Hidden Summit

finish the construction on the school in the afternoons. Then he went with Dan to start tearing out kitchen cabinets in Redway, ready to start installing a new kitchen on Monday morning.
    He didn’t see Leslie all week. He spent considerable time in town, working on the school and having dinner at Jack’s, and he also drove by her house a couple of times to see if she might be out watering her plants. The temptation to knock on her door was powerful, but he resisted. If he didn’t leave her alone to think about things, this whole proposition would backfire.
    By Saturday, he’d had enough of his exile. He helped work on the school much of the day and in the afternoon he drove to Fortuna, but he wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t park right in front of that silly turquoise coffee shop. Instead he parked across the street at the tattoo parlor. Then he went inside and ordered a coffee, a tea and two slices of pie.
    Just as before, at around the dinner hour, the place was deserted but for one young man who appeared to be a student busy on his laptop. Conner settled right into their girlie little sitting area.
    Leslie felt she had always had a confidence problem. For a while as a wife, a good wife, she’d felt sure of herself, and then Greg had answered her loaded question and said, “Yes, honey, there has been someone else. And I just can’t live without her, it’s that simple.”
    It didn’t stay simple. Even though she’d been betrayed, Leslie had tried to convince Greg to try to work it out with her, to go to counseling or something. If he would just give up Allison and try.... But he’d been packing as he talked. And Leslie had reached one of her all-time lowest moments—she’d clung to him and begged him not to leave their marriage. She had literally fallen to her knees and grabbed his legs. Just the thought that she’d ever risk revisiting such a place in her life was more than she could bear. She would never be brought that low again—it was humiliating. So she had come to Virgin River with a very firm resolve—she’d do without a man, and if there ever was one, he would be a man she didn’t care much about.
    And yet, like one of those songs you can’t get out of your head, she kept feeling Conner’s bristly, closely trimmed whiskers on her neck. She missed him. She wanted his seduction, his power and his tenderness. She wanted laughter. She wanted to risk herself again, though it terrified her. She had fantasized about those arms around her for a week, and in each one she was wearing less. And less. And less…
    She went to yoga to stretch out and then to her favorite coffee shop for her tea. He was the first thing she saw in the shop. He grinned at her, and her hand automatically touched her neck where she had felt his whiskers all week. He was seated at that little coffee table with coffee in front of him and tea in that place that would be hers. Her first thought was to wonder if it would be bad form to throw herself on him and taste his mustache.
    “Well, look who’s here,” he said. “What a surprise.”

Six
    L eslie walked right over to where Conner sat. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
    “What do you think?” he returned. “Hoping to run into you. How was your week?”
    “Fine,” she said. “Do you expect me to believe you’re just being friendly?”
    “I haven’t been anything else. I haven’t seen you all week and I thought maybe you could use a piece of pie. Or something.”
    “I thought I told you—”
    “Yes, you told me. You can’t eat pie and you can’t get involved and you can’t be uninvolved. That’s going to be tricky. Sit down anyway—I got you some tea and a slice of pie. It’s apple.”
    “I’ve been trying to watch my weight....”
    “I heard all about that. Just a taste,” he said. “I’ll eat whatever you leave. You don’t have to watch your weight, Les. You’re perfect. You’d still be perfect twenty pounds heavier, so don’t punish yourself.” He shook out a paper napkin, slid forward on his chair, put a small bite on the end of a fork and held it toward her. “Come on. I’ve given you a week to stew and now it’s time to sort it out. With pie.”
    She wondered if this was a good idea, but with a fork of apple pie hovering at her lips, she let him feed her. It wasn’t the pie that tempted her.
    “It’s been an interesting week,” he said. “I worked in town some with Dan and Paul and some others, getting that school