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“I’ll just take one,” I said.
“I’m getting a whole box.” Lincoln said. “The variety box.”
“A whole box?” I prompted.
“You think my brothers are going to forgive me if I don’t bring donuts back? It’s practically a requirement if we drive to town.”
“Fair.”
Just then Luna appeared from the back. Another friend, and the creator of the best donuts in Willow Brook. Possibly the best donuts in Alaska, maybe even the world. The woman was gifted.
“Luna!” I smiled. “Good morning.”
She glanced between us, her expression curious.
“I already asked,” Casey said quickly. “They’re not together like that.”
My cheeks, which had finally started to cool, blazed hot again. “He’s just giving me a ride.”
“They know,” Lincoln said.
I grumbled under my breath.
Luna’s brows hitched up, her brown curls bouncing as she looked back and forth between us. “Here’s your variety box. I heard you from the back. They’re still warm.” She slid the box across the counter.
“What kind of donut do you want?” Casey asked me.
“I’ll take a blackberry cake donut, please.”
“No glaze, right?”
“No glaze. Too sweet for me.”
“Also smart,” Lincoln said. “Glaze is okay, but it’s a little rich.”
Lincoln insisted on paying, and I wanted to argue the point, but I’d already made enough of a fool of myself this morning. I also knew I was going to get quizzed on my protestations about Lincoln and me the next time I saw Casey or Luna, or heaven help me, both of them together.
For now though, I had a more immediate problem at hand. I had to find a way to ride in that truck all the way out to Heartfire Falls with Lincoln and not combust, or start an argument over something stupid.
I wished myself luck.
Chapter Four
Lincoln
So, trucks are small
The tension was drawn so tight inside my truck cab it felt as if my cells were vibrating from it. That, along with the electricity crackling in the air.
Chloe was something. I knew. I fucking knew I should not act on my attraction to her, but fuck me. Being around her made me feel bracingly alive, when I had felt cold and flat inside for over a decade now.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t experienced attraction since my family’s world had detonated. Our father had died, which sent us all reeling in grief, and then a wildfire burned down the original resort, and our only sister didn’t survive. Even though I had done my fucking damnedest to get her out and get her safe. Since then, I’d felt like the equivalent of a rolling stone, except maybe more like a piece of beach coal as far as my heart was concerned. Alaska beaches in some areas had coal that you could pick up right off the beach and burn. I’d felt like those pieces of coal, occasionally getting caught in the tide and rolled back up onto shore.
I gave my head a shake. Out of that darkness came Chloe, working at my family’s resort, a bright spark I couldn’t ignore. She had a tart tongue, a sass to her, and a fucking attitude, and she called me on my shit like nobody else did. Most of my family treated me with kid gloves, with the exception of the vague teasing that was accepted among brothers. Otherwise, they mostly let me keep my peace. But not Chloe. My reaction to her burned so hot sometimes I wondered if I would actually get burned if I reached out to touch her. I would welcome it, honestly. I knew all of this was insane for me to even think, and yet here she was, in my truck, on an icy cold winter morning.
I could probably turn the heat off. She would keep the space warm, or rather the chemistry burning between us would. I couldn’t resist sliding my gaze over to catch a glimpse of her. She was so fucking cute.
She was looking out as the winter sun began to rise, light angling through the window and casting a halo around her hair, setting her profile in silhouette. Her cute upturned nose, her sharp cheekbones, her lush lips that I wanted to kiss so fucking bad.
