“Good night,” he added as he stepped back.
My cheek and bottom lip tingled with a fiery pleasure in the aftermath of his touch.
“Good night,” I whispered the second I could move. Fumbling with the key card for my room, I hurried in, not even caring that I slammed the door behind me.
I pressed my back against it, trying to catch my breath and scrambling for my sanity. I lightly traced my fingertips over my lips, and I could’ve sworn sparks leaped against my skin. Sweet hell. That kiss itself was pure fire.
I lowered my hand, holding it over my heart, the rampaging beat thumping against my palm as I tried to catch my breath. That kiss had been a wild impulse. I’d seen Graham approaching me in the hallway and thought I could just eat him up. He was so delicious and sexy and just the kind of man who made me feel like he could take care of me. I had deeply underestimated the depth of chemistry between us. The voltage was still reverberating through my body.
Wilbur came trotting over as I tried to catch my breath and sniffed at my feet. I gave myself a shake before pushing away from the door. My knees wobbled a little as I walked toward my hotel bed and collapsed on it. He followed me, hopping onto the bed beside me.
“Well, that was crazy,” I said to the ceiling.
The ceiling had nothing to offer in return. All things considered, though, it was an excellent ceiling for staring. My eyes followed the grain of the wood. Although the ceiling didn’t have anything to say, Wilbur offered a soft woof at my musings.
I tried to remember the last time I’d kissed anyone. It was over a year ago or thereabouts. Back when I thought my stupid fiancé, Dirk, had actually loved me. It was funny how much could shift in a single year. Dirk’s kisses had never been all that satisfying. They’d been okay, but I’d told myself the rest of our relationship was great.
Ha! It wasn’t great. It was about as deep as a puddle when all was said and done. Dirk wanted nothing to do with me when my father’s connections started drying up along with my money.
I was chronically anxious about my current financial insecurity. More than that, though, I was ashamed of the person I’d once been. I couldn’t even hold our breakup against Dirk because I’d probably been as shallow as him.
Graham had just given me the best kiss I’d ever had in my life. I laughed to myself and kicked off my shoes as I rolled up into a sitting position. My body was still tingling. The reverberations from the fiery jolt of that kiss were still pinging through my system.
I didn’t have a ton of courage when it came to men. I’d thought maybe it would be fun to kiss Graham because I would never see him again, so it didn’t matter if the kiss was a disaster. It didn’t matter at all what he thought of me. And it had totally been worth it.
I glanced toward the wall between our rooms, realizing we might be sitting only a few feet apart. Awareness hummed to life in my body like a cluster of fireflies in the darkness. I didn’t have the nerve to do more than kiss Graham.
All I knew was his name. Abruptly, I stood from the bed and crossed over to where my laptop sat on the dresser. I fetched it and returned to the bed. I started to enter his name in the search bar, and my hands fell still. I wasn’t going to see him again. I didn’t need to figure out who he was. He would be a memory for me—the best kiss. Ever.
I fell asleep that night, resolving to leave early in the morning. As much as I told myself not to, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would see Graham before I left.
I didn’t. See Graham, that is. I had a restless night of sleep, so I didn’t even have to make an effort to get up early. I’d always been an early bird, but I felt as if I’d been chasing a good night’s sleep for months now. I would wake up with thoughts churning through my mind, worrying about all the things I could do absolutely nothing about, much less in the lonely hours of darkness.
Nighttime worrying was so unforgiving. The mind could be ruthless at night, kicking open doors into the past that were supposed to stay shut and opening imaginary pathways into worries about a future that didn’t even exist yet.
The sun was barely making its presence known when I walked out of the hotel. My breath frosted the air, and a thin line of silvery gold shimmered along the edge of the mountain range in the distance, almost as if offering a gateway between this world and another.
I took a breath of the bracing, crisp morning air and walked to my car, tossing my bag in the back seat and crossing over to the identified dog area. Wilbur did his business while the car warmed up. It was nice and toasty by the time I turned onto the road while he sat happily beside me in the passenger seat.
I drove south, watching the sunrise’s spectacular explosion of color from the east. That thin line of light widened with layers of orange, red, and gold mingling as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky before finally cresting above the mountains.
I felt like nature should have a drum and bugle corps for a sunrise like that. I passed a highway sign indicating Willow Brook was only a few hours away.
My stomach tightened with anxiety. I’d never even been to Alaska, much less to my late grandfather’s hunting lodge. When my mother had been dismissive and scoffed at my idea to move up here, I contacted the executor of my grandfather’s estate and confirmed the home had all the amenities. According to my grandfather’s attorney, it was entirely self-sufficient and generated by a combination of wind and solar power. He’d sent photographs, and it looked nice.
Nice or not, I was nervous, really nervous. My whole life had blown up, and I was trying to find somewhere to land. Maybe it was crazy, but I figured at least I had somewhere to go.
“We’re getting closer, Wilbur.”
My little corgi wiggled in his seat, casting me what I thought was a smile, but then he was generally cheerful. That was a good thing because lately, it felt as if he was my only friend. I supposed he was.
It was not pleasant to have life rip the foundation out from under your feet. In the span of months, I’d lost my job, my home, and the support of my family.
A few hours later, after a stop to fill my tank with gas in Anchorage and to give Wilbur another bathroom break, I saw the exit for Willow Brook—the place that was about to become my home. I followed the signs to “downtown” and actually smiled to myself. A warm sense of joy spun through me as I turned onto Main Street and saw the cute downtown area with shops and brightly colored signs. I smiled again as I passed Firehouse Café with bright red lettering on the sign and a cheery flag with flowers on it flapping in the wind. I’d been imagining that I would truly be in the middle of nowhere. While this was definitely far more wilderness than what I was accustomed to in Houston, obviously, there was a town here with all the amenities. There was a grocery store, a police and fire station, and even a sign for a hospital.
I had put the address given to me by my grandfather’s attorney into my phone GPS and simply followed what it said. After I drove through downtown, things thinned out. There were driveways and roads, but the houses weren’t crowded together here, that was for sure. Sometimes, I would go a few miles before I saw another driveway. When my friendly GPS told me where to turn onto Firefly Lane, it felt like I was far away from downtown even though only ten minutes had elapsed.
“You can handle this,” I murmured to myself and Wilbur.