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  A smile teased at the corners of his lips and he looked at her in a way that screamed inappropriate, but she couldn’t break away from the eye contact. He was mesmerizing.

  “What can I do for you?” The offer had more than business attached to it. She might be a little naive, but Kate was experienced enough to know that look on a man.

  “I’m just looking around.” She touched a soft piece of white rope and then looked back up at him. Oh, who the hell was she trying to fool. She had no need for anything he had in this store.

  “Well, I hope I can help you find what you’re searching for.” His eyes narrowed intently on her.

  “I’m…I’m not really searching for anything. I’m just new in town and trying to get my bearings.” She was rambling.

  “If you want, I could take you on a tour,” he offered with words that were low and smooth and sent a shiver down her spine.

  Kate sucked in a breath and wanted to say yes. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, and his aura of excitement made her wary and intrigued at the same time.

  “No, I shouldn’t. I’m engaged.” Kate was rushing away from him, heading for the door. She had to get out of there, away from temptation. She didn’t know why she felt the need to tell him she was engaged, but it didn’t matter. She was engaged and she couldn’t let herself be attracted to another man.

  “Stop in again sometime.” His voice was deep, making her want to stand there and just listen to him for hours, but that definitely wouldn’t be appropriate.

  She could feel his eyes following her as she walked to the door.

  “I…I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Kate turned to look at him one more time before she walked out and let the door slam behind her.

  Her feet thumped against the wooden walkway almost as fast as her heart thumped in her chest. Kate popped into the next little shop she saw, not sure why she had such a strong desire to hide, and no idea what she was hiding from.

  She must be losing her mind.

  This shop had swaths of material everywhere and a little man bent over patching a hole in a dirty pair of pants.

  She fingered some gorgeous shimmery silver material as the man looked up from his work. “You have good taste, my dear. Would you like me to make you something special out of that?”

  Kate turned quickly as the door behind her squeaked open and closed. The same man she had just seen was walking into the tailor’s shop. Was he following her?

  “You’re going to have to start taking care of your own orders pretty soon here,” the tall Adonis said gruffly to the little man, who never stopped grinning at her.

  “Yeah, yeah.” The man finally glanced at the man from the hardware store. “As soon as I get some credit I’ll do that.”

  This town was giving her the creeps. Everyone she had run into so far had been…interesting.

  “Thank you, Carter.” The little man walked over and took the crate from his hands but quickly returned to where Kate was standing, the silver material still in her hand like she was frozen.

  “So ma’am, would you like me to make you a beautiful dress out of this?”

  “No thank you, I was just looking around.” Kate blushed and hurried out of the shop, past Carter without looking at him and then up the boardwalk toward Emma’s house.

  She felt like she should go take a bath after seeing Carter again. He had to have some kind of extraordinary powers to make her feel so wanton. She was not the wanton type.

  Kate let out a breath of relief when she made it back to Emma’s house, not even sure exactly what she was relieved about.

  Spending the rest of the evening in her own room seemed suddenly desirable. Kate had put in an adequate amount of time exploring the town, and between Better-Than-Thou Betsy and the temptations of the devil himself, she had seen enough for one day. Ketchikan, Alaska, was definitely a different kind of place.

  When she got back to the house Emma was working on her promise of a celebratory dinner together. She was just starting to pull out plates and silverware from shelves and cupboards when Kate came over to help set them on the table.

  Opal, the other woman renting a room in this house, was just coming down the stairs as well. “Something smells delicious.”

  “Come, sit down and eat,” Emma offered.

  “Thank you.” Opal smiled gracefully and Kate wondered why a woman as beautiful as Opal would be in Ketchikan, Alaska. She was older than Kate and definitely should have been married to a wealthy man before now.

  Emma dished up plates full of food for each of the women and raised a glass of water toward the middle of the table before they started eating.

  “To successful adventures in Alaska, whatever those adventures may be, and however you define success.”

  Kate clanked her glass against the glasses of the other two women and then took a sip of her water.

  “What do you know about the people who run the shops down by the docks?” Kate couldn’t stop her curiosity.

  Emma swallowed the bite of food in her mouth before she answered. “I know that the tailor is a little strange, but he does good work. And the man who runs the hardware store is very good-looking but every girl who’s tried to catch his attention has been turned down. He doesn’t visit the prostitutes.” Emma turned a quick glance in Opal’s direction and Kate wondered why. “There are a lot of rumors swirling around town about him, but I don’t like to believe rumors,” Emma said and then took another big bite of food, letting Kate know she was done with the conversation, and Kate wasn’t going to press it.

  Chapter Three

  It was only her second day in Ketchikan and Kate was out for another walk—and almost to his shop again. The little white building sat close to the docks, but its plain exterior was deceiving. The man inside was anything but plain.

  She wasn’t going to go in, she had no reason to, but it tempted her for reasons she couldn’t explain.

  The man inside intrigued her but she had no right to follow up on curiosity. She was a taken woman. She also had no need to shop for tools or lumber, so no grounds to go inside.

  A brown piece of cardboard with the words Help Wanted in big black letters was perched in the window today. Her heart started to pitter nervously. Now this was a good reason to enter.

  Kate could use a job to keep busy. She could probably read every book in Emma’s house in two days, and there was no library in the town. From the look of the chaos inside, the man could definitely use some help.

  Kate put her hand on the doorknob, but then hesitated. Was this really a good idea after the feelings he had brought out in her the last time? Going into his place of business probably wouldn’t hurt anything. She was a woman of virtue, and she trusted herself not to do anything inappropriate. Didn’t she?

  Kate could at least see what the job was, and he might not have the same effect on her now. She might have just been nervous about being brand-new to town the last time she set foot in this house. Nervousness about Sean leaving her might have been the cause of the strange sensations that plagued her yesterday.

  Kate opened the door and walked in. He was sitting at the same tiny wooden table as the last time she was here. The only thing that had changed was the piles of tools and papers spread all over the house were deeper and more chaotic. If that was possible.

  “Hello.” He looked up and smiled at her.

  Kate sucked in a deep breath. She was fine. This was fine.

  “I was wondering what kind of help you were looking for?” Her voice squeaked out uncomfortably.

  He didn’t seem to notice her discomfort, or ignored it as he continued to smile up at her. “I need someone to help me organize this place and deal with customers. I have another project that I’m working on that’s taking a lot of my attention and I seem to be getting behind on things. Are you interested?” He clasped his fingers together and rested his hands on the table, a move that showed confidence and ease. Two things she wished she felt right now.


  “I am.” Kate was good at organizing and good with people.

  His blue eyes studied her, contemplating, making the butterflies in her stomach start doing backflips.

  “Then you have the job,” he said suddenly. “When can you start?” The man’s smile didn’t put her at ease like he probably intended. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Every muscle in her body tensed.

  “Whenever you need me.” She didn’t have anything better to do and needed something to keep herself busy, but the way her heart was fluttering told her she shouldn’t take this job.

  The man was just too tempting. He definitely hadn’t gotten ugly since the last time she saw him. It wasn’t appropriate for an unmarried woman to work in such close quarters with an unmarried man, not that she knew for sure whether he was married or not.

  Alaska didn’t seem to follow the same rules as the rest of the world. People here followed the rules that worked for them and ignored the rest. She could do that too while she was here. It might be the only way to save her sanity.

  “Be here at eight tomorrow morning?” He said the words as a question, giving her the chance to back out, the chance to come to her senses.

  “Okay.” Kate agreed too easily and walked to the door. She didn’t ask him how much he would pay, but that wasn’t really important to her. What was important was coming up with a plan to fight the attraction that surged between her legs every time she saw this man.

  She was a woman who held strong to her morals and values, and that wasn’t going to change because of a man. Not even the blond-haired Adonis who lived and worked here.

  Kate stopped at the door, considered again telling him that she couldn’t work for him.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “My name?” They hadn’t even had a proper introduction. “I’m Kate, Kate Baker.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Kate. I’m Carter Williams.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Williams.” Calling him by his last name seemed less personal. She had to keep things from getting personal.

  Kate walked out the door and up the hill.

  She could do this job sufficiently. It was obvious that Carter needed help, and she could use the distraction. Having her own source of money wouldn’t hurt either. She was completely dependent on Sean bringing back gold to provide the money for their passage back home. He’d told her not to worry when they spent most of the money they had on renting her room and buying his supplies to get through the summer.

  Sean had assured her that there was no doubt he would be back with buckets of gold, but Kate wasn’t as optimistic about the gold, and she’d heard stories from Emma already. She’d been looking for years and still hadn’t found any of the promised treasure.

  Emma’s story was just enough to make Kate worry. Taking this job was the right thing for her to do. Just in case Sean failed. She needed to have a backup plan.

  * * * * *

  The next morning Kate stood in front of a pile containing every piece of clothing she’d brought with her to Alaska. It was a modest pile. She hadn’t packed much, or anything very fancy, but everything she had was lying in a heap on her bed. Picking a dress to wear shouldn’t be this hard a decision. Her clothing choice for today shouldn’t matter, but it did.

  She tossed all her nicer dresses to the side, no reason to look her best today. In fact, it would be better if she didn’t.

  This was a good one, a simple grey dress, not revealing at all, even kind of frumpy. It was her least favorite dress. Perfect for the signal she needed to send, only she wasn’t sure if she needed to send that signal to Carter or herself.

  Kate slipped into the dress and coiled her hair into a tight knot at the base of her neck, then she walked out of the house determinedly. There was no reason she should be cooped up in Emma’s house alone for the entire summer with nothing to do. Kate forged down the boardwalk. When she got to his door, she paused and then knocked softly.

  “Come in,” Carter’s voice echoed from somewhere close.

  Kate pushed the door open to find him making coffee on the stove.

  “You don’t have to knock when you get here in the mornings. I get up early and will have the door unlocked. You just need to come in and flip the sign in the window to Open.” He had this stoic presence about him that made her want to do anything he asked without question.

  “Sure.” She didn’t feel comfortable just walking into a man’s house, but it was also the location of the business, and he was the one making the rules.

  “I want to use this area for display.” He motioned to the living room area that was covered with hatchets and ropes and tarps stacked haphazardly. The rest of the space in the living room was taken up by a table and a bunch of crates, some of them empty and some full.

  “And I would like the extra room upstairs to be my work area. I’ll be moving all this paperwork up there while you work down here.”

  “Okay.” Simple, one-word responses seemed to be all Kate could come up with in his presence. It wasn’t like her. She was normally chatty.

  “I have several things that I need to get done this morning so I’ll stay out of the way. I just want you to make it so this place doesn’t look so…”

  “Chaotic?” she offered, and then blushed when he smiled sheepishly at her.

  “Yeah. It is bad.” He looked around. “That’s why I need you. I need organization, need space to work, I need a place for people to come and get the things they need without me having to stop what I’m doing. I’m already behind in my work, so unless you have any questions…” He turned and loaded his arms with papers, blueprints, and a pencil before he walked toward the stairs.

  “What do you want me to do if a customer comes in?” Kate asked in her best attempt to be professional, but for some reason her heart was pittering at a rapid speed, making focusing on anything else difficult.

  “Just sell them what they need. If it’s something complicated or something you can’t find, come and get me.” He stood at the bottom of the stairs looking at her intently.

  “I can handle that.” If only she could be as sure of her ability to work with Carter and not get emotionally involved.

  “Great. I’ll come and check on you in a couple hours.”

  “Okay.” She was going to be left alone to her work. Good. It would reduce her emotional conflict. If he worked upstairs and she was downstairs all the time, she didn’t have to worry about there being that strange tension between them.

  Kate picked up a thick, white length of rope, wrapped the loose end around the rest and started her task of organizing the place.

  Three hours later, the house looked much better, and Kate had been able to take care of the one customer who came in for a hammer and a pickax. She could hear Carter’s footsteps coming down the stairs and hoped he would be pleased with her work.

  “It looks great in here.” He looked around the room appreciatively and then stopped when his focus got back to her. “You are a miracle worker.”

  “Thank you.” She melted under the intensity of his eyes and had to look away. The way he was making her feel wasn’t appropriate.

  “Do you know how to cook?” he asked.

  “Cook?” She was adequate as a cook, learned from her mother, but why did he care about that? “Yes, I can cook.”

  “I’m horrible in the kitchen and was wondering if you could take on making lunch for us as one of your duties? I don’t want to have to take the time to go out and find it or struggle with making something edible every day.”

  “Sure, I’ll cook lunch,” she agreed quickly.

  “Great.” He smiled and her knees went weak. “The icebox and cupboards are full of food. I stocked up yesterday when the ships were in.”

  “Is there anything in particular you want me to make?” she asked. Hopefully it would be something she was capable of cooking.

  “Whatever you want is fine with me. I’m not particular.”

  “Okay. I�
�ll look through the food and get something ready.” It was sensible of him to ask her to cook lunch, it just felt a little strange. Almost like she was doing the job of a wife. Even worse was the fact that she really liked it. She was a decent cook and wanted to show off her skills to impress him.

  “Bring lunch upstairs when it’s ready, and turn the sign to Closed for our break in a couple hours from now.”

  “All right.” Nervousness lodged deep in her gut. Working for this man was one thing but eating with him, in an upstairs room, seemed a little too intimate, on the verge of being inappropriate. But it might only be that way if she let it. She would make it through this day.

  Chapter Four

  Kate came in the door carrying a tray full of food that had been tormenting his nose with its deliciousness for the past hour. He dropped his pencil onto the table and jumped up to help her with it. Not that she needed any help. She was a very capable woman. Smart, funny and from the smell of things, a very good cook.

  Carter should probably stay away from her, run and hide now while his heart was pretty much intact. She was taken by another man, and he had secrets too dark for a woman as innocent as Kate.

  “You can call me to come down and carry the tray up when it’s heavy like this,” he offered as he moved his papers quickly off the table so she could set the heavy tray down.

  “It’s not a problem. I’ve got it.” She did have a little piss and vinegar in her, but he liked that, and it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

  “It smells delicious.” He grinned and looked over the food. “Your cooking has been tormenting me.” Almost as much as her beauty had from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  Damn if he didn’t want to tie her up and make her his from that first moment he saw her. She would be perfect, a natural at submitting to him, but Carter couldn’t corrupt her. No matter how badly his cock wanted to.

  He didn’t even know for sure why he wanted her so damn bad. But he did. She had a curvy, petite figure that he definitely found attractive, and the blonde curls that bounced around her face were cute. But there was something else, something that stirred deep inside him when those eyes looked up at him and sparked with intelligence and curiosity.