“No,” I groaned. “Because I need to bury ALL of me.”
Beck slung an arm over my shoulder. “Cheer up, sis. At least one thing’s clear.”
“What,” I muttered.
He grinned. “This summer’s going to be fun.”
I glared at him, cheeks still flaming, as Carson closed his trunk and started walking back toward me, snow crunching under his boots.
Fun.
Right.
This was going to be a disaster.
A very attractive, very well-muscled disaster.
And I was absolutely not ready.
Chapter Two
Carson
Walking into Honey Leaf Lodge felt a little like walking onto a stage without knowing your lines.
The room was big and warm with logs stacked high around the stone fireplace, but the heat that hit me came mostly from the group of people staring directly at me. The entire Harper family was assembled in a loose semicircle as if they had been waiting specifically for this moment. I recognized the parents from the emails I’d exchanged with them, but it was the siblings who held my attention. Mostly because one of them had just dropped a cocoa mug at the sight of me. I recognized her from the website.
Sienna Harper. A name I had heard more than once. A guide with a reputation for enthusiasm, competence, and a slight unpredictability that guests found charming. What the emails and background notes had not mentioned was that she was beautiful in a way that hit a person without warning. Her golden braid had come loose near her temple, and a streak of pink warmed her cheeks. When her drink rolled to my boot, and Ibent to pick it up, she stared at me with soft brown eyes like I had performed a magic trick.
Then she said the word raisins.
Nothing else. Just that.
I had guided hikers through lightning storms, navigated avalanche conditions, and once extracted a grown man who had wedged himself between two boulders because he thought it would make a funny photo. None of that prepared me for a woman blurting raisins in greeting. I should not have found it funny. I definitely should not have found it charming.
Yet something about her expression hit square in the chest.
She looked like she wanted the earth to open and swallow her whole. Her siblings clearly loved every second of it. Their snickers and groans filled the room while Sienna tried to recover one word at a time. Even her parents fought smiles. Whatever this family was, it was lively and close and absolutely used to teasing each other at full volume.
Nothing that I was used to. I was a man who lived by the quiet of the night, trees swaying, and a tent far away from crowds.
As soon as she told me to get my bags so she could show me to my bed, the siblings erupted. Sienna turned an alarming shade of red as she tripped over every correction she attempted. Room. Guest bed. Bedroom. The place where a human sleeps in a normal way. Alone. She was flustered, but she still tried to regain control, which somehow made her even more endearing. I did my best not to laugh, but a smile escaped anyway.
When she moved out the door, I followed without question but quickly learned that this family moved as a unit. Violet and Fiona fell in immediately, Beck trailed behind us, and herparents came along at an amused pace. It occurred to me that I was being escorted. Possibly assessed. Possibly initiated.
I leaned slightly toward Violet. “Do you all walk in groups at all times?”
She replied brightly, “Only when something interesting is happening.”
As we stepped outside, the spring chill hit sharply and woke up every nerve. Spots of snow crunched under our boots as we headed toward the truck I had parked earlier. One heck of a spring welcoming.
Sienna stopped and turned, her expression both resigned and mortified. “You all really don’t have to come out here.”
Her siblings exchanged identical looks of innocence before Beck said, “Oh, we know.”
Violet added, “We simply enjoy being supportive observers.”
Fiona chimed in cheerfully, “Think of us as the welcome committee.”
