She shook her head, amused, as she took another long sip. “Spoken like a man from the big city.”
“No, spoken like a man who’s been around, who knows that human nature isn’t always as kind as we’d like it to be.”
There was more, but it wasn’t his place to tell her about Alison, about the way a trusted family friend had, under the guise of comforting her over her father’s death, gone too far and scarred her so much as a young woman that it became almost impossible for her to ever be intimate with a man. That had it not been for Luc and his overwhelming gentleness, his sister might still be alone and hurting. It would have proved his point, but he had no intentions of revealing Alison’s personal business to do it.
Finishing her beer, she set her glass down on the bar and then looked at him. A slight frown played on her lips. “Why do you do that?”
He didn’t follow her. “Do what?”
Her brow furrowed with impatience. “Why do you talk as if you’re an old man?”
He wasn’t aware that was what he was doing, only that he was trying to make her a little less trusting. Better safe than sorry. “Well—”
“You’re not, remember? I thought we settled that on the plane.” She cut him off before he could offer an explanation. She didn’t want one, all she wanted was for him to realize that he was still in the prime of his life.
He looked around. It was hard to judge how old most of the men in the area were. But he felt it safe to venture that they were closer to his age than to hers. “Maybe not if you consider the men in the bar.” And then he looked pointedly at her. Funny, she made him feel old and young at the same time. But chronology was chronology. “But I am, in comparison to you.”
She was very, very tired of being thought of as the baby in the bunch. She’d already run her own business and sold it at a profit and was now engaged in a second career. What did it take to get through to these people that she was a grown woman?
“I’m not a child.”
He smiled at her. “I didn’t say that.”
She didn’t care for the indulgence she saw in his eyes. She didn’t like being humored or patronized, only acknowledged. “And I can take care of myself.”
He nodded. “You already said that.”
Annoyed, she blew out a breath, trying not to lose her temper. “So, what is there left to say?”
She reminded him a great deal of his sisters when they were being particularly stubborn. “Anything you want.”
Somehow, through the ebbing and flowing of the crowd, they’d managed to be moved toward the door again. She took a deep breath of the outside air that had found its way into the establishment and calmed down a little. “All right, why are you so sad?”
He could only shake his head. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
She knew she was outspoken and made no apologies for it. “We live life at a different pace up here. We don’t move fast, but we don’t miss an opportunity to say what we mean, either. We’ve got earthquakes, avalanches and cabin fever, and there might not be another chance, so we don’t pass them up when they come.” She fixed him with a penetrating look. “And you’re avoiding the question. Why are you so sad?”
When she looked at him like that, he found he had trouble focusing his thoughts. “I’m not sad.”
“Now you’re lying,” she said with equal bluntness. June shrugged. “That’s okay, you don’t have to answer my question. To you, I’m just a nosy stranger.”
He didn’t want her to think that was the way he saw her. Or that he was deliberately shutting her out. June was family, even if just extended, and family was the most important thing in the world to him. It always had been. “My whole family’s up here. I miss them.”
The answer was simple from where she stood. “Then stay.”
She was very, very young, wasn’t she? “Things are more complicated than that.”
She decided she liked him. Really liked him. And as such, she decided that he needed her help. The man had to lighten up just a little or he really was going to become old before his time.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, commanding his undivided attention. “Things only get as complicated as you let them, Kevin.”
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