Cole slept remarkably better with Amber in his arms than he had the night before on the lumpy couch with her a flight of stairs away. A lot better.

Cole didn’t want their night to end, but the sun starting to peek through the old blinds covering the window told him that was exactly what was about to happen. He snuggled Amber closer to him and kissed her bare shoulder. She mumbled in her sleep and wiggled a little. Cole tightened his grip and stroked his hand down her bare arm. “Good morning.”

Amber turned in his arms and looked up at him. She really was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The very fact that he was thinking that way should scare the hell out of him, but it didn’t. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. With Amber, he felt oddly settled.

It took her a moment to wake up. She blinked her eyes a few times and finally offered him a tentative smile. “Hi.”

He kissed her softly. “Hi. Did you sleep okay?”

She nodded, but the peace he was feeling wasn’t reflected in her eyes and he knew exactly what the reason was. “Amber, don’t worry about Josie, okay?”

“I’m not.” She tried to turn away, but he caught her face.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I know. It’s just…”

He waited and when she didn’t finish her thought, he offered a solution. “We don’t have to tell her.”

“What?” She scooted back to the other side of the bed.

“Just hear me out,” he said quickly. “It’s not like we planned it to happen. She’ll be here tomorrow and the reality is, I’ll be going back to Australia soon and you’ll be…”

“Getting a job.”

“Right. You’re going to get a kick-ass job offer in the country’s most prestigious and exciting accounting firm.” He didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but it definitely came out that way. “At any rate, technically I don’t think you’re breaking any friend code or anything. But since you’re worried about it, we just shouldn’t tell her.”

Amber pulled the sheet up higher on her body and eyed him warily for a moment. “I guess you’re right,” she said finally. “I mean, it’s not like this is going to actually be anything more than a little fall festival fun anyway.”

Her words hit him in the gut. She was right, but it still took him off guard that her words stung. Not that he was going to say anything about it.

Cole watched as a smile slowly crossed over her face. The sheet slipped a little and instead of reaching to pull it back up, Amber crooked a finger and beckoned him. It was all the invitation he needed.

* * *

After a very late sleep in—not that they actually did much sleeping—Amber fixed them both a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal and coffee so they could get some work done on the house. She didn’t say anything, but Amber was definitely feeling like helping Josie out was the very least she could do for her after…well…after Cole. It didn’t matter what his arguments were; she couldn’t help but feel guilty about sleeping with her best friend’s brother.

On one hand, Amber knew her friend would be excited for her that she’d finally let loose long enough to have a little fun. But leave it to Amber to finally have her first wild fling with her best friend’s brother. She could have blamed it on the Booze, except that even though the drink was strong, she was fully aware of what was happening the night before. Not only that, she very much wanted all of it to happen.

“So what are we going to do today?” Cole gathered their dishes from the table and piled them in the sink.

“I thought you said something about pulling all the baseboards and moldings off?” Amber sipped her coffee and looked at him in confusion. “You’re running this show,” she added. “At least until Josie gets back.”

Cole laughed. “I meant, what fall festival events are we going to take in today?”

“Fall festival?”

He crossed the floor and kissed her forehead sweetly. It was such an intimate and unexpected gesture; something flipped in Amber’s tummy. Just temporary, she told herself. He’d said so himself. He was going back to Australia and she was going to take a super boring job at a super boring accounting firm and go back to leading a super boring life. It didn’t matter whether she was trying something new by trying to break out of her mold a little. She was destined to be boring and predictable.

And even if that was true, she might as well have a little fun while she could. Because that’s all this thing between them was.

“Did you still want to go to the festival?”

“A deal’s a deal, Amber. Of course I want to go.” He returned to the sink and ran water over their dishes. “What’s going on today?”

She smiled and quickly ducked her head so he couldn’t see, but he turned around and caught the grin on her face.

“What?” Cole grabbed a tea towel to dry his hands. “What’s that look for?”

“Nothing.”

He moved quickly, crossed the room in two steps, pulled her up from the chair and kissed her hard. “Tell me,” he said. “What are we doing today?”

“You have two choices.”

“If either of them involve spending time with you, I don’t care either way.”

“Are you sure?” She liked playing with him, because as soon as he heard the choices, she was fairly positive she knew what he was going to pick.

He looked straight into her eyes and spoke with such an intensity that for a split second Amber forgot that what they were doing was temporary. “I’ve never been so sure of anything, Amber.”

She swallowed hard and worked to keep her composure. “Okay. Two choices. We can go to a zombies vs. zombie hunters paintball fight this afternoon and do the baseboards later.”

“Or?”

She grinned, because she was absolutely positive he’d like the second option. “We can take care of the work around here first and then go for a spooky drink tasting at the Come Again.”

“That’s the bar we went to the other night?”

She nodded. “And after that…there’s a thing called Midnight River Nookie. I’m not really sure—”

“Sold.” He kissed her neck and moved up to her earlobe, where he whispered, “If it involves you and nookie, I’m absolutely in.”

“I thought so.” Amber laughed and as much as she didn’t want to, wiggled out of his grasp. “Then we better get to work.”

After a little bit of convincing and the promise to finish the dishes, Cole reluctantly left Amber to get started on the baseboards. He seemed much more motivated to get the work done with the promise of some nookie. Amber was still chuckling at the look on his face when she’d presented the options, when her cell phone rang. Assuming it would be Josie, she picked it up without looking at it. “Tell me you’re on your way.”

“Well, since I have no idea where you are, that will be pretty hard.”

“Declan!” Amber shrieked into the phone. She hadn’t heard her half-brother’s voice in months. Way too long, as far as she was concerned. She’d been so busy finishing school, and her brother was likely in some third world country, making things better for those who were less fortunate with his foundation. They just hadn’t had time to connect.

“Hey, little sis.”

“Just because I’m twelve months younger than you does not mean I’m your little sister.”

Declan laughed. “That’s exactly what it means.” The fact that they were half siblings and their father was living two lives at once, with two separate families, hadn’t been an issue between them since they were kids.

Amber ignored him. “Where are you? I’ve missed you.”

“I’m still in Nigeria,” he said. “For now. But I’m actually going to be heading home for a bit.”

“Where’s home these days?” Declan had been so busy working overseas with his foundation, he hadn’t been back to North America in far too long. As proud of her brother as Amber was, she would have loved to see him settle down.

“That’s a good question,” Declan said. “I don’t really have one. But I did agree to go out to the lake for a bit. Maybe stay for Christmas. You should come.”

Ah ha. That was the reason for the call. Amber’s little sister, Chelsea, had tried to get her to go visit Cedar Springs, the tiny lake town in the middle of the Canadian Rockies, to see their half-brothers at the end of summer. She’d used the excuse of having to finish up her internship, which wasn’t totally an excuse. But the truth was, she also wasn’t in a hurry to visit her two older half-brothers for the first time. There were four brothers all together. But Chelsea and Amber only had a good relationship with the two youngest, Declan and Cal. Likely because when the scandal of their parents blew up, they were all young enough to be forgiving and when they ended up in school together, a friendship formed. That wasn’t the case with the older ones, Ian and Mitch. Chelsea had met them both over the summer and swore to her they were great guys. But despite everyone’s attempts, Amber just hadn’t been able to get in the one big happy family mood.

“I don’t think so,” she told Declan. “I’m kind of busy.”

“Is that right? Didn’t you just graduate?”

“I did.”

“And Chelsea tells me you haven’t accepted a job yet. So the way I see it—”

“I’m not going.” She could only deal with so many things at once. “Not this time, Dec.”

“Okay.” His voice was kind. Her brother knew when not to push. He was genuinely one of the nicest people she’d ever met, which was exactly why he was in the perfect profession. “So tell me,” he shifted gears, “where are you these days? You’re done with school, you haven’t taken a job yet…this is totally unlike you.”

Amber laughed and walked through the kitchen, out the back door and into the crisp morning air. A lot of things were going on that were totally out of character for her, she thought, thinking of Cole. Declan didn’t know the half of it. “I’m taking a bit of a break to figure things out. I’m just feeling a little unsure of everything right now.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Amber laughed.

“What? I’m a good listener,” Declan protested.

“I know you are. And yes, I’d like to talk about it, but I really don’t know what to say. I’m in Nebraska right now.”

“Nebraska?”

“Right? I know, it’s crazy. My best friend Josie is flipping a house here, so I came for a little visit. After that, I don’t know. I guess I’ll take a job and start my life as an accountant.”

“Don’t sound so excited.” Declan chuckled.

“I’m not.” It was a truthful answer, but it hurt her heart a little to say it out loud. “But I’m just being silly because I know that’s what I’m going to do. I just had this crazy idea that maybe I could do…I don’t know.”

“What? What did you want to do?”

“That’s just it.” Suddenly, Amber felt like crying. “I don’t even know. I just know I don’t want to be boring anymore.”

“Oh Amber, you’re not boring. You’re fantastic.”

“You have to say that because you’re my brother.” She walked across the grass, enjoying the crunch of the leaves under her feet. She inhaled deeply and tried to let the peacefulness of the morning wash through her.

“That’s not true. I get to say whatever I want because I’m your brother.” He laughed again, and the sound made her want to hug him. “So I’m going to say this,” he continued. “You aren’t boring, but if you’re in a rut, shake it up. Your life is totally up to you, and you can be and do anything you want to do. It’s your life, Amber. So go for it.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Amber turned back toward the house and caught a glimpse of Cole through the window. Could it really be as easy as Declan seemed to think it was?

On the other end of the line, Amber heard someone calling for Declan. There was some mumbling and then her brother came back on the line. “Amber, I gotta go. But I’m serious, this is your life. Follow your heart.”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

She laughed. “I promise, big brother.”

* * *

Cole watched Amber on the phone. Whoever she was talking to, it wasn’t his sister. He knew that because she’d just texted him to let him know she’d be in early in the morning. Josie had put in a special request for him to find them some costumes for the party on Sunday night. He hadn’t even thought about costumes. Of course, he’d barely given any thought to Josie coming home.

Hell, the only thing he’d been able to think of was Amber. It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours since she’d sat on him on the couch, yet this woman had somehow managed to consume every single one of his waking thoughts. And his sleeping ones, too. Those ones were really good.

But not nearly as good as they’d been in reality. She was something else, that was for sure. Logically, Cole knew that whatever was going on between them could never be more than a fling, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to think about that. And why would he? Never in his life had he wanted more than a casual thing with a woman and that’s exactly what he had.

Even if it didn’t feel so casual.

“How’s it going in here?”

Cole hadn’t noticed her come inside, he’d been so lost in his thoughts.

“They’ll go a lot faster with you here.”

She laughed and picked a hammer. “Then let’s get moving. We have some nookie to get to.”

There was no way she could know how her words affected him, but damn.

He took her hammer away, and smoothly replaced it with a crowbar. “You can start over there. Try not to break the boards when you take them off. We’ll reuse whatever we can. Assuming Josie wants to reuse them.”

They started working and Cole did his best to keep himself focused on the job. After all, she was right: the faster they finished, the faster they could get to the nookie part of the day. Never mind the fact that the organized Midnight River Nookie event wasn’t until, as the name implied, midnight. He was pretty sure he could create his own event right there without much prompting.

“Tell me about Australia.” Amber pried one end of a baseboard off, resulting in the satisfying give of the old nails.

“What do you want to know?”

“Why Australia?”

Cole laughed. He got that question a lot. Mostly from his parents when he first moved. “Honestly?” She nodded. “Because it was as far away as I could get at the time.” Of course, he’d given his parents a very different answer. Something about loving the movie Crocodile Dundee when he was a kid. But to Amber, he gave the truth. “If I stayed here, I would have ended up like my dad and I couldn’t think of anything worse than that.”

“Doesn’t your dad own a hardware store?”

“He does. He wanted me to get a degree in business and run it with him.”

Amber tugged on the piece of trim she was working on and it came off in her hand. “Why was that so bad? I’ve met your parents. They seem really nice and happy.”

“They are. Happy and nice. And I suppose it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I wanted more, you know?”

Her face creased into a frown and she nodded. “I do know. Well, I don’t really know. It doesn’t seem so bad, I guess.”

He laughed. “It seems terrible to me. I don’t want to settle for nice and happy. I don’t think anyone should ever settle. Life should be an adventure, with excitement at every turn. We only get so many trips around the sun, right? Why not make the best of them? Don’t you agree?”

She shrugged and turned away.

“You don’t?” Cole put down his tools and crossed the room. He’d tried to tell himself that he could keep his hands off her for the day, at least until they got their work done, but suddenly that seemed like a terrible idea. He wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss on her neck.

Amber turned in his arms. “What was that for?”

“You seemed a little bummed. And I don’t want to see you sad.”

She forced a smile that was clearly fake, but it was also clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine. Let’s get this finished and go see what’s happening with the festival.”

He kissed her gently. She might not want to talk about it now, but Cole was pretty sure it was a subject he’d be revisiting with her. “Deal.” For now, he’d settle for being with her and seeing that beautiful smile back on her face, where it should always be.