Page 11 of Rocky Mountain Devil
A lothadhappened.
Laurel gazed across at her best friend who had no idea what had shaken down in her recent life. The only way to know if they had a future, though, was to try.
She nodded firmly in acceptance. “September sixth? It’s a date.”
His smile widened. “Hell, yeah, it’s a date. I’ll pick you up.”
“Wait—” She hesitated to mention it, but… “What about Trevor? He saw you in the library. He knows something’s going on.”
Rafe’s grin morphed back to hisaww-shucksone. “I told him I was lusting over you, but too chicken to ask you out.”
Her jaw fell open, and she hurried to snap it back into position. “You?Chicken?Does he evenknowyou?”
“Not as well as he thinks.” Rafe’s smile faded.
Definitely things to relearn about each other.
She eyed him for a long moment, wondering what was the right move next. Did she shake his hand then head home? Hug him farewell?
Kiss him passionately the way she really wanted to?
“Not only have you failed to learn how to lie, you’ve got a terrible poker face.” Rafe cupped her chin. “I want to kiss you too, but we’re waiting, remember?”
She flushed. “Then why even mention it?”
“Because I want you to think about it all summer while we’re apart. Think about how the next time I see you, we won’t be waiting anymore.” The deep velvet of his voice stroked her as surely as the motion of his thumb over her lips. “When I see you in September, I’m going to take a hell of a long time relearning how you taste, and what makes you moan, and what makes you scream.”
The temperature seemed to have soared in the past few minutes.
Laurel made a show of fanning herself if only to distract him from how hard her pulse was beating—had to be nearly loud enough he could hear it. “Good job, DC.”
Rafe raised a brow. “Devil child? Wow, I haven’t heard that one for a long time.”
“If the shoe fits…” She rose to her feet, walking at his side back to the parking lot.
“It doesn’t fit,” he insisted as she crawled into her car. He lowered himself beside her, reaching across her lap to do up her seatbelt. The movement squeezed them together for a brief instant, and she sucked for air.
“I’m not a child anymore,” he informed her clearly. He pressed his lips to her cheek then murmured, “I’m all grown up, and I can’t wait to prove it to you.”
She had trouble swallowing as he stepped back, offering a cocky smile before sauntering away.
Chapter Three
September 5th
The sky overhead was robin-egg blue, with not a single wispy cloud anywhere to be seen—a typical Alberta fall day. It was warm enough Rafe had his window rolled down as he traveled the final miles along a familiar gravel road.
He pulled to a stop at the top of the hill to stare over the Angel Coleman land. From his vantage point, the new buildings he and his brother had raised the past couple years shone in the midday sun. Bright red barns with cheerful white trim turned the pastoral scene into something out of a magazine. There was no sign of Gabe’s house, though, except for a welcoming thread of smoke rising from the thick forest hiding it from the road.
The log building might be out of sight, but Rafe knew behind those trees sat a house full of warmth and laughter.
His gaze drifted farther to the west where the original Angel homestead lay on a small rise across from Crown land, the buildings worn by time. The ravages of neglect were clear even from this distance.
As he restarted the engine and headed toward Gabe’s, the contrast between what his brother had and what Rafe had to look forward to hit hard. Back at the homestead there would be no welcoming fire, no homey goodness to anticipate. At least not yet…
It had been good to be away for the summer. Hard, because he was itching to get together with Laurel, but after twenty-two years in the same place, two months on the road had given him a new appreciation for coming home.
Home meaning the people he loved, not the building he’d grown up in.
