Free Rocky Mountain Haven by Vivian Arend Page B

minutes to talk?”
    A pause. “Is this going to be a good talk or a bad talk?”
    “I’m not calling it off.” There , it had been said. “I need…I need some advice, beyond the…issue we’re going to…”
    He laughed. “You can’t even say the word sex when you’re on the phone. Damn, you are one hundred percent charming.”
    “And you’re a tease.”
    “What kind of advice can I get for you tonight?” There was a creaking sound, and the voices in the background faded away. “I’m out on the porch and no one’s listening. We can chat if you’d like. Or I can come over there.”
    Beth glanced at her watch. She was going to be bagged tomorrow. “I’m all ready for bed, and the boys are bound to be up at their usual time. Plus, I slacked off on all my work tonight putting out fires.”
    “Troubles?”
    She sighed. “Kind of, but it was a good evening in the end. The kids and I made a list of things they want to do. Only some of them…”
    He sat silently on the other end of the line, waiting for her to continue. When he chuckled, it was light enough to help calm her. “You’re going to have to help me here with a few more details. I can’t tell if that’s a ‘some of them require snow to fall’, or ‘some of them need you to have twelve hands’ and you’d like my help.”
    For not wanting to get involved with him, the temptation to have him around grew by the minute. The boys liked him, by all reports he was a safe man to do things with.
    Her body craved him.
    She couldn’t decide if that final reason held her in restraint or egged her on. “Daniel, can I back up about twelve paces and ask a real big favour of you?”
    “What’s up, darling?”
    “They want to go swimming.”
    He whistled low. “Water’s going to be fairly brisk this time of—”
    “At the pool. But with my bad leg it’s hard for me to play with them. Would you be willing to come with us sometime? I hate to disappoint them, and it might be a good way to, well, you know. Your part of our deal.”
    “Become friends?”
    “Yeah.” She stumbled down the stairs to turn off all the lights and make sure the door was locked. Leaving it unlatched—she couldn’t believe she’d done that the other day. “There’s an open swim both days of the weekend. The times are listed online. If either of them work for you.”
    “You want to go tomorrow?”
    That easy, huh? “You don’t have commitments already?”
    His rich laugh spread over her like a balm. “I’ve always got stuff on the go, but that’s the good part about friends—they make time for each other. I can take a couple of hours off to join you and the boys. The twins came home this weekend from college, so they can help out around the ranch. You want me to pick you up? The kids would love riding in the jump seat of my truck.”
    They would, but she didn’t want to push this that fast. “I’ll meet you there. Thanks, Daniel.”
    “Not at all. I get to see you in a swimsuit out of the deal as well, right?”
    With one sentence, he stole her voice. She was going to see him in not much more than his briefs, and suddenly this wasn’t sounding like a very safe public activity.
    “Beth, you still there?”
    “I’m…”
    “You’re blushing, aren’t you? Is the thought of me looking you over making you tingle in certain spots?”
    “Oh God, stop it.”
    He laughed again, and the tingles he’d mentioned spread. “You ever have phone sex, darling?”
    He paused until she had to answer. “No.”
    “The boys in bed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hmm, then I think you have to give me a minute.” The squeak of the porch door carried over the phone, and voices flickered in and out of the background. “I want to be able to join you.”
    “Join me?” Phone sex. Holy cow. Her panties were wet and getting wetter by the second.
    “Beth, are you in your bedroom?”
    “No,” she squeezed out through a throat gone dry. Her heart pounded, and her clit thumped in time with