The Billionaire's Beautiful Mistake (Bold Alaskan Men Book 1) (4 page)

Creek sat down across from his two friends, ignoring the ribbing and opened his computer.  “You’re both idiots,” he told them, and started typing something into his laptop. 

“So what’s her name?” Tucker asked, leaning forward with a wicked glint in his eye. 

“None of your business,” he told them.  “Isn’t your stock up?  Shouldn’t you be worrying about why that’s happening and not focusing on my love life?”

“His stock is up because he released that new fertilizer,” Saeger interjected, then leaned forward.  “So this is love?” he asked, ignoring his friend’s dangerous glare. 

“Back off,” Creek growled. 

Both men laughed even as Sarah placed a glass of iced tea in front of each of them.  “I thought you boys were off to the slopes this morning,” she asked.  Sarah was the afternoon waitress that pretended to be the town mother, especially to the four men who pretended they were above all of her mothering. 

She saw through all the gruffness of these men and loved them anyway.  They’d come into this town, one by one over the past five or six years and had brought jobs and wealth to the area.  Just building each of their houses had employed every person in the town who wanted a job.  The Rotten Apple employed several of the others and the food served in the place was excellent and could be purchased for crazy low prices.  The liquor was top shelf even though most of the people who came in ordered the beer.  Locals knew the prices while annoying tourists received a different rate for their requests.  All because of these four men. 

“Creek’s found himself a woman!” Saeger teased, earning him another dark look, which he continued to ignore.

“You talking about that young thing that came in here with the gaggle of women the other night?” she asked.

Creek growled and ignored her question.  “Don’t you have customers that need something, Sarah?” he demanded. 

Tucker and Saeger both smiled with interest.  “We saw her briefly.  We also saw her walk out, not giving our man Creek here the time of day.”

Sarah chuckled and crossed her arms under her ample bosom.  “She was a doll.  Prettiest little thing, and she blushed like a cutie whenever she looked over at our boy here.  And yeah, he was looking all the time.”

“Sending out the silent messages?” Tucker asked, elbowing Saeger in the ribs.

“More like screaming, he was,” she laughed with a cackle.  “This boy was hit hard by that lady.”

Saeger turned to look at his friend who was scowling like a panther.  “A lady, eh?  That’s different.”

“Back off,” Creek growled again.  “Last warning.”

The men didn’t care.  “So what did she look like?”  They asked Sarah, knowing that Creek wouldn’t give them anything. 

“Brown wavy hair, bluest eyes this side of the Pacific.  Cute in a sexy kind of way.”

The men’s eyebrows went up with that description, and they both turned to look at their friend.  “Cute?” Saeger asked.

“Brown hair?  Blue eyes?  I thought you were a blond man.”

“I have work to do,” Creek said and smacked his laptop closed.  He walked out of the bar and moved back to his motorcycle, storing his computer in the storage compartment and speeding away from The Rotten Apple.  Once he was back in his home office, he settled into his leather chair and looked out the windows. 

The view from this room, or any room in his house on top of the mountain, never failed to soothe him.  Down below was the tiny town of Winthrop, Alaska where small houses perched as close together as they possibly could.  There were more mountains across the water in front of him but the town was in a valley fed by a deep ocean channel.  It kept the town protected from some of the harsher winter storms but still allowed the fishermen and women to easily get in and out with their boats during fishing season.  Fish were the primary source of income for the small town.  And although the channel gave the fishermen easy access to the rich ocean waters, that didn’t mean it was easy to get supplies to the town. 

Saeger had brought in several cows, which were protected year round by a large warehouse.  The cows provided milk for the town’s residents while the enormous warehouse grew vegetables year round.  Tucker had developed and constructed a sort of windmill that generated heat, keeping the plants warm and also generated a sun-like light that helped the plants grow.  It had bothered both men that the parents had to pay ten dollars a gallon for milk and rarely had fresh fruit and vegetables for their kids, so the four of them had fixed that problem quickly.  That effort had spawned other ideas, and the whole enterprise was now self-sustaining.  The cows and greenhouse produced its own energy, and even earned a profit now, all of which was turned back over to the town to build additional infrastructure. 

The wind turbines Tucker had invented were how all four of their mountain homes were heated as well.  Creek had to give it to Tucker, he knew how to invent something for just about every environment.  He found a problem and solved it with one of his inventions.  Once that problem was solved, he marketed the solution and made crazy profits. 

Creek pressed a few buttons on his keyboard and several large monitors flashed to life.  He tried to focus on work issues, but in his mind, he was thinking about a lovely brunette with beautiful, blue eyes and soft, blushing cheeks. 

Violet shivered as she thought of the night ahead of her.  He’d really asked her out?  She looked down at the box sitting on the shelf and smiled, wanting to jump up and down with her excitement.  He really had!  He’d driven all the way here, just to ask her out to dinner! 

For a moment, she wondered what had happened to Boobie Barbie, but then banished the buxom blond from her mind.  Violet refused to let her insecurities eat away at her excitement for the upcoming evening. 

“How many orders came in today?” she asked her stepfather, George. 

George tossed a well-used napkin into the trashcan and started to reach for the computer. 

“That’s okay!” Violet called out, seeing his still-greasy fingers reach for the computer keyboard.  “I’ll look it up.”  She shifted the keyboard towards her since George, obviously wasn’t going to get his butt off of the stool he’d pulled behind the counter earlier today. 

Why had she agreed to give her stepfather a part time job? 

Oh yeah, because she’d felt sorry for him!

That pity was wearing thin.  He was supposed to be dusting during the day and doing odd jobs around the store when she was gone. She’d never put him in charge of just sitting in the store.  There was too much to do for a person to simply sit around.  When she was here, she’d asked him several times to help the guys in the back with the packing but somehow, every time she turned around, he was still sitting on that stool. 

“Could you dust the shelves over in the wood corner?” she asked as politely as possible.  She didn’t want him anywhere near the glass items, knowing that he would more than likely break one or more of them. 

George sighed heavily.  “Violet, don’t you have a date tonight?” he asked as he lumbered off of the stool.  She noticed that he didn’t head over to the closet with the cleaning supplies though.

She was wary of mentioning her date to anyone, much less to George.  She didn’t know why, but she wanted to keep her date tonight a secret.  “I am meeting someone for dinner, yes,” she replied evasively. 

“Why don’t you get all prettied up for your ‘meeting’ and I’ll watch the shop?  I’ll drop the keys off to you before I head home.”  He glanced at his watch.  “There’s only another thirty minutes until you close anyway, but you can go do whatever it is that women do to get dolled up for men.”

Violet’s shoulders drooped, and she instantly felt bad for all of her impatient thoughts about the man today.  “That’s awfully sweet of you, George,” she said with a tentative smile. 

“Eh, just go on,” he encouraged, and waved his pudgy hands in her direction, then headed over to the closet with all of the cleaning supplies.  “I’ll lock up and make sure that everything is done here.  I’ll drop off the keys before I head home.”

All of her excitement for the evening came rushing back to her with his words.  “If you’re sure you don’t mind,” she said and looked around.  Her wrapping crew was finished for today, and all she really needed to do was print out the list of orders for tomorrow.  But she could do that first thing tomorrow morning. 

And it would be nice to rush upstairs to her apartment and relax, take a long bath and try to get rid of some of this nervousness.  “I’ll do it,” she said and grabbed the store keys out of her purse.  “Here,” she tossed him a set of keys.  “Lock up the front and back before you go and make sure that the cash register is emptied into the safe.”

With his reassurance that it would all be okay, she hurried out the back door and up the wooden stairs to her apartment.  It was nice to be so close to her work, she thought.  It wasn’t like there was a lot of commuter traffic here in Alaska.  The small towns didn’t have any!  But still, living over her shop helped her keep tabs on what was going on and she loved every minute she spent in her store.  It was her baby and she worried about all of the details. 

But tonight, there wouldn’t be any worrying, no accounting to go over, no sales to print out or orders to check.  Tonight was all about going out on a date!  With a handsome mountain man that looked like he could take on a pack of wolves and come out the winner! 

She had two hours.

Creek smoothed a hand over his jawline, making sure his shave was close enough.  Sliding on a crisp, tailored shirt, he considered putting on a tie.  In the end, he held off on a tie because he didn’t want to look that formal. 

As he grabbed his keys, he realized that he was as excited about tonight as he was about his first date.

Well, maybe not, he thought as he started up the Land Rover SUV and drove out of his garage.  He’d been nervous on his first date.  Melanie Herstal, he thought with a shake of his head.  She had been one of the prettiest girls in the school and smug.  The night had been a complete disappointment, mostly because he’d discovered that the girl had only agreed to go out with him so that she could “slum” a bit.  Creek and his friends were the bad boys in town. 

He couldn’t picture Violet being smug in any way. 

Long gone were the days when anyone would mistake him for being a bad boy.  Brutal, merciless, and heartless, yes.  And perhaps some of his mistresses over the past few years had wanted him to be bad, but in a completely different context.  Or maybe the same context, but for a different reason.  His lovers now used their “badness” to show him how good they could be in bed, and how they deserved his ring on their finger.  He knew that Melanie hadn’t ever desired Creek’s ring on her finger.  Neither his high school ring and definitely not his wedding ring. 

Violet was different.  In so many ways, she was different, and he wanted to be different for her. 

Violet heard the car engine and tried to slow her breathing.  Grabbing her purse and keys, she rushed out of her small apartment and down the wooden stairs.  When she reached the last step, she looked up to see the man glowering at her. 

“I’m sorry, am I late?” she asked, about to glance at her watch.

Creek stared down at the woman wearing a blue dress that wrapped around her figure, making her waist look impossibly small and her breasts…they were perfect, he thought.  Full and pert, not too big and not too small.

And he felt like a complete ass for even noticing despite the fact that her dress was made to enhance her curves, not hide them away. 

He was doing his damnedest to be a gentleman, but this tiny woman, who barely came up to his shoulder even in her heels, was not cooperating.  And since he was rarely a gentleman around the women in his life, his skills were more than a bit rusty. 

“I’m supposed to greet you at your door,” he told her, scowling as he tried to get his body back under control. 

He shouldn’t be doing this, he told himself.  She looked up at him, then up the wooden stairs that led to her apartment and smiled.  That sweet, bright smile hit him right in the gut and made his body react quickly even while his mind savored the beauty of her smile. 

“The stairs are too narrow for two people to walk down, but I sincerely appreciate the thought,” and she looked down, both to make sure she didn’t step into the puddle that was freezing over now that the afternoon sun wasn’t melting the snow as well as to keep him from seeing how pleased she was by his chivalry. 

He still walked over to her and took her hand, walking her around to the passenger side of his vehicle.  He held the door open for her and waited until she’d tucked her skirt in before he closed it with a decided click. 

Violet looked around at the luxurious SUV.  The soft leather was better than anything she’d ever felt in her life.  And the dashboard had all the bells and whistles, so many that she had no idea what some of them might do. 

The car seemed too expensive for a guy who tended bar at a local tavern.  “Nice car,” she said, when he slipped into the driver’s seat. 

“Thanks.  It will get better traction at night than my motorcycle,” and he started the engine again.  “We’re going into Eagle Point for dinner, is that okay?”

Violet smiled in the dim light coming from the dashboard. “That would be nice,” she replied softly.  Besides Anchorage, there weren’t too many cities in Alaska that boasted restaurants that would more likely be better classified as diners.  There were quirky little cafes that came alive during tourist season, but most of the places one could grab something to eat were where the locals hung out after work and grabbed a fast, cheap bite to eat. 

On the drive to the restaurant, they talked about her store, the bar, the sites they’d seen in Alaska and various other small conversational tidbits that always happened on a first date.  And the whole time, Violet watched his strong profile in the light from the dashboard, amazed once again that a man like him would want to spend an evening with a mousy woman like her. 

Over a steak dinner served with excellent wine and hot potatoes filled with decadent butter and sour cream, she answered his questions about her mother, her father, her stepfather’s place in her life right at the moment, and all sorts of things.  And the whole time, all she could think about was how nice he was, and how much she wanted him to kiss her.  Would he kiss her goodnight?  Or was he bored out of his mind? 

On the drive back to Appleton, she sat nervously in her seat, watching the darkness fly by. There were streetlights in the cities, but out on the rural roads in between towns, there were only long stretches of darkness. 

When Creek pulled up to her building again, Violet’s hands were clenched in her lap.  He turned off his car and turned in his seat to look at her.  “Would you like to come up for some coffee?” she asked. 

Creek thought about it for a moment before he shook his head.  “I think I’d better not,” he told her.  He knew that, if he got into her apartment, he wouldn’t want any coffee.  He wanted her so badly that he hurt.  His body was aching to pull her into his arms and feel her touch him, to lose himself in her sweet body. 

“Oh,” was all she could say.  “I understand.”

Violet reached for the door handle, wishing she could just sink into a hole.  She’d talked about herself throughout the whole meal and then, on the ride home, she’d been too nervous to say anything.  She hadn’t been witty company, she hadn’t come up with any new conversations that would stimulate their minds.  He was bored!

Good grief, she’d be bored as well if she’d had to sit through a night listening to her talk!  “Well, thank you for dinner.  It was wonderful,” and she pulled the door open. 

Creek couldn’t believe that he was letting the night end.  He wanted to just sit in his vehicle and watch her, look at her and revel in her smile.  She was so beautiful and her eyes, damn, her eyes were making him lose it!  Well, not to mention her voice!  Ah hell, her voice was soft and lilting, so sweet.  But when she laughed, that husky sound just ripped at his control, making him want to pull her closer, onto his lap so that he could do things to her mouth that she probably didn’t know existed. 

She was everything sweet and pure, and he was completely fascinated with her.  While he was…not.  Sweet and pure, that is.

If he were a better man, he would drive away from Violet tonight, and never talk to her again, never sully her with his presence. 

But he couldn’t.  There was something about her, something that called to him.  He needed her in ways that he’d probably never understand. 

When she stepped out of his SUV, he wanted to pull her back, to run his fingers through her hair and find out what she tasted like. 

If it had been any other woman, Creek would have already been in bed with her, enjoying the evening in a different way.  But when Creek held the door open for her and held her hand as she stepped down onto the gravel parking lot, he could honestly say that he’d never enjoyed an evening more. 

“I’ll walk you to your door,” he told her as he walked her up the wooden stairs to her apartment.  She was right, there wasn’t a great deal of space for two people to move, but this was the first time he’d allowed himself to touch her all night and he wasn’t losing this opportunity.  He wanted her.  Badly! 

But he could feel the trembling in her hands and saw the nervousness in her eyes.  So he wasn’t going through with all of the fantasies that were running through his mind, most of which involved that soft, husky laugh of hers that shot lust right down his body. 

She pulled her keys out and, being the gentleman that he was struggling to be, he took her keys, unlocked her door and then stepped back, handing her keys to her again. 

“Thank you again for a nice night,” she told him.

He took her hand to stop her from going inside.  “Did I bore you tonight?” he asked.

Violet’s eyes flashed up to his.  “Bore me?  No!  Not at all!  In fact, I did all of the talking, and I’m so sorry that I bored you to tears.”

He laughed, a soft, gravelly sound that Violet suspected he didn’t use very often.  “You didn’t bore me at all, Violet.  I want to see you again, if you have time.”

The smile that lit up her features with that comment made his stomach muscles tighten.  Damn it, did she have any idea what she did to a man when she looked up at him like that? 

Probably not, he sighed.  Reining in his lust, again, he took both of her hands.  “Can I take you out to dinner again tomorrow night?” he suggested. 

Her smile brightened and she stepped closer, her trembling increasing but she wanted so badly for him to kiss her.  “On one condition,” she replied back, whispering because the moment didn’t seem like it could take any loud noises. 

“What’s that?” he asked, and moved even closer, his fingers moving from her hands to wrap lightly around her waist. 

“We don’t go to a fancy restaurant,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to look at his mouth. 

“You didn’t like the meal tonight?”

She chuckled, and forced her eyes back up to his.  Was he ever going to kiss her?  “Dinner was wonderful.  But it was too expensive.  Let me make you dinner tomorrow night.”

Creek thought about that for a long moment.  If Violet made dinner for him, they would be in her apartment and he was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be able to hold back from trying to make love to her.  The idea of a slap on his face because he moved too quickly with her made his body discard the idea quickly. 

“It might be better if I take you out again.  Same time?” he asked, as he slowly lowered his head. 

“I’m a good cook,” she promised but her lashes were lowering in anticipation of his kiss.  Finally!  All night, she’d been thinking of what this man would be like when he kissed her. 

Wow!  That was her last though before everything left her mind.  Her hands shifted up to his shoulders as his lips touched hers.  Ever so gently at first, but when she moved closer, pressing her body against his as if that were the most obvious and natural thing in the world to do, his hands moved from resting at her waist to wrapping around her waist, pulling her up against him.  Hard. 

She gasped with the first contact, but then his mouth moved against hers, the friction making her mind fizzle.  Everything inside of her went wild, needing more.  Her fingers moved over his shoulders, feeling his muscles contract under her fingertips.  When she lifted onto her tiptoes to get closer, he bent lower, deepening the kiss. 

Violet couldn’t get enough.  The more he kissed her, the more she wanted.  When he lifted his head, she couldn’t stop the whimper of disappointment.  Ah, but then his hand lifted, his rough fingertips brushing against her skin. 

“I can’t wait for tomorrow night,” he whispered softly. 

Another brief kiss and he was almost racing down the wooden stairs.  A moment before he got into his SUV, he turned and looked up at her, waved a moment and then got into his truck, driving off into the darkness.

Violet didn’t know what to make of that departure. It was abrupt, leaving her confused and still aching for more.  Another kiss, another touch. 

And she didn’t understand him at all! 

Creek drove down the road.  Fast.  He had to get away from her before he spun the Land Rover around and sped back to her.  He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any other female in his life.  It took the entire twenty minute drive from Appleton to Winthrop before his body calmed down enough for him to even think straight.  And even then, he wasn’t completely sure how he made it back to his place without crashing into a tree.  Thankfully, no large animals were wandering out in the road tonight, but that was only due to luck. 

When he entered his house, he didn’t turn on any lights.  Instead, he stared out into the inky darkness, wishing that he were back in the gravel driveway, watching as Violet walked into her house. 

And then he swore under his breath.  Damn, he should have made sure she’d gone inside and locked the door before he’d torn out of that parking lot.  He should have made sure she was safe!  He’d been hard pressed to not pick her up and carry her inside her apartment, so he’d forgotten to be a gentleman and ensure her safety. 

With a sigh of exasperation, he ran a hand through his hair.  He wasn’t used to this gentleman stuff.  He was used to taking what he wanted, and to hell with anyone’s opinion on the subject.  Oh, he always made sure that the lady was satisfied first, but never had he cared to be a gentleman around the women in his life.  He hadn’t cared one way or another if the ladies had liked him.  He didn’t need their companionship, just the sexual release they were eager to provide.