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He froze, his brain blanking, Hope’s soft, warm lips against his own. The briefest brush and then she’d gone back down on her feet again, the banked embers in the depths of her eyes glowing bright.

  He wasn’t often taken by surprise, but he was now. And he had no idea what to do about it. “What the hell was that for?” he demanded, his voice little more than a growl, her kiss reverberating through him, striking white-hot sparks of heat through his entire central nervous system.

  She didn’t look away, her expression challenging. Daring him. “I just wanted you to know that if you think we could ever be friends again, then you can think again.”

  His hands were in fists at his sides and he could feel something in him begin to pull at the chains he’d put on it. Something hungry. “Really?” His voice had gone even deeper, even rougher. “That’s a damn stupid way to prove it.”

  “Oh yeah?” Hope lifted her chin again. “Why?”

  He shouldn’t have done it, but it seemed like there were a lot of things he shouldn’t do that he did anyway. And besides, he couldn’t stop himself.

  His hands lifted, his fingers in the softness of her hair before he knew what he was doing, and he’d pulled her close, cradling her head in his hands, and his mouth was on hers again, taking what she’d offered him just before and more than that.

  She didn’t resist. Instead, she gave a little gasp and her mouth opened under his, her hands lifting to his chest and pressing against him.

  The kiss was everything he’d imagined all those lonely nights when he’d been a teenager, fantasies of Hope playing in his head. Everything he’d imagined and more. Hot and sweet. He could taste the fire at the heart of her and it ignited something in him, setting him burning.

  What the hell are you doing? You weren’t going to go there with her, remember?

  His heart was racing, the urge to pull her closer, kiss her deeper so strong he could barely think. Holding her was all he’d ever wanted to do and this was so much better than any of those fantasies…

  But he couldn’t take this further. He couldn’t. He was going to leave in the end, and he didn’t want to make things difficult for her. Didn’t want to complicate this for either of them.

  It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he forced himself to do it, lifting his mouth from hers, then opening his hands, letting her go, and stepping away. He was breathing very fast and so was she, her eyes wide and so dark they looked fathomless.

  Shock was written all over her flushed face, and she looked at him as if he were a complete stranger to her.

  A part of him liked that look very much indeed, but it wasn’t a part of him he was going to continue to indulge, so he forced the feeling away.

  “That’s why,” he said.

  Then, without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away from her for the second time in as many days.

  Chapter 8

  Hope waited until Mal had finished talking to Debbie Long before she leaned her hip against the store counter and said, “Got a minute, Mal?”

  Mal was a big man, tall and broad, in his midfifties, with a salt-and-pepper beard and tattoos up his heavily muscled arms. He’d owned Mal’s Market for a couple of decades, and the place tended to be where people congregated to gossip during the day. At least once they’d had breakfast at April’s and were waiting for the Moose to open.

  His gray gaze was very direct. “Why? You got something to say about this oil business?”

  “No. I was more interested in the phone calls you were getting.”

  After the meeting had ended the night before, Hope had decided to follow up on the calls that Nate and Mal had received, because they were suspiciously similar to the one Angela had gotten. Silas had said that it sounded like they were from the same person, but she’d wanted to be sure. Because if it was from the same person, then it was likely that the oil companies were aware of the reserves underneath Deep River and at least one of them wanted to get their hands on it.

  Which was going to complicate an already complicated situation.

  Even now, her mother had suspicions that Hope had known about the oil before the town meeting and was annoyed that Hope hadn’t told her, and she’d refused to talk about the phone call when Hope had asked her about it this morning. She’d told Hope she hadn’t made any decision about the lease just yet so quit asking her.

  That had irritated Hope, but pushing her mother wasn’t going to help, so she’d decided she might as well follow up on those calls now.

  It was certainly better than skulking in her back office and going over the accounts in an effort to avoid Silas and stop thinking about what had gone on between them the night before.

  Oh God, that kiss.

  She didn’t know what had possessed her to grab him by the T-shirt and pull him close. To go up on her toes and press her mouth to his. She’d been angry, yes. Because he’d decided he was going to stay and she didn’t want him to. She really didn’t want him to. She’d accepted his presence here only because it wasn’t going to be for too long, yet now he’d changed his mind; now he was going to stay on for a bit longer, and that made her…angry. And uncertain. And vulnerable in a way she hated. Then he’d started apologizing for how he’d left and mentioning that by staying and helping it would be a “start.” And she had a horrible feeling that what he meant by that was rebuilding the friendship they’d once had. She didn’t want any part of it, so she’d pulled him close and kissed him, thinking that it would distance him.

  Did you really think that? Or did you just want a taste of him?

  Hope shoved that thought away, as she did the memory of his hands in her hair, of how he’d tugged her close and kissed her back. A real kiss that time, not the light brush of her mouth that she’d given him.

  And her brain had been wiped clean, a fire burning bright inside her, leaping high, heating her blood, making her heart race and her breath catch. Making her want to get closer to him, touch him. Reach the passion that she knew was buried deep inside him but was there and burning for her. Only for her…

  “Phone calls from that guy, you mean?”

  Mal’s voice seemed to come from a long way away, and Hope almost shook her head to clear her brain of the memory of Silas’s kiss.

  “Yeah,” she said, hoping her voice sounded normal and not as thick and breathy as she feared. “I’m pretty sure it was the same guy calling Mom.”

  Mal rubbed at his bearded chin thoughtfully. “Not sure what to tell you. He left a couple of messages, but not a number. Said he’d call back in a day or so.”

  “Right.” Hope shifted against the counter. “I wonder if you should tell him that you’re interested, get him to leave a number. We might be able to figure out where he’s from if we have one.”

  Mal nodded slowly. “Yeah, was already considering doing that. I’m going to be asking him a whole lot of questions, believe me.”

  “Okay, sounds good.” She hesitated because part of her didn’t want to ask the question, let alone hear the answer. But Mal was an influential person in the community. People relied on him and his store, and they respected him as a person too. His opinion might very well sway a few people, and if she was going to own all of this, she needed to know his feelings on the subject.

  Except it seemed like he could tell that’s what she was going to ask because he folded his arms and looked at her. “You want to know what I think about this oil stuff, right? Well, I think it’s bullshit. I don’t know what Caleb was thinking getting some prospecting done, but that boy was all about caring for this town, no matter that he ran off and left it. So it seems to me he was probably thinking about using that oil and whatever came with it to our advantage.”

  Hope let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “I think you’re probably right. Cal would never have done anything to hurt this place, that’s for sure. But…I’m
not sure everyone’s going to agree on the oil.”

  The burly storeowner dropped his arms, put his hands on the counter, and leaned on them, giving her another of those measuring looks. “You’re taking a very dark view, Hope. The people of this town will put what’s good for Deep River first, mark my words. Money is only ever a short-term fix, and I reckon everyone will soon realize that. They’ll remember why they came to live here in the first place, what drew them, and they’ll understand what’s more important.”

  She didn’t know if they would, but she liked his optimism.

  You used to have that once.

  Yeah, she had. Until her grandfather died and she was left all alone to deal with it.

  Oh come on, when are you going to stop using that as an excuse to stay mad?

  The thought shot through her brain like a shaft of bright sunlight, illuminating the darker corners of her psyche. Corners she didn’t really want to examine, so she ignored it for the moment.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  “Of course I’m right,” Mal replied with a certainty that Hope found comforting. “You know I’m going to be talking to people about this and pointing out a few things to them. People might ridicule Gwen, but she’s not wrong about the environment. If there’s one thing we do well here and better than anywhere else, it’s the quality of nature. We don’t want to lose that to a bunch of rich assholes who only care about what’s underneath the ground and not about what’s on top of it.”

  But that was the problem—for most people, the environment was only a backdrop to their lives. It didn’t actually impact them, not when they had more pressing concerns such as feeding their families and paying their bills, earning enough to get them through the harsh winter.

  You need a plan. You need to figure out how to give those people something that the oil money can’t.

  “True,” she muttered, an idea turning over and over in her brain.

  “Hmmm,” Mal rumbled. “Looks to me like you’re thinking on something.”

  “Huh? Oh, maybe.” Not really, but it might turn into a viable idea all the same. Still, she wasn’t going to tell anyone about it just yet; she wanted to talk to Silas about it before—

  Shit. Silas was her first go-to? Really? Talk about falling back into old patterns.

  Or is it only depending on old friendships that never quite went away?

  Hope swallowed, then shoved herself away from the counter, because that was yet another thing she didn’t want to think about. “Thanks, Mal,” she said. “Keep me posted on those calls.”

  “Sure.” He gave her a speculative look. “So, I know the Quinn boy said he wasn’t going to stay, but it sure sounded like he was…”

  “No,” Hope said as firmly as she could. “He definitely isn’t.”

  * * *

  Virtually the next second after sending the email, Si’s phone began to vibrate on the desk. He glanced at the screen, knowing already who it would be calling him, and sure enough, it was Damon.

  Si leaned back in his chair and stared at the angrily vibrating phone, irritated and vaguely guilty yet not guilty enough to change his mind. His buddy wouldn’t like that Si had decided to stay another week, just until the next town meeting, but that was too bad. The guy would have to suck it up. He hadn’t told Si what his hurry was for getting back to LA, and since he hadn’t, Si had assumed it wasn’t life or death. Knowing Damon, it probably had something to do with him not liking being stuck in what he termed a “dull backwater,” but since dull backwaters wouldn’t kill him, Si had no sympathy.

  Still, that didn’t mean he wanted to have that conversation with the guy, especially when Si hadn’t fully sorted through his own strategy for staying here. And he needed to have one, especially after last night and that kiss.

  He’d gotten exactly zero sleep afterward, tossing and turning, his body hard and his mind full of hot, sweaty scenarios involving Hope naked and in his bed. But since he’d already decided that wasn’t going to happen, he’d had to get up and go stand under the shower with the water on cold for a good ten minutes.

  Even that hadn’t fully cleared his brain though, which was a problem. Because it meant another week in her vicinity, if not her company, and it wasn’t as if he could avoid her, not given where he was staying.

  Anyway, avoiding her would mean admitting that he was letting the attraction between them get to him, and there was no way he was going to do that. He’d spent thirteen years dealing with that particular problem, and he had it under control. One kiss wouldn’t kill it. He wasn’t like his old man, unable to resist the lure of his addiction.

  Hell, he could even consider this a test. If he was able to spend a week with Hope without touching her, with that kiss burning between them, he could do anything.

  The phone stopped vibrating. Then after a couple of seconds of silence, it started up again. Clearly, Damon was royally pissed.

  Si reached for the phone and picked it up, since he knew his friend wasn’t going to let this go. “Yeah, I’m staying,” he said before Damon could get a word in. “The situation is more volatile than I expected and I need to be here for Hope.”

  There was a silence.

  “And what about me?” Damon demanded in aggrieved tones. “What about these guys I’ve got lined up for my share of the business?”

  “You’ll have to tell them I’ll be another week.”

  “But—”

  “It’s just a week, Damon. You’ll live, for chrissake. It’s Juneau, not the pits of hell.”

  “Might as well be.”

  “You’ve been in worse places, come on.”

  “I know what’s going on,” Damon said, ignoring him. “It’s this friend of yours, isn’t it? Can’t tear yourself away from a fine piece of ass, hmm?”

  Silas scowled at the wall opposite him. “Call her that again and I’ll punch you in the face next time I see you.”

  “Sure, sure. Just calling it like I see it.”

  “You see nothing.”

  “Yeah, I don’t buy it,” Damon said. “You were all impatient to get back here, and now you’re making excuses to stay another week. That only happens when a woman’s involved, and believe me, I know.”

  “You don’t know a single goddamned thing since you never managed to stay with a woman beyond a single night.”

  “Lies. I’ve managed at least two.”

  “Whatever. This is about the town, nothing else. Now, got anything more you need to say to me?”

  Damon didn’t—or at least nothing but complaints, so Si cut short the conversation and disconnected the call before his friend could really get going.

  He had better things to do than listen to Damon complain. He wanted to formulate some kind of strategy for dealing with Deep River’s oil issue, especially for what to do with people who were thinking about signing over their leases or selling their mineral rights. And there would definitely be some people who wanted to do that—the town meeting had made that clear if nothing else.

  The really thorny issue was that people were totally within their rights to do whatever the hell they wanted with their leases. Mineral wealth and its possibilities were what the town had been founded on after all, and this was really no different.

  Except it was totally different. Oil drilling wasn’t grabbing a pickaxe and striking it against a rock wall. It would mean trucks and machinery and strangers. Oil employees would flood into the town, and there would need to be places to put them. Sure, it would mean money for the people of Deep River, new business opportunities springing up, but it would also mean a lot of other things. Mainly out-of-towners coming in, and no matter if they were good people or not, they would change the fabric of the town.

  Unease shifted inside him and he pushed back his chair, getting to his feet. He didn’t like that thought, didn’t like the idea of st
rangers suddenly living here, and not just oil employees either. There would be people who’d heard rumors of the oil reserves, all of them coming to see if they could grab a piece of it for themselves.

  Shit. It would be the gold rush days all over again. And not all of that was good.

  Thing was, the town was going to change whether everyone liked it or not, because the oil was a catalyst. They couldn’t change what had been found under the ground, and they couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, because news like that didn’t stay buried. Hell, the phone calls people were getting already was a good indication of that.

  Which meant that formulating a plan was imperative. Sitting back and doing nothing would only mean the change being dictated by other people, and if there was one thing he’d learned in the army, it was that he didn’t like being dictated to by other people. He didn’t want to be at the mercy of other people’s decisions, and neither did the people of Deep River.

  To stay in control of this, they needed to take charge, be proactive.

  Luckily he knew exactly how to be proactive.

  Time to go and talk to people, scout out the lay of the land, see how many of them were considering taking this to the oil companies. But first he needed to know where he stood legally when it came to the ownership of Deep River.

  Si reached for his phone and called his lawyer.

  Chapter 9

  Hope squinted at her computer screen, looking at the numbers that Sandy, who ran the Deep River Tourist Information Center, had given her. She’d swung by there after talking to Mal, the idea she’d had still turning over in her head, wanting to see what kind of info they had on tourist numbers. Sandy was an ex-marketing manager and had once worked for the Alaska Travel Industry Association. She was big into data and had run a few tourism campaigns for Deep River over the years. Her dating campaign—“Find love in the middle of nowhere!”—had been her most successful, and Hope had thought getting the numbers on that would be interesting.

  Sandy, naturally enough, had wanted to talk about the oil and what it was going to mean and how it was going to impact the town, but Hope had managed to escape with a few vague promises of catching up for coffee at some point.