Strong Enough to Love (Jackson Hole 1.20)

CHAPTER ONE

EVE HILL STARED at the man poised above her, his blue-and-black flannel shirt open at the front, exposing a smooth chest and an abdomen ridged with muscle. She watched as his chest rose with a breath, watched the fabric part a tiny bit farther, revealing more of his tanned skin. A breeze ruffled his hair, drawing her eye to the way the sun haloed the blond curls around his head.

“Take off the shirt,” she said softly.

He shrugged it off willingly, eagerly even, revealing wide shoulders curved by tight muscles. His skin glinted with a delicious gleam, so dark against the snowy mountain peaks behind him. Pine boughs shushed in the wind and Eve watched his nipples draw tight with the cold.

Her camera shutter snapped in the silence. Eye to the viewfinder, Eve kept her face indifferent and cool. He wasn’t a warm smooth body that would cover hers. He was a job. Nothing more. He wasn’t an answer to her darkest fantasies. He wasn’t company for her long nights. Whatever beauty he offered was superficial, and she’d already tried at that kind of satisfaction and failed.

Eve took the pictures the client wanted, and she didn’t need anything more than that.

“I think we’ve got it,” she said. She had no idea what a naked male chest in front of the Teton range had to do with selling five-thousand-dollar watches, but her eye had been drawn to his skin, after all, and all marketing ever wanted was that few seconds of attention. Look. Look at this. You might not have this chest, but you can have this watch.

“Thanks, Joseph,” she said to the model, signaling that he could put his robe on. “Take a minute while I see if we’re done here.”

The client, a ferret-faced ad man from New York, waited at the table she’d set up just a few feet away. Eve loaded the pictures from her camera to the laptop and opened a few shots. “What do you think? Between these and the ones we shot this morning with both models, I think we’ve got more than enough to work with.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Perfect. You really hit it out of the park. And you were right. The clouds cleared just in time.”

“They were moving fast. Nothing to worry about.” She tried to hang on to the brief moment of pride she felt at his praise, but it slipped through her fingers as quickly as he’d said them. Something was wrong lately. That high she’d always felt behind the camera was starting to fail her. The excitement of doing something she was so good at. The pleasure of a job well done. It felt brittle these days. Fleeting.

“Let’s pack it up,” she called cheerfully, because she refused to subject anyone else to her increasingly restless moods. “Joseph, you’re free to go. You were wonderful, as usual.”

“Thanks, Eve.”

He was gorgeous enough that he could probably make it in New York or Europe, but his husband ran a very expensive ski clinic here in Jackson Hole, so here was where they stayed. But Joseph was one of a few models she was able to promote to clients from the coasts, who were relieved not to have to pay big-city modeling prices and transportation costs. It worked out well for everyone, and Joseph got to go home to a cozy cabin every night with his true love.

Eve told herself she was happy with her cat and her occasional chance to ogle beautiful men. She was, damn it. Even if she did have to fake a smile just now.

“Have fun in Curaçao!” she called out as Joseph left. They were off for a well-earned vacation. Joseph’s husband had put in months of nonstop work at the ski clinic over the winter.

Joseph ran back to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, still buttoning his shirt. He looked like a lover grabbing a quick goodbye before rushing off to work.

God, she missed sex. She missed good sex.

She didn’t need a husband and a little cabin. She didn’t need someone to take care of her and whisk her away on luxurious vacations. But she’d give a lot for an occasional weekend in bed with a man intent on wearing out every muscle in her body. Someone she could laugh with between orgasms. Someone who understood her passions and humor and—

She shoved those thoughts away, shaking her head in panicked denial. No. She wasn’t going there. She’d given him up for good. Even thoughts of him. He no longer existed. Hell, he never had, not for her.

“Where do you want these cords, boss man?”

Eve looked up to see Grace standing there, her eyebrows raised in sarcastic question, the wild blue strands in her dark hair vivid in the sunlight.

“Oh, all right,” Eve sighed. “I’ll help break down, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

Grace snorted and started for Eve’s brand-new black SUV. “You know I can’t reach the lights when you put them up that high. But they’re turned off and cooling.”

“Thanks. I’ll get them.” They’d used only two lights to add a little ambient warmth to the natural daylight, and she had them broken down and the whole shoot packed up within thirty minutes. Grace carried the last bags up the trail to Eve’s truck. Eve was alone for a moment, surrounded by nothing but pine trees and wild grass matted down by the melting snow.

She took a deep breath and turned in a slow circle, taking in the quiet for a moment. It was spring. The mountain peaks would stay white for months, but the first wildflowers would start to bloom in a few weeks. She loved the spring. The scent of the first faint hints of green grass curved around her and filled her lungs, but the wind whipped it away within moments.

She had dreams sometimes that she could capture scent in a photo, that she could hold on to so much more than a picture.

Then again, being able to experience a remembered scent at will was likely a terrible idea. Her heart hurt at the very thought.

Eve clenched her teeth together and started up the trail. She’d go home and work for a few hours, then take that hot bath in the hopes of soaking away this new melancholy.

But her plans for escape were foiled when she found Grace leaning against the tailgate of the truck, a mischievous smile in place. “Hey! You’re coming to Jenny’s birthday party tonight, right?”

Shit. She’d forgotten about that. And now she had her heart set on a pitiful evening of feeling so

rry for herself. “Grace—”

“Nope. I knew you’d try to wiggle out of it, but you’re going. Good God, Eve, you’re only, what? Thirty-five?”

“Thirty-six,” she said, hating that Grace’s guess had been so close.

“So you haven’t earned your right to a quiet night at home with a microwaved dinner. You’ve got to put in a few more years of hard partying. Come on.”

“I’ve already put in years’ worth of manhandling thanks to you and Jenny always foisting men on me.”

“We aren’t foisting. We’re just forcing you to dip your toe into the water. A few dates here and there never hurt anyone.”

“They’ve been painful enough,” Eve grumbled.

“Oh, please. Don’t be a wuss. Anyway, I’m not trying to fix you up tonight. Though there will be lots of cowboys there. And cowgirls. Maybe that’s your thing.”

No, it wasn’t Eve’s thing, but maybe it would be easier if it were. She’d never been good with men. It hadn’t bothered her until a few years ago.

“Come to the party,” Grace said. “If you don’t, I’ll come drag you out of your house in your nightgown. Because I bet you wear a nightgown.”

Eve gave her the finger. She didn’t wear a nightgown. She wore a men’s XXL T-shirt in a very attractive shade of camouflage green and a pair of running shorts that had gotten too tattered to wear while running.

“You are a bitch,” she said very clearly.

“Employee abuse!”