Sweet Harmonies (43 page)

The other was deep and smooth, and the
instant it hit her ears, she felt goose bumps involuntarily raising
up all over her arms. She looked down at her forearms, puzzled.

That's bizarre, she thought, the only
person's voice who has ever given me goose bumps is...

Before she was able to finish that thought,
the door swung open and Amanda stepped in. Seeing Sam sitting in
one of the visitors chairs, her face lit up.

“
Oh, good!” Amanda exclaimed, “You're
here! Sam, I'd like to introduce you to Luke...”

As soon as Sam heard the name Luke leave
Amanda’s lips, it felt like all of the air left the room. Sam tried
desperately to suck in a breath, but the timing was unfortunate, as
she also happened to be in the process of swallowing her coffee at
that moment.

This caused her coffee to go down the wrong
pipe, and she started coughing and choking. She tried to set her
coffee cup down on Amanda's desk, but her hand was jerking so
violently from the coughing fit that she missed the mark and sent
coffee spilling across Amanda's floor. Her eyes were watery, her
face was red, and all she could think was, “This cannot possibly
look attractive right now! Please, God, don't let it be the Luke I
think it is!”

Sam was trying to pull herself together when
she heard Amanda’s voice break through her coughing.

“
Oh my God, Sam, are you OK? Breathe!
Here let me get you some water,” Amanda ran behind her desk quickly
and pulled out a bottle of water from the small fridge in the
corner of her office. She opened it and handed it to
Sam.

Sam suddenly felt two strong hands on her
body. One grasping her arm and holding her up, and the other firmly
patting her back, in what she assumed was an effort to subdue her
choking episode. Oh, God, those hands! That skin! That musky aroma!
She gave up on any illusions she may have had that this Luke was
not, in fact, HER Luke.

Unfortunately for Sam and her attempts to
stop having an embarrassing medical emergency all over Amanda's
office and pull herself together, Luke’s hands being on her skin
had the exact OPPOSITE effect than she was sure he had intended
them to have. She got all tingly and lightheaded at the contact,
making it even more difficult to breath.

Sam made a herculean effort to will herself
to relax, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.
After all, she reminded herself sternly, you're a world class
athlete. There have been many times when you have had to force your
mind to gain mastery over your body, when you've had to play
through the pain! What makes this so different?

Sam wasn't sure what made this different, she
only knew that it was.

When she was finally able to get herself
under control and began breathing normally, she took the water from
Amanda and began to sip it carefully.

She pulled out of Luke’s grasp, trying to
regain some semblance of dignity. Could she be more embarrassed?
Nope she didn’t think so.

Well, possibly if she would have swooned and
fainted from Luke's simple gesture, the one which caused his hands
to come into contact with her arm and back, then that could
definitely classify as more embarrassing.

“
Are you OK, Samantha?” Luke asked in a
concerned voice, one that Sam was sure he didn’t
i
ntentionally
use to make her lady parts tingle...but that
was the effect!

The way it rumbled from deep in his chest.
The way he said everything with such an innate strength and
assurance, completely in control. The way he never appeared to be
unsure of anything.

She sighed.

And why would he be? He was a god,
professionally and personally. He was one of the most sought after
instructor/pros in the country. He had a list of celebrity clients
a mile long. He made everything he did on the snow look effortless
and easy.

And to say he was ‘popular with the ladies’
was the understatement of the year. He was not only strikingly
gorgeous, with his deep brown hair and brilliant blue eyes and a
smile that could quite literally melt your panties off. Add to that
a charm that was very difficult to resist.

He always had a sexy scruff of stubble that
added to his sex appeal tenfold. He was smart, funny, athletic and
nice. Not a combo that you see very often, in Sam's (albeit
limited) experience. As effortless and easy as he made his prowess
on the slopes appear, multiply that by one thousand, and you would
start to get an idea of how effortless and easy his prowess was off
the slopes.

“
Sam, are you sure you're OK?” Amanda
repeated cautiously, glancing back and forth between Luke and Sam,
perhaps sensing that Sam’s choking had more to do with the person
who had just walked in the room and less to do with the coffee she
was drinking.

“
Yep, just went down the wrong pipe.”
Sam stated curtly. Damn. She had been going for nonchalant, and had
achieve bite-your-head-off.

Sam wiped her watery eyes and took a deep
breath, trying fortifying herself against the humiliation – not
only about her choking episode, but also the onslaught of
butterflies, goose bumps, tingles, and throbbing – yep there was
definitely a possibility of some throbbing in places that she
wasn’t even sure should throb – when Luke Reynolds was anywhere in
the vicinity.

“
Are you sure?” Luke asked with a
twinkle in his eye. “You might need mouth to mouth.”

“
I’m good Luke, but thanks,” Sam
replied, aiming for dry indifference. Had she achieved it? Aw,
damn, she couldn't tell! Her brain had been hijacked by a mental
image of Luke's lips on hers. Holy moly! If Luke administered mouth
to mouth, Sam was not sure she would survive it..although it might
be worth it. What a way to go!

Sam tried her best to conceal any reaction
she may be feeling in Luke’s presence. Cool, calm and collected!
Yep, she could pull that off. Right? Yes!

Sam tried to put on her best poker face as
she turned towards Luke.

But as soon as her eyes met his, her legs
turned to Jell-O and her knees started to wobble. OK, time for plan
B. Probably best to sit down. She smiled weakly and turned to sit
in her chair, staring straight ahead at Amanda, who was standing
behind her desk.

Good Lord, why did this man have such a
strong physical effect on her?

Pheromones. Yep. It had to be pheromones.
That was the only logical explanation.

Amanda, taking her cues from Sam, smiled and
sat down as she slowly said “Why don’t we all have a seat?”

The questioning look in her eye indicated she
was definitely trying to assess the situation.

Sam didn't need to assess the situation. She
could describe it in one word: Trouble.

--- ~ ---

Luke Reynolds sat down in the chair beside
Samantha, and when he leaned back his arm brushed against hers. He
felt a shiver run up his arm and down his back. Well, it’s still
there, he thought wryly.

Whenever Luke had gone long periods without
seeing Samantha he would always convince himself that some of the
potency of her presence would have lessened, worn off, or better
yet, would now be completely nonexistent.

But that was never the case. In fact, it
seemed every time he was around her, no matter how long or how
short the intervals were in between seeing each other, his physical
response to being within twenty feet of the girl only grew
stronger.

The interval this time? Six months. He had
not seen Samantha Holt in six very long months.

Sam had burst onto the snowboarding scene,
and into Luke’s world, when she was barely 18 years old. Still a
baby, really. At that time Luke was 26 and doing everything in his
power to draw out his competing years, although he was recovering
from what he would find out later was a career-ending injury.

He had such a strong physical reaction to her
at the time that honestly, it had scared him. She was too young for
him and he knew all too well the road that she had in front of her.
It was the road he was at the end of traveling himself, with his
competitive years drawing to a close.

That, however, had not stopped Luke from
keeping an eye on her from afar. Luke had made it his business to
stay in touch with Samantha’s manager and coach, Stephen Humphrey.
Every so often, he would subtly inquire about her, ensuring she was
OK, that she was staying out of trouble...and also trying to
keeping tabs on any sort of romantic entanglement in her life.

The romantic portion of Sam’s life proved to
be the most difficult to track, due to the fact he had never heard
of any sort of romantic relationship at all. As far as he knew Sam
hadn’t had anyone serious in her life since he knew her. At times,
this had confused him, but he had always put it down to the fact
that she was in such high demand and, considering her schedule, a
relationship would be next to impossible.

The only other possibility was that she
actually WAS with someone, and it was serious enough for her to
want to keep it private, just between the two of them. And frankly,
he couldn't really bear to think about that too much, so he
didn't.

Whenever Samantha was in Luke’s presence, he
always found it hard to keep his eyes off of her. He was drawn to
her like a magnet. It felt like she had an invisible force field
that pulled Luke to her. He just wanted to be near her.

Sam, however, did not seem to be afflicted
with the same infatuation, as evidenced by the fact that every time
they were in a room together she seemed to find the first excuse to
leave it.

Luke didn’t know what he could have possibly
done to make her so standoffish. Normally, people – let’s face it,
women in particular – liked him, gravitated toward him, they would
make excuses to STAY in rooms with him, not leave them!

But not Samantha. It wasn’t even that she was
merely indifferent towards him, she genuinely seemed to dislike
him. He found this odd because she seemed like a very warm person
to everyone else in their circle.

He smiled to himself. Well, unless she was in
competition mode. When she was competing, she was all business. She
was a beast, and he found that sexy as hell.

Sam wasn’t anything like all of the snow
bunnies that were always falling all over him, and she certainly
wasn’t like all of the other women athletes he knew. Nope. Samantha
Holt was in a class all of her own.

She had the most beautiful shade of auburn
hair, one that he would bet his life was natural. Her eyes were the
most fascinating deep hazel, sometimes leaning more towards green,
other times closer to an amber shade, depending on what she wore
and her mood. His favorite thing about her eyes, though, was that
they held an innocence that he had never encountered before.

And she had the cutest path of freckles
sprinkled over her nose. Every time Luke laid eyes on them, he
always had the most intense urge to kiss each and every one of
them. He also wanted to find out if she had freckles in any other
places on her body, and kiss those too.

Oh, God, yes, her body! Then there was that
body.

Luke had always wondered what was hiding
under the baggy, puffy clothes that she wore whenever she was
competing or training. His fingers had itched to peel her out of
them each time he had seen her.

That desire was strong even BEFORE he had
seen her in next to nothing. After what he referred to in his mind
as The Incident, he now had firsthand knowledge that her body was
not just athletic and trim, but that Samantha Holt had curves in
all the right places.

Sam’s body did not run straight up and down
as the clothes she liked to wear would lead you to believe. No.
Underneath those layers of clothing Sam had a body that was worthy
of worshiping. And Luke Reynolds had made the decision to come to
Hope Falls because he believed was just the man for the job.

Melanie Shawn is the writing team of
sister duo Melanie and Shawna. Sweet Reunion is their debut novel.
Originally from Northern California, they now make their home in So
Cal – but they wish they lived in Hope Falls!

You can keep up with all the latest Melanie
Shawn news, including new releases and contests, at:

http://melanieshawn.com

and

http://facebook.com/melanieshawnbooks