Page 53 of Second First Kiss

“I did what I thought was best for him.”

“You did what was best for you and you know it. Otherwise Tommy wouldn’t be sneaking over to my house or thinking that I’m not man enough to keep my word. I promised him the world and you denied me the chance to be the kind of role model he deserves.”

“I’m sorry, I really am. But Dale feels threatened by you, said that he wouldn’t be able to be a proper father figure with you hanging around the sidelines.”

“He can have the sidelines. I want to be in the game. Running defense for the kiddo, protecting him.”

“Tommy is going to come and ask you to be his partner for the badge qualifications. You need to say no,” Nina repeated.

Nolan crossed his arms. He knew when he stood to his full height he was intimidating, but he didn’t give a shit. He wanted her to know he wasn’t backing down. Not this time. “No can do.”

“What does that mean?”

“You don’t want him around me, you explain it to him. I’m not going to be the reason your kid feels abandoned.”

14

Kat stared at the moonlight dancing across her bedroom walls and sighed. It was after midnight and even though she’d had a day longer than the Truckee River, she couldn’t keep her lids shut for more than a second before they snapped back open.

She was too excited. And nervous.

She’d been in the middle of her shift at the bar when her phone rang. It was the IT department at the lodge telling her about a job that she should apply for because they thought she could be a good fit. A job that would require her to use her boss skills and create, from the ground up, a new back end for the lodge’s interface and secure any weak spots. She’d also get to play detective and figure out who’d been sneaking around and playing naughty games.

Kat was the OG Sierra Vista hacker and genesis of naughty games, so she was excited to see who’d followed in her footsteps—and catch them.

But something was bugging her. How the job came to be. It wasn’t like she knew the woman who’d called, and she hadn’t applied for the job. She’d pressed Milly, who swore she wasn’t behind it, pulling favors through her fiancé.

Which left Nolan.

And that one word was why she asked the woman if she could get back to her on Monday. It shouldn’t matter that the job came through Nolan, she was more than qualified, but it felt like a handout. She hadn’t opened up to him the other day to press him for a job. She knew how many people asked him and his siblings for favors and she didn’t want to be that kind of person.

But, man, she wanted that job. She didn’t even know all the details and already she was dreaming in code. Lines and lines of code. They actually wanted her to hack into their system and find the loopholes. She’d get paid to hack!

Neigh… Tiny Dancer whispered in a tone that was equivalent to a little kid crossing their legs because they had to pee.

“You just went out. Go back to sleep.”

TD blew a raspberry, which rained slobber down on Kat’s cheek.

“Gross.” She wiped her face on her pillow, which now smelled like carrots and horse breath.

Neigh, TD said back, more urgent.

“This is why you need to sleep in your pen.” Kat sat up. “Fine. It’s not like I’m going to get any sleep anyway.”

Swinging her legs over the mattress, she rubbed her hands over her scratchy eyes. “But you’re on the leash tonight. I don’t want to have to chase you into Nolan’s yard because you decide you just had to christen his flowerbed.”

TD didn’t even bother to deny it.

Slipping on her flip-flops, she grabbed the leash from the hook near the back door and quietly stepped out into the evening air. It was the kind of night that took a person’s breath away. The moon was filling the background, giving millions of twinkling diamonds the stage as they lit the sky. There was a stiff wind coming off the mountains, reminding everyone that even though it was spring, winter wasn’t all that distant of a memory.

While most people loved the peaceful side of living in a mountain town, Kat appreciated the complexity of the seasons. In April, one never knew what they’d wake up to: sun or fresh powder, migrating geese or a hungry brown bear.

The wind blistered past, and goose pebbles speckled her arms and legs, her nipples immediately waking up. Pending hypothermia felt a lot like a shot of caffeine.

“Make it quick,” she whispered to TD while running her hands down her arms to keep the circulation moving.

“I’m more of a take-my-time kind of guy,” a male voice said, and those goosies doubled in size.

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