Page 18 of Mountains Divide Us

The bossy way Frank had about him was alluring. Maybe it wasn’t bossy, per se, more like quietly confident, and I was drawn to it, to him, to his body like flicker to a flame.

It was the reason I did what he said without argument, but I was dying to ask him how old he was. The closer I got to him, the more lines I could see around his eyes, and the skin on the back of his neck above his shirt collar was tanned and tough, like he’d spent years in the sun. Maybe more years than I had been alive.

His stubbled beard was a mix of dark and light—mostly light—and even his eyebrows were going gray.

He was sexy. Sexier than any man I’d ever dated before.

The dress Juneau had lent me fit well, though she was a little more blessed in the chest department than I was, so the top part was loose. And it was definitely shorter than the skirts I usually wore, but it looked good with my boots, and the deep black hue had made my hair pop in the library’s bathroom mirror, despite the fluorescent lighting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Frank beside me, with my arm through his and my short, bubble gum–pink painted fingernails resting on his muscled forearm. I was comparing us. It was obvious he was older than me. Unless he’d gone almost completely gray at thirty, I would’ve bet he was quite a lot older than me. He was a lot taller than me, too, maybe six foot three or four.

He was more fit than anyone I’d ever met. The way his dark-washed jeans molded to his thighs and ass made my mouth water, and his shoulders were like two flesh-covered boulders that made the buttons of his long-sleeved Henley stretch and strain for safety back in their little buttonholes. I couldn’t help noticing how defined his pectoral muscles were underneath. Seriously, what straight woman on planet Earth wouldn’t? He’d given me his leather jacket, then pushed his shirt sleeves halfway up his forearms, and I’d wanted to rub my face on them to feel how warm they were. If he was cold, he didn’t show it.

Hair covered those arms from his wrists all the way up and under his shirt. It peeked out from the neckline, and I imagined it everywhere on his body. I wondered if it helped to keep him warm, like a bear. Ha. Exactly like a bear in one of the shifter romances Aislinn had talked about. Would it keep me warm if we were naked and snuggled—

He grumbled, and I looked up at the side of his face again, freaking out for just a second, worrying he’d somehow heard my thoughts. Ridiculous. Thankfully, he wasn’t a mind reader and was only side-eyeing a bunch of nosy people crowded around the door at the coffee shop, peeking at us as we walked by. Juneau was in there, and when I spotted her, she waved, wiggled her eyebrows, and gave me a thumbs-up. Next to her, Max Gordon, her severely handsome boyfriend, with his wavy blond hair under a black cowboy hat, shook his head, laughing, and kissed her cheek.

“Do you know Juneau?” I asked Frank.

“I know of her,” he said. “I know every person in this town. Hazard of the job.”

“Mm, yeah, I suppose you get to meet all kinds of people working for the Sheriff’s Department. I met Juneau a little while after I moved here. She’s really cool. She’s doing a reading at the library next month.”

“A what?”

“She’s an author, so she does book readings and signings. She’ll read a little from her new book for a group of romance fans. She writes steamy billionaire romance.”

“Steamy billionaire…?” He looked perplexed as he worked the words over in his mind. A guy like Frank probably couldn’t understand why anyone would want to read about sexy billionaires, especially since his reading genre of choice was nonfiction. I didn’t explain any further. It was kind of fun to watch him squirm a little.

“Do you know her boyfriend?”

“Max? Mm, he’s a buddy of mine. Helped me with some renovations on my property.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “What kind of renovations?”

Placing his hand over mine still on his arm, he stopped walking, and I looked up at the building behind him. A big neon sign written in cursive lower-case lettering was pulsing “paulo’s” in the fading daylight. Winter’s shortened days had stolen the sunshine, but the blush of the pastel evening sunset was the perfect backdrop, and it set the purple sign off, making it glow in the darkening sky.

“We’re here,” he said, watching me like he was studying a puzzle he needed to solve. “Hope you’re hungry.”

What did I have smeared across my face this time? Hooking a stray strand of hair behind my ear nervously, I said, “Starving.”

* * *

“Whoa.”

Settling into my chair while Frank held it for me, I was a little uncomfortable as I peeked around the restaurant at walls full of art and statues. There was even a waterfall feature in the middle of the room. We seemed out of place surrounded by such opulence, me like an immature girl, and Frank looked like he could be my—

I snorted at the thought.

Laying his cloth napkin over his muscular thighs as he sat, he eyed me dubiously and arranged his silverware on the table just so.

“Nothing,” I said as an answer to the question he didn’t even ask. “It’s just, this place is kind of over the top for Wisper, you know?”

“Heard the food is good.”

A waiter appeared, setting two crystal glasses of water in front of us and handing over two menus wrapped in black leather he’d had tucked under his arm. Real leather, not that fake, stiff kind. The waiter seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Maybe he’d come into the library. Usually, I was good at recognizing my patrons’ faces, but if I’d only spoken to them once, it was hard to commit them to memory. I was even worse with names.

“I’ll give you a few minutes,” the server said, and he smiled and walked away.

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