A Little Bit Cupid: A Collection of Short Stories Read online

  She crossed her arms and arched a brow. “All right then.” She took several strides toward the other side of the road.

  After starting the engine, I made sure the four-wheel drive was engaged. I tested it lightly to see if she had any traction on that one rear wheel. Not a damned bit. After a quick scan to get the lay of the vehicle’s controls, I shifted into differential gear. As soon as I felt it click into place, I gave the gas pedal a little pressure and felt the strong grind of the axle.

  In another moment, the SUV bounced forward, and I heard a squeal from Daphne. I couldn’t look her way just yet and eased the vehicle onto the road before I put it in park and cut the engine. When I climbed out, my mouth fell open. Daphne was covered in mud.

  I bit back a smile. I didn’t how the hell that happened. From where she’d been standing, she should’ve been clear from the mud spray. When I met her eyes, a look of shock held for a beat before she threw her head back with a laugh.

  Fuck me. Princess had a deep, throaty laugh when she let it loose.

  I chuckled when she met my eyes again as her laughter slowed. “Oh, my God. I tried to be helpful and walked behind to give it a little push.”

  “You pushed?”

  “No,” she said, looking sheepish as she shook her head. She lifted a hand to smear some of the mud off her cheek. Not that it did anything to help. “I got back there right when whatever you did worked. The mud splattered all over me.”

  Daphne looked down. There was mud on her face, in her hair, and covering the entire front of her pretty blue blouse. There were splashes of mud on her skirt and her knees.

  Hot damn, she looked sexy as hell covered in mud.

  I was losing my mind. This out of nowhere and inconvenient attraction to Daphne made absolutely no sense.

  I tried to keep from laughing when she looked back up at me. She rolled her eyes, and that dimple made a sweet appearance when she smiled. “It’s okay. You can laugh.”

  I chuckled softly. “I’m sorry. You just don’t seem the type to get all muddy.”

  Her smile faded, and something flickered in her eyes, but she shuttered it quickly. “I aim to change that. Now, perhaps you can show me the way to the lodge. If you didn’t notice, my dashboard seems to be flickering in and out. My GPS is broken, and there’s no cell phone reception here, so I wasn’t sure if I was headed in the right direction.”

  “Well, gotta give it to you. You just kept on going.”

  She nodded, her chin lifting a bit again.

  “Follow me then.”

  Chapter Three

  Daphne

  About ten minutes later, I stood beside Flynn and completely forgot I was covered in mud. “Oh, wow,” I breathed reverently. “It’s even prettier than the pictures.”

  Flynn’s unsettling, sharp gaze angled to mine. This was the closest I’d gotten to him. His eyes were like nothing I’d ever seen. The blue was encircled with a dark rim, almost as if an artist had shaded charcoal around the edges. “It’s definitely nice,” he commented.

  “Nice?”

  He shrugged. “Okay, beautiful.”

  The tiny hitch at one corner of his lips was enough to send my belly spinning in flips. Oh. My. God. If this man ever graced me with a full smile, I’d probably climb him like a freaking tree.

  Walker Adventures was heralded as one of Alaska’s premier outdoor expedition lodges. It was a stone’s throw from Diamond Creek, which I understood to be a town with plenty of restaurants and tourist attractions, but it was hard to imagine anything resembling civilization nearby. It truly felt as if we were in the middle of nowhere.

  Spruce trees surrounded us. The lodge, a massive timber-frame building that looked like an extremely nice home had dark stained wooden siding with a steel blue roof and was covered almost entirely in solar panels. The building was the shape of an octagon with floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides and all three floors.

  Flynn strode ahead of me and paused by the stairs, which led up to a deck that wrapped all the way around the structure. He’d insisted on getting my bags and held one hooked over his shoulder and the other in his hand. “You ready to go in?”

  I hadn’t realized I’d frozen in place while my eyes absorbed the view. With trees to one side, the lodge was set in the hills and offered an expansive view of the mountains on the other side. Those same bright fuchsia flowers I’d seen on my drive were in clusters along the hillside. The view spilled out to an ocean bay in the distance with mountains on the far side.

  “Yes!” I hurried to catch up to Flynn.

  The heel of my boot caught on a piece of gravel in my rush. I kicked it aside and stumbled slightly when I reached him. Flynn reached out to steady me, his free hand curling around my arm. His touch felt like a hot brand, and heat rushed through me.

  “Have you forgotten you’re covered in mud?” he asked, one side of his mouth tilting up in the slightest hint of a grin.

  Oh, God. He needed not to smile and definitely not to touch me. I swallowed as I tried to catch a breath. Although we were in rarefied mountain air, it suddenly seemed in short supply.

  Looking down, I kept my sigh silent as I gathered myself. Dear God. I was an utter mess, literally and figuratively. When my eyes lifted to meet his again, and I saw the glimmer of warmth, I decided it couldn’t be all that bad. Although I’d been born and raised to care deeply about appearances, I’d learned in the most brutal ways possible that appearances didn’t matter. Not at all.

  “I suppose I did forget about the mud,” I offered with a brave smile.

  “Come on in then.”

  Flynn gestured for me to climb the stairs in front of him. I figured the back of me looked better than the front, so I hurried up and waited by the doors.

  “It’s not locked,” he said when he crested the top of the stairs.

  “Oh,” I squeaked before reaching to open the door. Considering he had my bags, the least I could do was get the door.

  I stepped inside with Flynn following me. The entryway was tiled in slate gray. Rows of hooks on both walls flanked either side of the door with grates on the floor.

  I eyed the grates curiously, and Flynn must’ve seen my puzzlement. “That’s for during winter. When people come in with snowy boots and gear, the water drains instead of pooling on the floor. Don’t worry, it’s not open to the outdoors. It’s only about two inches under the floor and feeds into our drainage system.”

  “Oh, that’s handy,” I offered as I glanced up at him.

  His gaze scanned my face, but I didn’t know how to read his expression. He seemed quite skilled at keeping his thoughts hidden. Being an expert at that myself, I never held it against a person. Holding one’s own counsel was important.

  “Let me show you your room,” he said as he walked past me.

  He led me through the tall archway into another room. Just beyond the archway were two doors on either side. The rest of the space was wide open. The hardwood floors gleamed under the sun shining through the windows. To one side, a soapstone woodstove was surrounded by small sectional sofa and a few chairs. Another area had low bookshelves with more chairs, and then yet another area had a larger sectional couch with a television that came down from the ceiling. Without a single wall to divide the space, it somehow felt like three separate rooms due to the layout and flow.

  I followed Flynn across the room to discover a pretty spiral staircase tucked in the corner. We crested the top stair, and he led me down the hallway before opening a door. The room had a view out over the field with the ocean glittering in the distance.

  I took in the clean, minimalist furnishings. A fluffy cream-colored quilt decorated the queen-size bed with a nightstand on either side and a dresser across from the foot of the bed just beside the door where we stood. Flynn set my bags on the floor in front of the dresser and pointed at the door on the side of the room. “Shower’s in there.”

  He turned, about to disappear through the doorway.

  “Flynn.” />
  He turned back, and this man was, simply put, all man—raw, rugged strength exuded from him. There was a hint of grace to the way he arched his brow. “Yeah?”

  “The website said there were meals.”

  My words weren’t quite a question, but Flynn nodded. “Yes. There are meals, princess.”

  I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from reacting to that little nickname. There was no way he could’ve known I’d been given that very nickname when I was a little girl.

  By the time I’d showered and changed into a pair of jeans with low-heeled boots and a mud-free cotton blouse, I could hear the murmur of voices and presumed another group of guests had arrived.

  I didn’t know why, but I felt a little anxious. I couldn’t get Flynn’s eyes—intense and striking—out of my mind. And every time he called me princess, a flash of irritation struck, followed immediately by a little kick in my pulse.

  With a mental shake, I paused at the doorway, the feel of the doorknob cool under my palm before I turned it. On the heels of a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and walked down the hallway.

  A tall, lanky young man came out of another door at an angle across the hallway. When he saw me, he cast me a quick grin. “Hello there.”

  I knew almost instantly this young man had to be related to Flynn. He had the same amber hair kissed by the sun and those unique blue eyes with smoky edges.

  “Hi,” I managed politely.

  He dipped his head in acknowledgment and gestured for me to walk ahead of him. “You must be Daphne,” he said as we descended the spiral staircase.

  “I am. How did you guess?”

  “Well, the rest of the guests are here, and I haven’t met a Daphne yet. I’m Grant,” he offered when he stopped beside me at the base of the stairs. “Nice to meet you.” His hand engulfed mine as he spoke. He was just as tall as Flynn but appeared younger.

  “Nice to meet you as well,” I said as I dropped his hand.

  When I turned, I saw roughly ten people meandering about the common areas downstairs.

  “If you’re hungry,” Grant offered, “head on into the kitchen.”

  I followed where he pointed and went through one of the doorways flanking the archway into the main entrance. There were trays of hors d’oeuvres running along the counter.

  Although the space felt homey, it was clearly an industrial kitchen with massive appliances. Flynn was doing something on the stove at an island opposite the counter against the wall, and there was a large rectangular table by the windows that faced into the trees.

  Flynn glanced up at my entrance. Something flashed briefly in his eyes as I approached, but it was gone before I could interpret it. “All cleaned up, I see,” he said by way of greeting.

  I felt the heat in my cheeks. I didn’t even want to think about my reaction to Flynn. It seemed all I had to do was get close, and I got rattled.

  “Anything to drink?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Beer or wine, or something else?”

  “Wine please. Red if you have it.”

  Flynn nodded and turned off the burner under a pan he’d been stirring. In another moment, he was filling a glass with a dark red wine.

  “So, you fly planes, fetch errant guests when they get stuck in the mud, and cook?” I teased politely.

  Flynn turned to pass the glass of wine across the counter to me. Our fingers brushed, and a jolt of electricity sizzled up my arm. It felt as if little licks of fire chased over the surface of my skin in the wake of that subtle touch.

  His hand dropped away, and I curled my fingers around the wine glass, an anchor in the moment. His lips kicked up at one corner, and my belly was tickled by the butterflies that quickly amassed.

  “I don’t usually cook, but it’s not because I can’t. I’m more in charge of the flying and the fetching errant guests. Our chef quit last week, so we’re shorthanded. I’m covering until then.”

  “Oh.” Brilliant answer. To mask my nervousness, I took a sip of wine, too quick, and too much. I sputtered and felt the cool wine strike my blouse as it splattered.

  I met Flynn’s eyes, which held a subtle gleam. “I seem to make a mess whenever I’m near you,” I managed. My cheeks were flaming hot, and I wished I could will the heat away.

  Chapter Four

  Flynn

  Three weeks later

  “Daphne!” I called.

  She turned, and her auburn hair lifted in the breeze. I’d become accustomed to the low hum of electricity that ran through my body like a repeating circuit around her and willfully ignored it.

  “Yes?” She approached where I was standing beside my small Cessna plane.

  In the three weeks Daphne had been here, she stopped wearing blouses and nice boots but somehow still looked like a princess. Today, she wore a pair of jeans that fit like a glove, molding to her toned thighs before disappearing into a pair of hot pink rubber boots with black polka dots. Atop that, she wore a fitted T-shirt that had Kickass Woman emblazoned in pink glitter directly over her breasts.

  “Mind sitting on the wing?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?” she countered in a crisp, yet incredulous tone.

  “Yeah, I need a little weight to lower the back of the plane. I think you’re the perfect size.”

  Daphne’s mouth fell open before she snapped it shut quickly. “I don’t even know how to interpret that comment.”

  “Just being practical, princess.”

  She never said a word to me about it, but I knew it annoyed her when I called her that. I just couldn’t resist getting under her skin. Perhaps it was because she was under my skin all the fucking time, in all the wrong ways. Maybe I should’ve wondered about that, but I tried to avoid thinking too much about Daphne. She invaded my senses so thoroughly, avoidance was my only escape.

  “Happy to help. I just don’t think I can climb up there,” she said as she eyed the plane wing in question.

  “Come here,” I replied, gesturing with a hand.

  When she stepped closer, I rested my hands at her waist. Mistake. Big mistake. I’d spent three full weeks studiously avoiding getting too close to Daphne. Touching her was like touching a live wire as far as my senses were concerned. Every nerve ending sparked and vibrated to her frequency.

  I had no choice but to forge ahead. I could feel the heat of her skin through her thin cotton T-shirt. I had to clear my throat to speak. “Ready?” I asked, my voice coming out husky.

  Daphne’s jade eyes held mine, darkening as we stared at each other. For one completely insane second, I almost kissed her.

  What snapped me out of it was when she lifted her chin slightly. She did that whenever she was uncertain about something. Those moments had become less frequent in the time she’d been here. Although she hadn’t shared much, I could’ve guessed she was a city girl through and through.

  “Ready,” she whispered, the hitch in that single word sending a tendril of silk around my heart. Sweet hell. It was bad enough to want Daphne. I did not need to feel something for her.

  I lifted her quickly, sliding her hips on the plane wing. As I knew it would, the plane dipped down in the back, lowering the back door to make it easier for me to help an elderly passenger in.

  Against every ounce of common sense I had, my hands stayed right where they were, curled around her hips. I could feel the soft give of her flesh under my grip. When I looked up, I saw the rapid flutter of her pulse in her neck. My mouth watered. That was how much I wanted to lean forward and taste her skin.

  I stepped back abruptly. “Excellent.”

  After I helped the elderly woman who’d come to our lodge with her adult daughter and son-in-law into the plane and the other two passengers, I turned to help Daphne down off the wing.

  I didn’t know if it was better or worse that I tried to steel myself for the jolt of lust I knew would hit me the moment I placed my hands on Daphne again.

  Worse, definitely worse. Because my effort was useles
s.

  The moment I set my hands on her hips, her scent drifted to me. For some reason, a hint of sugar clung to her. I’d never thought of anyone as delicious, but that was exactly how I knew Daphne would taste. In more ways than one.

  I lifted her swiftly, practically jumping back once her feet were level on the gravel. “You get the view today,” I said as I gestured toward the front of the plane.

  “I do?” Her pretty green eyes lit up, and it felt as if another tendril of silk spun around my heart.

  I might be cynical, and I might be too damned busy to deal with a woman who was so clearly out of her element, but I loved how expressive Daphne was. Sometime last week, a mama moose and a pair of triplet calves were meandering through the field in front of the lodge, and Daphne’s entire face had been awash in wonder and awe.

  In an effort to curb my reaction to her, my response came out sharp. “Sure do.”

  Rounding the front of my small plane, I opened the door and gestured for her to climb in. Fuck me. As she climbed in, I had a perfect view of her heart-shaped ass. It sent another bolt of need slamming through me.

  I was pretty sure she thought I was a fucking asshole since I was easily annoyed and with an edge of cranky whenever I was around her. All things considered, she was probably right. I was relieved she’d be gone from the lodge in another week, and I could get back to being normal, as my little sister had pointed out at the other day.

  Actually, what Cat asked was, “What the hell is wrong with you, Flynn? Can’t you just be normal cranky?”

  A few hours later, I had delivered three of my passengers to their next destination at a lodge on the outskirts of Willow Brook, Alaska, and was planning to head straight back home with Daphne. When she asked to go along today because she wanted to see the mountain range from above, I’d said yes, thinking we’d have company. I’d inconveniently forgotten our company was only for the first leg of the trip.