“Work,” he finally said before sipping on his drink.
“Which is?”
He shrugged.
“Some P.I. stuff, nothing too crazy.”
P.I.? Like private investigation?
“But in any case, I like to think of Colorado as my home,” he said. “I like the anonymity of this town. Really, I like it in general, but it’s harder to get away when you’re in the middle of someplace bigger.”
This guy definitely wasn’t your typical mountain man. Now he had my full attention.
“You know, for a P.I., you’re not especially private about revealing you’ve been to a lot of places.”
“No?”
“You just said that ‘you’re in the middle of someplace bigger.’ So you’re not from here.”
The man just shrugged. Even that act alone showed me that he had well-defined shoulders, a lean look to him that, in conjunction with his sharp jaw and narrow face, told me he kept himself in great shape.
“Did I not say I think of it as my home?”
“That’s different than it being your actual home.”
He just took a sip of his drink. I waited for him to say something else, but he just silently stared at me, as if daring me to say something more. If we were kids, I would have said it was a game of who could stare without blinking the longest.
As an adult, it was intoxicating and arousing being placed under such a spell.
“I, I bet you’ve been all over,” I finally said. “Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. Some others, I bet.”
“Sure.”
The man’s coyness and vague attitude was unearthing a part of me that had honestly remained hidden for quite some time—the spunky, flirtatious side. Life had beaten me down a bit much for me to call myself “outgoing” or “cheerful,” but once upon a time, I was that girl at the bar putting hands on everyone’s arm, giggling at everything, and hugging friends of friends who had had a shit day.
I’d thought that side of me was dead and buried, and make no mistake, it was still stuffed into the ground. But this man was starting to make it stir some.
“I’m Kelly, by the way,” I said, extending my hand.
“Nice to meet you, Kelly,” the man said, taking it in his.
It was rough, yes, but somehow it wasn’t as calloused or grounded down as I had thought. I guess in one sense, it affirmed the idea that this was not a man from the area, or at least someone who had only moved here recently. But it wasn’t the overly smooth hand of someone who had an office job, someone who worked 9-5 and used his fingers more for typing than for tearing down trees.
“You’ve got very nice eyes, you know,” the man said. “Amongst many other things.”
Oh, damn. It was painful to realize I hadn’t been hit on in some time by a good guy—having a dour attitude and retreating to the rural crevices of the Rockies would do that to you—but it was pleasant to be back in that world.
“Why thank you,” I said. “And you’re very handsome yourself.”
The man smiled. And that was when it occurred to me.
I didn’t even know a damn bit about this man. He was, surely, evaluating me just as I was evaluating him. He probably already saw me as the hot mess I saw myself as, which was fair.
But damnit, I at least wanted to know this man’s name. That seemed fair, right?
“And what’s your name?”
He paused for a second, nodded, and smiled. It was just long enough for me to notice, but with the alcohol running through my body, I didn’t care. This was one of the first times in a long, long stretch in which I actually felt like someone I was attracted to was paying attention to me. I wasn’t going to get caught up in little details like that.
“Trent.”
Chapter 1: Liam
Trent?
Of all fucking names, you pick Trent? Not John or Mike or Adam?
It didn’t fucking matter, though. This woman was looking at me like I’d just walked off the cover of Outdoors Magazine. And it wasn’t like I was planning on dating her, let alone marrying her. She was going to be a way for me to blow off some steam in the most win-win way possible.
“Trent,” she said as if she’d just had the greatest taste of her life. “I’ve never met a Trent before.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of by design,” I said. “So what’s your story, Kelly?”
“Hah, you don’t want to know my story, but not because I’m awesome like you,” she said.
The thought honestly crossed my mind to just say, “fuck it, let’s fuck.” I’d just finished a hell of a week of business, and the last thing I wanted to do was to play therapist before I played bedroom dom. Not only had the week been hell physically, but I’d also had some interesting revelations into, well, let’s just call it “office drama” for simplicity’s sake.
But there was a difference between dom and dumb. And that line was still thick and unbreakable for the moment.
“No, no, I’m just a divorced, single woman, just passing the days in Breckenridge.”
“You could pick worse places to do them in,” I said. “Believe me, I’d know.”
She laughed and put a hand on my arm. OK, maybe that thick line was thinning by the second. Maybe I could take a pair of scissors and cut that line with a witty remark.
“Very true! Although compared to Florida, this place probably isn’t great.”
OK, so Kelly was a hot mess. For most guys looking for someone sane, this was probably the spot where they’d excuse themselves or drop the conversation
