she’d intended. “Small-town gossip. Things get around fast. But you know how he likes to do things his own way.”
Jack crossed slowly to the kitchen table, his boots crunching over the shards from the glass she’d dropped. He sank into the nearest chair. “How long has it been going on?”
Hannah shot Riley another look. How was she supposed to answer that? They didn’t have their stories straight yet.
“Let me get a broom and sweep this up.” Riley disappeared down the hall, returning with a broom. He swept up the glass around her feet, clearing a path to the door. “Go get dressed and get some shoes on. I’ll let Jack in on what’s going on.” He moved so close that she could feel the steamy heat of his damp skin. He smelled good, like fresh air and a hint of pine. Her hands curled into fists.
She tamped down the urge to bury her nose in his neck to breathe in more of that heady scent. “And then you’ll let me in on it?” she added under her breath, soft enough that Jack couldn’t hear.
He answered with an apologetic look and a quick gesture toward the guest bedroom.
She scurried down the hall to get dressed, keeping an ear cocked to follow the conversation going on in the kitchen as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a warm sweater.
There was a soft tinkle of glass-Riley sweeping up the glass she’d broken. “Out of minutes on your cell phone?” he asked drily.
“You and Emily never used to care if I called ahead.” There was a petulant tone in Jack’s voice that Hannah had not expected. She dropped her estimate of his age by a couple of years. “‘Drop by anytime, Jack. We love to see you, Jack.’”
“You were her only family.”
“And now you’re my only family,” Jack shot back. “At least, I thought you were.”
Hannah paused in the middle of tying her shoe, the pang of sorrow in Jack Drummond’s voice catching her by surprise. He sounded so sad. It made her appreciate her big, rowdy family even more.
She heard Riley dumping the broken glass into a trash bin. “Don’t be a baby, Jack.”
Hannah winced.
“What’s with the bandage on your girlfriend’s face?” Jack asked after a few seconds of silence. Hannah finished tying her shoe and padded down the hall to the kitchen.
“Car accident,” Riley answered. “She knocked her head a bit, but she’s going to be fine.”
“I thought she was gonna cut me.” Jack’s voice was tinted with a smile. “I bet she’d be tough in a bar fight.”
“I don’t get into bar fights,” Hannah said from the doorway.
Riley turned to look at her. She gazed back, not hiding her irritation. He shouldn’t have sprung this crazy girlfriend cover story on her without warning her. And he shouldn’t have been so harsh with his brother-in-law, who was clearly hurting from the loss of his sister just as much as Riley was hurting from the loss of his wife.
She looked away from Riley and smiled at Jack. “Have you had breakfast? I could probably make an omelet or something.”
“I grabbed something at the diner in town,” Jack answered, returning the smile. “Riley told me about your accident. I hope you’re feeling better.”
“We were up most of the night at the hospital,” Riley answered quickly. “The doctors said she had a mild concussion, but they cut her loose this morning.”
“Wow, I bet you’re beat, then. Look, I can go find a place in town or something-”
“I started a fire in the wood stove,” Hannah said quickly, darting a glance at Riley. He started this mess, so now he’d have to live with it. “The bed’s made. I put a few of my things in there because Riley’s closet is full, but there’s plenty of space for you to put your things.”
The look of alarm in Riley’s eyes made her smile.
“Are you sure?” Jack directed the question more toward Riley than Hannah.
He hesitated only a moment, genuine affection in his eyes. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “You’re family.”
Jack’s grin made Hannah’s stomach twist into a knot. The poor guy looked like a grateful puppy, happy he didn’t get kicked out of the house once the new kid came along. “Can I do something around here?” he asked Riley, pushing to his feet. “I bet you two were too tired to check on the horses this morning-want me to go let ’em out into the pasture?”
“Would you? That would be great.” Riley latched on to the idea quickly, no doubt wanting to get Jack out of the way so he and Hannah could finally get their stories straight.
“I’ll be back in a bit.” Jack winked in Hannah’s direction, grabbed his hat from where he’d laid it on the counter by the door, and headed out the back, the screen door slamming behind him.
The ensuing silence made Hannah’s skin prickle. Riley turned slowly to look at her. “Go on, say it.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“What else was I supposed to say? He walks in on you in your robe, me in a towel-”
Her gaze fell on the towel, which had slipped down his body a notch to reveal the hard, flat plane of his lower belly. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back up to his face.
“We can’t tell people why you’re really here,” he said.
She sighed. “How long do you think he’ll be here?”
“I don’t know. This is the first time he’s been here since Emily died.” He started to sit, until he apparently realized that he was wearing only a towel. He nodded toward the hallway, as if asking her to follow.
After a quick detour to the guest room to grab a few things she’d need, they went down the hall to Riley’s bedroom. She waited outside, standing with her back against the wall while he entered his bedroom to dress. “I guess we should get our stories straight. But I should warn you, I’m not a good liar.”
“So we keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible. Why did you come to Wyoming in the first place?” His voice was a bit muffled.
Trying hard not to picture a T-shirt sliding over his lean, muscular chest, she swallowed the lump in her throat. “Some friends invited me up to fish on their private lake, and then I planned to do the tourist thing at Grand Teton and Yellowstone.”
Her friends, David and Julie Sexton, had a small ranch with a very good trout lake nestled in a valley in the Wind River Mountains. She’d spent the first four days of her vacation with them and their two school-age daughters.
If only she’d stayed there instead of deciding to do the typical tourist thing and visit the national parks-
“So we stick with that. You came here to go fishing, and we met by accident-”
She heard the sound of a zipper. Squeezing her eyes shut, she sighed. “And immediately started shacking up? I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Hey, you’re the one who gave Jack your room.”
She glared at the opposite wall. “You started it with the girlfriend thing.”
“Enough. Clearly, since you’re not that kind of girl and I’m not really that kind of guy, we met months ago.” He emerged from the bedroom dressed in jeans and a fresh T-shirt. “Maybe we met online.”
If she’d thought a fully dressed Riley Patterson would be less distracting than a naked one, she’d been gravely mistaken. The T-shirt only emphasized the broadness of his shoulders and the powerful muscles of his chest, and the well-worn jeans fit him like a second skin.
She cleared her throat. “Where online?”
“I don’t know. I don’t go online much.” Frustration lining his lean features, he headed toward the kitchen.
She followed. “Do you fish?” she asked.
He turned to look at her, leaning against the sink counter. “What is with the fishing thing?”
“My family runs a marina and fishing camp. I’m a fishing guide, among other things.” She shot him a wry smile. “You’re looking at the Crappie Queen of Gossamer Lake.”
His lips quirked. “Okay, we met on a fishing Web site.”
“Which one?”
He reached for the coffeemaker. “You tell me. You’re the Crappie Queen.”
