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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.

Chapter 3
     
    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