Breanne only hoped they were right.
Everyone met in the great room and snacked on whatever Shelly was able to drum up. Stranded as they were, the lines between staff and guest and wrongly booked guest had blurred.
Or maybe that was because of the unintentional bonding that had occurred when they’d all found themselves staring at a dead body.
Breanne didn’t know, but she liked having everyone in the same place, where she knew that no one was off getting . . . well, offed.
Despite the relaxation of duties, in some ways, their positions here in the house still very much defined them. Shelly rushed to serve everyone. Dante handled the fire. Lariana kept straightening things up in the already perfectly straightened room. Patrick didn’t do much, but he kept his tool belt on and creaked when he walked.
“We really need a new generator,” he said to no one in particular.
“Maybe it’s operator error,” Dante suggested.
“Bugger off.”
Dante laughed. “Come on. We all know you hate being the fix-it guy. The wicked witch is dead, dude. Do something else now.”
“Like . . . ?”
“Like what really gets you going,” Dante said, as if this was the easiest thing in the world to decide. “How about your painting stuff?”
Patrick looked over at Lariana, who smiled. “Told ya,” she said softly. “Do it, Patrick. Go for your dreams. Show your paintings.”
“It was you,” Cooper said to Patrick. “You painted that saw blade. The one that went up the day we found Edward.”
“I hung it,” Lariana said. “Patrick didn’t want me to, but I think the guests that come here would love to see what he can do. Sunshine doesn’t have any galleries because it’s not a touristy type of place, but just a little bit south of here, closer to Lake Tahoe, there are tons of shops all around the lake where he could show his work. Should show it.”
Patrick lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”
“You’re good, Patrick,” Shelly told him. “And your idea of painting on antique tools is unique. You really should go for it.”
Patrick clinked his way to the fire, hunkering before it to jam the poker into the red-hot coals, stirring up the fire with a bit more strength than necessary.
“He’s dead, Patrick,” Lariana said to his ramrod-straight spine. “No more worrying.”
“Worrying about what?” Cooper asked.
No one answered.
“Come on.” Cooper looked at them. “You’re going to hold back now?”
Shelly and Lariana gave each other a long look.
Patrick stabbed at the fire again, making sparks leap and jump.
Dante remained broodingly silent.
Cooper shook his head in disgust.
“You know what?” Shelly surged to her feet. “It’s late. And I’m really tired.” She didn’t look at any of them as she moved to the door. “’Night.”
Lariana shot Dante a worried look, then started to follow, but Dante stopped her. “I’ll go,” he murmured.
Lariana nodded, then pulled him in for a hug. When he was gone, she said, “It is late, and we’re all overtired. Patrick?”
Seeming surprised to be so publicly summoned, he jerked to his feet and moved to the door with her, looking for all the world like an eager puppy.
“Call if you need anything,” Lariana said to Breanne and Cooper.
When it was just the two of them, Cooper looked at the empty doorway. “That was fun.” He stood up and held out a hand to Breanne. “Come on. There’s even more fun to be had.”
Her heart stopped. Parts tingled. “What kind of fun?”
“Everyone’s going to sleep. Everyone but us.”
The thought of “us” made her stomach sort of tremble, but not in a bad way. Oh God, she was getting used to the word us.
When had that happened?
Everything had been so simple a week ago. Sure, she’d been in an engagement that had been just a joke, but she’d had no major losses. No big disappointment—Well, maybe a few.
But she could have lived with them, because she’d never seen a dead body, she’d never lived in a haunted house, she’d never feared for her very life.
Now she knew what all those things felt like, as well as true, gut-wrenching fear for another person she truly cared about. Maybe staying one more night wasn’t the end of the world. She could use it to show him how much she cared.
“We’re going searching for the BB gun,” Cooper said.
“We are?”
His gaze swiveled to hers. “You sound disappointed. What did you think we were going to do?”
“Nothing.”
He ran a finger over the groove in her forehead. “You are such a liar. You were thinking about getting naked and losing some brain cells.”
“Losing brain cells?”
He reached for her hand, the gesture sweet and tender. “Every time I get you naked, I lose brain cells. Hell, you don’t even have to be naked for that to happen.” He pulled her in for a tight hug. “I want more of this, Bree. When we’re out of here, I want more of you.”
Now her heart, all warm and cushy—and locked up tight—quivered. “Cooper—”
“Don’t panic.” He stroked a hand down her back, then pulled free.
Thank God.
“Let’s go exploring.”
In the dark. Damn it, she didn’t know which was worse, facing her feelings for Cooper, or exploring this dark, haunted house.
He pulled out a flashlight. “I noticed Patrick did some extra digging,” he said as they entered the garage through the foyer door. The large, cavernous room was icy and eerily silent. “I want to know why.” With that, he let go of her hand and moved away.
Breanne bit back her pathetic whimper, gasping when Cooper lifted the garage door manually, rolling it up a few feet. “What are you doing?”
“With no power, it’s the only way to open it. Come here.”
Into the dark night. Into the snow. “My boots are finally dry—”
He vanished beneath the door.
“Damn it,” she muttered, and hurried to the door. Taking a deep breath, she ducked beneath it.
The darkness felt different outside; colder, deeper, all-consuming, with no walls as boundaries. Nothing but trees and mountains she couldn’t even see. And bears. Let’s not forget the bears.
Cooper had trudged past a buried vehicle—“Mine,” he tossed back—and through the snow to another parked about fifteen feet away. A truck, she saw, when his light flickered over it.
He was peeking in the windows with the flashlight. “Bingo.”
She eyed the still-falling snow and sighed, then stepped out from beneath the protective edges of the eaves. They’d shoveled here, so she didn’t sink much more than a few inches into the new stuff. Buoyed by that, she grinned at him as she came up to the car. “Made it.”
He didn’t smile back.
“What?” she asked, hers fading.
“Hold this.” He handed her the flashlight. Then he pulled the sleeve over his hand before opening the door of the truck. “No fingerprints,” he whispered. “Light the backseat for me.”
She lifted the light and stepped closer, her boot heel catching on an icy patch. The next thing she knew, her feet slid out from beneath her and she was down, the flashlight bouncing twice before going out.
In the dark above her, Cooper sighed at the loss. “You okay? Anything broken?”
“Just my butt, and possibly my pride.”
In the pitch darkness, a hand slipped beneath her elbow and lifted her up. Another hand slid over the butt in question. “Feels good to me. Your pride’ll heal, too.”
“But the flashlight won’t.”
“No.” The disconcerting darkness reigned, and that eerie, utter silence of the woods all around them.
Except for the very distant call of a coyote.
Breanne shifted closer to Cooper, hating the weakness, but hating even more the thought of f
acing a wild animal out here.
“Did you see?” he asked quietly. “Before you slipped?”
“I saw,” she said, and hugged herself. “I saw the BB gun in the backseat. Oh, my God, Cooper. This is insane. Bloody towels, bloody gloves. Edward’s shoe . . . What does it all mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Blind as a bat and disoriented with it, she shivered. Cooper pulled her closer. “Come on,” he said, and nudged her around toward the house. “Back inside.”
“It’s just as cold in there.”
“I’ll warm you up.”
“It’s also just as dark in there.”
“I’ll be your light.”
She managed to find a laugh. “That was hopelessly corny.”
“Yeah,” he said in disgust. “I’m not that great at romance.”
Breanne set her head on his capable, sturdy shoulder as he led her inside. “I think you’re better at this than you think you are.”
Breanne woke at the crack of dawn and opened one eye. She was sprawled facedown over most of the bed with all of the covers.
There was a big, warm hand on her butt.
Lifting her head, she turned and found Cooper on his side, head propped on his hand, watching her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, back.” Leaning in, he kissed her. “Time to rise and shine, Princess. Today is the day we get the hell out of Dodge.”
Sounded good.
And yet . . . She looked into his see-all blue eyes and pictured her life back home. Searching for a new job. A new place to live. Seeing her friends and family.
Would Cooper really be interested in that life? He’d said so.
Could she trust him enough to believe it?
“I can see the wheels spinning,” he said. “Want to share?”
She looked at him, trying to find the words to express her fears, her worry, but none came. “It’s nothing.”
If he was disappointed, he didn’t let it show. He just kissed her, then rolled out of bed and took his fantastic body into the bathroom.
Breanne stretched, rolling to her back, eyeing her Palm Pilot, which was on the nightstand. She reached for it, figuring she had a new entry to make, something along the lines of enjoying the moment because that moment was about to be over.
Only there was already an entry for today. It read: Keep Cooper.
Keep Cooper? “What does that mean?” she murmured out loud.
“Just that,” Cooper said from the bathroom doorway, one hand propping up the jamb. “Or better yet . . .” He pushed away and came closer. Naked. “Take a chance on me.”
“Cooper.” Her heart lodged in her throat.
“Come on, Bree. I’m falling hard here. Fall with me.”
Lodged in her throat and swelled. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m bad at it.” She let out a low laugh, inviting him to laugh with her, but he didn’t. He wasn’t kidding. “You know my track record,” she said. “I fail at these things, with a regularity you could take to a bookie and make millions.”
“If you never try, you’ve failed before you’ve begun.”
“I have tried.”
“No, you went through the motions, but you’ve never really put yourself out there. Not like you did with me.”
“Cooper.” Words failed. She shook her head. “You scare me, you know that? All the way to the bone.”
“You either want to see me outside of here, or you don’t.”
“This is about more than that, and you know it,” she said. “We already know we’re sexually compatible. Now you’re asking me if it can be more.”
“Why can’t it?” he asked. “I like you. You like me. Let’s take it where it goes.”
“But how will we know if it’s right? How will we ever know?”
With a shrug, he pulled on his jeans as if they were discussing the weather. “You just do.”
“You’re telling me you know?”
“Yeah. I do.”
For some reason, that made her mad. She shoved back the covers and got out of bed. Stalked toward him. Poked a finger in his chest. “Well, maybe it’s not that easy for me.”
“Why not?”
His eyes were clear and full of things that took her breath. She knew he had a slow and easy smile, somehow both so sweet and sexy that she always felt like smiling back when he flashed it at her. She knew how he made her feel with just a look, which was so damn special she always felt as if she could take on the world.
“Why not?” he asked again, softly, giving her one of those looks now.
“When you look at me like that,” she whispered, “I lose my place.”
“So start at the beginning,” he whispered back. “And tell me again why this can’t work.”
“Besides the fact that we’re so different?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
“Besides the fact that neither of us is currently employed?”
“Sounds to me like a great time for a change.”
“Damn.”
“Is that ‘Damn, you’re right’?” he asked. “Or ‘Damn, he’s lost his mind’?”
She just shook her head, frozen to the spot.
His smile congealed a bit but he slowly nodded. “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to go start digging.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. You could sit here and keep letting life pass you by.”
“Hey, I don’t let life pass me by! In fact, that’s the problem. I jump at things without thinking them through.”
No longer quite so calm, he shoved his arms into a T-shirt and pulled it on. Inside out. Swearing, he ripped it off and righted it. “You get a jump on ignoring this thing between us, Breanne.” He grabbed a fleece sweatshirt. “Because I can’t convince you that this would be a good decision, or that you’re just afraid because deep down you know it’s different, that what we have would be better than anything else you’ve ever done. That this is real and deep and yeah, scary as hell, but worth it. You go ahead and pretend you don’t know any of that.” His hair was sticking straight up as he jammed on his shoes. “And I’ll get us out of here so you can rush back to that life you want so badly, where you can pretend you never met me, where you can pretend you didn’t fall as hard and as fast as I did—”
“Cooper—”
“Don’t.” Whipping around, he pointed at her. “Don’t even try to tell me I’m wrong.”
She couldn’t, she didn’t have the breath, and when he’d left, quietly shutting the door behind him, she turned to the bed,