Vivian Arend - Rocky Mountain Haven

Gabe Coleman stared his cousin down. Daniel tore his gaze from the chessboard for long enough to flash him the finger.

“Ha, getting pissy won’t help you. Either you have the moves to make or you don’t,” Gabe taunted. One mistake later, Daniel groaned as Gabe slid his bishop across the board and took out the castle guarding Daniel’s king. “Checkmate. Again,” he gloated.

“Dammit, you never win this often.”

“You don’t usually suck this bad. What kind of mind-altering drugs you taking to be so brainless?”

Daniel eased back in his chair and grabbed his beer. “Nothing illegal or immoral. At least, not yet, anyway…”

Now that was interesting, coming from the most puritan of the Six Pack clan. Gabe popped up and headed for the kitchen. “Let me grab a refill, then I want details about that comment.”

Their regular chess nights were far from regular, but Gabe always enjoyed the times he got together with his cousin. He tugged open the fridge and grabbed another couple of brews.

“Nothing really to tell. Nothing I would share. Maybe never anything.” Daniel ended with a growl of frustration. He accepted the bottle Gabe held out then paced the distance between Gabe’s tiny living room and the window overlooking the road.

While it wasn’t anything near big enough to host a party, Gabe found his one-bedroom apartment over the garage was a godsend—mostly because it had gotten him out from under his dad’s roof.

“Sounds as if you’ve got a bee up your butt.”

Daniel shook his head. “Just…you remember that woman the twins were teasing me about back in July? She’s living in town.”

“No shit. That’s great.”

“She’s living next door to me in the Peter’s house.”

Fate had a twisted sense of humour. “Now, that’s both great and weird.”

“It gets weirder. She’s sleeping in my old bedroom, and she says she’s interested in me.”

Gabe stopped in the middle of seating himself, caught in a half crouch. He laughed as he lowered himself the rest of the way to the couch. “You win. Totally the best story I’ve ever heard. Sounds like you’ve been a good boy and everything’s coming your way for a change.”

Daniel sighed. “Yeah, that was my response last Friday when she talked to me. But I’ve called her daily since, and every time there’s been no answer.”

“Screening her calls?”

“Maybe, or busy with her kids but—”

“Kids.” Gabe raised a brow. “You didn’t mention that to me last summer. About her having kids.”

“I didn’t know.”

Silence hung between them for a minute. Gabe took a long swig of his beer as he calculated the best thing to say. Daniel deserved better luck in the female department than he’d gotten. “So…you think she’s changed her mind?”

Daniel resumed pacing. “I don’t know. I guess, I don’t want to push her, but dammit, she said she was interested.”

“Exactly. So you should go after her. Seize the day, carpe diem, all that shit.” Daniel made a rude noise and Gabe grinned. “Suck it up, that’s what you’re always throwing at me.”

“And look how well it works. You’re doing all the same old things you did before I started taunting you. Still sitting here, in what you called a piss-poor situation. Still not trying anything new. I mean, you came back to Rocky because you said it’s what you want, but I don’t see much cheering happening. Well, other than about your shiny new truck. But even that doesn’t seem to be making you happy.”

“Shiny it is, but you know it’s more the bank’s truck than my own. I’m making payments—I ain’t dancing in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow yet.” They both sat heavily, bottles in their hands ignored. Gabe snorted in disgust. “We’re damn sad creatures, ain’t we? Twenty-nine and twenty—what are you again, twenty-five?”

“Six.”

“Twenty-six, and stuck the same place we were last year. Except for you trying to trade up on girlfriends.”

Daniel hissed. “Please, let’s not bring Sierra into this. That’s over and done, and if I never see her again, I’d be happy.”

Gabe didn’t blame him one bit. “Nothing worse than a woman deciding what you got isn’t enough.”

The music in the background thumped for a bit, then Daniel tossed back the rest of his drink and slammed the bottle on the tabletop. “You’re right. It’s time to take my own medicine. Carpe diem means now, and not down the road. And you’re going to join me.”

What the hell? “You tossed a few too many idioms into that last one, cuz, between medicine, fish and roads. What’re we doing?”

“I’m going after a certain woman and getting a straight answer out of her. You…well, you’re going to figure out the one thing you most need to do, and you’re damn well going to do it.”

The crazy enthusiasm shining in Daniel’s eyes was contagious enough to get anyone’s blood pumping. “One thing?”

“One thing. I mean, neither of us can make all the changes we want in one day, but we need to get started sometime, right?”

No shit. “So, is this a support group for procrastinators anonymous?”

“Damn right. You in?”

“Hell, yeah.” Which one thing wasn’t going to be easy to decide, but he could do it. “But I’ve got to think on it more before picking what to aim at.”

Daniel moved back to the chessboard. “Hey, my task’s easy. I get to track down a certain schoolteacher and convince her she will be seeing more of me. And that’s while working around her teaching schedule, her kids and my chores.”

“That’s all? Sure, sounds like a fucking spring breeze.”

Daniel grinned. “Actually, you know what? I’m excited about the challenge of figuring her out and making her take me on. I mean, it ain’t what I thought I’d be doing this fall, but it feels right.”

Gabe thought hard. Yeah, there was no getting around that there wasn’t going to be an easy thing to make some changes in his life, but it was damn-well time. “Excited isn’t the first word that comes to mind, you know.”

“Stupid, excited—same thing.”

They moved back to the chessboard and began a new game, but this time Gabe found it tough to concentrate.

One step. The first step to changing things and making his life better. What was it going to be? A million questions and ideas raced through his brain, all clamouring for attention.

Carpe diem. Seize the day. Maybe it was about time to do something other than simply drift.

Daniel leaned on the wall opposite her second-floor classroom, acknowledging the few students already dismissed from their classes. Two teenage girls giggled as they passed, eyeing him carefully, and he fought to hide his smile. He was far more interested in the woman waiting for him behind that door.

Even if she didn’t know he was here yet.

After he’d dropped her back at the house on Friday and left her without a kiss, he knew she’d been confused. And still aroused, even after her climax. He’d wandered back into the trees, wishing he could jerk off like some horny teenager. He had a stupid desire to remain by the house and stare at her silhouette as she moved around the house—the urge was far too Peeping Tom-esque to be obeyed, but damn if he hadn’t felt it.

Especially when a light flashed on upstairs right before the house slipped out of sight. Discovering she’d taken the room he usually slept in? He could picture in his mind what she saw around her, and the thought of being in the king-sized bed with her made his cock ache even harder.

Like he’d complained to Gabe, all he’d gotten was the damn answering machine, and now that it was Friday, time was up. If she’d changed her mind about wanting to see him, he wanted to hear it from her in person. Otherwise, enough of this pussyfooting around—she’d asked him for some experiences and he was dying to give them to her.

The bell rang, and he uncrossed his arms, shifting his weight forward as the door swung inward and a long line of students flooded out, laughter and chattering filling the air as after-school excitement rolled through the student body.

“Daniel.”

He acknowledged one of the local boys they hired on a part-time basis to help around the ranch.

“You here to see Ms. Danube?” The youth grinned when he nodded, and turned around to shout back into the room. “Hey, Ms. D, you got a hot date or something?”

Daniel gave the kid a thump on the head with his knuckles. “Be polite, or you’re mucking stalls all day long tomorrow.” He eased past the rest of the bodies exiting and stepped to the side of the door, searching for Beth.

She stood behind her desk, frozen into immobility as she stared back. The room quieted, and she shook herself, turning away to stuff papers into a folder. She kept her eyes averted. “Daniel. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“If you answered your phone, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

She laughed, a snuffily sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. While she probably wouldn’t appreciate being told it, she was kinda cute when she was embarrassed.

Her upper body shifted as she took a deep breath before turning to face him. “I’m just not sure how this is going to work.”

“You changed your mind?” He spoke quietly, pulling the door shut behind him. She shook her head, and he let his satisfaction show in his grin. “Then we need to find a way to make it happen. Avoiding me isn’t going to do the trick.”

Her gaze flicked past him to the door. “You’re not planning anything here, are you?”

Oh damn. He hadn’t, but her expression made him change his mind. “You thinking about dirty things to do in a classroom, are you now?”