“Nothing?” He leaned across and brushed his thumb over her mouth, and she stilled, feeling that touch right through her.
“What are you doing?”
“Removing chocolate from your lips.”
“I could have done that.”
“I guess you could.” He lowered his hand slowly. “But I did it.”
Heart pounding, she touched her fingers to her mouth where his had been only moments earlier. “Do all the O’Neils touch a lot? Last night your mother wanted to hug me, and she’d only just met me.”
“My mother has always known how to give a warm welcome. Does it bother you?”
Yes, it bothered her. “I suppose I’m not used to it.”
“You don’t come from a family of huggers?”
“Why are you so interested in my family?”
“Just a friendly question, Kayla. But if it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer.”
It made her uncomfortable. He made her uncomfortable.
She tried not to look at the width of those shoulders or the warmth of his gaze. “My family wasn’t tactile.”
“Wasn’t?”
“I mean isn’t.” Unused to talking about her family, she handled it clumsily, but he let it go.
“How did you end up in public relations?”
The shift in conversation was a relief. “When I graduated, I went for an interview with an advertising agency in London. They had a sister PR agency and during my interview they decided I was exactly what they were looking for. It took about six months to discover I had an aptitude for finding media angles and selling them to the press. After that I was promoted pretty quickly.”
“It must have been hard, moving to the U.S.”
“Not really. I didn’t have anything keeping me in London.”
“Your family isn’t there?”
And, just like that, they were right back to that question. “My mother lives in New Zealand. My father, in Canada.”
“So you were on your own in the U.K.?”
She’d been on her own for as long as she could remember. “It’s fairly common for families to be scattered these days.” Scattered was a good word. Lost might have been a better one.
She thought about the envelope waiting for her back in the cabin. Last year, the envelope had stayed untouched until February when she’d finally cleared out the bottom of her in-tray.
She was terrified Jackson was going to press her for more details, but he levered himself to his feet. “Are you done? I want to show you the ice waterfall before I take you skiing.”
Deciding that skiing had to be preferable to talking about her family, Kayla finished her drink and followed him to the snowmobile.
He stood steady in the deep snow, legs spread as he pulled on his gloves. “Do you want to drive?”
Remembering the twisty, turning trails and the skill he’d shown maneuvering the snowmobile, she shook her head. “Not this time. I’d rather let you do the work. When it comes to physical effort I’m inherently lazy.”
“So you’re a lie-back-and-let-it-happen sort of woman? That surprises me.” The gleam in those blue eyes made her feel as if she’d stepped off a cliff.
“Are you flirting with me?” She breathed and felt cold air rush into her lungs. Unfortunately it did nothing to cool the heat of her skin. “Because if you are, I’d have to warn you that you’re wasting your time.”
“It’s my time.” His gaze steady on hers, he picked up his helmet. “Up to me how I choose to waste it.”
“Just as long as you know I’m not good at personal relationships.”
“Who told you that?”
“No one. I have impressive self-insight. I know what I’m good at. I know what I’m bad at. I’m bad at relationships. Not just bad, terrible. The truth is I find work more interesting than any man.” There. She’d said it. And he was still standing there. Still watching her with eyes that saw far, far too much.
“Surely that would depend on the man.”
“I’d rather check my emails than go on a date. And if I do go on a date, I still check them.”
“Is that right?” He reached out and tilted her chin, and she froze, but all he did was zip her jacket to her throat and smile at her. “The internet connection is pretty unpredictable up here. You might have to find another way to occupy yourself on a date, Kayla.”
“I don’t intend to go on a date. I’m here to work.”
“So your plan for dealing with chemistry is to pretend it doesn’t exist?”
“Chemistry?” The word came out like a croak, and his eyes creased at the corners.
“Yeah, that chemistry. Seems to me we have two choices here. We can try to ignore it or we can go with it and see where we end up.”
“Option one works for me.”
“That could give me a problem.”
Her mouth was dry. “Why?”
“Because I’m leaning toward option two.” For a crazy, heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Then his smile widened and he stepped away. “The snow is likely to be deep up ahead. Hold on tight.”
That was it? He was going to throw out a statement like that and then just leave it there? Leave her all jumbled up and thrown off balance?
Feeling as if she’d stuck her hand into a naked flame, Kayla climbed on behind him.
She hesitated and then curved her arms around his waist. The hardness of his thighs pressed against hers, and she was torn between pulling back and falling off or drawing closer. In the end she drew closer and found herself pressed against masculine power and strength. Her heart was banging against her ribs, and her hands were shaking so much she was sure he was going to feel it.
And no doubt he’d say something, because he wasn’t a man who backed down from anything. Instead of ignoring the chemistry, he’d addressed it. Instead of being frozen out by her lack of response, he’d seemed amused.
As they traveled along the snowy trail she ceased to think about the forest or work, and thought about him.
She was so lost in the moment she didn’t even realize they’d stopped moving.
“This is it. We walk the rest of the way.”
“Walk?” She slid off the machine, conscious that it was just the two of them. They were alone, and out here in the wilds of the forest alone meant alone. “Just how far away is this ice waterfall?”
“Through the trees. This is as close as we can get on the snowmobile. We have to walk a little way down the trail. It’s groomed so you shouldn’t have trouble.”
She didn’t.
Her feet crunched on the surface of packed snow and soon they were enveloped by the silence of the forest. Jackson was slightly ahead and she was gazing at the width of his shoulders when he stopped suddenly. She crashed right into those shoulders and would have fallen again had he not grabbed her hand and hauled her against him.
“Look.” It came as naturally to him to touch as it did to her to keep herself at a distance, but she didn’t have long to dwell on that because they’d reached a break in the trees and there, towering above them was a cascade of ice, a frozen