Snowbound With The Boss

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Kate laid the stack of wood in a neat pile beside the stone fireplace, then grabbed the mantel and leaned on it. “The blizzard couldn’t have waited to hit until after he was gone?”

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 (#ulink_06612108-0d94-5055-b2fa-6076a8e56a4e)

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.