And she didn’t need saving.
Since the Breakfast God didn’t knock this morning, she showered and dressed and hit the cafeteria herself. She grabbed a coffee to go and a quick breakfast burrito, which she ate on the walk to her car.
Once there, it took her three trips to unload the supplies she’d brought and another half an hour to get herself situated on the scaffolding.
She’d finished penciling in her grand plan, using a big carpenter pencil that she loved working with. The Kincaid family tree had started to come to life, complete with drawings of each of the Kincaids in such a way as to present their unique personalities on the mountain.
Now it was time to start painting.
Challenging as it was, some of it was easy. The background and the tree itself were fun and the actual people would be even more so. She knew exactly what she wanted for each of the siblings. Well, except for Jacob, who she still didn’t have a handle on.
And Hudson… but that wasn’t because she didn’t have a handle on him. That was more thanks to the fact that just thinking about him turned her upside down and sideways.
After she had started with the tree and got it situated the way she wanted, she took a moment to just sit there high up off the ground, cradling her coffee, staring at the mountain in front of her.
The day was… glorious. A painfully blue sky streaked with a few long tendril-like clouds. The rugged peak dotted with the dark green pines, whose tips were frosted in the morning sun. There were people on the mountain, traversing their way down.
It was all so perfect it could have been a painting, and she sat there momentarily overcome by gratitude that she was here to experience it. She tipped her head back and let the sun warm it, let the fresh pine-scented mountain air fill her lungs, and let herself just enjoy and appreciate that she was even here to have the moment.
“Working hard?” asked the now unbearably familiar masculine voice that never failed to send the most delicious kind of shiver right through her body. The sensation pinged off some parts more than others, leaving her both warm from the inside out and also a little dazed. It was a lot of reaction to get from just a voice, but he was also a lot of man.
Chapter 11
It’d been a whole damn week since Bailey had heard that voice, an entire week to replay the feel of his mouth on hers, his body warm and hard against hers. She’d told herself she’d exaggerated his effect on her.
Turned out nope.
She forced herself to remain still, cool, calm, and collected as he leaned his skis against the scaffolding and climbed his way up to her with an effortless ease that had her mouth going completely dry.
There were other reactions, too, reactions she planned on firmly ignoring. Even when he crouched down at her side, balanced on the balls of his feet, and looked over the wall.
She realized she was holding her breath, waiting for his reaction.
It was an endless minute as he absorbed it all, slowly, taking his time to see everything before he turned back to her.
“Okay,” he said. “So you know how to paint.”
She let out the breath in a whoosh and made him smile.
“Like you care what I think,” he said.
If he only knew. She blithely ignored this and offered him her coffee.
He took it with a heartfelt gratitude that had her taking a second look at him. “How long have you been up?”
“Since two thirty this morning,” he said. “Got called in. The conditions were ripe for an avalanche.”
She must have paled because he smiled. “We got it handled.”
“How do you handle it?” she asked.
“Explosives.”
She blinked.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re good at it.”
She let out a breath. That easy confidence was incredibly attractive. Or maybe it was the element of danger she found exciting, though she wasn’t sure she liked what that said about her.
Still, the fact remained that she couldn’t even begin to imagine all the responsibilities he faced on a daily basis. “The most dangerous thing I face on my job is a paper cut,” she said.
He shrugged. “You could fall off this platform. You ever think of that?”
She eyed the drop and felt her stomach quiver. “Not until now, thanks.”
He flashed a grin and she stared at his mouth.
His eyes heated. “You’re going to need to change the subject now,” he said, voice sexy and low, “or we’re going to risk the both of us falling off when I haul you over here and—”
“Your list,” she said quickly. “You make it yet?”
He pulled her small notebook from one of his cargo pockets, giving her a small smile. He’d kept it on him. That gave her more than a small thrill.
But the notebook was empty of new writing.
“Didn’t have time,” he said.
“How about now?”
He looked around. “Here?”