Nothing else mattered, nothing but the slow pull of their bodies, the unending kiss.
She didn’t want to let him go.
Ever.
Emotion clogging her throat, she closed her eyes rather than give herself away.
“Harley.”
This is just a good-bye, just a simple, easy, casual good-bye.
“Harley, look at me.”
She forced her heavy eyelids open and somehow managed to meet his gaze, knowing by the look in his that yep, she’d given herself away.
Seemed she needed some practice on multitasking orgasms and heartbreak.
Gently, so gently it brought tears to her eyes, he swept her hair back from her face. “I love you,” he said, the words causing her to spiral and shudder as she burst.
And took him with her.
When TJ woke up, he knew even as he reached out that Harley was gone. He almost believed he’d imagined her, except for the bite mark on his shoulder.
And what felt like nail indentations in his ass.
But the amusement drained quickly, because last night, hot and amazing and heart wrenching as it’d been, had been his good-bye.
Two days later TJ was in Anchorage, preparing to take a charter with Colin into their drop zone when his cell phone rang.
“TJ,” a voice breathed softly in his ear, sounding relieved to get him.
“Harley?”
“Yeah.”
For a moment they did nothing but breathe. He wasn’t sure what to say that hadn’t already been said, but he was happy as hell to hear from her. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
Silence.
Memories.
Longing.
He recovered first, or at least put up the pretense of it. “Where are you?”
“Desolation. And no, not by myself.” She paused. “Nolan and Skye are with me.”
Nolan. TJ pinched the bridge of his nose and took a breath.
“He’s here with Skye. And to protect me, of course.”
“He’s with Skye?”
“They’re beginning a…mutual affection.”
Suddenly he could breathe. Breathing was good. “Any problems?”
“Actually earlier we heard a gunshot.”
Christ. “How close?”
“Couple miles. We called it in. By some miracle, the rangers located two guys exiting out of the east entrance, without a permit of course, and loaded with unregistered shotguns and ammo.”
It could have been worse, he told himself. “Arrested?”
“Yep. I don’t think I’ll be losing any more of my coyotes.”
“Your coyotes?” He felt himself smile in spite of the lingering fear for her. “You’re leaving, remember?”
“Yeah. TJ…any regrets?”
“None,” he said firmly, then paused. “You?”
When she was quiet, he shook his head at himself. Obviously she had regrets, she’d sneaked out in the middle of the night.
“None,” she finally said, then hesitated. “Well, maybe one.” She paused again and just about killed him.
Had his phone died? “Harley? You still there?”
“Yes.” She inhaled deeply. “It’s you, TJ. You’re my regret. I regret not telling you sooner, like years sooner, how I felt about you.”
He heard the click, telling him she was long gone before he found his words and could point out that she still hadn’t told him.
Twenty-four hours later, TJ and Colin were at 15,500 feet in a tent smack in the middle of a windstorm that was threatening to rip them right off the side of a mountain.
It wouldn’t happen. TJ was pretty sure.
Well, at least 80 percent sure.
Colin lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling of the tent. “I’m a fucking screwup. I should be in front of the pastor tomorrow, saying ‘I do’ with Lydia at my side. Sex for the rest of my life, guaranteed. Man, what the fuck was I thinking?”
TJ didn’t know. Guaranteed sex sounded pretty darn good. But then again, suddenly so did waking up every day wrapped in the same woman.
Christ. It’d gotten to him, all of it; laughing at karma, watching his brothers fall in love.
Being with Harley.
Falling for Harley.
“You ever screw up?” Colin asked. “I mean really screw up?”
TJ thought about how he’d let Harley think all he wanted was a casual, temporary thing, how he’d said he loved her but without the other words she’d needed to go with that love. “Yeah.”
“How did you fix it?
“Still working on that.”
Colin thought about that, then shook his head. “This is all wrong. I changed my mind. I want to get married tomorrow.” Colin closed his eyes, then opened them again, and they were damp. “How fast can you get me home?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Look, I let her think I love my adventures more than I love her. I have to tell her that’s not true. That I’d rather be with her than on a damn mountain. It’s cold here, man. I should be in my warm bed with my warm almost wife.”
“You could call her.”
“No, we’re going in person and tell her I’m an ass. I want to see if she’ll marry this ass. On Squaw Peak like we planned. Take me home, man.”
TJ let out a breath and pulled out his phone to make the calls necessary to get them out of there. Because home sounded like a damn fine place to be.
CHAPTER 28
Two days later, Skye was mooching breakfast while Harley was still looking at her e-mail, specifically the one asking her to confirm she wanted the job.
She really needed to respond.
She’d actually started to a hundred times, pressing REPLY, then typing “yes, thank you!” but then her finger would hover over the SEND.
And then it’d hit DELETE instead.
But the truth was, there was only one thing she really wanted to type and that was, “I can’t take the job because there’s no TJ Wilder in Colorado!”
Sitting back, she closed her eyes and let it all wash over her, giving herself permission to listen to her gut instincts, her emotions, the truth…
“Are you meditating?” Skye whispered.
“Shh.”
“You’re supposed to be sitting cross-legged and chanting ‘ohmmmm.’”
“Quiet. I’m listening to myself.”
“Are you asking yourself for guidance about the job, or about how you let the hottest guy on the planet get away?”
“Skye!”
“Sorry.” Skye spooned in another bite. “Carry on.”
Harley closed her eyes again. Turned out her heart did have something to say. It said that she already had her answers, that possibly she’d always had her answers, from way back since that long ago night in the back of TJ’s truck. She stared off into space as she let that terrifying and life-altering realization echo through her.
She wanted him. She needed him.
She loved him.
She always had. Suddenly it wasn’t so confusing after all. Not when she added everything up, including some of the things he’d said to her.
Sometimes you have to take a risk.
There are all kinds of love.
You make me feel alive.
I love you.
She stood up and paced the length of her kitchen.
“You okay?” Skye asked.
“Yeah. I just realized I left something unfinished.”
“One of your reports?”
“Something bigger.”
Much bigger.
Skye stared at her, and then let out a slow smile. “You’re going for it.”
“I’m going for it.” Harley pulled out her phone and tried TJ’s cell. It went directly to voice mail. She wondered what message to leave. I forgot to mention that I don’t need you for just one night, but for all my nights?
She laughed a little softly at herself. “Hey,” she said. “I…ah, hell. I’ve had an epiphany, I
guess you’d call it. Painful sucker, too. Call me.”
Now she just had to be patient.
Problem was, she’d never really mastered the act of patience. So she called Stone. “I need a favor.”
“Good,” he said. “So do I.”
Harley’s conversation with Stone rang in her head for the rest of the day. They’d made a deal. She’d take a temporary job with Wilder until she figured out what the hell she wanted to do with her life, but she wanted to start by going to Alaska to meet up with TJ. Unpaid, of course.
Stone had countered her offer. He was hiring, temporary as she insisted, but she would be paid starting immediately, and she had to trust him because there was a quick little trip she had to help him out with first.
She was taking a small group up Squaw Peak for an impromptu sunset wedding. Her job was to get the bride and the pastor there and be the photographer for the happy event. Nick flew them up and landed on Eagle Rock, a gorgeous plateau, then flew off again to go pick up the groom at some undisclosed location.
Harley led Lydia—the bride—and the pastor to a higher, smaller plateau, where watching the sun set would be like sitting on top of the world. There she sat on the five-hundred-foot-high cliff and fiddled with her camera as she absorbed the view.
Behind her, Lydia was sitting, chatting quietly with her pastor. Harley had already taken several nice shots of them. She heard the chopper and knew Nick was back with the groom. It would take them thirty minutes or so to climb up there.
Harley took some shots of God’s glory spread out before her, then slowly lowered the camera as the truth hit her. She’d heard people talk of life-altering decisions before, but until that moment, sitting in the late afternoon sun with the whole world at her feet, she’d never really gotten it.
She belonged there.
She belonged there with TJ.
Even more of a revelation—she was irrevocably, desperately, 100 percent in love with him.
And he hadn’t called her back.
To be fair to him, he was out in the middle of nowhere, literally, no doubt with absolutely zero reception. He probably didn’t even know she’d called him yet. “You are such an idiot,” she said out loud. “A very slow idiot.”
Just then, a set of unbearably familiar battered boots and two long, denim-covered legs appeared in her field of vision. “If I agree, are you going to argue with me?”
With a gasp, she looked up and faced…who else…the only man who’d ever stopped, and then kick-started, her heart with a single look. “TJ! What are you doing here?”
He squatted in front of her. “Thought I’d drop by, say hi.”
She choked out a shocked laugh. “But your client—”
“He’s the groom. He decided he was crazy not to follow his heart.”
She felt her heart surge. “I know the feeling.”
His eyes warmed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She drew a deep breath. “I missed you. I’m so sorry I left your cabin like I did. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You mentioned an epiphany.”
“I don’t want to say good-bye.”
He nodded, and ran a finger over her jaw. “Is there anything you do want?”
“You.”
“You already have me.”
“No, I mean…more than just…”
“Casual?”
“Yes,” she whispered, talking fast, as if that could help her make him understand. “Here’s the thing. I can’t seem to breathe without you. And I really need to breathe, TJ.”
His lips twitched, his eyes warmed. “Harley,” he said very softly, and she nearly lost it.
“No, listen,” she said. “I know you didn’t want—that we said—”
He took one of her waving hands in his and pressed it to his chest. Beneath, she could feel the steady beat of his heart, and it helped calm hers. “Me too, Harley. All of it. I want you so damn much. I want to be with you, only you. I want everything that you can give me.”
“What about your trips?”
“I can take ’em or leave ’em. What I can’t do without is you.”
She felt the smile and the tears rush together, and she became utterly and completely sure of at least one thing. “Not casual.”
He shook his head solemnly. “There’s nothing casual about how I feel about you.”
She lurched up and pretty much threw herself at him, crawling up his body. Rising to his full height, he had one arm beneath her butt, the other across her back and right there on top of the world he kissed her, claimed her. In response, she sank her fingers into his hair, pouring out everything she had, all the heat, affection, frustration, fear, love…all of it into that one kiss.
“Ahem,” Nick said from behind them. “The pastor said we’re on the five-minute countdown.”
They kept kissing.
Nick sighed. “You two do realize there’s no closet door this time, right? That we can all see you?”
TJ slowly let Harley slide down his body, taking a minute to scrape his teeth over her jaw, and when she moaned, he let out a low growl of appreciation and bent his head again, but Nick stepped close and slapped a hand on his chest.
Without taking his eyes off Harley, TJ said, “We have five minutes. You just said so yourself.”
Nick shook his head and walked away.
Grinning.
TJ pulled some papers out of his pocket. Harley’s employment papers, the ones she’d filled out earlier for Stone. “I found these.”
“Stone told you.”
“That you want to temp for us as our new outdoor specialist and photographer? Yeah.”