Just then a knock sounded at her cottage door that startled Abbi and she dropped some of her loose writing papers on the floor. “Who is it?”
“It’s Chad,” the deep sexy voice announced.
Oh, God. Her heart galloped in her chest.
She quickly picked up the loose sheets and slapped them back on the side table. Then she closed her diary on the table. There was that giddy feeling again going on inside her. Not good. Why was this guy stirring up all kinds of school-girl-like-crush emotions inside her?
“Coming,” she said, and she quickly straightened her top. Abbi hurried over to the mirror and smoothed her curls and brushed her hair neater. She then took her wine-colored red lipstick off her dresser and opened the cap, about to apply some to her lips, then changed her mind.
No. You’ll look too desperate, sweetie. At this time of the morning? Alone in your cabin?
She placed it back on the dresser and picked up her purse, fishing through her bag to find her nude shimmering lip gloss and quickly applied that instead. Perfect. Natural looking, yet sensuous. She was a lip gal by heart. It didn’t matter if she had on makeup just as long as her lips were plump and moist. “Your smile is your beauty” her mother always told her. “Always have beautiful lips.”
Not that she was thinking of using those lips on Chad anytime soon, of course. She just wanted to look…presentable to him. “Always look your best, sweetie” her mother had also told her while growing up. “You only live once, every day should be a dress rehearsal. Never let anyone catch you at your weakest.” Mind you, her mother was always the keeping-up-appearances type. Everything always had to look right in her life, in her dress style, in her home. Everything. Even when her mother and father split, her mother had kept it to herself for a while before anyone found out in the community. Not even the neighbors knew what was going on at first.
Abbi drew in a deep breath, trying to calm her fast-beating heart, then she opened the door.
“I was beginning to think you were trying to make your getaway through the back door while I waited out here for you,” Chad chuckled. His boyish smile caused his sexy dimple to appear on his cheek.
She swatted at him playfully. Then she noticed he had two coffee cups in his hands from the café at the main lodge. “Oh, my God, come in.” Abbi opened the door wider for him to step through. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I remember you saying you needed to get your caffeine fix first thing in the morning. Well, this is later in the morning, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“I do appreciate it, Chad. Thanks,” she said. He placed the two cups on the countertop. She grabbed her coffee and immediately took a sip. “Hmm.”
“Glad you approve.”
“I do.”
“What were you doing for the five-minutes since I knocked?” Chad narrowed his eyes at her as if in mock interrogation. He stood in the center of the cottage by the kitchenette, looking gorgeous in his blue shirt and khaki pants. The scent of his heady cologne wafted to her nostrils as with the early morning mountain air.
“Five minutes?” She glanced at her watch. “I wasn’t five minutes,” she protested, feeling utterly foolish.
Chad smirked. “Relax. I was only kidding. It was more like four minutes and thirty-seconds. I had time to grab a coffee while I waited,” he teased her.
Abbi planted one hand on her hip and tapped her foot. “Very funny, Chad. I’m sure you didn’t come all this way over to my cabin to tell me that I take too long to answer the door, did you?”
He took a quick look around, perhaps on instinct, making sure she was safe. “You were busy doing homework?” Chad nodded at the messy sheets of paper on the coffee side table.
“I’m not in school. Not right now, anyway. I was just…writing.”
“Writing?”
“You’re awfully nosy, aren’t you?” she teased him. Abbi really didn’t want to get into the diary thing with him again. She honestly had been keeping notes about everything in her life for as long as she could remember. Then a horrible thought struck her. She’d written some juicy notes regarding her thoughts on Chad, too. Oh, God! What if he found out? Or worse, what if he read about her lusty feelings towards him?
Why, oh why, did she have to have this jot-everything-down curse that had befallen her since her school days? It was as if she was some sort of obsessive compulsive who had to capture every moment in her life and her surroundings on page for it to matter.
“So nice of you to drop by,” she quickly changed the subject so Chad wouldn’t become too intrigued by her personal notes. She took another relaxing sip of her freshly brewed coffee.
“This is so delicious, Chad.”
“Thanks. I made it at the café.”
“You did?”
“Sure. Does that surprise you?”
“Oh, never mind. It’s just-”
“Staffers are allowed to make their own coffees at the café. I thought you’d like the caramel cream.”
“I do. You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Thanks.”
“You came over here this morning just to make me a special coffee?”
“Yes, and I also wanted to make sure you’re still alive.”
“Still alive?” she questioned, sounding a little more alarmed than she’d intended. “Why? Did you sneak into the chef’s kitchen and slip something in my food?” Now Abbi was just messing with him, placing one hand on her hip.
“You know I would never do that,” he said, sounding more serious.
She grinned. “I know that.”
“You’ve just been working hard every day since you got here. Just wanted to stop by and make sure you haven’t collapsed from exhaustion.”
“That’s really sweet of you,” she said, “but as you can see, I’m still standing.”
Chad looked deeply into her eyes and Abbi felt her heart turn over in response. For a moment there was a magical chemistry reaction that sparked again between them.
“I want to take you out,” he said in a low voice.
“T-take me out? Where?”
“You’ll see.” A charming grin curled his lips. They both finished their coffees by the stone fireplace in her cabin.
“Okay, let me get my purse,” she said shortly thereafter. Her heart fluttered inside her chest as she reached over to the side table and grabbed her small cross shoulder strap bag and wrapped it around her so her hands and arms would be free. She then slipped on her comfortable walking shoes.
Abbi then walked out of the cottage alongside Chad and they hiked out on to the trail.
“Don’t tell me you’re taking me out on a mountain hike.”
“No. Nothing like that…yet,” he assured, grinning all the while. “You’ve been doing quite well here. You work extremely hard and I think all staff should be able to enjoy the premises they work so hard to maintain.”
“You speak like you have authority in this place, Chad.”
His expression changed slightly. “Sorry about that. Sometimes, I get carried away.”
“I noticed,” she said, a warm appreciative smile on her face. Abbi noticed there was something oddly charming about him for a maintenance guy. First off, not that she judged blue-collar workers or construction type guys, but he seemed so…polished. Refined. As if he’d been educated at Harvard or maybe Oxford. Then there were his fine hands. His strong, smooth and silky skin. No signs of calluses or anything like that, you’d expect from someone who worked with his hands a lot. In fact, his fingernails seemed very strong and uber clean. As if he was an office worker, not a maintenance guy.
“I used to run a small business back in…Ontario,” he added, with caution, she noticed. “Sometimes, I still think of myself as management, even though I’m a contractor here. Some old habits die hard.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with that. I like that in a guy. You seem to really take charge. I notice that you care a lot about people around here.”
“I do.”
The birds were chirping in the distance and the sound of the breeze rustled the leaves of the trees as they walked on the trail near to the main lodge. Their footsteps crunched noisily as they stepped on twigs on the trail.
The breathtaking view of the mountains in the distance enthralled Abbi, yet it was nothing compared to the view of her stunning man friend beside her.
His cell phone buzzed and he excused himself before taking it out of his pocket. He looked at the screen and his gaze hardened.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”
He looked stone serious for a moment, then he drew a deep breath. “Nothing. Just some…business matters I’m taking care of.”
“Business matters? You sure are a busy guy.”
“Sometimes I feel as if I’m not busy enough,” he said, then Chad tapped away on his screen, responding to the text message he’d apparently gotten before shoving the phone back in his pocket. She was curious now as to what was in that text message that got him so…on edge. Was it to do with Eduardo? She’d barely seen Eduardo around but hadn’t bothered to ask Chad about him. She just hoped he would go away. She couldn’t wait until the end of the week to get her pay so she could pay him off and hopefully then he’d leave and stay clear away of her from now on. Of course, he didn’t really need the money. He was filthy rich. He merely wanted revenge. He wanted Abbi to suffer financially because she’d jilted him.