“You guys gonna go over the books?” Riley asked. He stepped forward and held out a hand to Janna. She took it, and he was about to bring it to his lips to kiss it when Ryder swatted a hand between them, breaking contact.
“Yes. What are you two up to today?” he asked, hoping his stern tone implied as severely as possible that they should make themselves scarce.
Riley’s grin only deepened at his brother’s serious expression. “I’m thinking about hitting the slopes, letting Ryan teach me something.”
“He has a crush on one of the lift operators,” Ryan muttered.
“Do not,” Riley said, pouting. Riley may have been in his mid-twenties, but sometimes it seemed like fame had kept him in suspended animation as a teenager. But then, at other times, he could be almost too serious and prone to depression. And that’s when he tended to fly out to Ryder to recover and get some privacy. They’d watch Ryan doing whatever sport he was doing and talk about the old days.
Except for some things. Some things from the old days they never talked about.
Like how their dad had started ignoring them and how their mother had died alone on an icy road.
Riley tapped him on the shoulder, winked at Janna, and dragged Ryan off by the elbow.
Supposedly, a lift operator was about to have a much more difficult day. Riley knew his exact effect on women and enjoyed flustering them. Ryder didn’t get it. He wanted Janna to be comfortable with him. Happy. Not jostled.
He waved at Riley and Ryan as they left and turned to the front desk lady, who was staring after them and patting her hair back into its bun.
“How have things been this morning, Amanda?”
“Good,” she said, blushing and looking embarrassed to have been caught off guard. She was married with two kids and lived in an apartment here at the lodge. Did Riley have no shame? “Anything I can get for you this morning?”
“No,” he said, glad he had such a capable woman serving as front desk help as well as concierge. “Just taking Janna back to look at the books.”
The woman appraised Janna with a knowing look and a slight smile. “Of course. Janna’s the best around. I never did get why your father insisted on Barry.” She stuck out her tongue in disgust and opened the gate to let them back behind the desk.
“Me neither,” Ryder said, patting the woman’s shoulder as he walked by. “But then, there’s a lot I don’t understand about the old man.”
Amanda unlocked the door behind her for them and Ryder led Janna through.
“Thanks, Amanda. If you could make sure we’re not disturbed?”
She winked and motioned zipping her lips. “Mum’s the word.”
He smiled. He liked Amanda. He’d only known her a couple of days, but they’d had an understanding between them almost from the moment they met.
Ryder considered himself a good judge of people. He tended to decide whether he liked someone within moments of meeting them, and that tended not to change. He guessed it was the bear in him, making decisions based on scent and instinct as to trustworthiness. But it had never led him astray so far.
When he led Janna to the files, she was all business, impressing him again in yet another way. Her sharp eyes scoured the record keeping and she pushed red-lined papers his way as she explained what she saw. The embezzlement was worse than he’d thought. Still, he was sure the betrayal would have hurt his father more than losing the actual money.
For all he knew, his father knew Barry was embezzling and let the man do it. He knew his father could be kindhearted at times. Like when he paid for their college or started them all with a nest egg to begin their careers. He, Riley, and Ryan would never have been as easily able to slip into their new lives without that help. They all still would have made it in the end, but it would have been slower, more difficult, and so he felt he owed his father something.
He’d owe him even more if things worked out with Janna. They worked for hours, solving issues and making plans. Janna’s brain was really something to watch. He could only imagine how much she’d be able to do given his finances. He could easily see her overseeing the philanthropy in particular. She’d seemed excited by that.
As for him, he was excited each time she tucked a little wayward curl behind her ear. She seemed to have an endless amount of hair, and a bit was always trying to escape. He wanted to touch her hair, but he knew it would be too hard to resist trailing his hand farther down, over those velvet lips, to the tops of her full breasts…
Damn, working with her was going to be harder than he thought.
Literally.
9
Janna tried to stay focused on the papers, but she felt too painfully aware that Ryder seemed to want to eat her up. His gaze was intense, admiring, as he watched her work through the numbers, and she hoped she wasn’t messing anything up.