“Isabelle, then. Please call me Rose.” She frowned at her screen. “Looks like we have you booked into a standard room.”
“That’s fine,” Trace said, hoping to hurry things along.
Rose tsk-tsked, and Trace found her frown redirected from the computer screen to him. “That is fine for a visitor, but not for a friend. Not for a special friend,” she insisted, and hints of exasperation glinted in the depths of her dark eyes. They disappeared as she turned to Isabelle. “I’ve upgraded you to a third floor suite with a California king and a view of the mountains. More comfortable and”—she skewered him with another pointed stare—“romantic.”
“That sounds perfect.” Isabelle’s smile went a bit dreamy.
Rose beamed at her, then narrowed her eyes at him. Under her breath, she muttered something unflattering in her Native language.
Well, Jesus. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stared at the polished oak floor. Was the entire town going to school him on how he should go about making his prospective fiancée’s visit to Captivity romantic?
Rose’s daughter, Delilah, emerged from the back, where she’d probably been tending to the animals. Somewhere along the line, Lilah had reached an age where seeing her always gave Trace a mild shock. His mind insisted on picturing a pretty young girl with laughing green eyes, light brown hair, and dimples—all courtesy of a father from the lower forty-eight whom she’d never known, given he’d passed through only long enough to charm a teenaged Rose into his tent for a night. But reality kept confronting him with a tall, willowy teen—no, scratch that. Tall, willowy adult, as she’d celebrate her twenty-first birthday later this spring. Her eyes seemed much more serious these days, and her dimples less prone to make an appearance. But they flashed now, briefly, as she silently acknowledged him and made a move to get something from under the counter.
“Lilah.” Rose held out a keycard to her daughter and rattled off something in Tlingit. He couldn’t follow all the rapid-fire words but gleaned enough to know Rose instructed Lilah to run upstairs and make the room nice for Mr. Shanahan’s du shaatk’i.
Special friend, of the female gender.
Lilah’s eyes widened and the dimples made an encore. Word was spreading quicker than he’d anticipated, and he didn’t have the foundation of this ruse firmly in place yet.
“No need. Rose, I’m sure it’s fine.” He swiped the key from between her fingers and patted Isabelle’s arm. “Isabelle’s had a long day of travel, and she’s anxious to, you know…” He led her toward the elevator and let the sentence trail off.
“Anxious isn’t precisely the word for what I am,” Isabelle grumbled so only he could hear and aimed a narrow-eyed look his way. The sort of look that said he had some ’splaining to do.
From behind him he heard Lilah say in Tlingit, “He’s in a hurry.”
“Not too much of a hurry, I hope,” Rose replied dryly in English. “That’s no way to impress her.”
Chapter Three
Izzy let Trace steer her and her bag into the elevator. Her mind raced ahead, to her suite. It was a detail she should have thought of. All work and no play had turned her into a dull girl. If she planned to follow Danny’s advice and go wild in Captivity, a king-sized bed and a few romantic touches to set the mood would be helpful. This wasn’t the Ritz, by any means, but she could get behind a little rustic, rim-of-the-world charm.
How should she go about enticing someone to share it with her? Was there a bar in the inn? On autopilot, she followed Trace out of the elevator and down a carpet-lined hallway. If so, that would be the most convenient place to see and be seen, assuming local guys hung out there. Maybe guys like the two hotties from the terminal? Unless Jorg from the elevator represented an example of the local men on tap at the inn. She’d been hoping for a bear daddy with a little more bear going on and a little less daddy. Or grand-daddy. Frankly, her client fit the bill superbly—a bear daddy beyond her wildest fantasies—except for the tiny drawback that sleeping with one’s client had the potential to get one disbarred. And fired. Or—
Oof. She ran into Trace.
And bounced off his monumental frame like a baseball bouncing off a brick wall.
Though in the process of lifting the keycard to the sensor of the door at the very end of the hall, he spun, grabbed a handful of the front of her coat, and caught her.
Quick moves for such a big guy.
He stared down at her. “Are you okay?” Very slowly, he released his grasp on her coat. As he did, his fingers brushed the swell of her breasts through layers of cashmere and wool, and suddenly her favorite power suit felt many sizes too small across her chest. “Huh?”
“Isabelle?”
Okay, staring wasn’t the right word for what those electric blue eyes were doing. No, he assessed her from under dark, furrowed brows. Something about the look left her with the weirdest notion her sex-starved thoughts had been too loud, and he’d overheard them. “I’m fine.”
His mouth—the very one he’d kissed her with—firmed into a doubtful line. “Are you sure? You seem kind of…” He opened the door and gestured her inside. “Distracted.”
“Hmm. Well.” Yes, Trace, my head’s been in my pants for the last five minutes, spending more time than decent contemplating getting in yours, which, frustratingly, can never happen, and it’s all your fault for planting that kiss on me and making me crave what I can’t have. She tried to take control of her bag once he rolled it into the room, but he handed her the keycard, then rotated his finger in a where-do-you-want-it? gesture.
This prompted her to look around the room, and, holy love nest, Batman, what a room it was. “Oh. Wow.” She slid the keycard into the lower left pocket of her suit jacket. “This is amazing.” Rustic charm? Sure, if the definition of rustic charm included a dark leather sofa centered on a plush, polar-white rug, in front of an oversized fireplace trimmed in burled wood. She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over the back of the sofa. In a nod to modernity, whomever had decorated the room had placed a flatscreen TV above the fireplace, but it wasn’t obtrusive. The opposite wall hosted a huge, hand-turned four-poster bed that had to be antique, covered in a mountain of pillows, a snuggly white cloud of a comforter, with a sable-toned furry throw—please don’t let that be real fur—draped over the foot. The third wall was bumped out to accommodate a small round table and two upholstered chairs. They sat tucked in front of a massive window flanked by multipaned transoms, which framed what was probably a breathtaking view of the mountains on a clear night. Tonight, a curtain of falling snow blew diagonally across the panes, obscuring everything.
Was that a lot of snow? She was no expert, but it seemed like a lot. How much were they supposed to get?