Thunder Canyon Homecoming (8 page)

“So why don't we talk about your lunch plans?” he said. “Do you have a date with Stefan or can I steal you away for a little while?”

“Why are you so determined to take me to lunch?”

He shrugged. “It's lunchtime, I'm hungry and I enjoy your company.”

“How could any woman refuse such a gracious invitation?”

“Stefan was booked, wasn't he?”

“Until four-thirty,” she admitted.

“Then he won't be putting his hands on you today,” Corey noted.

It was the hint of smugness in his tone that prompted her to tease, “Not until this afternoon.”

 

Erin retrieved her purse from her desk and came around to the other side of the counter.

“How does DJ's Rib Shack sound?” Corey asked her.

“My mouth is watering already,” she told him.

He reached for her hand and was pleased when she didn't pull hers away. It was a small thing, but it meant a lot to him because it proved that she was starting to feel comfortable with him.

“But we might have some trouble getting seated,” Erin warned. “We have a conference group that booked several large tables for lunch there today.”

“Are you forgetting that DJ is my cousin?”

“Does that family connection trump a group of fifty-five paying customers?”

He winced. “Well, I'm sure he can find a couple of chairs for us in the kitchen.”

Erin laughed.

He liked to hear her laugh. She seemed so serious most of the time, as if there were heavy issues weighing on her mind. But when she laughed, it was like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day. The soft, sexy sound seemed to burst out of her, and her beautiful blue eyes danced and sparkled.

“For DJ's signature rib sandwich, I would happily sit in the kitchen,” she told him.

As it turned out, DJ did manage to find them a small table on the opposite side of the room from the conference guests and with a fabulous view of the resort property. Be cause they both knew what they wanted to eat, he took
their orders so that he could get it into the kitchen before the conference group started clamoring for its food. Corey ordered a beer and Erin, because it was the middle of a work day, requested a soft drink.

“So tell me,” Erin said, “how you manage to have so much free time when you're supposed to be in town on business.”

“I'm my own boss. When I first started out, I worked more than my share of eighty-hour weeks to ensure my business was successful. Now I have the luxury of being able to pick and choose my jobs and the hours that I'm going to work.”

She eyed him over the rim of her glass. “Why did you start your own company instead of going to work at Traub Industries?”

“I did work at Traub Industries, as all of my brothers and my sister did. But, although the experience was memorable and I certainly won't complain about the opportunities the company has afforded me, making a career in the oil business wasn't what I wanted to do with my life.”

“So who does run the company?”

“My mother took over at the helm when my dad died, and she's still the CEO. My brother Ethan is the CFO. My stepfather is on the board of directors.”

“So it really is a family business.”

“I guess it is,” he agreed.

She tilted her head. “Are there issues between you and your stepfather?”

“No. Not really.”

“Which is it—no? Or not really?”

“Peter's a good guy,” Corey said. “And he makes my mom happy. It's pretty amazing to think about the fact that he was willing to marry a woman who was on her own with six kids.”

“But—” she prompted.

He didn't say anything.

“But he's not your dad,” Erin finished for him.

“No, he's not. I was so young when my dad died that my memories of him are pretty foggy, but it was still hard to accept anyone else trying to take his place. It's only recently that I've realized Peter made his own place—and I'm glad it's with my mom.” He shook his head. “But it seems that we're always talking about my family—tell me something about yours.”

“The Castros aren't nearly as interesting as the Traubs,” she said.

“That's an opinion, not a fact,” he chided.

She shrugged. “Okay, my parents are Jack and Betty. My dad's a harbor cop and my mom is a high school history teacher. I have two brothers, Jake and Josh, both of them older. Jake is a cop in New Orleans and Josh is a perpetual student. He's currently studying geosciences at Princeton.”

“And what do your parents think of your decision to move to Montana?”

“They're trying to be supportive. They understand that I needed to make some changes in my life. They just wish I didn't have to make them so far away.”

“It could be worse,” Corey said philosophically. “You could have gone to New England.”

She smiled. “Which is what I remind them whenever they start complaining about how far away Thunder Canyon is from San Diego.”

“Do you get home to visit them very often?”

“Only once since I moved here,” she admitted. “I'd hoped to go back again for Thanksgiving, but that doesn't look like it's going to work out now.”

“It's hard being away from family, especially at the holidays.”

She nodded. “I don't think I've ever missed a major holiday with them.”

“So why don't you invite them to come here?”

She seemed startled by the suggestion. “I can't believe I didn't think of that.”

“Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to see the possible solutions to a problem.”

“That's exactly what you do, isn't it? Companies hire you to come in and determine what's not working, and you fix it.”

“I offer suggestions,” he clarified.

“And if a company doesn't take your suggestions?”

“People don't often ignore advice that they pay for, but it's always their choice.”

The waiter brought their lunches.

Erin plucked a curly fry from her plate and bit off the end. “How long does it usually take—your review and analysis?”

“Are you trying to figure out how long I'm going to be in Thunder Canyon?” he teased.

“I'm trying to make conversation,” she retorted, but the flush in her cheeks confirmed his guess.

“Well, the answer to that question is that it varies depending on the complexity of the problems. Is the company simply looking to improve its bottom line, or is it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? Is it a mom-and-pop operation or an international conglomerate?” He picked up his spicy barbecue chicken sandwich and bit into it.

“So it could be weeks or months,” she guessed.

He nodded, chewing.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I enjoy the challenge.”

“Is that why you're here with me now—because I turned you down the first time you asked me to dance?”

“
You're
here with
me,
” he pointed out. “And if you'd accepted my original invitation, the only thing that would have been different is that we would have shared our first dance sooner.”

“First dance?”

He grinned. “Yeah, I'm counting on there being more.”

She smiled back, not protesting his assumption this time. Then her gaze slid away, caught by something across the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that it wasn't a “something” but “someone”—her boss, Grant Clifton. But it wasn't the direction of her gaze that bothered him so much as the brief glimpse of yearning that he read in her eyes.

Then she focused on her plate again, and Corey was left to wonder if he'd just imagined the longing he thought he'd seen. He hoped so. He sure as heck didn't want to think that she was lusting after a man who was his friend, her boss and married to boot.

However, it would explain why she'd been resistant to his overtures. Not that he thought he was irresistible, but in his experience, most women were flattered by his attention and often sought him out, and he'd been trying to figure out why Erin seemed impervious to his legendary charms.

He'd considered the usual reasons—she was just getting over a failed relationship, she didn't like the color of his hair or his eyes, she thought he was too tall/too short or too young/too old, or she just wasn't attracted to him—although he'd discarded
that
possibility after their first kiss because he knew that a woman couldn't kiss a man the way she'd kissed him if she didn't feel at least some degree of attraction. It had never occurred to him that she might be infatuated with her boss.

“How's your sandwich?” Erin asked.

“Great,” he said, and picked it up again.

They chatted casually as they finished their lunches. He noticed that Erin was both attentive and entertaining, her focus never again wavering. Maybe he had imagined the look she'd sent in Grant's direction. Maybe she'd actually been looking at someone else's lunch—or their dessert. He'd dated a lot of women who looked enviously at the cheesecake on someone else's plate but refused to order their own.

“Dessert?” he asked her.

There was still a handful of fries on Erin's plate when she pushed it aside, shaking her head. “I couldn't eat another bite.”

“Not even a tiny slice of pecan turtle pie?”

She sighed wistfully. “As much as I love DJ's pecan turtle pie, I know they don't serve tiny slices.”

He flagged down their server and ordered a slice anyway, asking for it to be boxed so Erin could take it home.

The cake was delivered along with his credit card slip, and Corey slid the dessert across the table to her.

“I really don't need the three thousand calories in this box,” she told him. “But I'll say ‘thank you' anyway, knowing that I will savor every last bite while I'm watching
American Idol
tonight.”

“What do you watch on Fridays?” Corey asked, as they headed out of the restaurant.

“Nothing in particular.”

“Then how about catching a movie with me?” he suggested.

“What movie?” she asked.

“I don't even know what's showing,” he admitted.

“I would have expected you to find that out before you decided you wanted to go.”

“I just thought it would be fun to go to a movie with you.”

“I don't like horror flicks,” she warned him.

“You could snuggle up to me during the scary parts.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She laughed but shook her head. “All the parts are scary parts, and I'd have nightmares for a week.”

“Okay, no horror flicks,” he promised.

“And I'm not big on sci-fi, either.”

He nodded his understanding. “Aliens can be pretty scary.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”

“Of course not,” he said, but his lips twitched as he tried not to smile.

“Just for that, you have to buy the popcorn.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he told her, and he meant it.

She eyed him warily. “What are we doing, Corey?”

“Setting up a date.”

“Is it that simple?”

“For now.” They were back at the reception desk, and as much as he wanted to linger, he knew she needed to get back to work. “I'll give you a call to let you know what time on Friday.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Thanks for lunch.”

As she started around the counter, he caught her hand. She looked up at him, questioning, and he bent his head to touch his lips to hers. It was a quick and easy kiss that was over before she could think to protest about the inappropriateness of him kissing her at work.

“It was my pleasure,” he said, and walked away with a smile on his face.

H
e called her on Wednesday, ostensibly to discuss the movie schedule for Friday night. They talked for more than an hour.

They went to the local theater on Friday to see a romantic comedy that Erin had expressed an interest in. Corey grumbled about “chick flicks” throughout the drive back to her condo, but she'd heard him laugh out loud at different parts of the film so she knew he was only teasing.

Because she'd missed work on Monday, she agreed to cover Carrie's shift Saturday morning. She planned to spend the afternoon catching up on the chores she'd neglected during the week—most notably her grocery shopping and housecleaning. But Corey's truck was in her driveway when she got home from the Super Saver Mart, and when he asked her to go horseback riding again, it sounded a lot more fun than scrubbing her shower.

Afterward, they picked up a pizza and a bottle of wine
and took them back to Erin's. As she sat beside him on the couch, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace, she found it hard to believe that she'd only met him a week earlier. So much time seemed to have passed since then.

Sunday morning she awoke to find the snow blowing outside of her windows and decided that the near-blizzard conditions were reason not to venture out of the house. But Corey had no similar qualms because he came over shortly after lunch with some movies he'd rented, and they spent the rest of the afternoon snuggled together on her couch, munching popcorn and watching the original
Star Wars
trilogy. Because, despite her admitted lack of appreciation for the sci-fi genre, he somehow managed to convince her that the George Lucas masterpieces couldn't be so simply classified, and she soon found herself deeply engrossed in the movies.

As the final credits of
The Empire Strikes Back
scrolled on the screen, Erin's stomach began to grumble. Glancing at the glowing numbers on the DVD player, she was surprised to realize how quickly the afternoon had gone and it seemed natural to invite Corey to stay for dinner. Though she hadn't consciously thought about it while she'd been grocery shopping the day before, she'd picked up all the necessary ingredients for her mom's famous enchiladas and Corey seemed pleased by her invitation and happy to eat with her.

After dinner, they tidied up the kitchen together, but when Corey suggested that he should head out, Erin was the one to protest. She wanted to know if Leia succeeded in rescuing Han, to which Corey reminded her that the movie was about a lot more than a romantic subplot. But, of course, he put the third movie on.

It was late by the time he finally said good-night, and several inches of snow had fallen. Erin cringed at the sight
of the white stuff covering her car and her driveway, but she decided to ignore it until the morning. Corey wouldn't hear of it though and, after locating a shovel in the garage, insisted on clearing her steps and driveway. Although she appreciated not having to do it herself, she wasn't sure how she felt about his insistence on taking charge.

Not that she was really surprised—she'd instinctively known that he was the type of man who liked to be in control of any situation—but she didn't want him to think that she couldn't take care of herself. She prided herself on her self-sufficiency and independence. She didn't really want to battle with him over clearing snow, but she wanted him to know that she was capable. However, as she watched Corey clear her driveway, effortlessly tossing shovels full of snow aside, she had to admit that there were worse things than having a strong, handsome man around to perform such chores.

When he finished shoveling, she invited him to come back inside for a cup of hot chocolate to warm him up. He declined the drink but did come back inside to kiss her goodbye, and she couldn't deny that the heat they generated between them was—

She jolted as his ice cold hands slipped under her sweater and splayed against the bare skin of her back. Corey laughed and reached for her again, but she stepped away.

The wicked light in his eyes made her heart pound with anticipation; the sexy curve of his lips made her knees weak. She dodged around to the other side of the table, he feinted to the right and caught her when she turned in the opposite direction.

They were both laughing when her cell phone chimed.

Corey frowned. “Who would be calling at this hour?”

“It's a text,” she said, reaching for the phone to check the message. “From Grant.”

His hands dropped away and he reached for the jacket he'd hung over the back of a chair.

“Carrie called in sick for tomorrow, so he just wanted to give Trina and me the heads-up that we'll be on our own,” she explained.

“Didn't you cover for Carrie yesterday?”

She nodded. “She wanted the morning to get ready for a big date.” Which made her suspect that her coworker wasn't sick at all but was simply having too much fun with her date to want it to end just yet.

“So she's probably not sick at all,” Corey surmised.

Erin just shrugged because she knew she wasn't in any position to judge. Her own reasons for playing hooky the previous week might have been different, but she'd still called in sick when she really wasn't.

“Does that mean you'll have to work later tomorrow?”

“Only if someone on the afternoon shift calls in.”

“Or if Grant needs you to fill in somewhere else around the resort,” he guessed.

Was that an edge she heard in his voice, or was she imagining it?

“Since I started at the resort, I've never turned down any overtime that was offered because I never had any reason to. But if I have plans, I am allowed to say ‘no' to extra shifts,” she told him.

“Then you should know that we have plans for tomorrow night.”

He was taking charge again, and she wondered if she should protest. But she wanted to see him, so there really wasn't any point. Instead, she asked, “Are you going to tell me what those plans are?”

“As soon as I figure them out,” he said, and slid his arms around her waist again. She stiffened, remembering the shock of his icy hands against her skin, but he kept his
hands on the outside of her clothes this time. “Right now, I only know that I want to be with you.”

“That's good enough for me,” she told him, and tugged his head down to hers.

She'd never initiated a kiss before, and she could tell that she'd surprised him by doing so now. He kissed her back, but he let her set the pace, and when she withdrew, he let her go.

As she watched him drive away, she was already anticipating seeing him again, and that worried her—more than a little.

They were spending a lot of time together and people were beginning to talk. Corey didn't seem to care and Erin knew that she shouldn't either, but it bothered her that being seen with him seemed a noteworthy event to the residents of Thunder Canyon. For months, she'd managed to avoid speculation and scrutiny by mostly keeping to herself. And in the space of a week, he'd managed to thrust her into the spotlight.

She could have stopped seeing him. She didn't have to answer his calls, she didn't need to accept his invitations and she certainly wasn't under any obligation to respond to his kisses. But she enjoyed talking to him, she had a good time when they were together, and the passion he stirred inside of her refused to be ignored.

The problem was that spending so much time with Corey meant she didn't have any time to search for the answers she'd come to Thunder Canyon to find. Yet she'd waited almost twenty-six years already, so there wasn't any pressing urgency right now. And because she didn't know how long Corey would be staying in town, she was going to enjoy spending every minute with him that she could.

 

The following Tuesday afternoon, Corey was feeling bored with his own company so he called Dillon and asked
him to come out to the Hitching Post for a beer. He didn't re ally expect his newlywed brother to accept the invitation, but Dillon—abandoned by his wife and daughter for Holly Clifton's baby shower—said he'd be happy to meet him.

They opted to sit at the bar and within minutes were settled into their seats with frosty glasses of beer in front of them.

“I heard you've been spending a lot of time with Erin Castro,” Dillon said.

Corey didn't bother to ask where his brother had heard. In a town the size of Thunder Canyon, rumors spread faster than a bushfire in July.

“I like her,” he said simply.

But something in his tone must have given him away because Dillon's gaze narrowed. “You've only known her a week.”

A week and a half, actually, but he didn't think the clarification would mean much to his brother. “Sometimes you just know.”

Dillon shook his head as he munched on a pretzel.

“I think she might really be the one.”

“You think every woman might be the one.”

Corey couldn't deny that he'd made the same claim once or twice before. When he was younger, he'd trusted in the basic honesty and goodness of other people—and of women, in particular. As a result, he'd fallen in love readily and frequently. Then he'd met Heather, and he'd learned that people weren't always what they seemed. Although that experience had made him wary, there was something about Erin that urged him to open his heart and trust again, something about her innate sweetness that made him want to believe not just in her but in the way he felt when he was with her. “So I'm an optimist. But this time, it's different.
She's different—she's more real than any woman I've ever known.”

“Just…be careful,” Dillon cautioned.

He laughed. “You're warning me to be careful of Erin?”

“You don't know her very well,” his brother reminded him, casting a pointed glance at the portrait of the town's original “Shady Lady” hanging over the bar. “In fact, no one in Thunder Canyon really knows Erin that well.”

Corey didn't like the implication. “Why are you so suspicious? It's not as if entry past the town limits is by invitation only.”

“I'm…uncertain…of her reasons for coming to Thunder Canyon,” Dillon clarified.

“Maybe she just wanted a change of pace.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

Dillon tipped his glass to his lips, drank. “A rather vague response, don't you think?”

He hadn't thought so at the time, but his brother's question had him frowning now. “I think that she'll tell me more when she's ready.”

“Whenever that might be.”

He picked up his beer. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Just that she seems to ask a lot of questions without giving away any information about herself,” his brother noted.

Corey had noticed the same thing, and he'd admired her ability to draw out other people. It was a valuable skill for someone working in the hospitality industry, and it irked him that his brother was turning it into something negative.

“What have you got against Erin?”

“Nothing,” Dillon insisted. “I'm just suggesting that you take your own advice and look before you leap this time.”

He took a long swallow from his glass and tried not to wince at the “this time.” His brother was right—he had a habit of wanting to believe the best of people, and he'd ended up getting burned because of it. Maybe learning the details of Heather's job hadn't broken his heart, but the truth had dented the hell out of his pride and her lies had destroyed his trust.

But Erin was different. He was sure of it. “Maybe we should talk about something else,” he suggested.

“Anything in particular on your mind?”

“The resort.”

“What about it?” Dillon wondered.

“It's obvious that the recession has taken its toll on Thunder Canyon, and the resort is no exception.”

“You're not telling me anything I don't know,” Dillon said.

Corey reached for the bowl of pretzels. “I will,” he promised, and proceeded to outline the basic plan he'd worked up to attract new investors and capital to the resort.

 

Corey had late meetings on Wednesday, so Erin didn't see him again until Thursday when he stopped by the reservation desk to ask her if she wanted to go out for dinner that night. She was conscious of Trina and Carrie watching and growing weary of the talk around town, so instead of accepting his invitation, she offered to cook for him at her place again.

Corey said that he would bring wine and dessert, and he showed up promptly at seven o'clock with a bottle of pinot noir and a bakery box containing two wide slices of DJ's turtle pecan pie.

She'd marinated strips of steak in teriyaki sauce and
stir-fried the meat with red and green peppers, snow peas and carrots, then served it on top of hot basmati rice. It was a favorite recipe of Erin's because it required little time to cook and even less to prep, but Corey obviously enjoyed it as much as she did, as evidenced by the second helping that he finished as readily as the first.

“So why Montana?” Corey asked, tipping the last of the wine into Erin's glass. “What brought you here?”

Their conversation during dinner had mostly touched on inconsequential topics, so his question now seemed to come at her out of the blue. But she'd been regretting all the secrecy and evasions that had been part of any conversations she'd had since coming to town, and she was almost grateful for this chance to tell someone the truth. Or at least part of it.

“I was born in Thunder Canyon,” she told him now.

“No kidding?”

“I never actually lived here, but my parents were visiting my great aunt Erma when my mom went into labor ahead of schedule.”

“Does your aunt still live here?”

She licked the last bit of caramel from her fork and then pushed aside her empty plate. “She's the one who recently passed away.”