Skye needed to leave.
She reached across herself and rubbed her sore left shoulder while she crossed the basement bedroom to grab her pajama pants from the corner. Her phone was fully operational again, but she was missing a sandal—probably somewhere under the couches upstairs—and she’d discovered a half-bag of dirty laundry that she’d forgotten was buried in her suitcase.
She’d take care of it in Tahoe City.
Maybe by then, she’d have shaken off the odd sensations that had come from all of her interactions with Wyatt.
She’d come to Hope Falls looking for something that could almost feel like home, and instead, she was in the Twilight Zone.
Since the day Wyatt Owens had moved into their neighborhood, he had been a constant pain in her side.
Most of the kids in the neighborhood had been boys Beck’s age who either had older sisters or younger brothers. They were already terrors, and Skye had loved tagging along. Whether they were sword-fighting with sticks, building blanket forts, or sports-ing, she tried to keep up.
She’d found her own friends along the way too, but anytime there was a backyard baseball game, a pool tournament in the basement, or any number of cockamamie plans to hide crickets in flour jars or to use one of Mom’s bras as a slingshot, she’d been there.
On the outskirts. Helping, but not acknowledged. But still there.
Until Wyatt.
He’d been ten when he moved to the neighborhood, the weird, scrawny boy with glasses who seemed, at first, just as much on the outskirts of the group as she was, until the day he was fully accepted into the fold and she was left behind.
Except worse.
Because Wyatt had been on the outskirts with her. He should’ve known how she felt.
Instead, when he reached out and included her, he’d challenge her to a game of pool, and then he’d wipe the table with her. He’d offer to give her some pointers on shooting a basketball, and then he’d spend the whole time hogging the ball and saying, “Like this, Skye. See how I’m holding it. No, not like that. Here. Like this.” He’d pick her for his team in baseball, and then go out of his way to dive in front of her any time a grounder came her way.
The scrawny boy who wasn’t really any better at anything than she was, telling her how to be better.
Every time.
And don’t get her started on what he’d done the last time she’d gone fishing with the guys.
Beck and his buddies had all eventually graduated high school over the course of three years or so, and she hadn’t seen them much after that. Wyatt and several others left, either for four-year universities or to join the military. Beck and the rest stayed behind for community college. Then the crazy years happened—Beck and four of his buddies had formed a boy band. By the time Skye started college, they’d been on their first tour of the States. By the time she graduated, they’d been internationally famous.
A few years ago, the band broke up. The guys had moved on to different paths, some back home, some out all around the world, but they’d still stayed close. They hadn’t forgotten their roots. Whenever they were all back home in Copper Valley, they still got together to play baseball or basketball, eat hamburgers and hot dogs, and talk about the good old days.
And Skye still tried to keep up.
It wasn’t like she was really part of the group, but she still liked hearing who was where, who had a girlfriend, who’d switched jobs, and who’d realized he wasn’t as young as he used to be while playing one of their pick-up games.
Wyatt was rarely there. He was one of the few who had permanently moved away. His sister had gotten married and moved across the country, and his mom had passed away a few years ago. She’d gone to the funeral with her parents.
Every once in a while, though, he still showed up in Copper Valley. Usually at the request of Beck or one of the other neighborhood guys.
Like three years ago.
When Wyatt had come back to town for a weekend house party, and Beck insisted on a pool tournament.
Poor Beck.
Skye had mopped the table with him.
And then with six of the other guys.
And then, she’d found herself up against Wyatt in the final round.
You’re holding your cue wrong, Wyatt had said. Here. Let me show you.
She’d spun that pool cue around and pointed it at him. I think I know how to handle my own stick.
Just trying to help, he’d said. And he’d seemed genuinely injured.
As though he truly had no idea how obnoxious his help was. As though he truly didn’t understand that while she might not have held her pool cue the way he thought she should, what she did worked for her.
But he’d done what he needed to do.
That injured look of his had ruffled her feathers, because suddenly, she’d suspected he actually didn’t know how obnoxious he was.
And then he’d beaten her.
By a single shot.
Now can I show you how to hold your cue? he’d said.
She’d offered to shove it up his nether regions and invented a date with her girlfriends that she was late for.
And she wished that was the last time she’d given Wyatt Owens any thought, but every once in a while, that unexpected hurt in his expression had flashed through her memories.
And she’d spent more time than she wanted to admit wondering if she’d misjudged him.
Last night, when she’d opened her eyes and found Wyatt’s attention glued to her, his blue eyes raw, unguarded, and interested, a mix of conflicting reactions and emotions had overwhelmed her.
It was Wyatt, for heavens’ sake.
But he was…different. Still arrogant, still know-it-all, still one of the many guys she’d grown up with, but also more. More human. Also, oddly more untouchable.
Maybe it was life experience. His years in the military seemed to have tempered his arrogance and molded it into assured competence instead. The subtle crinkles around his eyes, the deliberate way he moved, the way his shoulders were broader, his muscles holy wow harder, his jaw stronger, his focus more intense—sometime in the last decade, Wyatt Owens had grown into a man.
A man with six-pack abs and a restrained energy who was entertaining his nephew for a week.
And she’d been painfully aware of him every last second of lunch, and every last second they’d been in the house together.
The man hadn’t been able to breathe without Skye feeling it. He’d been a part of the background of her life forever, always as a friend of Beck’s first, a pain in her neck second, but today—today, and last night, he’d been different.
Not that she needed to give him any more thought.
She still hadn’t gotten back to normal after her last real relationship. There was no need to muddy her life by tangling with her brother’s friend.
Men weren’t in her plans right now. Didn’t want one, didn’t need one. Period.
She snapped the lid shut on her luggage. She didn’t want to drive in the dark, but she was on the verge of having to.
The clink of pool balls in the next room set her teeth on edge.
If Wyatt was teaching Nicholas to shoot pool the way he liked to teach Skye how to shoot pool, the kid would probably be faking the flu before tomorrow was over.
And he probably had no idea his help wasn’t actually helpful.
She thunked her luggage on the floor and rolled it out of the bedroom.
“Miss Skye! Come play with us.”
She glanced in the game room. Nicholas’s wide, hopeful smile hit her in the heart, like a candle flickering to life in her chest. Wyatt angled around the table and glanced at her too. “Bad idea, Nicholas,” he said. “She’ll wipe the table with both of us.”
Skye started.
Had he just said she was good?
She squinted.
Yep, his self-deprecating smile suggested he had complimented her pool skills.
And that he didn’t expect her to appreciate it.
She bristled at the same time a shot of guilt surged through her veins. Had she been overly tough on him? She liked to think she was a nice person, but with Wyatt…
She simply didn’t understand him.
“We can all play,” Nicholas said. “Miss Skye, you can have the girl colors, and I’ll have the boy colors, and Uncle Wyatt can have the yellow and black.”
It was impossible to not smile at Nicholas. “So Uncle Wyatt’s a bumblebee?”
Nicholas’s ears went pink. “No, he just…gets black and yellow.”
She’d already missed the best window to leave the mountains while it was still light since she’d been out hiking with her camera, getting reacquainted with one of her favorite hobbies. And there was nowhere she had to be tonight. “Okay. One game. But how about you and me are on a team against your Uncle Wyatt?”
Nicholas shoved his glasses up his nose, and this time, the pink came out in his cheeks. “Okay.”
Skye picked her cue from the wall beside the Dogs Playing Poker framed print. “Go on, Uncle Wyatt. Rack ’em up.”
He was barefoot in a plain gray T-shirt and jeans that molded to his thighs and hips. His biceps flexed and bunched while he set the pool balls in the triangle, and she did her best to not notice.
Instead, she turned her focus to Nicholas. “Do you have any pets at home?”
He shook his head.
“No? Hm. Who’s your best friend?”
He launched into a story about Nina from the playground, whom he hadn’t seen since school let out for the summer a month ago.
And Skye noticed that peculiar sensation again that told her Wyatt was watching.
Her scalp tingled like she had sand in her hair and her nipples tightened.
Just as they had last night in the bathtub.
He gestured to the green felt tabletop. “Ladies and children first.”
Her nose scrunched. If Beck—or any of his other friends—had said the same, she would’ve assumed they were being gentlemen.
But when Wyatt offered her the chance to go first, because she was a lady, she somehow felt insulted.
What was wrong with her?
“Here, Miss Skye. Do you need help holding your pool cue?”
Wyatt coughed, and a dry grin flickered to life on his chiseled features. “I think she’s got it, Nicholas.”
Nicholas blinked at Skye. “Ladies first, Miss Skye.”
See?
That was adorable.
And realizing she couldn’t appreciate a simple gentlemanly gesture from Wyatt made her squirm.
She liked people.
She liked being nice to people.
So why couldn’t she be nice to Wyatt? It wasn’t his fault, exactly, that she’d always found his personality somewhat lacking.
“Thank you, Nicholas.”
She set the cue ball on the table, lined up, and shot. The balls scattered around the table, and the seven ball dropped into the corner pocket. “Hope you like solids, Nicholas.” She arched her arm in invitation. “Your turn.”
Nicholas was tall enough to get a decent angle on his cue, but he gripped it at the very bottom end, and the cue swung wildly on the edge of the table while he tried to line up his shot.
Wyatt took two steps toward him, but Skye jumped between them. “Hey, bud. Can I help you get set up?”
He gave her a shy smile. “Sure, Miss Skye.”
She bent over him, adjusting his grip on the cue, the positioning, and she quickly reiterated the basics of the game—which balls they wanted to shoot in the pockets, and to not sink the eight ball.
When Nicholas was in position, she stepped back. “Go ahead,” she said. “Take your shot.”
He pulled the stick back. He rammed it forward, and the cue ball jumped. It thump-thump-thumped across the table, half-heartedly knocking into the fourteen and six balls before teetering to a stop at the far side of the table.
Wyatt winced.
“He’s learning,” Skye said through a clenched-jaw smile.
“And we don’t want to damage Beck’s table,” Wyatt said, eyeing the mark where Nicholas’s pool cue had left a streak of chalk on the felt.
“Please. Like Beck never did far worse to pool tables when he was growing up.”
Wyatt’s jaw opened, then shut.
Skye felt a real smile blossom. “Or you too, for that matter. Go on. You’re up.”
She and Nicholas stepped away from the pool table while Wyatt circled it. He slid a glance at her, and that warm, crinkly-eyed smile of his made her breath catch.
“But we weren’t the ones who popped a basketball,” he said.
Oh, wow. She’d forgotten about that incident with the lawn darts at Miss Helene’s garden party. Her own lips spread in a smile. “Far more innocent than y’all dog-piling on the air hockey table and fighting over Magnolia Feeney’s diary.”
“Still have a scar from that.”
“Lucky none of you broke anything when the legs collapsed.”
He bent over the table, lining up his shot while he chuckled. “Seems to me you weren’t completely innocent in that little accident.”
“You need to get your memory checked, old man. I was stuck at home with the babysitter.”
“Then how do you know so much about it?”
“You made the Ledger. I clipped the article and framed it for Beck for Christmas.”
“Never did understand why he called you a pain in the ass.”
“Language, Uncle Wyatt,” she sang.
He darted a glance at Nicholas, then back to her.
And his self-deprecating grin had to be the sexiest thing she’d seen in weeks.
She sucked a breath in.
Wyatt Owens wasn’t supposed to be sexy.
“Sorry, Nicholas,” he said. “Don’t tell your mom I said ass, okay?”
“I’d totally bargain for some pancakes at Sue Ann’s tomorrow if I were you,” she murmured to the gangly boy.
“We men have to stick together, Miss Skye,” he said gravely.
Wyatt flashed another one of those grins. “Atta boy, Nicholas.”
When had he grown into a man? And why was she suddenly noticing?
Nicholas sat straighter and flashed a pure, happy smile at Skye.
And she took a hit right to the heart.
This kid liked her.
So why didn’t Steven’s kid like her?
What was wrong with her?
Wyatt took his shot, neatly landing the fifteen in the side pocket and setting himself up with a clear shot of the eleven ball as well.
She gave herself a mental shake. “Watch closely, Nicholas,” she said, “because I don’t think either of us will be getting another chance to hit the balls.”
“Why not?”
Wyatt’s grin had disappeared when he shifted a glance over his shoulder at her.
“Because your Uncle Wyatt has had a lot more practice than we have,” she said.
Wyatt kept his gaze trained on hers. As though he were trying to decide if she were complimenting him, insulting him, or merely making an informed statement.
She’d never noticed how unique his eyes were. The deep blue was ringed in navy, with flecks of the sky between. And he had remarkably long lashes. They were lighter than the dark brown of his hair, but thick and full. They should’ve been feminine, but on him, they simply accentuated his eyes and completed the rugged, subtle expressiveness of his face.
He’d be a fascinating subject to photograph up close.
Those eyes.
The dark stubble on his cheeks.
The intensity radiating out of his pores.
She cried a mental uncle and looked away. Being friends with Wyatt? Yes, she could make an effort to be friends. But this weird attraction? To one of her brother’s oldest friends?
Bad idea.
“Maybe we can play foosball while your uncle finishes off the pool table,” she said to Nicholas.
The distinct crack of a pool cue hitting a ball was followed by the equally distinctive crack of balls clashing on the table.
“Your turn,” Wyatt said.
She gaped at the table.
Had he just missed?
On purpose?
Again?
Who was this man, and what had he done with Wyatt Owens?
“You go, Miss Skye,” Nicholas said.
Wyatt settled onto a stool in the corner, the raised eyebrow and the hitch in his lips challenging her. Go on, he seemed to be saying. Tell me I missed on purpose.
“I’m leaving in the morning,” she said. “No matter what the pool table says. Not playing for that.”
He shrugged. “Not my business.”
He was doing it again.
He was trying to fluster her so he could win—or lose—without appearing to have an agenda.
But with Nicholas there, winning wasn’t what she cared about.
She just wanted the boy to have fun.
And she couldn’t help herself, but she wanted to bask in his affection, deserved or not.
* * *
Wyatt had never appreciated being ganged up on until Skye and Nicholas took up a halfhearted rivalry against him.
Her being here took the edge off those memories that snuck up whenever he thought about how small Nicholas was. And their laughter eased any remaining aches.
From the moment he’d found out Amelia was having a little boy, he’d wanted to be there to protect his nephew from every perceived threat, be they physical, mental, or emotional.
His military lifestyle didn’t lend itself to that kind of presence in his nephew’s life though. Until this week, the most time they’d spent alone together had been a few hours here and there so Amelia and Vince could go out to dinner by themselves when Wyatt would visit.
But watching Skye with the boy took away the worries. As though she were somehow working a magic that made him realize he’d been projecting his own fears from childhood on a kid who was happy, loved, and well-adjusted.
After three games of pool, they’d moved to the foosball table. Wyatt hadn’t even had to try to beat the pants off them, because they’d started talking about some video game, and they might as well have been speaking Swahili.
But they’d been laughing.
And shrieking.
And generally ignoring the game.
He left them playing darts and went upstairs to check out the pantry. After some digging, he found a package of granola bars, which he carried downstairs with a bunch of grapes.
Skye’s luggage outside the game room made him flinch.
Talk her into staying, Beck’s latest email had said this morning. She hasn’t been herself since that douchebag dumped her. Working herself to death, not sleeping, won’t go home. Is she eating? Make sure she’s eating.
If Beck had any idea what he would’ve done to help her get over any of her ex-douchebags, he probably wouldn’t have been so keen to have Wyatt stick around.
But there was the Nicholas factor too.
She had been right.
He could’ve cleaned that pool table.
But something in her tone had made him stop.
And think.
He had a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering, a masters in engineering management, a second masters in military studies, and yet, tonight, something had clicked, sort of like it had last night.
If he’d demonstrated to Nicholas all the various shots he could use in pool, he would’ve finished the game in five minutes.
And Skye would’ve left.
Tonight.
As it was, when he missed, she’d looked at him as though she hadn’t known him at all.
As though she were seeing him for the first time.
Not his body.
Him.
How many years had he wanted Skye Ryder to see him? Not as her brother’s friend, not as someone on the outskirts of her life, not as one of the guys, but as a man in his own right.
He would’ve asked her out years ago, but he could read the signals.
She’d never been interested.
Why put himself out on a limb for guaranteed failure that could’ve also jeopardized the dynamics within his band of brothers?
Wyatt and Amelia’s life hadn’t been easy before their mom had moved them into Beck’s neighborhood. But once they’d gotten settled, once he’d started to get to know the neighbor kids, and especially after that incident in the cafeteria, he’d found where he belonged. Where he fit.
Even now, all these years after he’d moved away from Copper Valley, even with no family left there, he would’ve been on a plane to head home—or anywhere else any of the guys needed him—with one phone call.
And he knew they’d do the same for him.
That friendship, that family, wasn’t something he could put a price on.
And it wasn’t something he’d risk for a woman.
Even Skye.
Bright, funny, determined, smart, sometimes sarcastic, beautiful Skye.
He stepped into the game room, too caught up in his thoughts to realize something was amiss.
The room was quiet.
Too quiet.
The track lights illuminated the game tables along with the dartboard where Skye and Nicholas had been not five minutes ago.
“Nicholas?” Wyatt said.
The hum of the air hockey table was the only noise in the room.
“Skye?”
He took two more steps into the room. An air hockey puck slid into the side of the table. Someone had scored a bull’s eye on the dartboard.
He’d only been gone five minutes.
What were these two up to?
Memories tickled his brain. Hiding out in the neighborhood tree house, snickering with his buddies while other neighbor kids called for them. Sometimes he’d been with the group who had suggested playing hide-and-seek and then went to someone’s basement to play Nintendo instead of seeking out the hiders. Sometimes he’d been the one left crouched in a bush, not catching on for too long that no one was coming.
They’d all taken their turns at playing the fool.
It was a rite of passage.
Sometimes the pranks had turned into fistfights, and sometimes they’d all laughed it off then hopped on their bikes to ride downtown for ice cream and candy cigarettes.
But their group had never held grudges, and God help anyone who picked on any of them.
And that was what ultimately made Wyatt call all of them brothers.
“I know you’re hiding,” he said to the empty room.
He crossed between the game tables to the closet.
A life-sized cardboard cut-out of Beck in his underwear was tucked in there, but no Nicholas or Skye.
He felt about twelve years old again. In a good way. A fun way.
So they were hiding, were they?
A smile crept up his lips.
Three could play hide-and-seek.
He tossed the grapes and granola bars onto a stool, turned, and started.
Two black figures in old Scream masks charged into the room. “Aaaaggghhhhh!”
Wyatt’s heart leapt into his throat. He stumbled backward.
The dark shadows swarmed toward him, their robed arms swirling, the white masks looming. The back of his thigh connected with the stool, and he stumbled down on it, arms reaching for something to steady himself on.
He knew it was Skye and Nicholas, but he still went down.
Like a big ol’ pussy.
Something squished beneath his pants.
“Fuck!”
“Uncle Wyatt!” the taller, feminine Scream figure chided. “Language.”
He sucked in a breath through his nose, a red haze clouding his vision while cold juice seeped through his pants.
He crossed his arms, gritted his teeth, and glared at the two of them. “Stop.”
The shorter figure stopped.
So did the taller one, though somewhat slower.
Skye gracefully pulled her mask off, green eyes dancing, ruby lips spread in a smile he would’ve appreciated far more two minutes ago. “Aw, we’re just—”
“Uncle Wyatt?” Nicholas’s voice was muffled behind his mask.
“Take. That. Off,” he ordered through his clenched jaw.
Nicholas didn’t move.
Skye’s dancing eyes traveled down to his crotch. Her lips pursed out in an O. She gripped Nicholas by the shoulders and turned him away.
Liquid dripped on Wyatt’s socks.
“So, that was the first part of the fashion show,” Skye said as she pushed Nicholas toward the door. “We’re coming back in as—”
“The maid?” he suggested over his rapidly thumping heart. He rubbed at his chest, breath still coming too fast.
She made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh. “Uh, sure.” She said something to Nicholas that he couldn’t hear, and the two of them disappeared out of the game room.
His pulse was slowly ratcheting back into a normal cardio zone, but his temper and his blood pressure hovered somewhere near the murderous zone.
Twelve years in the military, and he’d just been taken down by a childhood nightmare.
In front of his nephew and the woman of his dreams.
This was a nightmare.
He yanked himself off the stool and turned to survey the damage.
Purple grape juice dripped from the dark wood stool onto the off-white carpet. The box of granola bars had spilled all over the floor. He yanked off his shirt and used it to mop the grapes from the stool.
Probably stain the damn thing, but better his shirt than the carpet.
He turned to carry the mess to the nearest bathroom.
Skye was frozen in the doorway.
Her dark hair was mussed—she must’ve ripped the robe off in record time—and she had a roll of paper towels in hand.
Her gaze lifted from his waist to his chest.
He looked down.
No grape juice. Not on his chest, not on the front of his jeans.
He didn’t want to think about the back.
“What?” he said.
Her gaze snapped back up to his face, and color flooded her cheeks. “You, ah, need to turn around.” Her voice came out breathy and uncertain.
“Why?” he said.
She made a vague circling hand gesture. “So I can get the…grapes…off your…butt.”
Her cheeks weren’t just a mild pink now.
No, they were closer to fuchsia.
Which he only knew because it perfectly matched what he remembered of her homecoming dress his senior year.
I like your pink dress, he’d told her after he’d untied his tongue that night.
She’d tossed her long chestnut hair with a huff. It’s fuchsia, Owens.
And then she’d rolled her eyes when he asked her if she wanted to dance. So you can show me how? she’d said.
He’d never understood what that was all about, but Beck had appeared, made some comment about beating off the morons who were ogling his baby sister, and Wyatt had grunted something that he’d hoped would convey sympathy at his friend’s plight.
Beck might’ve been the model, but Skye lit up any room she walked into.
When she wasn’t pulling asinine tricks in costumes.
“I’m sorry, okay?” She stamped her foot and pointed to him again. “Turn around so I can get the grapes off.”
Skye Ryder was going to touch his ass.
She’d been checking out his chest, and now she wanted to touch his ass.
And he was standing here keeping her from it.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Obediently, he turned his back to her.
His blood pressure was still soaring, but his anger with himself was receding as quickly as his pants were getting tight in front.
Not that it mattered what happened in his pants.
Not when she’d caught him freaking out over those damn costumes. He could only imagine what she thought of him.
Still, if he hadn’t sat on the grapes, she wouldn’t be touching him now.
Her hand gripped his bare waist, and a jolt of lightning shot through his body.
Had she ever touched him before?
He sucked in a slow breath and forced himself to hold completely still, but he couldn’t entirely control the quivering in his skin.
Another hand swiped at his butt.
Skye was touching his ass.
Blood rushed to his groin, and he pulsed against his jeans. The image of her in the bathtub flashed to the front of his mind, those bubbles on her silky skin, her perky nipples, her supple breasts—
He was going to explode. Right here. In his pants.
He squeezed his eyes shut and made himself think about the grapes on the carpet. “Don’t brush it on the floor,” he gritted out.
“Relax,” she said, though she sounded as tense as he felt. She brushed his ass again, and his erection throbbed. “This is hardly the worst mess this house has ever seen.”
“I don’t trash my friends’ places.”
“There’s a carpet cleaner in the garage. I’ll take care of it.”
“You know how to use it?”
The smack on his ass took him by surprise.
And made the last bits of blood left in his brain surge to his groin.
He spun around.
She straightened. Her eyes lingered on his chest.
Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips.
Without conscious thought, he dropped his shirt and wrapped his arms around her waist. His lips clamped down over that sassy mouth.
He had to taste her.
He had to touch her.
He had to show her what she was doing to him. What she’d always done to him.
She should’ve pushed him away, but she didn’t. While he was licking and tasting, her body melted into his, her lips parted, her tongue touched his, and her hands gripped his shoulders.
She kissed him back.
Skye Ryder was kissing him back.
She was sweet heaven. Hot and silky and his. Eager. Demanding, going up on her toes, angling her jaw to deepen the kiss, her hips pressing against his.
Except—
He couldn’t do this.
Despite the painful straining in his jeans, he wrenched himself away from her grasp.
She blinked at him, dazedness giving way to horror.
“Skye—” he started.
She stumbled backward. “I told Nicholas to get ready for bed. I’ll go make sure he’s brushing his teeth.”
And with that, she fled the room.