13. Daphne
Chapter Thirteen
DAPHNE
“Oh, come on,” Nora implored. “I need the company. Plus, you haven’t even been to the lodge restaurant. You need to investigate the competition.”
“Competition?” I looked out the windows where I saw nothing but mountains, trees, and the ocean in the distance. “I don’t really think a restaurant at a ski lodge twenty miles away is competition.”
Nora glared at me. “What do I have to do to guilt you into going with me? I don’t want to go on my own because I have a ton of errands to do, and errands are boring.”
“All you had to do was say that. I don’t need to be guilted. What time?”
“Will this afternoon work?”
At my nod, Nora’s brown eyes twinkled with her smile. “Awesome. I’ll come find you.” She paused, her gaze flicking down to my shirt. “You might want to change that.”
I looked down at said shirt. Flour was dusted across the front because I’d started kneading dough without remembering to put on my apron. That wasn’t the problem, though. There was a giant splash of coffee as an accent over one of my breasts.
I glared at it. “I didn’t even notice. Thanks for the heads-up.”
I hurried off and wasn’t paying attention as I began jogging up the spiral staircase. Apparently, Flynn wasn’t looking either as he began to descend. We’d done an admirable job of avoiding each other for the past few weeks. Ever since “that night” as I’d come to think of it, I’d studiously tried to keep my distance. I’d also tried not to think too much about it.
While I had succeeded in keeping my distance, I’d utterly and completely failed at not thinking about it. Flynn filled my thoughts, crowding out everything else when I had a spare minute.
And here we were, about to collide on the spiral staircase. My only options were to back down and look like a coward or shimmy sideways to get past him.
“Excuse me.” Dear God, my voice came out raspy
As I turned sideways to go by, my foot caught on a tread, and I stumbled. Flynn, being the steady, strong man he was, caught me with one hand on my hip and the other on my shoulder when I stumbled into him.
“Easy there,” he murmured.
Now, I was literally plastered against him, and my nipples stood at attention. There was nowhere for me to jump back, and I knew my cheeks were bright red when I looked up at him.
“Sorry,” I said breathlessly.
My feet seemed genuinely stuck in place. My only solace was that Flynn didn’t seem to be moving either. Considering he’d been avoiding me just as thoroughly as I’d been avoiding him, I didn’t think he was doing that on purpose.
For a flicker, I thought he was going to kiss me. My body was practically leaning into it as my eyes tore free from his tractor beam of a gaze and landed on his lips.
Oh, sweet hell. I knew exactly how good of a kisser Flynn was. I also knew he could work magic with his mouth just about anywhere on my body. I had a vivid and piercing memory of the feel of his mouth closing over one of my aching nipples as his fingers teased into my slick core in the darkness of that rainy night. Heat rushed through me, and my heart started pounding so hard and so fast, I was certain he could hear it.
“Flynn!” someone called.
My breath came out in a startled huff. I instinctively tried to jump back, only to lose my balance again on the stairs. Flynn, being the rescue-y kind of guy he was, steadied me again.
The two points where his hands were on me—my left hip and my right shoulder—felt branded, the heat of his touch so intense it sent sparks scattering through my entire body.
“Flynn!” the voice called again.
“I think someone needs you,” I whispered.
“Yeah. That’s Grant.”
He eased his hands off me. We didn’t speak again as I finally shimmied past him with my heart rioting in my chest, and my panties wet.
Hurrying into my room, I caught myself before I actually slammed the door shut. I wasn’t slamming it out of anger. The momentum of my frazzled nerves and the driving beat of my pulse had my body so revved up, everything was happening too fast and too hard.
I stopped in the center of my room and closed my eyes, willing my out of control pulse and the heat racing through my body to slow down. I was practicing deep breathing techniques I’d learned in therapy just to get a hold of myself after a close encounter with Flynn. That was how bad I had it.
I’d dived off the deep end when it came to him. That night, which I hadn’t been able to resist, had been a bout of pure insanity. I kept telling myself it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t been so out of my element.
Opening my eyes, I squeezed my hands into tight little fists and released them before swinging my arms like windmills. That was another trick I’d learned when I was deep in grief, under a crushing weight I didn’t think I could ever shake off my chest. My therapist had told me to use my body as a tool of distraction to nudge my thoughts out of the ruts in my brain. It actually worked, even when I didn’t believe it could.
After a few jumping jacks, I hurried across my room to the small closet and pulled out a clean shirt. I didn’t worry all that much about how I looked when I was working, but I tried not to sport too many spills. As I tugged it over my head, I realized I was impatient for the day to pass. I was looking forward to dinner with Nora. In all honesty, I was quite curious about the social life of Diamond Creek.
Although I’d driven into town a few times on my own and once or twice to do errands with Cat, who was always a good volunteer and ever helpful at carrying things and keeping track of what we needed for the kitchen, I hadn’t spent much time there just for fun. When I hurried down the spiral staircase, Flynn wasn’t blocking my way this time, so I made it downstairs with no trouble.
One thing Alaska was teaching me was that I could survive on my own. Although my choice to come here was serendipitous, and frankly random, it was turning out to be good for me. With the exception of my confused and endless desire for Flynn.