Her hands were shaking. She pulled the phone from her pocket and pressed Mitchell’s number. She held it while it rang. Her eyes narrowed when she got his voicemail.

“Mitchell, hey it’s me. Hope you’re having a good day. I haven’t heard from you.” She sighed and closed her eyes. It all sounded pathetic and ridiculous. “Ok, just call me.”

She threw the phone on the counter. She wanted to hear his voice. She wanted him to reassure her that he was thinking about her at that very moment. She pulled out the wedding magazine she had stashed under the desk and furiously began to flip through the pages. She folded the corner of the page on a dress she had debated. This was the one.

She picked up her phone and called the name of the boutique listed under the designer.

“Hi, this is Aly Phillips. I’d like to schedule an appointment.” She waited while the woman on the other end of the call listed the possible dates and times.

“Ok. Tomorrow would be perfect. Yes.” She scribbled down the time. “Thank you. I’ll see you then.”

She hung up the phone. Tomorrow afternoon she would be sipping champagne and trying on wedding dresses. She exhaled. It was exactly what she needed to be doing. Focusing on her wedding and her future husband, not sultry kisses by the hot springs with a practical stranger. She was going to be Mitchell’s bride. Mitchell’s wife. There would be no more flirting with other men. Even when the other man made her feels things in her gut that were hard to ignore. She shook her head. She had to stop.

She tugged on the magazine page and folded the picture of the dress into a square and tucked it into her pocket. She would make sure they pulled this one from the rack first.

The kiss had been wrong. She let things go too far. Wyatt was leaving and until then, she’d keep her distance.

* * *

He expected to see Aly behind the front desk when he walked downstairs, but the lobby was quiet. After their hike she hadn’t spoken a word. The entire drive home she had driven in silence.

He wondered if she had wandered to the Lucky Coin for dinner. It was dark, but the sign wasn’t on the desk for the evening. He walked behind the reservation table.

There was a light on in the office behind the desk. He tapped the door open with his foot. On the other side of the room was another door marked Private.

“Aly?” he called.

His hand gripped the knob.

“What are you doing?” He heard her voice behind him.

He pivoted. She was standing in the office doorway.

“Looking for you.” He released the doorknob.

“I was doing some inventory on the second floor.” She tossed a clipboard on the desk and crossed her arms to her chest. “Do you need something? Extra towels?”

“No. I wanted to check on you.”

“Why? I’m fine.”

“I know I’ve been away from women for awhile, but I know what ‘fine’ means. And a woman who doesn’t talk for thirty minutes in the car is not fine.” He watched as she shuffled papers. He looked around the office. The walls were a faded butter yellow with curling floral wallpaper that bordered the white crown molding. Her large oak desk was obviously an antique and had been kept in pristine condition. It’s light finish shone under the glow of a metal desk lamp that sat on top of a stack of manilla folders and loose papers. The white bookshelves beside the desk held accounting books, nature catalogs and various knicknacks. He moved to take a closer look at the gold picture frames that sat on top of one the shelves. There was a picture of a young girl standing in between a man and a woman. The three of them were smiling. They looked so happy, it made him smile. Her voice brought him back.

“I was tired from the hike.”

He walked toward her. “There’s not more to it?”

“No.” She wouldn’t look up. “I won’t be able to take you to the dam tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“I have a wedding dress appointment.”

He felt the knife press against his lungs. “You can’t be serious.”

Her eyes shot to his. “I’m getting married. I need a dress.”

The thought of her in a white dress walking down the aisle towards another man was enough to make his blood boil.

He didn’t mean to startle her, but he felt his sudden desperation bubble over. Wyatt gripped her wrist. “Don’t do that.”

“Hey.” She tried to wriggle from his grasp.

“Are you going to act like what happened between us at the hot springs isn’t a part of you now?”

“It was a mistake.” She glared at him.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Then what was it?”

“You and I both know exactly what it was.” He pulled his hand from her wrist, feeling the air slip between them. “It was magic.”

He turned and walked out of the office.