“It sounds as though Bride Mountain Inn is in very competent hands.”
“We certainly try.” She pushed back her hair, feeling muscles that hadn’t been used in a while remind her of the afternoon’s activities. “It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?”
Paul gave a little snort as he picked up his wineglass. “You can say that again. Not exactly the way I wanted our day of fun to turn out.”
“Most of
it was still fun,” she assured him. “I loved our trail ride, I enjoyed meeting your friend and I’ve had a very pleasant dinner with you. All in all, that’s not such a bad day.”
Holding his wineglass loosely in his left hand, he reached out with his right to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. “You’re the type to find the bright side in every situation, aren’t you, Bonnie?”
“I want to,” she confessed. “Nothing wrong with being an optimist, is there?”
Lightning glinted again through the windows, accompanied almost simultaneously by the boom of thunder, proving the storm had moved directly overhead now. The lights flickered, but stayed on, to her relief. The inn had an emergency generator system that kept the refrigerator and freezer running and operated a few lights upstairs, but it wasn’t large enough to provide power for the entire inn. She reminded herself that Kinley and Dan were taking care of everything tonight, and that Logan was always on call if needed. This was her evening off, and it wasn’t over yet.
Paul glanced toward the closest window, speaking up just a bit over the pounding of rain against the glass. “Nothing at all wrong with optimism. As long as it’s tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“I’m not naive, if that’s what you mean. I just like to think everything works out the way it’s supposed to eventually. It was certainly a good thing for Kyle and Cheryl that we were in the right place when the motorcycle went off the road.”
“Or maybe if he hadn’t been showing off for us, they wouldn’t have gone off the road and been hurt at all,” Paul countered. “So maybe we were in the wrong place at that time.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “I think this is what they call a circular argument. I’d better get out of it before I wind up totally confused.”
His lips quirked. “Cassie and I have gotten caught up in plenty of circular arguments during the years.”
“And you liked it.”
He shrugged, his lips twitching with a smile. “Maybe.”
She took another sip of her wine, smiling at him over the rim of her glass.
Paul set his glass on the coffee table, then turned to her again. Almost absently, he reached out to toy with a lock of her hair that had curled tightly against her shoulder as it dried. “I appreciate your optimism,” he said. “I’m always telling my students that if they can visualize success, they can likely achieve it. That’s what you and your brother and sister have done here with the inn.”
“We’re getting there,” she agreed, though her sudden awareness of his proximity, of the closeness of his hand to her breast made it more difficult to concentrate on their conversation. “We’ve, um, got a way to go before we completely break even from all the renovations we had to do before we opened, but that goal is in sight now. Another two or three years, maybe.”
It was so hard to think coherently with him leaning closer to her, his jade eyes reflecting the flickering lightning from the window behind her. Her heart thudded against her chest so rapidly she thought he might have heard it if not for the thunder.
He took the wineglass from her suddenly nervous fingers and set it beside his own. “So you have at least a couple of more very busy years ahead. I’m glad you could take a few hours today to spend with me.”
“So am I,” she murmured as his mouth neared hers.
Finally their lips met, melded. His arms went around her and she wrapped hers around his neck, leaning eagerly into him. The tip of his tongue parted her lips, slipped just inside to taste her, slid slowly from side to side until she captured him, held him, deepened the kiss herself.
Oh, she had wanted this. Those previous kisses had been merely prelude to this one. Practice, maybe. This one…this one was serious.
His hands were buried in her hair now, fingers tangled in the curls. Electricity sizzled around them, her heartbeat pounded in her ears, mixing with the sounds of the rain and thunder so that she could almost wonder if the storm was inside or outside. The lightning dancing across her windows could just as believably been fireworks.
The lights flickered, once, twice. She moaned in protest when they blinked the third time and remained off. She didn’t mind being in the dark with Paul, but she wondered if she needed to go upstairs and check on her guests.
As if in response to her thoughts, her phone chirped with a text.
Reluctantly, she drew back from Paul, who groaned softly when she broke off the kiss. The apartment was in deep shadows now with the storm darkening the skies outside, but she could see his rueful expression.
“I think you’re being paged.” He didn’t sound annoyed, but sympathetically frustrated. Considering his longtime role as go-to family guy, he should certainly understand the need for her to check the message. She groped on the coffee table for her phone.
The text was from Kinley. Everything under control. Stay where you are.
“Do they want you to come up?”