Page 85 of A Beach House Beginning

She climbed up into the truck for another stack of boxes. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t have the fondest spot in my heart for rodeo cowboys with egos bigger than their horses.”

He couldn’t help himself, he followed her into the truck. “That’s all you think of me? Some washed-up rodeo cowboy with a big ego?”

She focused on the sole remaining stack of boxes. “I don’t think of you at all other than as a man who helped my daughter with equine therapy as a favor to Hank Stevens.”

Something in the sudden evasiveness of her features made him think her answer wasn’t completely truthful. He moved closer, until they were only a few feet apart, until he could smell the sweet scent of strawberries that surrounded her.

Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t back away.

“There’s more to me than a washed-up rodeo cowboy or a jet-setting celebrity,” he said quietly. “Just as I think you’re more than only a single mother coping with an unimaginable tragedy.”

Chapter Four

She gazed at him out of those huge green eyes, and their less-than-romantic surroundings seemed to fade. He completely forgot they were standing in the back of a hot, dusty tractor trailer, forgot the boxes of canned goods on the loading dock, forgot everything but the soft, entirely appealing woman in front of him.

Without conscious thought, he took a step forward, his heart leaping in his chest like a bronco bursting through the gate, and he saw color climb her cheekbones, saw her lean toward him slightly, that sweetly upturned mouth parted...

“You folks about done? I’d like to get a move on.”

Christa whirled around at the trucker’s impatient drawl, then she jerked away from Jace as if he had dumped a whole hand truck full of boxes on her toes.

“Y-yes. We’re done. This is the last load. I... I’m sorry it took us so long. The forklift should be fixed next time.”

Jace saw her hands tremble a little as she pushed the last load off the truck before he could make his brain work enough to insist on taking it from her. She didn’t so much as look at him while she signed for the delivery and saw the driver on his way.

When the truck pulled out of the loading area, she finally turned to Jace, though she focused somewhere over his right shoulder. “Thank you for your help. My stocker can organize all this in the morning.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad I was here to help.”

She hesitated for a moment, then sighed and finally met his gaze. “As for the other, for what almost happened back there... I won’t deny some foolish part of me is...flattered. But I have to be blunt with you. I don’t have the time or the energy for a flirtation right now, if that’s what you’re after.”

“And if it’s not?”

More color flooded her cheeks, something else he found intriguing about her. He didn’t remember the last time he’d met a woman who could still blush.

“Then I’m mortified for misreading the signs and I’ll just look around for a convenient hole to disappear into while you go pay for your shopping cart full of junk food.”

He laughed and with deceptive casualness he reached a thumb out and brushed away a smudge of dirt on the plane of her cheekbone she must have picked up while they were unloading the boxes.

She trembled slightly but didn’t jerk away. All too quickly the smudge was gone and he had no more excuse to touch her. He forced himself to drop his hand back to his side.

He was suddenly not at all convinced a harmless flirtation was what he had in mind when it came to Christa Sullivan.

The prospect should have sent him rushing right out of her little grocery store. Hadn’t he spent the better part of his adult life trying to avoid anything deeper than that?

He knew he should have been panicking right about now. Instead he felt the same wild emotions he used to experience on the circuit as he waited in the chutes for the gates to swing wide—a jumbled mix of exhilaration, anticipation and uncertainty.

“You didn’t misread any signs,” he finally said. “I’m attracted to you, Christa. More attracted than I’ve been to anyone in longer than I can remember.”

Something flickered in her eyes, something hot and intense, before she looked away from him. “Then what I said before still stands. I might...return that attraction. But I don’t have time right now for a flirtation or a fling or anything. My life is in crisis. Hope takes every single bit of energy I have, and that’s the way it has to be.”

Hope.

Damn it. How had he forgotten Hope so quickly?

Christa had responsibilities and pressures he couldn’t even begin to imagine. As much as he might want to argue that she ought to at least give things a chance to see what might happen between them, he recognized the impossibility of that.

He had no business coming in and stirring things up for her. It was just one more selfish, irresponsible act in a long string of them.

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