Welcome to Paradise by Carol Grace

damned stubborn. Who knew what she wanted or why she wanted it? Sometimes she seemed responsive to his advances, other times she brushed him off like an annoying deer tick.
    “Chloe,” he yelled. “Where are you?”
    He thought he heard a voice. He plunged forward, the branches tearing at his clothes. His eyes were finally accustomed to the dark, but in his haste he still stumbled and tripped on fallen limbs and unexpected rocks.
    It was a voice. It was her voice. Very small and far away. But it kept him going. Until he found her sitting on a boulder on the side of the trail, calmly watching him frantically climb up to join her. As if she knew he'd come. As if this was some midsummer picnic instead of a late-night chase through the darkness.
    Instead of throwing her arms around him and heaving a sigh of relief at being rescued, she surveyed him coolly. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    “I was worried about you. I told you I wanted to walk you home.”
    She hopped off the boulder and continued the upward climb to the springs. “You also told me you wouldn't be going home alone, that your plans were up in the air. I certainly wouldn't want to cramp your style.”
    “So that's what this is all about. You're jealous,” he said, smiling to himself in the dark.
    She whirled around and confronted him. “Jealous? I'm jealous? Of who?”
    “Of my past, of the legions of women in my life.”
    “Oh, right,” she said. “If anyone's jealous, it's you. You're jealous of my land, aren't you? Of my ability to adapt to the Wild West.” She turned on the heel of her new waterproof boot and continued marching up the trail, the beam from her flashlight illuminating the trail ahead of her.
    He saved his answer until they reached the tumbledown resort, inhaled the faint scent of minerals in the air, saw the ever-present plume of steam outlined against the dark sky.
    “Okay,” he said, noting with satisfaction that when they reached the clearing in front of the bathhouse she was breathing hard. “I am jealous of your land. I haven't made a secret of the fact that I want it. Say the word and I'll give you a fair price for it.”
    “Never,” she said, leaning against a spruce tree.
    He shrugged. This was not the time to press her. Not when she was in this feisty mood. But then, when wasn't she? “I'm not jealous of your adapting to the Wild West. I'm impressed. I didn't give you enough credit. You've managed to survive here in the wilds with no amenities. I'm...what can I say? I'm amazed at your fortitude, your stick-to-itiveness, your hard work.”
    “That's enough flattery,” she said “I'm not going to sell you the land.”
    He crossed the clearing, stepping over piles of brush, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Forget the land for one damn minute. Can't you tell the difference between flattery and honesty?” he asked. “Don't you feel proud of yourself for what you've done here?” He gestured to the brush piles, to the ground she'd cleared. “If you're not, I am. When I first saw you I wouldn't have given you twenty-four hours here. Do you have any idea how I feel about you,” he blurted. “Besides proud?”
    Speechless with surprise at his outburst, she shook her head.
    “I don't either,” he confessed. “So that makes two of us.”
    A gurgle of laughter escaped from her throat She shook her head. “At least you're honest”
    Honest? Oh, lord, if she only knew. For one crazy moment he almost told her the truth. The whole story. It was the way she looked at him, with a combination of trust, amusement and downright anticipation that tempted him to confess. Then a smile curved her lips and he squashed the idea of taking the honesty route. He couldn't stand to see that smile fade.
    A gleam shone in her dark eyes, an awareness of highly charged particles in the air, of the tension that was always there between them. In the diner, at the bar, out in the open. Everywhere, it was always there and always