Instant Temptation

CHAPTER 26

TJ took his bike for a long, mind-numbing ride. On the way back through town, he refueled, and though it was past midnight, as he drove by Nolan’s Garage, he saw that the lights were on.

Nolan looked up from his desk when TJ knocked on his office door. “TJ,” he said, his expression carefully blank.

“You’re working late,” TJ said.

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other a long beat.

“What can I do for you?” Nolan finally asked.

A legitimate question. They both knew that Nick handled all of Wilder Adventures’ mechanical issues. And it wasn’t as if TJ and Nolan were friends. Nolan was relatively new to town, and TJ was gone too much for their paths to have crossed more than a few times.

Still, there’d never been any animosity or tension between them.

Until now.

“Let me take a guess.” Nolan leaned back in his chair. “This is about Harley. You should know that she dumped me.”

TJ acknowledged that with a nod. “Sucks.”

“I suppose you scored a date tonight.”

“No. I didn’t.”

Nolan absorbed that, then blew out a breath. “You know, I really wanted you to be a dick so I could hate you. Or at least so she could hate you. Especially since then I might have had a shot.”

TJ took that in a moment. Decided it wasn’t entirely out of character for him to be a dick when it came to a woman. But not this woman. “Did you fire her?”

“You mean after she dumped me for you?” Nolan pushed away his laptop and rose to his feet. He came around the front of his desk, then leaned back on it, arms and ankles crossed. A casual pose. “No. She’s a friend. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

TJ let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “She didn’t dump you for me.”

Nolan raised a brow.

“She dumped me, too.”

Nolan’s arms dropped to his sides and his brow practically disappeared into his hairline. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

Nolan thought about that a moment, then frowned. “So why are you here?”

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t fire her.”

“She dumped you and you’re still worried about her.”

TJ scrubbed a hand down his face. “Yeah.”

Nolan just stared at him for a long beat, then shook his head.

“Do we have a problem?” TJ asked.

Nolan shook his head, again. “No. Not that I haven’t given thought to smashing your face in several times over the past week, but there doesn’t seem to be much point in it now, other than to make me feel better.”

TJ nodded. He understood the sentiment perfectly. He moved to the door. “I’m leaving town for a while. I just wanted to know that she’ll have a job if she wants it.”

“But you’ve offered her a job at Wilder.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure she’ll take it. She’d rather choke on her pride than admit she needs anything, especially that job.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t do need well,” Nolan said with a small smile. “But she does know what she wants. And if that’s this job, here with me, then it’s hers.”

TJ nodded and turned to leave.

“That also applies to the man in her life.”

At that, TJ went still.

“If you’ve screwed something up and the man she now wants turns out to be me, you’re going to have to deal with that.”

Slowly TJ turned back to face Nolan, who was suddenly looking a whole lot more alpha than his usual quiet, mild-tempered self. “I suppose I will.”

And hopefully before that happened, he’d be 3,000 miles away on an ice climb, out of cell range, out of radio range, out of heart-hurts-like-hell range.

When TJ entered the lodge kitchen the next morning, his brothers were already there, mainlining caffeine. In the very center of the room, built to be huge and airy, stood a large butcher-block table, sturdy and capable of feeding the masses.

“We’re working ourselves to the bone.” Cam had his head down on the table. Katie was rubbing his shoulders.

Stone groaned and stretched out his long legs. “At least we’re raking in the dough.”

“Great.” From his corner of the table, Nick looked as exhausted as the others. “We can retire early-even though we’ll all be too fucking tired to enjoy it.”

Emma, dressed for a day at the clinic in trousers, blouse, and doctor’s coat, set a large pitcher of orange juice on the table and sank into Stone’s lap, leaning into him as his arms came around her. “What are you supposed to do, turn clients away?”

“Of course not,” TJ said, but they were all looking at each other, and suddenly he felt like he was watching a foreign film without the subtitles. “What?”

“We could cut back a little,” Stone said slowly. “I’d be happy with that.”

“Me, too,” Cam said, giving Katie a small smile.

Nick nodded. Him, too.

“That’s because you want to travel,” TJ said to Cam, unhappy with the direction the conversation was going. “And you”-he turned to Stone-“have your house to renovate. I don’t have either of those things.”

“Yeah.” Stone looked at him for a long moment. “I guess I assumed that you’d be happy to cut back, too.”

“Yeah, well, why don’t you assume my foot up your ass.”

“Just think about it, TJ,” Cam said quietly. “We’ve worked so fucking hard for so long. Hell, since we’ve been kids. All we’re suggesting is slowing down a little, letting everyone enjoy themselves for a change. Taking the time to breathe it all in. Sleep late. Be lazy.”

“Easy enough for you to say.” TJ pushed away the food, having lost his appetite to the niggling pain in his gut. Or was that his heart? “You all have someone to sleep late with. Be lazy with.”

Nothing came from the peanut gallery except the proverbial chirping crickets.

With a sigh, he took in the shocked and dismayed faces of his family. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

“Yes, you did,” Katie said gently. “We’ve been pretty sickening lately, I imagine.”

A corner of Cam’s mouth quirked. “The upcoming wedding isn’t helping.”

They felt the need to be nice to the poor single guy. Great. With an oath, he stood up. “Look, you guys do what works for you. Cut back. Hell, quit if that’s what you want. But I’m not ready.” He grabbed his keys. “I’m going for a ride.”

“A ride?” Cam asked. “Or an escape?”

“Shut up, Cam.”

“Oh good, a fight,” Annie said entering the room. She wore her usual jeans and angry chef apron, which today read:

IN THIS HOUSE TWO RULES APPLY.

1) I’M THE BOSS.

2) SEE RULE #1.

She looked right at TJ. “Is this about Harley and whatever happened between the two of you last night at the party?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing made you rip out there and go for a four-hour bike ride, where, I’m assuming, you rode all sorts of stupid trails by moonlight, since you came back muddy as hell.” When TJ just looked at her she lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep. I was on the front porch of our cabin eating a bag of chips when you drove past me to your cabin. At four in the morning.”

“Baby,” Nick said to Annie. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Because you were snoring like a buzz saw. Besides, I wanted the whole bag of chips to myself.” She looked at TJ again.

Everyone did.

He sighed. “Look, I’m leaving, and then so is she.” It was Harley’s excuse and it was a crappy one, but it was all he had.

Just as apparently, it’d been all Harley had.

There was silence in the room as his words were absorbed.

“It can’t end like this,” Katie finally said. “You love her.”

Stone turned to TJ. “Did you tell her you love her?”

“Jesus.” TJ scrubbed his hands over his face. “We’re not doing this. We’re not talking about it.”

Cam shook his head. “He didn’t tell her.”

“Look, I’ll…work it out.”

“You’ll work it out?” Stone asked as if TJ was a moron. “How? What have you got?”

TJ didn’t say anything. Because he had nothing. Jack shit.

Except the truth-that he was helplessly, 100 percent gone over Harley. Moving to the refrigerator, he grabbed a bottle of water and downed it, which did nothing to help his suddenly parched throat. Swiping a hand across his mouth, he turned and nearly plowed right into Cam, who’d somehow gotten the idea it would be okay to get all up in TJ’s face. He stood so close that TJ could see the brotherly annoyance and affection swirling in Cam’s green eyes. “What?” TJ snapped.

When Cam didn’t respond, TJ nudged him for some space.

Okay, a shove. He gave him a shove.

Cam held his ground, though he did smile. “Let me guess. You’re looking to kick someone’s ass, and since I’m in your face and wanting to know what’s wrong, it might as well be me.”

Because that was true, TJ didn’t bother to respond.

Cam’s smile spread to a grin. “There you go with the silent shit. Man, you always had that down.”

“Do you have a fucking point, or are you just enjoying the sound of your voice?”

“Actually, I have plans with the sexy woman at the table over there, so yeah, you’re right, I’ll get to my fucking point. After my accident, I lost it. Completely.”

Some of TJ’s irritation and frustration drained right out of him at that. “I remember.” They all remembered when Cam had nearly gotten himself killed during a snowboarding race. For a long, terrifying year afterward, he’d been nothing but a shell of himself, and Stone and TJ and Annie had felt helpless watching him suffer.

“Stone tried to bully me into getting better,” Cam said softly.

“Hey,” Stone said from the table.

“You meant well,” Cam said, eyes still on TJ. “But you were relentless. Annie, too.”

Annie, looking grim, nodded. It was the Wilder way. Bully, bug, bulldoze. She hadn’t known what else to do.

“Not you,” Cam said quietly, putting a hand on TJ’s chest. “I told you that the accident had taken my heart and soul and shredded them into pieces. I was done, man. Ready to check out, and you knew it. Do you remember what you told me?”

TJ let out a breath, his throat feeling tight. It’d been dark and terrifying times, trying to reach Cam, save him, when he hadn’t wanted to be either reached or saved. “I told you that your heart and soul might be shredded, but they were still beating. They weren’t destroyed.”

“And?”

“And that all you had to do was take your head out of your own ass long enough to put yourself back together.”

“And?”

TJ grated his back teeth together. “Gee, Cam, maybe you should tell me.”

“Not as much fun that way. What else?”

TJ sighed. “And that maybe you’d have to do as you’d never done and actually work hard at something.”

Cam nodded. “Because up until that moment, I hadn’t had to work hard for much in my entire life. Also thanks to you, by the way. You always took care of me.”

Behind them, Annie sniffed. “Goddammit. No one warned me this would be a tissue day. I’m actually wearing mascara!”

Nick pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her, settling his hands on the bump of Not-Abigail.

Cam nudged TJ in the chest again. “It was good advice, Teej.”

“Yeah. But my heart and soul aren’t shredded.”

“Maybe not, but they haven’t been whole, not for a damn long time, maybe not since Sam died.”

“Not the Sam card again.”

“Not Sam,” Cam said very quietly. “You. You’re finally back to letting someone in other than us.”

“This isn’t about me. Harley doesn’t want-” TJ broke off. She didn’t want casual.

And he hadn’t exactly offered her anything else, had he? At the realization, he closed his gritty eyes.

It was him after all.

Skye was standing at Harley’s kitchen counter, slurping up a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

“Why can’t you inhale the crappy cereal?” Harley asked her.

“This is the crappy cereal. I left you some.”

Harley picked up the box of Frosted Flakes and shook it. Approximately three crumbs rumbled around.

“Well, you did say you didn’t want to have to run today. Consider this me doing you a favor.”

Harley sighed and poured herself a bowl of the healthy stuff. It had raisins. Hurray.

“You have e-mail,” Skye said, and gestured with her spoon to the open laptop on the table. “Colorado wants you to respond to their job offer.”

“You read my mail?”

“You have fun spam. You got two penis enlargement offers and someone named Trixie wants to meet you. What the hell’s taking you so long to get back to them about the job offer? Don’t you want it anymore?”

Of course she wanted it.

Didn’t she?

“Harl?”

“Yeah,” she said absently. “I want it.”

“Good.” Skye tipped her bowl up to her mouth and drank the leftover milk. “Since you’ll be gone, I have a question.”

“Yes, you can have my truck. I’m going to need to buy a newer one.”

“Actually, I was going for something different. Something less…inanimate.”

“Like?”

“Like Nolan.”

Harley blinked.

“Are you mad?” Skye asked.

“Nolan,” Harley repeated. “And you.”

“I know, he seems so…tame for me, right? But I have a feeling that beneath that easygoing exterior beats the heart of a real tiger.”

“But you’re leaving, too. You’re going to the city.”

“Which is only like three hours away. Far enough that I have plenty of space, yet close enough for wild animal sex on the weekends. Jeez, Harley, these days no one lets long distance keep a relationship down.”

TJ stood in his bedroom packing for the early morning flight to Seattle, then Anchorage. He’d made this particular Alaska trip at least a dozen times. It was a combination rock and mountain climbing/guided trek, and it required a high level of expert skill from his client. Normally for a trip like this, TJ would take clients out on a shorter trek first to prove their skills, but in this case, Colin West was a repeat client. He and TJ had taken the exact same trip three years ago.

Colin was a forty-year-old surgeon who rock climbed in his spare time. The reason the trip was so last minute was because he was supposed to be getting married to his longtime girlfriend Lydia that weekend, but he’d panicked.

And he’d needed an escape.

TJ had just had a late dinner at the lodge. Annie had cooked all his favorites, joking that by the time he got back she wouldn’t be able stay on her feet that long. Hell, she’d probably not even be able to see her feet. When he’d laughed and agreed, she smacked him on the back of his head. Then hugged him good-bye so tight that he’d had to check his ribs afterwards for cracks. Katie and Emma had sandwiched him with hugs as well, and he pulled them both in close, smirking over their heads at his brothers when he got lots of kisses, too.

“Hands off my woman,” Stone said mildly, and pulled Emma from him.

So TJ had held onto Katie, the both of them laughing when Cam yanked her free as well.

Then he’d been left alone in the kitchen with Annie and Nick, who were locked in each other’s arms against the counter. Annie was nuzzling Nick’s throat, and he had a hand curled low and protective on her belly, a look on his face that could only be described as bliss.

TJ walked out the back door without them even realizing he was gone. Back in his cabin, he finished packing, then stood in the middle of the living room he’d built with Cam and Stone. The place was small but the high, open-beamed ceilings made it seem much larger than it was, aided by the large picture windows. Still, it was big enough for him, and comfortable, especially since he was hardly ever home for more than a week at a time. Anyway, it’d always felt like more of a place to stay than home. He’d never really thought about that before. The cabin was more a part of his journey than his destination.

There came a soft knock on his door. Figuring it was someone named Wilder, he called out, “it’s open,” but to his surprise, Harley walked in.

And his heart kicked hard.