The Pines Of Winder Ranch: A Cold Creek Homecoming / A Cold Creek Reunion. RaeAnne Thayne

inviting in the cold air and he was vaguely aware through the haze of his own desire that she didn’t pull away, as he might have expected.

      Instead, she wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned into his kiss for more.

      A low clamor in his brain warned him this was a crazy idea, that he would have a much harder time keeping a safe distance between them after he had known the silky softness of her mouth, but he ignored it.

      How could he possibly step away now, when she tasted like coffee and peaches and Tess, a delectable combination that sizzled through him like heat lightning?

      Her lips parted slightly, all the invitation he needed to deepen the kiss. She moaned a little against his mouth and he could feel the tremble of her body against him, the confused desire in the slide of her tongue against his.

      The night disappeared until it was only the two of them, until he was lost in the unexpected hunger for this woman in his arms. Her kiss offered solace and surrender, a chance to put away for a moment his sadness and embrace the wonder of life in all its tragedy and glory.

      He lost track of time there in the moonlight. He forgot about Jo and about his efforts to find his recalcitrant foster brother and his worries for Easton. He especially refused to let himself remember all the reasons he shouldn’t be kissing her—how, as he’d told her, he wasn’t even sure he liked her, how he still didn’t trust that she wasn’t hiding a knife behind her back, ready to gut him with it at the first chance.

      The only thing that mattered for this instant was Tess and how very perfect she felt in his arms, with her mouth eager and warm against his.

      A coyote howled from far off in the distance, long and mournful. He heard it on the edge of his consciousness but he knew the instant the spell between them shattered and Tess returned to reality. In the space between one ragged breath and the next, she went from kissing him with heat and passion to freezing in his arms like Windy Lake in a January blizzard.

      Her arms fluttered away from around his neck and he sensed she would have backed farther away from him if she hadn’t been pressed up against her car door.

      Though he wanted nothing more than to crush her to him again and slide into that stunning heat once more, he forced himself to step back to give them both a little necessary space.

      Her breathing was as rough and quick as his own and he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

      Despite the chill in the air, the night seemed to wrap around them in a sultry embrace. From the trees whispering in the wind to the carpet of stars overhead, they seemed alone here in the darkness.

      Part of him wanted to step toward her and sweep her into his arms again, but shock and dismay began to seep through his desire. What kind of magic did she wield against him that he could so easily succumb to his attraction and kiss her, despite all his best instincts?

      He shouldn’t have done it. In the first place, their relationship was a tangled mess and had been for years. Sure, she had been great with Jo tonight and he had been grateful for her help on the horseback ride into the mountains. But one night couldn’t completely transform so much animosity into fuzzy warmth.

      In the second place, he had enough on his plate right now. His emotions were scraped raw by Jo’s condition. He had nothing left inside to give anything else right now, especially not an unwanted attraction to Tess.

      Maybe that’s why he had kissed her. He needed the distraction, a few moments of oblivion. Either way, it had been a monumentally stupid impulse, one he was quite certain he would come to regret the moment she climbed into her little sedan and drove down Cold Creek Canyon.

      She continued to gaze at him out of those huge green eyes, as if she expected him to say something. He would be damned if he would apologize for kissing her. Not when she had responded with such fierce enthusiasm.

      He had to say something, though. He scrambled for words and said the first thing that came to his head.

      “If I had known you were such an enthusiastic kisser, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to fight you off in high school.”

      The moment he said the words, he wished he could call them back. The comment had been unnecessarily cruel and made him sound like an ass. Beyond that, he didn’t like revealing he remembered anything that had happened in their long-ago past. Apparently she still tended to bring out the worst in him.

      He couldn’t be certain in the darkness but he thought she paled a little. She grabbed her car door and yanked it open.

      “That’s funny,” she retorted. “If I had known you would turn out to be such a jerk, I wouldn’t have spent a moment since you returned to Pine Gulch regretting the way I treated you back then.”

      He deserved that, he supposed. Now he wanted to apologize—for his words at least, not the kiss—but the words seemed to clog in his throat.

      She slid into her driver’s seat, avoiding his gaze. “It would probably be better for both our sakes if we just pretended the past few moments never happened.”

      He raised an eyebrow. “You think you can do that? Because I’m not at all sure I have that much imagination.”

      She cranked the key in her ignition with just a little more force than strictly necessary and he felt a moment’s pity that she was taking out her anger against him on her hapless engine.

      “Absolutely,” she snapped. “It shouldn’t be hard at all. Especially since I’m sorry to report the reality didn’t come close to measuring up to all my ridiculous teenage fantasies about what it might be like to kiss the bad boy of Cold Creek.”

      Before he could come up with any kind of rejoinder—sharp or otherwise—she thrust her car into gear and shot around the circular driveway.