Page 14 of Sexy Summer Flings (Bear Mountain Rescue 2)

“Why did you show up tonight? Fix my car? You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to make sure you got home safe.”

Yes, but why? Because you care? Because you’re that kind of guy?

“That’s it? You were only worried some drunk tourist was going to accost me?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

Stupid girl.

“Nothing. How very chivalrous of you.”

She hadn’t meant to sneer the words, but she wasn’t about to take them back. She kept looking for something that simply wasn’t there. She’d practically blasted him with her feelings and he was still oblivious.

Before she humiliated herself again, she climbed out of the car and slammed the door.

Hunter’s SUV shook as the door crashed closed and he was utterly stunned. What in the hell had he said now? He’d shown up to get her from work, had her car fixed, and she’d almost busted his door off? What the hell did she want him to say?

Against his better judgment, he jumped out of the car and followed her up the walk.

“Penny, stop! Why are you so pissed at me?”

She stopped to unlock the door, not even bothering to face him. “Because you’re a wimp.”

Okay, that was uncalled for. Heat prickled along his skin as anger boiled through him. She still wouldn’t look at him, and he finally had enough. He put his hand on her shoulder and spun her around to face him. “What the hell does that mean?”

Penny stepped into him and poked him in the chest. “It means that you can’t even admit why you drove me home tonight. You’re a wimp.”

“I told you, I was worried. I was trying to be a good guy.”

“You can be a good guy and still admit why you drove me home, why you got my car fixed. Be honest with yourself and with me.”

“I am—”

“You aren’t.”

“Penny, you are going to have to spell it out for me, because I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

“Fine. The reason you showed up tonight is simple. You want me, Gracin. But you don’t want to want me.”

Hunter sighed. “Of course I find you attractive. You’re beautiful—”

Penny cut him off. “No, you don’t just think I’m attractive. You want me. Like knee-weakening, skin-tingling, heart-pounding desire. I know that because there is no way I could feel this way about you and have it be one-sided.”

Hunter was thrown. He knew that Penny had a crush on him, but he thought they were friends. “Penny, you’re a lot younger than me—”

“Nine years is nothing, Hunter. We are both consenting adults.”

“But you still want to go out and party. I’m done with that.”

“Oh, so I don’t see you in the Grizzly with Jax and Dex every week?”

Dex was Hunter’s other good friend, who wasn’t doing much hanging out now that he had a serious girlfriend, Allie Fairchild. “Fine,” Hunter said. “I like to meet my friends for drinks. But if I had someone to come home to, I wouldn’t be there. I’d be home with them. I want to settle down. I want to get married and have kids. I’m thirty-five years old.”

“God, you say that as if you’ve only got a few years left! I want all those things, too, Hunter, but my life doesn’t have to stop for me to get them. I am ready to love someone forever, to be committed to only them, but I don’t think that means you have to close yourself off from the rest of the world. I know all this, and you’re seriously trying to tell me that you think I’m too young for you?”

“Penny, the first time we met, we almost slept together because we were both too drunk to think rationally.”

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