One Snowy Night (Sweet Home, Alaska #1) - Patience Griffin Page 0,102

drove the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at the Hungry Bear, Hope pulled out her key and unlocked the door, knowing she had only a few minutes to disable the old-fashioned sound-activated alarm, first the alarm itself and then the control panel at the back door.

She moved as quietly as she could to the meat counter, where the alarm sat. Donovan followed her, standing so close behind her in the darkened store that she could smell his minty breath. She turned to face him, intending to ask for some space, but she couldn’t get her lungs to work properly; her breathing was too shallow. His chest rose and fell in time with hers, breath for breath. She felt like she’d entered into a dream. He tenderly hooked her hair behind her ear and searched her face in the shadows. Then his gaze fell to her lips. She lifted her head, and as if in slow motion, he leaned down and kissed her. Or maybe she met him halfway. The kiss was hesitant, tender, questioning. And then, as if a switch had been flipped, Donovan pulled her into his arms, molding her to the length of him, pushing the limits, the kiss going from innocent to igniting with passion. Electricity flowed between them in the safety of the darkness, making her ache, hoping it would never end. She turned off her brain and threw everything she had into kissing him back. He lost his balance a little, rocking backward into a display of stacked cans. She didn’t care. I’ll pick the cans up later. But as they clattered to the floor, the alarm blared and the alarm light strobed. The whole thing screamed, Danger, danger!

She jumped away from him.

The alarm was right; this moment had been full of danger. Her heart was a weakling—fragile as a crystal bulb—and couldn’t take Donovan’s kisses. He tried to keep hold of her, but she pushed him away.

“I have to shut it off,” she yelled above the blaring noise, as if that were the sole issue. How could she admit that she wouldn’t survive having her heart broken again?

She hit the switch on the alarm and then went to the control panel. Once she entered the code, she turned on the overhead lights, bringing the world into clearer focus.

She went back to where the cans had been scattered, but Donovan was nearly done rebuilding the display. He glanced up at her, then looked away. “Sorry.”

She didn’t know if he meant sorry for the kiss or sorry for the mess . . . and she was too afraid to ask.

“I’ll get a cart.”

* * *

• • •

DONOVAN SHOULDN’T HAVE kissed Hope. It was wrong to . . . to start something, when it was almost time for him to leave Sweet Home. But that was his brain talking. His heart couldn’t dig up a good reason why he shouldn’t pull Hope into his arms again. It wasn’t just old times; this was new, powerful. A pull so deep that he couldn’t name it.

Awkward silence settled over the Hungry Bear as they loaded the grocery cart with snacks for the girls and lunch fixings for the workers who were going to be at the lodge tomorrow. Hope’s stiff movements made him wish he hadn’t kissed her. They’d started to become friends again and now he’d probably ruined it.

She rang up the groceries and he handed her his credit card without a word. They drove back to the lodge and he carried in the groceries while she put them away. When she was done, she went down the hall to the studio. He was left alone in the kitchen staring at nothing.

Finally he pulled out his car keys and headed out for a drive. Not far from the lodge he realized he should’ve thought this through first, as snow was starting to come down hard. He pulled into the cemetery and parked. He sat there for a couple of minutes before tramping through the fresh snow to Beau’s grave.

“Oh man, you’re gonna laugh. I did something really stupid tonight,” he said to Beau, dusting snow from the tombstone even though it was immediately covered again. “Hope and I were at the Hungry Bear, and it was dark, and it was right after she’d organized this amazing Thanksgiving dinner.” The wind blew even harder, swirling snow all around him as if to say, Get to the point. “I kissed her. I mean I really kissed