just be Lindsay Warren-Smythe, who was always in the company of people who wanted things from her, knew her reputation for guarding her privacy and didn’t want to offend her.

  “My parents were colonels in the air force. What were yours?”

  Cole only knew Ms. Bohemian. A fictional character residing in Warren-Smythe’s body and who really probably needed to just get out.

  “My dad is a businessman,” she said. “And my mother’s only career—stay-at-home mom.” Truth. If perhaps misleading, since her mom had only stayed at home for a couple of months after Lindsay was born. After which she’d been moved to the cemetery.

  A permanent home.

  So, still true.

  “Are your folks still here in Shelter Valley?” she asked then, realizing that he hadn’t introduced her to them during Brent Wilson’s barbecue. And figuring turnabout was not only fair play, but also would deflect the subject from her to him.

  “Nope. They retired in Vermont. How about siblings?”

  He shot the ball right back at her and suddenly that mountaintop, the lack of others willing to tackle the day’s heat, seemed more of a cage than a symbol of freedom.

  She couldn’t think about the half siblings she’d read about, seen pictures of, but had never met. Might never meet.

  “I grew up an only child,” she told him. “Just like you.” And it was time to move on. Standing, she continued with, “I’m getting warm—you mind if we head back down?”

  She was warm. But pleasantly so.

  Wasn’t really ready to leave.

  But she couldn’t be a sitting duck. And couldn’t afford any more of his questions, either. Not if she was going to keep her promise to herself not to lie to him.

  Cole stood immediately as she put the lid on the bowl of fruit. He loaded up the few things he’d taken out of his backpack, hoisted the cooler and waited for her to lead the way down the path.

  She wanted to believe she hadn’t offended him, and she couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t smiling.

  Which had her in another quandary. Cole wasn’t just another guy. He was one in a million. She should know. Over the years of fundraising, she felt like she’d met a million.

  None of whom had opinions that had mattered to her like Cole Bennet’s did. The whys and wherefores of that were something she could worry about another day. Or another hour later that day.

  The man had just been trying to get to know her. The way of friendship, even short-term ones. In her panic about the possibility of being exposed, she’d overreacted. Searched her brain for things she could offer him that wouldn’t give her up.

  And came up with, “I never told my family, but I went skydiving when I was in college. The idea of jumping out of a plane just seemed so freeing, but I didn’t want to worry anyone...” At a portion of the path where they could walk side by side, she slowed to wait for him to step up to her, and then continued walking, head bent to watch the ground for any pitfalls, and hoping that her words would bring back the smile to his face.

  When he remained silent, she added, “This little hike...reminds me of it—except, you know, the whole feet on the ground thing.” Don’t babble, she reprimanded herself. Babblers gave themselves away every time.

  “I’ve never even thought about jumping out of a plane,” Cole interrupted her self-discipline tirade, his tone still a little off, then he added, “Which is probably a good thing for the parachutes of the world.” His chuckle warmed her hugely. In the best way. Simply because it was back.

  With a lighter step, she said, “I was scared, so it wasn’t like the best feeling ever, but I still loved it. Being up here...it’s like skydiving without the fear.”

  Had been like it. Until she’d panicked and ended their sweet moments alone at the top of the world. So typical of her.

  And with him, more so than ever.

  She didn’t want to lose his friendship. Had no clue how to ensure that she didn’t. They’d known each other less than two weeks. And already determined there’d never be anything serious between them.

  So why did the fact that she was afraid she’d offended him feel so serious?

  It was the kiss.

  Typical.

  Physical relations ruined things. They were messy and emotional and confusing and she wanted to kiss him again. Wanted to be kissed by him.

  The trip down didn’t take nearly as long as the trip up and they were back in the parking lot before Lindsay had found her zen. Cole wished her a good-night, got in his SUV, waited for her to drop down into her little yellow bomb and followed her out of the parking lot.

  Without a single grin.

  Or furthering his offer to introduce her to Mariah Montford. She could find the woman on her own now that she knew enough details about the horse therapy operation. It wasn’t Cole’s introduction to a town resident that bothered her.

  It was his lack of any kind of smile as they parted.

  For the rest of Sunday night, she occupied herself with fundraising research in Phoenix. Using her knowledge of what kind of venues to contact and what to present, to formulate a series of plans, and compile a list of calls to make the next day. All normal preliminary work that she wanted done before she approached Mariah Montford.

  She’d been in her groove, zooming along as she did at home, from one business-related thought to the next, letting ideas flow, jotting them down and researching them as they presented themselves. Until, sometime around ten, she realized that her mind was almost frantically refusing to wind down. She had a full-time job that was expecting her best work in the morning. She had to get to bed.

  And didn’t want to lie there, in Cole’s town, and think about having lost his smile.

  He thought she’d blown him off. Or maybe that she was hiding something, which she was.

  A hot bath and lavender bubbles and a glass of wine helped her get sleepy. The possibility that she’d been wrong about Cole, blowing things out of proportion, that maybe the hike had been too hot for him, that he’d be his usual self in the morning, allowed her to get a fair night’s rest.

  But the next morning, when a mailperson delivered an interoffice envelope to her desk, she had a sinking feeling.

  Opening it in her own private little area, she turned her back to the door as she read the single sheet of paper.

  Cole had sent her Mariah’s contact information. No note. Not even a signature.

  Standing, shaking inside more than out, she strode out of the art department and down the hall to the breezeway connecting the building’s wings. If he wanted to be done with her, that was fine. Probably for the best.

  But she was not going to let herself fade away without an apology. From the moment Savannah had called to tell her Sierra’s Web had found her father, she’d promised herself that no one would get hurt by her very private, personal quest.

  More than that, Cole had been burned enough.

  She most definitely was not going to be the cause of him feeling as though he’d been left at the altar again. Or, as the case was, a picnic table in the sky.

  She made it to the other side of the building without having to make conversation with anyone. Head down in the breezeway, staring at the blue jewels on her flip-flops beneath the long denim-and-silk-striped skirt, helped take care of any would-be conversationalists.

  And the couple of business-attired individuals she passed in the hall on the way to Cole’s office in the executive wing were seemingly preoccupied enough with their own business that she only had to smile and keep moving. A brief glance to the left showed her that Brent Wilson’s door was closed at the end of the hall. Cole’s door, to the right, was open.

  In a short-sleeved white shirt and a tie, he was sitting behind his desk, seemingly engrossed in the large screen in front of him.

  She walked in with a brief knock on the solid wood. Closed the door behind her as though she owned the building.

  A Warren-Smythe move. Because generally, when she was visiting a personnel officer, she did own the building. At the moment, she was on autopilot. Needing the confidence it gave her.

  “You have a minute?” she asked him, ignoring the fact that Lindsay Warren should have made an appointment. That she was going against the rule she’d set forth for their short-term friendship. The one that stipulated that at work, they were only boss and contracted employee.

  A glance at the closed door, a raised eyebrow, let her know what he thought of her question. But he waved her to the chair in front of his desk.

  With a generic kind look, minus any hint of a grin, and an equally bland, “What can I do for you?”

  Panic struck. Warren-Smythe was no longer coming to the rescue. The twenty-eight-year-old had never been in a situation even a little like her current one.

  She opened her mouth, ready to apologize, and Ms. Bohemian blurted out.

  “Kiss me again.”

  Chapter Nine

  Cole straightened, back ramrod straight, as he frowned at the woman who’d just elegantly fallen into a seat across from him, her silky and denim skirt and formfitting short-sleeved blue top there to torment him, he was sure.

  Because that was the kind of mood he’d been in since the afternoon before.

  It wasn’t like him.

  Lillie had made sure she was touching him in some way every second he’d been home. Other than his shower that morning and he was pretty certain she’d have joined him there if he’d have left the door open for her. As it was, she’d kept watch outside the door.

  “What did you just say?” he asked Lindsay, knowing damned well the three words that had come clearly out of her mouth.

  He just couldn’t figure out why.

  And couldn’t pay attention to the hardness that had instantly sprung to life down below. He was not going to let his emotions turn traitor on him again. Nicky’s lesson had been the last one he needed to learn on that subject.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her shoulders back as she perched on the edge of the seat. “It’s just... I wasn’t putting you off, Cole, or rather, I was, but not because I was rejecting you, I just...”

  “You have business to discuss?” he asked, fighting back a huge and completely inappropriate urge to grin.

  She put an envelope on his desk. He recognized it by the black marker line across the subject box. He’d just had it delivered to her. “We said only business at work,” she stated then, her tone firm again. “The information contained in this envelope has absolutely nothing to do with my Elite Paper employment, and therefore, should not have been inserted into a company envelope, nor sent through interoffice mail.”

  His lips twitched. He held them from the inside out, sucked up against his teeth.

  He’d been letting her off the hook, sending the message that he wasn’t going to bother her anymore. That she had nothing to fear from him in terms of pressuring her to give more of herself than she was comfortable giving.

  Had been afraid that the kiss had made her feel uncomfortable.

  Kiss me again.

  Perhaps he’d read her all wrong.

  If so, it was a first for him.

  Her rebuff the day before had been clear. And he hadn’t even touched her. He’d asked about her parents. About siblings. The most generic get-to-know-you queries.

  And she’d put an abrupt end to their picnic. There weren’t too many ways one could interpret those facts.

  They clearly spelled hands off.

  “I will, however, give you an opportunity to correct this egregious error if you would agree to see me after work tonight.”

  He had an afternoon golf tournament that was supposed to include happy hour and dinner with other businessmen in town as well as a dozen or so others from Phoenix.

  “Where?”

  “It’s your town—you pick.”

  The whole thing was turning him on. Intriguing him. And pissing him off a little, too. Who did she think she was to get him all het up like she was? And them just being short-term friends.

  For the time being.

  Things changed all the time.

  Raising his chin, he looked her straight in the eye. “My place.”

  She licked her lips. Tightened her chin. “For dinner,” he added. He’d golf, stay for one drink and pick up steaks on the way home from the club.

  “What about my car being seen in your driveway?”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “Fine.”

  She stood, that damned skirt—whoever heard of strips of silk and denim being sewn together—hugging her hips and tempting him to stand and kiss her just to get her back for having demanded that he do so.

  He watched her walk to the door instead, noting how unusually straight she was still holding her spine. Felt a rush of compassion.

  Along with a silent reminder that if she’d suffered some kind of trauma in her past, questions during a mountain picnic could have been hard to take.

  “Hey, Lindsay?” he called out.

  At the door she turned. “Yeah?”

  “Did we just have our first fight?”

  “It sure felt like it.”

  He nodded. It had felt like it to him, too. “You know this makes us officially friends now, right?”

  Frowning, she half smiled as she looked at him. “How do you figure?”

  “You like me.” He grinned, hard and not caring.

  “How do you figure?” she asked again with a scoff that seemed like an attempt to cover a smile.

  “Because if you didn’t you’d have just taken my note and called Mariah.” His smile was huge at that point. He couldn’t help it.

  Lindsay Warren liked him.

  And he liked her, too.

  * * *

  She’d had to make things right with Cole. The man was too special to think that she’d shunned him. He’d shared his insecurity with her—though she was sure he wouldn’t call it that—and only a jerk would let him think that she was just one more in a line of women who didn’t find him worthy of their sexual attention.

  They shouldn’t have kissed.

  But her rebuff the night before had nothing to do with the fact that they had. Nor had it been any indicator of her desire for him, or lack thereof.

  In retrospect, she’d figured out that that’s what he’d thought. That she was another woman who liked talking to him, liked being friends, who just didn’t see him as lover material.

  While she finished work, went home and then waited for him to come pick her up for dinner, she made a very clear decision. If she did nothing else good in Shelter Valley, she was going to make certain that Cole Bennet gained a complete understanding of how very much a woman he considered beautiful wanted him.

  The task she’d set herself was nearly impossible. She realized it even as she vowed to get the job done. How did she show him how valuable and perfect he was for her, without letting him even start to return the feelings?

  How did she ensure that, when she had to leave, she wouldn’t break his heart?

  One word came to her. Honesty.

  The thing she didn’t have to give.

  At least not in totality.

  But if she was as honest as she could be? More open than she’d ever been with anyone else in her life?

  Would that mean enough?

  Since she didn’t even know what the whole open thing meant, period, she could hardly determine what enough would look like.

  Okay, so the plan wasn’t clear yet.

  But she had the goal.

  One that met with full approval of all parts of herself.

  An odd occurrence. One that made her smile. Just as Cole’s smile had as she’d left his office. She wasn’t off the hook. She’d hurt him the day before.