Merry and Bright(31)

Hope was making sure of it.

She considered that a part of her job, and she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the camaraderie, the easy alliances of perfect strangers brought together for short periods of time. She enjoyed hearing people’s stories and tonight should have been no exception.

Except she was so painfully, acutely aware of the tall, lanky man leaning against the mantel. She eyed him critically, prepared to toss him out on his bony ass if he tried to stir up trouble, but he didn’t. He stood there in his sophisticated clothes and those wire-rimmed glasses, looking as if he could walk into a boardroom, or an elegant dinner.

Or a casual B&B with a bunch of strangers.

He smiled easily, talked just as easily, effortlessly infusing himself into the conversation with her guests as if he belonged. When asked, he said he was there on business but hoped to take some time for fun, freely admitting he wasn’t much of an outdoors person but that he was open to new experiences.

She wondered what new experiences exactly he referred to, and how it sounded vaguely sexual to her, even as she wondered how he’d like the experience of her foot up his ass if he so much as hinted that he was here because she’d screwed up financially.

But he didn’t.

After the guests went up to their rooms, she was in the kitchen cleaning up when Danny came in carrying dirty glasses, setting them into the sink.

“Guests don’t do the dishes,” she informed him.

He merely shoved up his sleeves and dug in. “We both know I’m not a real guest.” He turned his head to look at her. Really look at her. As if maybe he could see in past the brick wall she’d so carefully built around her emotions and private feelings over the years.

That was new.

And not in any way welcome.

“I pull my weight,” he said. “Always.”

Now that she understood, and she put a hand over his in the sink, surprised to find his warm—she’d imagined they’d be as cold as his heart. Except she was beginning to doubt that was true. “You didn’t have to come, you know. I’ll get the money.”

One way or another . . .

He was close. Close enough that she could have bumped his body with hers as she tipped her head up and looked past his lenses and into his eyes, which weren’t just a solid light brown, but had gold swirling in the mix and were as surprisingly warm as his hands.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

“Are you?”

There was a beat of silence, and in it, much of the good-natured humor drained from him, which she found oddly unsettling. He was more sincere than she’d given him credit for.

And tougher.

And something else, too, something that surprised her. He was kind of sexy with that intense, intellectual gaze behind those glasses.

“You think I want you to fail,” he finally said with a hint of disbelief.

“I think that would suit Edward, taking this place from me even though he could care less about it. He could probably sell the property in a blink, and, poof, make condos appear, or something else with lots of concrete.”

Danny opened his mouth, then slowly shut it again. Hard to argue the truth, apparently. After a moment he shook his head and flashed her a rather grim smile, full of no amusement at all and maybe even some hurt. “The fact is, Hope, I’m here only because your brother wants to make sure the terms of the loan are going to be met, nothing personal. It’s just the job. It’s business,” he said with soft steel. “That’s it.”

“The terms will be met,” she said with equal soft steel. “So you can go home and report just that.”

“As I’m snowed in, we appear to be stuck with each other for now. And since we are, maybe I can help. If you showed me your financials—”

“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing personal,” she said, sending his own words back at him. “But I don’t need your help.”

He looked at her, and she’d have sworn she saw a brief flash of empathy, even respect. And also frustration with some caring mixed in.

Which was impossible, she told herself, since he was a rat bastard, and rat bastards didn’t care.





As always, Hope woke up at the crack of dawn. It was a lifelong habit. When she was little, her father died from a heart attack, and she’d get up early to make toast and tea for her stricken mother.

Later, after her mother remarried and divorced two more times, Hope still got up early to work at a resort, where she’d cook from dawn until the start of high school since Edward had gone off to college without looking back. Mother had never really recovered from her losses.

Hope had always kept up the early-morning habit because she liked getting things done during those hours when everyone else was snoozing away, but this morning, she suddenly wished she’d developed a different habit.

Like flying south for the winter.

Because this morning, lying in bed in the dark dawn, she kept thinking about the unwelcome guest she had upstairs.

Danny Shaw. He was Clark Kent on the outside and sheer, determined Superman steel on the inside.

And he didn’t think she could do this.

Facing that fact made her feel better. Because facing it, she could fight it, do something about it.

Kicking off her covers, she got out of bed and shivered. Holy smokes, it was a cold one. The thermometer on her window said five.