She sounded calm, but he could feel the tension simmering beneath the surface. He felt for her and the nightmares this mountain must bring. “We got her,” he said, voice softer now, feeling things when he didn’t want to. Way too many things. “She’s going to be okay.”

She nodded. “Good.”

Walk away. You’ve done your duty, now get the hell away from her. “How about you?” he asked instead. “You going to be okay?”

“Always am.”

More like she’d always had to be. Their gazes held for a single heated, tension-filled beat, and that’s when he knew something else as well—he was all kinds of screwed. Upside down, sideways … every which way, because just as she had in the past, Lily drew him in with those eyes, her voice, the outer toughness she showed the world, the inner vulnerability she did her best to hide.

And damn if he didn’t want to kiss her and then drag her back to his place caveman-style and show them both what they’d been missing out on. He tried to remind himself that their time, if they’d ever had one, had long since passed. Which was proven when, without another word, she broke eye contact and walked away.

Chapter 9

Lily managed to get to the Mane Attraction at nine a.m. on the dot, half an hour earlier than her official start time. She liked to be prepared. Unlike, say, how it felt to run into Aidan again. Nope, she was as unprepared for that as one could get …

The salon was located in the bottom floor of the big lodge at the resort, next to an equipment rental and sales shop. The place itself was small and cluttered but warm and welcoming nevertheless. There was one client room for waxing, and everything else was done out in the main room of the salon.

In other words, no real privacy.

“Not what you’re used to, I’m sure,” Jonathan said as he walked her around.

True enough. The place was nothing like Lily was used to. In San Diego they’d had 10,000 fabulous square feet, every inch designed to soothe and calm and rejuvenate the spirit.

They’d been a five-star salon and proud as hell of it.

Jonathan gestured to the three hair stations. “Pick your spot.”

Pick her spot? “Don’t you have more staff coming in?” she asked.

“Today it’s just you and me, Lily Pad.”

She stared at him.

He sighed. “Cassandra’s not supposed to be on her feet for more than a half hour at a time, so she’s not working anymore until after she pops. And then there’s my part-timers, Terika and Rosa, but they’re not in today either.”

“What days are they in?”

“Well¸” he said with a grimace. “That varies. Terika’s mad at me right now.”

“Why?”