It was well past ten before Wyatt was sure Nicholas was comfortably asleep.
Which meant it was well past ten before he could go track down Skye.
He found a pile of dishes in the sink and the scent of melted cheese lingering in the air. The romance novel had been moved to the large, rustic dining room table off the kitchen. Wood was stacked in the central fireplace, just waiting for a match.
But Skye wasn’t on the main floor.
He wasn’t prone to clomping down steps, but he made as much racket as he could while he took the trip into the basement.
Didn’t want her to not know he was coming.
The full, finished basement had a spare kitchen and a living room. Skye wasn’t in either room. But the game room door was open, and the room’s lights were blazing.
Wasn’t often he liked feeling like a kid again, but whenever he came out here to Hope Falls to hang with Beck, that game room took him back in a good way.
Pool table, foosball table, air hockey table.
An old, six-foot-high PAC-MAN arcade game stood in one corner next to a real pinball machine.
Skye flicked a glance at him, then fired a dart at the wall.
She didn’t smile.
She didn’t frown, either, which he took as a good sign. Or at least a not-bad sign. Along with not kicking him out, he could almost pretend she could tolerate him.
He didn’t fool himself into thinking she’d insisted he and Nicholas stay for his sake. To her, family had always come first. Kids came first. Pets came first. She probably would’ve put butterflies and honeybees first if she’d had to compare them to Wyatt, but tonight, he was grateful she’d let his nephew stay.
And now he had orders to not let her leave tomorrow.
Which would’ve been much less of a hardship if she felt for him even a fraction of what he’d always felt for her.
When his mom had moved Amelia and him to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Copper Valley, Skye had been the first person he saw standing up to an injustice. She’d laughed the loudest, tried the hardest to keep up, and she’d been smarter than half the kids in the neighborhood combined.
She’d been gangly and freckle-faced, with average brown hair that she’d liked to whip over her shoulder when she was mad, and even at ten, he’d known he shouldn’t have wanted to hang with his new buddy’s sister more than he wanted to hang with the guys.
But something about her had made him feel safe in a way very little had before.
His attraction hadn’t lessened any in high school. With their three-year age difference, she’d only been at the same high school his senior year. Had she been just one year younger than he was, or even two years, he might’ve asked her to Homecoming. Or Prom.
But nobody messed with Beck Ryder’s little sister.
Even his friends.
And Beck and the guys had been more like brothers than just friends to Wyatt, so he’d nursed his crush in secret.
For years.
Even long after he’d realized she didn’t see him as anything more than one more guy in the neighborhood.
She shouldn’t have this effect on him. He hadn’t seen her in almost three years. Or the two years before that, or the three years before that.
But she still made his blood stir.
Not because he’d found her naked earlier.
But because she had always affected him. A simple smile from Skye Ryder had always had the power to take his breath away. Her confidence in herself, her compassion for the less fortunate, the way she threw herself into everything from throwing darts to helping run her parents’ business—she inspired him and made him want to be a better man.
She always had.
He took a subtle glance at her hand.
No ring.
His heart bounced.
He’d heard she and her fiancé had broken up a few months ago, but seeing it for himself made it real.
She fired another dart at the board.
“You trying to put it through the wall?” he said.
“Is there somewhere else I should aim it?”
So he wasn’t forgiven.
“I, ah, didn’t see anything. Earlier. In the—you know.” Small lie, but one of the few he was willing to make since it was for her comfort.
“No big deal,” she said lightly. “But we’d be even if you wanted to strip.”
He almost swallowed his tongue.
How many times in his life had he wished she’d see him?
A smile he recognized all too well—the famous Skye Ryder gotcha smirk—made an appearance. “Kidding.”
Of course she was.
She didn’t want to see him naked.
But it would make them even.
He wasn’t one for spontaneity, but it had been a hell of a day. Getting lost in the mountains on the way here, lost in memories of being Nicholas’s age.
And then lost in memories of Skye.
What did he honestly have to lose?
While she tossed another dart, he reached back and grabbed his collar, pulling his shirt off in one quick motion.
She dropped the last three darts, eyes round, lips parted. “What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“Making us even.”
“I was joking, Wyatt. Put your shirt back on.” She dropped to the ground and fumbled for the darts, color rising in her face.
Skye was blushing.
Over him.
Huh. Maybe he should’ve taken his shirt off years ago. “So I shouldn’t take my pants off?”
“No! Seriously, you’re hardly the first of Beck’s friends to see me naked. We don’t have to be even.”
“Who else?” Had she intentionally been naked with another of his friends?
Wasn’t his business. She wasn’t his. Never had been, never would be. Didn’t matter how much he’d liked her from afar. He could read the not interested signals just fine.
Except that blush wasn’t not interested.
He didn’t know what it was, but he knew she wasn’t unaffected. And they weren’t kids anymore.
“Does Beck know?” Wyatt pressed.
“He was there.”
So he needed to kick Beck’s ass too?
She squared up to the dartboard and fired another dart, cheeks still glowing. “The great swimsuit snafu?”
He shook his head.
“The hook on my bikini top snapped while we were playing volleyball at a pool party four years ago. Everyone saw.”
He shifted his shirt to his other hand. “Look, upstairs, I didn’t really see—”
“You’re a terrible liar. Put your shirt back on.” There was no heat in her tone. Simply mild amusement.
She’d always seen the humor in everything. Her ability to laugh—at the funny and absurd, at herself, with her family and friends—had drawn him to her before he’d been old enough to understand what hormones were.
“You should keep your upper arm parallel with the floor when you throw the darts,” he said. If he didn’t think about darts, he’d keep wondering what she’d do if he did drop his pants.
“The board speaks for itself, Owens.”
It did. She’d done well, but this was Skye.
She’d never been satisfied with anything less than perfection when it came to competitive sports and games. Despite the age gap, she’d always kept up with all of the neighborhood guys, and more often than not, she’d schooled someone in the process.
The lady was not only fun to be around, she was unstoppable.
He leaned against the doorframe, the wood cool against his arm. “You don’t have to leave because of Nicholas and me.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m not the only terrible liar.”
She plucked the darts out of the board, that rosiness traveling all the way over her ears when her gaze dipped to his chest. She quickly looked away.
“I can come back here anytime,” she said. “Nicholas will enjoy the house.”
“We have plans over at Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures all week. Just sleeping here.” He held his hands up, palms out. “And I promise I won’t walk into any more bedrooms without knocking. Even my own.”
She didn’t crack a smile.
Probably for the best. Her full smile could render him speechless. Had, in fact.
“Beck said you haven’t had a day off in months,” he said.
She took aim at the dartboard again. “I’ve had the last two days off.”
“Said you single-handedly opened the Sacramento branch of Ryder Consulting and then almost fainted at the grand opening because you hadn’t eaten or slept in three days.”
“He’s getting his information from unreliable sources.”
“Sounds enough like you though.”
Her shoulders hitched up near her ears, and her dart landed on the outer ring. “So when you talked to Beck, did you tell him you walked in on me in the bathtub?” she said.
“Yep. He sent his apologies.”
Her next dart missed the board completely.
And Wyatt got an idea. “Make you a deal. Pick your game. You win, I drop it and you go wherever you want. I win, you stay.”
“I’m leaving in the morning.” Her casual tone didn’t match the stiff way she held herself, nor did it fit the carefree, life-loving girl he’d secretly crushed on in high school.
“And for the last time,” she added, “put your shirt back on.”
He rolled his shoulders back. Her gaze dipped to his chest again, and her ears were redder when she turned back to the dartboard.
“Nicholas will be very disappointed,” he said. “He couldn’t stop talking about you.”
Her hand wobbled as she flung her next dart. It hit the screw the dartboard hung on and ricocheted toward Wyatt.
He ducked left. The dart whizzed by his shoulder and lodged itself in the carpet behind him.
And he wasn’t sure if that shot had been on purpose, or if it had been a lucky toss.
Her cheeks were rosy now too, highlighting her cheekbones and making her green eyes sparkle like emeralds. She cocked a hip, still in those fitted pink pajama pants. Her breasts shifted beneath her T-shirt. And Wyatt’s blood all surged to his groin.
She pointed to the air hockey table. “One game. No talking. Put your shirt back on.”
He hadn’t played air hockey in six years. Probably more.
But if it would keep him close enough to talk her into staying—he’d thank Beck later for that particular sweet torture—then he’d play the best damn air hockey game of his life.
* * *
Skye couldn’t believe she was taking this bet.
But it was easier to agree to play Wyatt in a game of air hockey than it was to admit she didn’t want to leave.
Even if seeing his broad, bare, sculpted chest and abs was wreaking havoc on her nerves.
Or maybe because seeing that solid expanse of muscle—on Wyatt Owens—was honestly distracting her. Of everything she’d had nerves over this year, this was the most pleasant.
She hadn’t been home in six months. Not since Steven had called off their engagement just after the new year. She’d seen her parents. They’d come out to oversee some of the opening of the Sacramento office of the green energy consulting firm that they had founded when she was little. She’d been working with several people from the company she’d known most of her life, but more with people who knew little about her beyond who she was related to.
She’d even seen Beck once when he had an overnight layover in San Francisco.
But she hadn’t been home.
She missed the mountains. She missed her apartment. She missed her friends and her favorite bakery and Friday night paint and wine nights. She missed Nighthawks baseball games and the local summer concert series in the park.
But she wasn’t ready to go back.
Because home wasn’t hers anymore.
Here in Beck’s vacation house in the mountains above Hope Falls, with its friendly residents and the majestic scenery and the well-stocked wine rack, she could almost feel the same calm in her soul that she found back home in Copper Valley.
She’d almost gotten over the compulsive need to check her email, to see if there were any issues in the office she needed to address.
And since Wyatt had walked in on her in the bathtub, she actually hadn’t thought about email until this very minute.
Or about pulling out her laptop to log onto Ryder Consulting’s remote network—which wasn’t the same as checking her email, and which Beck hadn’t made her promise not to do.
“First to seven wins,” she said to Wyatt over the air hockey table. “No cheating, no palming, and no trash-talking. Understand?”
Wyatt nodded gravely, as though her rules were as serious as nuclear launch codes. He gripped his red mallet in one large hand and tucked his other hand behind his back.
She bit her lower lip.
His gaze wandered to her mouth, and she felt a flush rising across her chest, spreading up her neck again.
She couldn’t be the only woman he’d ever seen naked.
So what was with him checking her out?
And why was her body purring despite her brain’s objections?
At least he’d put his shirt back on.
She hit the table’s on switch. The digital scoreboard flashed to life on both ends, and the whir of air filled the silence in the room.
She rolled a die to determine who went first, and then they were off. She scored first, of course.
Wyatt congratulated her with a lift of his dark brows and a subtle dip of his head.
It shouldn’t have irritated her—neither that he’d take it in stride that she scored on him, nor that she was reading his expression to tell her good job—but she didn’t want to score first.
She didn’t want to win.
She wanted to stay.
Still, after a lifetime of never feeling as though she could do anything good enough to please Mr. No, Do It My Way, his silent compliment was vindication.
As if his opinion mattered.
They might’ve grown up together, but he was Beck’s friend. Not hers.
He set the puck back in play, and after five volleys, she scored again.
Dang it.
She pursed her lips together.
She didn’t mind losing.
But she couldn’t let Wyatt suspect she was losing on purpose. Nor could she lose on purpose if she kept scoring.
Wait.
Was he letting her win?
So he could tell Beck he did his best to get her to stay? Undoubtedly, her brother liked having one of his buddies keeping an eye on her.
Or was Wyatt letting her win because he wanted her to go?
She narrowed her eyes.
He sent the puck across the table to her. She blocked, but didn’t hit it back hard. The puck bounced off the left of the table, ricocheted to the right, and hovered just on her side of the line.
She tapped it.
He tapped it lightly back.
Oooh, the jerk.
He was trying to lose too.
“No cheating,” she reminded him.
“I barely hit it.”
“And no talking.”
His lips flattened and he gave her a classic, disapproving Wyatt glare, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
This was the Wyatt she loved to hate.
She’d seen that disapproving Wyatt glare for the first time on a summer afternoon not long after he’d moved to the neighborhood when he’d walked into the kitchen and caught her standing on the counter, digging out Beck’s secret stash of Fig Newtons.
Because it was fine for eleven-year-old Beck to climb on the counters to hide the cookies that were supposed to be for the whole family, but if eight-year-old Skye climbed on the counters, she would hurt herself.
She swept her mallet across the table to send the puck flying straight into the corner on his side of the table.
He answered with a shot that bounced off the side entirely too high for him to have been banking an angle and aiming for the goal.
She took dead aim at his goal.
He moved his mallet out of the way.
And she scored.
She flung her mallet down and pointed at him. “I said no cheating!”
“I’m not cheating.”
“You’re letting me win. That’s cheating.”
“You think I’d let you win.”
A statement, not a question. Because Wyatt Owens didn’t question anything. He simply knew. Always.
“You want me to go.”
His gaze snapped up to her face, and two pink spots appeared high on his cheeks.
“You do,” she whispered.
“I don’t.”
He was using that authoritative Wyatt voice on her again. He must’ve done very well for himself in the military. It would’ve fit his rigid personality perfectly.
He was such a contradiction. He’d always been the odd, scrawny, near-outsider in Beck’s group, but he’d also been the one the other guys listened to and took advice from.
“I haven’t had much practice lately,” he said.
There was a ring of sincerity to his voice, but his gaze shifted behind her as he spoke.
Because he was embarrassed that she was better than he was?
Or because he was lying?
“Play the puck,” she ordered.
He pulled it out of the pocket and dropped it on the table. After holding her gaze for a long, intense, emotionally-charged moment that left her chest tight and warmth pooling deep in her belly, he moved his mallet and struck the puck.
It flew across the board.
Skye returned it reflexively.
It came right back, and soon the board was a blur, the clack clack clack of mallet hitting puck the only noise interrupting the air in the table and the sound of Skye’s breathing in her own ears.
She danced her mallet across the table, her attention laser-focused on that puck flying back and forth. It bounced off the side of the table, off Wyatt’s mallet, off her own mallet, in the corner, out of the corner.
She bent closer to the table. She blew her hair out of her eyes. She needed to let him get a goal. To score. To see how he reacted. She set him up for a perfect shot, puck flying straight at him, ready to fake a lunge so her goal would be unguarded.
But at the last millisecond, Wyatt moved his mallet and let the puck fly straight into his goal.
Her head whipped up.
He lifted his shirt and wiped his forehead. She caught another peek of hard washboard abs and a treasure trail disappearing under his jeans. Her breath was already coming quickly from the game, but now her mouth went dry.
Craziness.
This was Wyatt.
And he was intentionally throwing this game so she’d leave.
He wanted her to leave.
“Drop the puck,” she said.
His eyes widened, but he quickly returned his gaze to the table and did as she said.
She didn’t even try to block his shot.
Not that she needed to.
It bounced out of the corner and back to his side of the board.
She pursed her lips together.
Another pink hue tinged his cheeks. “I’m rusty,” he said.
She dropped her mallet. “Forget it. Game over.”
“Skye—”
Apparently he understood sign language well enough, because he didn’t keep talking.
Nor did he try to stop her when she strode out of the game room.
She was done with playing.
It was time for her to figure out what she wanted for her life.
* * *
No matter what Wyatt did, he was never right.
Not where Skye was concerned.
He plucked his darts out of the board and went back to toss them again.
The bedroom door beside the game room had shut, and he hadn’t heard it re-open, so he assumed she was staying tonight.
How early she’d leave in the morning, he had no idea.
He simply wished he didn’t want her to stay. While she’d always been someone he admired from afar, being close to her wasn’t good for his ego. Or his blood pressure. Or his heart.
She never laughed that full, rich laugh of hers for him. She didn’t smile at him. Hell, she barely talked to him.
So why couldn’t he get her out of his mind?
He flung a dart at the board.
Bull’s eye.
But he didn’t feel like celebrating a good throw.
He felt like he’d lost in a game he was never supposed to win, but couldn’t quit playing.