She’d become accustomed to seeing him every day. To hearing him move around the house. To knowing that he was right down the hall from her every night. Without him there, something vital was missing. Even Nikki was moping around the house as if she’d lost her best friend.
The house was closed up for the night. There were no clients at the moment and the other employees lived in a separate log home on the other side of the compound. She and Nikki were alone and though she wasn’t scared, she was uneasy. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she shivered in her short cotton nightgown and stared out her bedroom window at the moonlit darkness beyond the glass.
“Where are you?” she murmured.
How long was he going to stay out there on his own? Why was he gone? She’d so hoped they’d made a connection on their two days in the woods together. She remembered with perfect clarity that deep, lingering kiss that still had her waking up in the middle of the night with her body aching and her heartbeat racing.
How could he just leave? Doesn’t he care if people worry?
Behind her on the bed, Nikki whined in sympathy.
But Daisy didn’t want sympathy. She wanted Jericho. Home. Where he belonged. Funny, but she hadn’t even realized until this moment that she’d already begun to think of this place as home. Strange how quickly she’d acclimated to being here. To this way of life. So completely different from life in the city, living on the mountain was slower yet so much more…fundamental. Here, everyone worked together to make sure life moved as it should. The employees at the camp were a family and she’d slid into their company so easily, she’d come to rely on all of them.
But when the head of their family was missing…
“Darn it, where are you?”
Chewing at her bottom lip, she ignored the growing chill in the room and wondered what it would be like here when the snow came. Would she still be here? Would Jericho still be avoiding her? Or would she be pregnant and already gone from this place?
The thought of that sent a curl of regret unspooling at the pit of her stomach. She’d never planned to stay here forever. But now that she’d been here a while, become a part of things, the thought of leaving left her feeling…empty.
But she would have her child, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t be alone anymore.
She would have her own family again.
“If he ever comes back,” she muttered.
Behind her, Nikki suddenly jumped onto all fours and let out a yip of excitement. Daisy turned to look at her dog, then swung around to gaze out the window again. Jericho, bathed in moonlight, stepped from the tree line and walked across the wide yard, stopping directly in front of the house.
Nikki leaped off the bed, hit the wood floor and skidded, her short nails clacking against the oak planks as she raced for the closed bedroom door.
But Daisy wasn’t watching her dog. Instead, her gaze was locked on the man standing in the yard. Moonlight stretched his shadow across the grass and outlined him in a pearly light that seemed otherworldly. In the stillness, he tipped his head back, looked up at her window and met her gaze. Heat sizzled through her and a part of her was amazed that she could feel such an intense reaction from the man at such a distance. She lifted one hand and laid her palm against the cold windowpane as if she could touch him if she concentrated hard enough. And in that instant, something of her thoughts must have transmitted themselves to him because his features went hard and taut and a moment later, he was stalking toward the house with purposeful strides.
Daisy whirled around, grabbed up her robe from the end of her bed and pulled it on as she raced across the room. She threw the door open and Nikki burst free, flying down the hall and then the stairs, headed for the front door. The little dog got there just as Jericho opened it and when he stopped on the threshold, Nikki went up on her hind legs and waved her forepaws at him in celebration.
Daisy stood at the top of the stairs, breath caught in her chest as she watched him bend down, scoop up the dog and stoically accept Nikki’s kisses.
“She missed me,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“She’s not the only one,” Daisy told him. Her earlier frustrations and worry and anger were forgotten now in the rush of heat swimming through her system. Just looking at him made her knees weak. Locking her gaze with his fed her fantasies and sent her pulse rate into a gallop.
His mouth went straight and grim. He set the dog on the floor then closed the front door behind him.
“Why did you leave?”
“To get some distance from you.” His eyes were stormy, dark, and flashed with emotions that shifted too quickly for her to make sense of them.
“How’s that working for you?”
One corner of his amazing mouth lifted briefly. “Not well.”
“I’m glad.”
“You shouldn’t be,” he said and dropped his pack beside the door. Shrugging out of his jacket, he tossed it at the hall tree and didn’t seem to care when it missed and fell to the floor.
Daisy’s insides twisted as she drew one long, shaky breath. She hadn’t expected this, she thought wildly. Hadn’t thought that he would be the one to come to her. She’d expected to have to seduce him into bed. But looking into his eyes left her little doubt that Jericho King was a man on a mission.
And lucky her, she was that mission. She felt it. She sensed it in the very air surrounding them. It was bristling with tension, with a sexual energy and heat that was strong enough to light a dozen homes through a cold, dark winter.
She laid one hand on the banister and held on as she watched him walk slowly toward the staircase.
“I knew you were going to be trouble,” he said tightly. “The minute I saw you, I knew.”
“Is that right?”
“Tried to get rid of you, remember? Tried to talk you out of staying.”
“You did,” she agreed.
“But when you wouldn’t listen, I decided to just ignore you,” he admitted, taking the steps with a deliberate slowness. “Finally went out on the mountain just to get some space. Clear my head. Thought I could put you out of my mind, but you wouldn’t go. You stayed.”
Heat pooled in her belly then dipped lower, warming her through and setting up a tingling ache that throbbed at her center.
“I think about you even when I know I shouldn’t,” he told her as he came closer.
“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” she told him and her heartbeat fluttered unsteadily. “And you were gone so long, I was worried about you.”