Chapter 2

2

ZACHARY

G ood God almighty, that woman was hot. So hot, I made it halfway up the trail before I realized I hadn't called out once.

I'd been trudging along, thinking about the way those breasts strained the buttons of that blouse. Throughout our interaction, I hoped and prayed one of those buttons would pop off, giving me a mouth-watering glimpse of cleavage.

"Owen!" I finally yelled, my voice echoing through the trees around me.

The only response came from the birds, chirping along like nothing was out of the ordinary. I kept walking and shouting, but that face clouded my vision—it was all I could see. Those light blue eyes, that perfectly perky nose, that hair with just a hint of red mixed in with blonde. Strawberry blonde, I think they called it.

She was, hands-down, the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. But it wasn't just that. There was something about her. I was drawn to her in a way I'd never been drawn to a woman before.

This was it. The woman I was meant to be with. The woman who should have my babies and sleep in my bed every night.

And the crazy thing was she was young—early twenties, I was guessing, and I was in my mid-thirties. I'd never once been attracted to or dated a younger woman. I'd slept with one or two in my late twenties, but never with this much of an age difference.

I was three-quarters of the way up the mountain when I decided it was useless. There was no way my boss was this far up. So, I turned and headed back down, this time yelling in all the areas I missed. I even took a quick detour toward the waterfall. No sign of my boss, although there were plenty of steps on the dirt trail. But those could've been left by anyone.

There was no sign of him once I reached the campground, either. Just a bunch of women gathered around a woman holding a dog. The dog—the one the beauty was holding earlier. There was not a strawberry blonde in sight, though, and that was a punch in the gut. What if I couldn't find her again? Was this one of those fairy-tale things? I'd search all the land—in this case, the retreat center—for signs of the woman who'd stolen my heart?

I didn't have time for that bullshit. I needed to find her, and I needed to find her soon. Before she left town.

"Excuse me," I said to a woman coming from the swimming pool area as I passed by.

She wore a bathing suit under a cover-up that came to her thighs. Normally, I'd be trying to take a peek, but I didn't have that urge now. All I could think about was my beauty.

"Did you see a woman walk by here?" I asked. "Strawberry blonde, long hair, probably about this tall." I held a hand at chest level to demonstrate. "She was wearing a blue blouse that matched her eyes."

Did that last little detail make it seem like I was a weirdo? I didn't really care, as long as it didn't scare her off from helping me track down my future wife.

"She went that way," the woman said. "I'm guessing she's heading inside for lunch. There's a big session coming up right after."

She pointed toward the door, then walked in the direction of the campground. I, meanwhile, stared at the door, thinking through my next move.

I needed to get back to work. If this Kelsey person was heading into a lunch meeting, it wasn't like I'd be able to see her anyway. I could come back later to track her down.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. No missed messages, nothing going on. Plus, it was lunchtime. I might as well hang around here a little longer, maybe grab a burger from the retreat's restaurant before going back to the job site. My boss would no doubt be getting lunch himself, maybe even in the same restaurant, at which point I'd get credit for helping out as a volunteer ranger.

As soon as I entered the restaurant, something at the bar caught my eye, stopping my scan of the room completely. There, at the bar, was the strawberry blonde, sipping dark liquid from a glass through a straw while staring down at her phone. Best of all, she was alone, aside from the bartender, who was busy wiping down glasses at the other end of the bar.

My heart immediately sped up, just as it had done when I first saw her and every second after that until I walked past her toward the trail. There was no way this was a coincidence. No way.

It wasn't that fate got the credit here. No, my thinking was she felt the same thing I did—that pull toward each other.

I nearly laughed out loud at myself. How cocky could I be? Yes, it was all about me. She'd stayed here just for me.

I entered the restaurant and walked straight toward her, my eyes on the empty stool next to her. That stool had my name written all over it. As I pulled back the seat, though, it occurred to me that I'd been sweating my ass off, walking up and down that trail. I probably needed a good shower.

Just in case, I pulled the stool slightly away from her as I tugged it backward. She turned to look at me, her eyes quickly widening.

"The dog guy!" she said.

The dog guy? I didn't even own a dog. Never had. I wanted one as a kid, but my mom thought they were smelly and gross. But holding that little guy in my arms today gave me a little taste of what I'd been missing all those years.

"Name's Zachary," I said. "I'm a local. I assume you're here for the makeup thing?"

"Glamour Diva," she said.

She watched as I took a seat and gestured for the bartender. "You eating lunch or just day drinking?" I asked.

Day drinking? Was that judgmental? It was none of my business if she wanted to have a drink at lunchtime.

"It's a diet soda," she said. "No alcohol. I let myself have one of these a week."

My eyebrows shot up at that. Diet soda was an indulgence? Did I even want to know what that was all about?

"I'm supposed to be in this lunch thing," she said. "They're serving grilled chicken salad with a presentation on keeping an active pipeline."

I opened my mouth to respond, but the bartender was coming this way, so I blurted out what I always ordered here—the double deluxe burger. Normally, I would have ordered onion rings, but something held me back this time, and I asked for fries instead.

"Could you leave the onions off the burger?" I added at the last minute, watching the woman next to me out of the corner of my eye.

Did she catch on to my choice to leave the onions off? Yes, I was one hundred percent thinking about kissing her. The chances of it happening today, the first day we'd actually met, were slim to none, but a man could never be too prepared.

"You know what? I'll take the same." She pointed to her soda. "Could I also get a shot of rum to pour into this?"

"Sweet tea for me," I said. I would have ordered a beer or something harder, but I had to get back to work.

"You only live once, right?" she said as the bartender walked away.

I tilted my head slightly. "What's ‘living,' in this case? The rum or the burger?"

"Both," she smiled. "I haven't had a burger since New Year's Eve."

"Becoming a vegetarian was your New Year's resolution?"

Or was it vegan? Hell if I knew the difference. I put myself in the carnivore category.

"No." She shook her head. "My goal was to eat healthier. My dad had a heart attack last year. Needless to say, it was a tough time for our family. He's in his early forties."

Shit. Her father was in his early forties? It wasn't just the early heart attack that was disturbing, but the fact that I was closer to her father's age than hers.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"He's okay. It was mild, but it shocked me, watching what he went through, not to mention seeing how much it upset my mom. But yeah, I guess an occasional splurge won't hurt me much. Every Saturday night, I allow myself one bowl of ice cream. It's a small bowl."

She made a motion with her fingers to show the size of the bowl. It was beyond small.

I saw what she meant by "you only live once," but I also respected her wanting to be healthy and live a long life. In fact, I was questioning my own lifestyle. Since I suddenly found myself thinking of being a husband and father, wouldn't I want to make sure I lived as long as possible for my family? A family I didn't even have yet but suddenly couldn't stop thinking about?

"So, you're a good girl."

The comment slipped out of my mouth. It was like it popped into my head and I couldn't contain it.

I held my breath as I waited for her response. It could go in a variety of directions, some not good at all.

Finally, she took a deep breath and looked over at me. "I always have been, but maybe it's time for that to change."

All the air seeped from my lungs at the same time my dick sprang to life. She averted her gaze, but I didn't miss the sparkle in her eye and the way her cheeks reddened. She was blushing. Blushing. Over me?

It was the hottest thing I'd ever seen.

"My parents were super religious," she said. "They didn't let me date until I was sixteen, and even then, it was only in groups. I'm a rule follower, so I did what I was supposed to do—didn't drink, vape, or have sex."

Those three items packed a punch, especially the third one.

"Are you saying...?"

I hesitated when I saw the bartender walking toward us, my soda in hand. He set my tea and a straw in front of me and mumbled something about our food being ready soon.

I barely heard him. My mind was on the word I hadn't said out loud.

"I am," she said once we were alone again. "And it sucks."

I almost laughed out loud at her description. "I don't know. There are good things about not having sex." I tore the wrapper off my straw and slid it into my drink. "No worries about getting pregnant."

"You say that like you've gone without sex before."

"Eight months."

Had I just said that out loud? Yep. She'd think I was a total loser who couldn't get laid.

That was far from the truth. Where there was a will, there was a way. Lately there just hadn't been a will.

That all changed when I took one look at Kelsey.

"You haven't had sex for eight months?" she asked.

I looked around. There was nobody nearby, but it was my way of teasing her.

"Keep it down," I said. "I have a reputation to protect in this town."

She smiled. "That has to be hard."

"It is," I said. "Very hard."

I wasn't talking about the difficulty of holding out for so long. No, I was talking about something else that was very, very hard right now…and getting harder by the second.

"Have you thought about just hooking up with a random woman visiting town for the week?" she asked.

Had she just said those actual words? I wanted to assume that comment was directed at me, but I was afraid to get my hopes up.

"Not until today," I said.

There it was, out in the open. But I didn't want her to think that she'd only be a hookup for me. I also didn't want to scare her off.

Maybe the plan could be to get her into bed, then convince her to stay. If she felt even a fraction of what I was feeling, I had hope I could somehow manage to make that happen.

"So, you are thinking about doing that with...me?" she asked.

She stared down at her phone, which she'd set on the bar top. She was now shuffling it around nervously with her hand. I watched, fascinated by the fact that I made her nervous.

Maybe this entire conversation was just awkward for her. She'd gone her whole life being a good girl, operating under strict rules, so that made total sense.

"It's all I can think about," I said. "From the second I saw you. I don't want to scare you off or anything…"

"What are you doing after lunch?" she interrupted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bartender was approaching with our food, but I barely noticed. Suddenly, I was hungry for nothing but her. But I had a feeling whatever we were about to do, I'd need some energy, so I'd wolf that burger down as fast as I could and then I'd figure out a way to take a quick shower to get some of the morning grime off. In fact…

"There's a shower on the campgrounds, isn't there?" I asked once the bartender was gone.

She nodded. "The facilities, they call it. It's where all the campers shower and use the restroom."

"But they're all in a meeting, right?" I asked.

She reached for the bottle of ketchup the bartender had sat down. "I guess they are. Yeah. And then they're going straight into the afternoon session, so that campground will be pretty much empty all afternoon. Well, until right before the cocktail reception."

A smile spread over my face. "I have a great idea."