Page 5 of Sunshine for the Grumpy Grizzly

He doesn’t speak. Hethunders. And he doesnotsound impressed.

I lift my gaze to his face. “Guess not. But that’s okay?—”

Oh.

Wow.

I take in a mass of tangled dark hair, a heavy jaw, a wide, straight nose and dark, forbidding eyebrows. If a grizzly bear and a human had a baby, that would be their offspring.

But that’s not even the most amazing thing about him. No, the thing that’s making me feel all light-headed and palpitationy is his eyes. They’re like laser beams. Bright green laser beams, burning out from beneath those thick brows. And they’re staring right into mine, like he’s trying to find his way into my soul or something.

I can feel my mouth hanging open, but I’m too dumbfounded to do anything about it. Instead, I let him set me on my feet again.

I hug myself. It’s weird, but I kinda feel sad that those arms are no longer wrapped around me.

Now I’m upright, I barely come up to his pecs. Wow, he’s some kind of man mountain.

A man mountain at a mountain resort. I giggle.

Those caterpillar eyebrows draw together, and he looks even more grumpy. “What do you need?”

“Oh, I just need to check in.” I peer around his huge bulk at the empty check-in desk. “But doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”

He folds his arms. “I’m here.”

I swallow hard. Yup, he sure is. “Y-you’re the clerk?”

“The owner.”

I goggle at him. I know I should try to hide my reactions. People have told me that a bunch of times. But he looks nothing like the owner of a luxury resort. He looks like he just came from wrestling wild beasts. And are those bloodstains on the front of that plaid shirt of his?

The lobby door opens behind me. “What’s taking so long, Lucy?” Natasha’s voice whines.

“Just checking in, Natasha,” I trill. The door falls shut again, and I watch in amazement as this huge man-beast stalks behind the desk and opens an old-fashioned ledger.

“Got a reservation?” he grunts.

“Y-yes, under Lucy Cole.” I edge closer to the desk. Sheesh, he’s getting me all nervous and flustered. “Ten rooms.”

He flips through the ledger, kind of grunting bad-temperedly. “Okay.” He turns to the key rack behind him and pulls off all the keys, before dumping them on the desk. “Ten rooms. There you go.”

I blink at them. I was expecting some kind of spiel on what’s what. Which ones have king-size beds, hot tubs, et cetera. “Is one of them better than the others?”

He scowls at the keys for a while, before pointing to number 5. “That one.”

“Okay, great. I’ll give that one to my boss.”

I reach for it, but suddenly, his massive hand comes down on mine.

Huh?I feel the heat of his hand, the roughness of his skin, and a weird kind of electricity that seems to shoot between us. His body jerks. Did he feel it, too?

“That room’s yours,” he growls.

A nervous giggle bubbles out of me. “Oh, that’s okay! I’m kinda junior at the company. I’d be good with sleeping in a broom closet, really.”

His eyes burn into mine. I couldn’t tear my gaze away, even if I wanted to.

And I don’t. They’re the most incredible eyes I’ve ever seen. I feel like I want to look into them every day for the rest of my life.

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