Scoring a Holiday Match (Mr. Match), Delancey Stewart [classic novels TXT] 📗

maybe hear her moan. But I was getting ahead of myself.

“Tell me something that’ll surprise me,” I said, and the way her pretty lips dropped open and her eyes widened told me that was not the expected first conversational salvo.

Her mouth closed, those pretty red lips pressing together, and then she spoke, and her voice was creamy rich coffee and quiet dark nights in front of a fire. “I’m not a fan of birds.”

That wasn’t exactly expected. “No?”

“No.” A little smile lifted one corner of her mouth. She was flirting, and I loved it. My body was humming with anticipation—not of anything that might happen between us per se, but of her next words, her next breath. Just being next to her was the most exciting thing I’d experienced in a long, long time.

“It seems unfair to rule out all birds just like that. What about Big Bird? He seems like a good dude. And penguins? They’re so cute and waddly. And how about that one in the hand, and the ones in the bush? Useful, no?”

She was giggling, leaning forward over the table and shaking her head. “Waddly is not a word. And the bush, really?”

“Too soon for bush jokes?” I leaned in, loving the way her dark eyes flashed with amusement.

“Definitely too soon.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, the long column of her throat moving as she swallowed. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. She put down the glass lightly. “City birds—like pigeons, and maybe seagulls—they have a weird thing for me. Like they know I hate them, so they wait for me outside my office building and then try to kill me.”

“Pigeons try to kill you when you leave work?”

“Yes. All the time. They dive bomb me and follow me around, and they try to hit me with their… you know.”

“Have you been pooped on, Rose?” I grinned at her.

She pressed those perfect lips into a frown, and all I could think about for a split second was what the red lipstick she wore might look like, rubbed off on me if she were to wrap her lips around certain parts of my body. “I have. And it was awful. I’m scarred for life.”

“Well, despite the scars, you look okay to me. Actually,” I paused. How much was too much here? “You’re beautiful.”

She held my gaze when I said that, and my body heated as she watched me, everything inside me tightening up. Other women would blush or drop their eyes at a blatant compliment. But not this one. God, she was sexy.

“Thank you, Ash,” she said. “So tell me about Alaska. I’ve never been there.”

“Well, in my line of work, there are a lot of birds,” I began, hoping to see her smile again.

“Crab fishing, right?”

I confirmed this with a tilt of my head as I sipped my whiskey.

“It must be gorgeous up there. And pretty heart-pounding work, I’d guess.”

“Both are accurate.” I considered her. Every other woman I’d dated asked if it was dangerous and cringed when I confirmed that it was. But not Rose. She seemed to understand on some deeper level that it wasn’t about the danger—it was about finding something that reminded you, minute by minute, that you were alive. “It’s like nothing else in the world. As soon as we’re out of the harbor, you get this feeling like you’re just on your own, being tested. You against nature.”

“I imagine you’ve had some close calls. How long have you been fishing?”

“I joined my first crew at about twenty-five. Bought my boat last year.”

“You’re a captain,” she observed.

“I am.”

“But you grew up here? What made you leave San Diego?”

“My mother, mostly.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into all the details of my family and their ridiculous expectations.

“She’s still here?”

“She is,” I said, and thinking of Mom required a very large swallow of my drink.

“And you live in Alaska full time?”

“Yeah. Even in the off season I usually stay up there. It’s easier than going back and forth, trying to split my life in two.” I didn’t say any more about it being easier than being here, trying to fend off my mother’s attempts to make me into the man she thought I should be.

But Rose was smart. “You don’t like being in San Diego.” She was frowning at me, looking for answers.

“It’s not about like,” I said slowly. I sighed. “My dad died about ten years ago. He had cancer, so he sold his company, set us up to live well in his absence.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said.

And I was too. My parents hadn’t been happy, and he didn’t want to leave everything to her. I inherited everything, and I basically give my mother an allowance each year. None of which was polite conversation. “Mom just depends on me more than I wish she did,” I hedged.

“Oh,” Rose said, “that’s complicated.”

“It is,” I agreed. Mom was terrified that I’d get killed fishing, that she’d be destitute. “My mother is very focused on the material things. She worries about losing her lifestyle, her big house.”

“Sure,” Rose said, and I could see in one instant that none of those things mattered to her. She looked sad, and her next words proved what kind of woman she was. “So you’re not close with your mother?”

“No,” I said. “Not since I was little. Back then taking polo lessons and going to cotillion seemed normal. But now, being forced into slacks with ducks all over them and made to sit at dinners with fourteen forks so my mother can marry me into even more money just doesn’t really suit me.”

Rose was looking at me, her eyes narrowed. “You’re Ashton Saint,” she murmured, and I knew she was thinking of my father, the first Ashton Saint, the man who owned half of the buildings in downtown San Diego. “You’re actually the landlord of the space my company rents,” she murmured.

“Remind me to reduce your rent,” I joked.

A hoot erupted from the